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Google Now Indexing SVG, SEOs Don't Care

Posted: September 6th, 2010, 4:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last week, Google announced they are now indexing SVG, Scalable Vector Graphics.

As a searcher, you can now find SVG documents in the Google index. Google said they will index it as a standalone file or embedded directly in HTML. If you don't want them indexed, you should use the x-robots exclusion feature.

SEOs don't seem to excited about this new indexing capability of Google. Tedster said in a WebmasterWorldthread:

My take - indexing the svg format won't mean anything for ordinary search traffic for a long time, just as indexing swf format has meant very little. But for now, it's good to know that you can find things with the filetype: operator.

Do you agree?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Slow To Remove Legally Seized Sites?

Posted: September 3rd, 2010, 3:48pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Have you ever stumbled upon a web site that was legally seized by the U.S. government? Sometimes, not always, they contain an image on the site that looks like this:

Some folks at WebmasterWorld are saying that Google has been ranking these web sites for their original search terms, the search terms they ranked for prior to the take over, months after they have been seized.

The first complaint read:

Great that piracy is being cracked down on, but what I don't understand is why do Google still return the URLs within the SERPs, even though there isn't any content on any page. So no internal links, no copy, no headers, high bounce rate - but yet I have lots of examples of 'seized' websites returning high up in SERPs - which leads to the main issue - external links.

Personally, I think I have seen it come up once in my search history. Robert Charlton from WebmasterWorld said, "I've seen sites with content taken down rank for a fair amount of time afterwards, at least in situations where there's at least a place holder page online and there are residual links pointing to the page."

Maybe the issue with these take down notices is that the server response is often not set to a 404 page not found? But technically, the page is found, just was taken over by the U.S. government.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Adds Better Error Reporting For Rich Snippets & Breadcrumb Markups

Posted: September 3rd, 2010, 3:18pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google announced two new webmaster features. The first is related to rich snippets testing tool and the second is related to the breadcrumb URLs in Google.

Google said they have made the rich snippets testing tool error reporting more robust. Many webmasters can't figure out why Google isn't showing rich snippets on for their sites. Sometimes their is a coding error which is hard to test since the tool was limited and sometimes Google simply doesn't want to show it. If it is the coding error, then Google wants you to fix it and has "added new error messages to the rich snippets testing tool to help you better identify and fix any problems with the markup." Give it a try.

Some people like the breadcrumb URLs in Google and some don't. If you do and want to encourage Google to show breadcrumbs you can use the new rich snippets breadcrumbs feature. For more information on how to use it, click here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Just Cause You Spend $65k On A Site Does Mean Google Should Like Your Affiliate Site

Posted: September 3rd, 2010, 2:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Yesterday I tweeted, "Just cause you spend 65k on a web site, doesn't mean Google will like it" and referenced a Google Webmaster Help thread.

Well, I was wrong! Well, not 100% wrong. People agreed with me, in fact, it garnered a lot of retweets and responses on Twitter. 99.99% were all into what I wrote. But I am not.

If you spend $65,000 on a web site, the web site should rank well. I am so tired of web developers building expensive sites and not making them structurally sound for search engines. It isn't that hard, it is easy, it is often really good for the user experience also. So take an SEO course, read a book and code the site so that they are accessible for search engines.

But let me explain another reason why I was wrong. As you can see from the Google Webmaster Help, it has three responses from JohnMu, a Googler who can make a difference. The majority of the threads in that forum don't get a reply from a Googler. This one has three. Now to be fair, John replies to dozens and dozens of threads each day, but it is not physically possible for him to reply to everything, but this one caught his eye. Kind of like when the advertiser threatened to commit suicide if an AdWords representative didn't get back to him - FYI, it worked.

Not only is the 65k site getting detailed responses from Google, it is also getting it's penalty reversed. John said, "'ve heard that based on your recent reconsideration requests, some of the reviewers have taken a look at this thread in order to get a better picture of your site. Considering the information you've provided, the feedback you've gotten from others here and the direction your site appears to be taking, I imagine that they now have a better feeling for your site." It appears to me, whatever penalty was associated with the site will be reversed.

One more thing... John said, "I would recommend restoring your affiliate links." Yea, Google doesn't hate affiliate sites, as many would think. John explained:

No, Google does not have a problem with affiliate links. It's fine to monetize your website like that. The links are not what our algorithms worry about -- it's above all, the content. Many affiliate based sites only reuse the content from the vendors, and that's a problem for us. If you website has the content & structure to keep users coming back and to entice them to refer their friends to your website (and not to the vendor directly), then that's exactly what we want to show users in our search results. I can't judge your old website, I don't know how it was, but I can see how our algorithms might be worried about your site as it is now.

I could have written three or four different posts on this thread, I like these types of threads. ;-)

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Webmaster Tools Bug Prevented Unverifying Users

Posted: September 2nd, 2010, 3:27pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Some users have recently been having difficultly removing verified users in Google Webmaster Tools. Google allows you to give multiple users access to view your Google Webmaster Tools reports and data.

Sometimes you want to revoke access to some of those users. To do that, you go "Add or remove owners" on the Webmaster Tools homepage and click "unverify."

But that was not working for the past couple days. Google admitted the bug and said it was fixed last night in a Google Webmaster Help thread. Dennis G. from Google said:

We had a bug in our server that blocked follow-up "unverify" requests, so it was impossible to remove that "Unverification pending" warning. It should be fixed now, so just click that "unverify" link one last time. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

GoogleBot Crawling Less or More Efficiently?

Posted: September 2nd, 2010, 3:21pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The obsessed (in a cool geeky way) webmasters at WebmasterWorld are discussing recent patterns they noticed with how Google's spider, GoogleBot has been accessing their site recently.

One said GoogleBot is crawling 50% less than it normally does. Others are saying they are just seeing GoogleBot crawl differently, but not less, per say. In addition, another person said Google stop crawling almost completely, but that is likely another issue.

Tedster explained what he has recently seen:

The sites I work with have been showing a changed crawling pattern since June, but it's not really a reduced crawl. On average more pages are being spidered over any extended period, but the whole pattern contains more spikes - occurring on about a 7-8 day cycle.

Have you noticed new or different GoogleBot crawling behavior?

We did report GoogleBot crawling from multiple locations at the same time, them having new crawling issues and acting all weird recently. Remember, this may all be caffeine related, so keep that in mind.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

SEO Is Deeper Than What You Read

Posted: August 31st, 2010, 3:54pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

There is an outstanding thread by Tedster, Ted Ulle, at WebmasterWorld. The topic is on too many newbie SEOs taking the SEO advice given on forums, blogs, news sites and here at face value. He is concerned that a new SEO will read something and not understand the true meaning of what is really being said.

Let me quote a piece of his concern:

Recent years have seen a flood of interest in SEO. Unfortunately, a lot of recent entries into SEO have no sense of perspective and no idea of how to evaluate advice that they read or hear. And still they write blog articles ;( There's a lot of regurgitated second and third hand learning being spread today - and it's even being sold to clients.
SEO began in the 90s, back before the acronym itself was even created. Most of the pioneers were early affiliate marketers who personally reverse-engineered the search engine algorithms of the day. What they learned was privately shared, until it stopped working so well. At that point, the tidbits began to bleed into the wider pool of knowledge.

Why do I bring up this old time stuff? The same pattern still holds. And taking anyone's SEO advice at face value is a dangerous practice. Anyone who is not doing their own testing and measurement is at a disadvantage. They may be buying into advice that's outdated by many years - and some of it may even come from back in the 90s!

Truth be told, I am a culprit of spreading information that is not explained in detail each time I write it. Personally, I don't have patience, I don't have patience listening or reading something that needs to be explained in detail. I tend to get things quickly, at least I think I do, so listening to someone go on and on to make sure everyone is on the same page - well, it drives me nuts. So since that is my personality, I often don't have the patience to explain things that I already know. It isn't the best characteristic of myself, but we all have flaws, and this is one of mine.

Those who read this site every day, know this flaw in my writing and know how to read beyond what I write. If I make a comment that most people would likely break out into more detail and I don't, my reader knows why. I try my best to write concisely and get to the point without repeating myself, unlike what I am doing here. But sometimes without reviewing stuff and explaining it in detail, some new people to the industry that read my stuff won't get it fully and take it at face value.

I would say 50% of my posts, specifically when I offer SEO specific advice, don't go into enough detail for new SEOs to fully understand what to practice. That is a fault I have and you need to know that.

I have a recent example and I hope this person doesn't get upset with me using him as an example, but the content is out there in the public and thus complies with my blogging code of ethics.

Here is the tweets sent to me a few days ago:

.bbpBox22284877437 {background:url(http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/126469275/2010-07-25_07-41-35_94.219.20.215.jpg) #333300;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

@rustybrick Hi, I got a questions, how does SocialMedia impact on Google-Ranking? Is there any impact?less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone Oguzhan Kalkan
KalkanOguzhan

.bbpBox22285580295 {background:url(http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/126469275/2010-07-25_07-41-35_94.219.20.215.jpg) #333300;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

@rustybrick not the same power like a Link, am I right?! just like that the bot recognisize that the site is popular for some relevant KeyW?less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone Oguzhan Kalkan
KalkanOguzhan

Most experienced SEOs know that social media typically doesn't have a direct impact on your link building. It typically does not directly impact your Google rankings. What it does do it get people to become aware of your web site and the awareness may drive more links and the more links may drive better rankings in Google. So if I ever say that social media helps your Google rankings, that is what I may mean. I may skip over the details as to why and understanding why is important.

I am not the only SEO blogger who is guilty of taking this short cuts, so keep it in mind. And honestly, it is much worse in the forums. Then what you have is what Tedster described, new SEOs preaching half truths to other new SEOs and their clients and we got a problem. I apologize, but it is a bad habit I doubt will ever change. So please keep this in mind when reading what I write.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Says Using Google Translate Can Be Against Google's Webmaster Guidelines

Posted: August 30th, 2010, 3:35pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I spotted an interesting comment from Google's JohnMu at the Google Webmaster Help forums. John said that in some cases, using Google Translate to auto-translate content for your web site might be seen as "creating auto-generated content, which would be against our Webmaster Guidelines."

I believe this is the first time I have seen a Googler say this, at least in response to using Google Translate to translate your content. Maybe John is saying this is a no-no when it comes to taking other people's content, running Google Translate on it and publishing it on your own site. I am not sure if he makes a distinction here. Let me quote JohnMu fully:

I just want to add a word of warning here -- using automated translation tools to directly create content for your site could be seen as creating auto-generated content, which would be against our Webmaster Guidelines. Instead of just taking the output of a program like Google Translate, I'd strongly recommend at least having it corrected before putting it online. While Googlebot may initially fall for some Spanish keywords in your text, your users are not going to appreciate content that has been automatically translated and published without a review. I love Google Translate, but if you publish the results and get them indexed without having them reviewed, you're not showing a lot of respect to your users...

You see, I am not sure if John is making a distinction between using it to translate content you wrote or not. It seems the point John is making here is that when you translate content using Google Translate, you must have someone manually look it over or else Google can penalize your site somehow because it is against Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

John is saying that using Google Translate, without manual intervention of some sorts (maybe even on your own unique content), is the same as creating auto-generated content, which is not in accordance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

Am I reading that right?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Evolve Your Long Tail SEO Strategy: Exact Fails

Posted: August 30th, 2010, 3:23pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Long tail keywords were the bread and butter of many SEOs. The MayDay update did have a major impact on that for many web sites. But why?

A new WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around how SEOs and webmasters no longer target the long tail as they did in the past.

Tedster explained that if you are targeting a specific long phrase, using it in your title tag with those exact words, in the exact order, may back fire. He said, "I've notice recently that exact phrase match in the title does not seem to work well. It does work if you put quotes around the query phrase, but clearly only geeks do that."

MrFewkes at the forums added, "If however theres a high volume of searches but a low number of pages - quite rare - you may see the longer exact match strings in the serp without quotes."

Some SEOs are now trying to figure out the how long, how exact and in what situations does this apply, if it applies at all.

Senior member, Whitney said:

Relevance and authority - maybe Google is placing stronger emphasis on the context supporting the title found in the relevance of the page which also has some correlation to the authority of that domain.
I also wonder about Google's " bridging dictionary " where phrase A can be found directly as Phrase B . This has been common with mispellings in Meta Titles and on page content for over 18 months now.

There is a lot of good discussion going on over there.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Possible Google MayDay Algorithm Tweak?

Posted: August 30th, 2010, 3:17pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has a few, not many, webmasters and SEOs talking about a possible tweak to the MayDay algorithm tweak.

For those of you who do not know what MayDay is, it was a pretty significant ranking algorithm change that took place around the same time Google pushed through their index update, named Caffeine. You can learn a bit more about MayDay over here.

Some webmasters and SEOs are suggesting there was a tweak to this ranking algorithm change over the weekend. The discussion is at WebmasterWorldwhere Senior Member drall said:

We spotted Mayday a few days before it became widespread. I am seeing the same type of update happening again on our largest property. Another large scale whack to longtail is in the works this week.

Drall then spent some time digging through data and provided the following information:

We have had a almost complete rotation of our top 10,000 producing phrases. I think this is some form of social networking factoring being amped up at least for us. - Pages which have strong backlinks and social networking usage have risen 10% on average. - Pages which have strong backlinks and no social networking usage have dropped 20% on average. - Pages which have weak or no backlinks but have some social networking usage have risen 5% on average.
Even though the majority of the social networking ibls have nofollow hundreds of times I have proven internally that these links are now counting for something of greater importance now (at least with us).

Over the last 30 days we have seen record levels of googlebot activity on this site. I chalked it up to some simple navigation optimization and removal of duplicate footprint junk but here is what the overall picture is telling me.

Google recrawled our entire site and reweighed it through a completely different system that takes social networking aspects into account more. It's as if they are looking at the site through a different engine now.

The thing is, not too many people are talking about ranking shifts in Google over the weekend. If this was major, trust me, there would be a mass revolt going on. In any event, this may be impacting just a limited number of sites or just his site. Hard to say at this point, but there was some interesting discussion here that I thought may help some of our readers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Does Adding NoIndex To Some Pages Impact Pages Without NoIndex?

Posted: August 27th, 2010, 3:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Sometimes I love these threads and sometimes I hate them. A WebmasterWorld thread asks if he will negatively be impacted by adding the noindex meta tag to 3,500 pages on his site.

The answer to these questions is never black and white. It depends.

(1) By adding the noindex meta tag to the page, you are saying you don't want those pages indexed. So yea, you don't care what happens to these pages.

(2) But can it impact other pages? Sure, Google will stop indexing those pages and any internal linkage the pages you want in the index might be degraded a bit or might not.

(3) PageRank will still flow to pages that have the noindex meta tag, so keep that in mind when trying to control your PageRank flow.

But if the pages have yet to be indexed and you want to keep them out, then I doubt it will hurt. Plus, if there are no real links to those pages or if they are all nofollowed or canonical tagged off to another page, then you should be fine.

These types of questions always "depend" on so many other variables.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Video Sitemap Content Must Match On Page Content

Posted: August 27th, 2010, 3:31pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Recently, we have been talking a lot about video sitemaps and how important they are becoming in your Google optimization efforts. Here is one more tidbit for you on video sitemaps.

According to Googler, JohnMu, your video sitemaps content should match that of what is found on the destination page. It makes logical sense, but sometimes webmasters don't always use the same title and description in the video sitemap file that they have on the web page they reference for that file.

Google's JohnMu said in a Google Webmaster Help thread:

From a quick look at your video Sitemap file, I noticed that your titles and descriptions don't seem to match up on your pages. In a case like that, it's sometimes hard for our systems to verify that these are really the pages that you want to have indexed, so it can happen that it takes longer for them to be reviewed. To help speed things up, I'd recommend making sure that the content specified in your Video Sitemap file matches what can be found on the pages.

So if they do not match, it seems like Google has to manually review the sitemap and destination pages to make sure they are legit.

Interesting tidbit which may relate to using normal sitemap files? Think about that.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Absolute URLs for Image SEO Recommended?

Posted: August 26th, 2010, 3:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion on the basic topic of using absolute URLs versus relative URLs. I believe we covered the topic several times here, but not when it comes to image SEO.

Again, an absolute URL is using the full URL path, such as http://www.domain.com/filename. The relative URL is just using /filename in the source code.

Now when people rip off your content, sometimes they will forget to change the URLs and thus SEOs typically recommend using the absolute URL. Why? Because those rip off sites will then link to your content. The smarter spammers will strip out the domain anyway, so you don't win.

That being said, on the image SEO front, Tedster from the WebmasterWorldthread said there is some evidence that using an absolute URL in the image source code helps you "own" the image. Tedster said:

There is some evidence that using the absolute URL in the src attribute helps you "own" the image in the SERPs, rather than being ripped off by hotlinks. It's not a 100% sure thing, but as I said, there is "some" evidence.

I am not sure how true that is, I personally never looked into it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

SEOs & Webmasters Complaining About Google's Canonical Tag?

Posted: August 20th, 2010, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About a year and a half ago, Google released the canonical tag. In summary, it is basically a special snippet of code you place on your page that does a 301 redirect without physically redirecting people, instead it redirects search bots.

In December, they expanded the use of this tag to support cross-domain canonical tag usage, as opposed to just using the tag internally. Personally, I have just used the canonical tag internally, never applied it cross-domain - yet.

A WebmasterWorld thread has Tedster saying that many, too many, webmasters are complaining about issues with the tag. He said, "in the past week or so I've read several accounts around the web of so-called "canonical disasters." He adds:

I've used the canonical link tag with no apparent problems, and in some cases it put an easy band-aid on a nasty infrastructure knot. But now I'm reading some SEO blogs that warn against serving the canonical link on the "original" URL. How could that be a problem?

I agree on that I don't see why SEOs or Webmasters would have issues with it. But I don't agree in seeing more complaints about it than normal.

In fact, in March I ran a poll asking does the canonical tag work well on Google? The response break down was mostly positive:

Not all positive. I kind of thing webmasters may not be using it right? Or maybe I am wrong?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Search Real Estate Dominated By Single Domain For Brand Searches

Posted: August 19th, 2010, 4:19pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Malcolm Coles provided screen shots of examples of how brand name with query type of searches are resulting in the search results being dominated by a single domain.

One example he provided was a search for [apple help], but that is one of many examples:

Others are seeing this as well. WebmasterWorldhas their own thread on a related topic. There is a Sphinn thread on Malcolm's post.

Is this a bug? Is this a new Google feature? Is this the most relevant/diverse set of results that Google says they want to provide?

Forum discussion at Sphinn & WebmasterWorld.

FTP Data Feed Uploads To Google Merchant Center Broken

Posted: August 13th, 2010, 3:25pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Those of you who submit data feeds to the Google Merchant Center via manual FTP are out of luck, at least for the time being.

A Google Merchant Center Help thread has confirmed reports that the FTP method of uploading data feeds is currently broken.

Roger from the Google Merchant Center team said:

We are currently experiencing processing issues with data feeds uploaded via FTP. We are investigating this issue. In the meantime, if your data feed uploaded via FTP is not processing, please resubmit it. We will update this thread once this issue is resolved.

This was posted this morning at about 6:50am (EST).

So don't freak out if you can't upload your feeds, it is everyone.

Forum discussion at Google Merchant Center Help.

Google Can't Find The Original Source Of Content?

Posted: August 11th, 2010, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Since the MayDay update there have been a spike in complaints about site's with stolen content outranking the sites they stole the content from.

This is an old issue, which Google was typically not too bad at handling. You have 5 web sites, one web site wrote the content first, then the other four snatched the content from the original source. Google was typically good at knowing who was the original source and ranking that original source higher, independent of which site had more PageRank and authority.

Since MayDay, it appears that original source detection has gone a bit haywire.

There is a large WebmasterWorldthread and a new DigitalPoint Forums thread with constant complaints about Google ranking scraper sites above the original source.

Is it Caffeine or MayDay related? Is it that Caffeine is discovering content faster on the scraper site, thus giving them the original source credit (if it works that way)? Or is it a ranking algorithm change with MayDay, finding original source credit less valuable then other criteria?

Tedster's theory:

It comes from Mayday giving good rankings to "sites" they feel are more popular - and therefore better over all destinations for the search user. The emphasis used to be more on the "page" rather than the "site".

Have you found this to be a larger issue since MayDay/Caffeine?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorldthread and a new DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Adds Video Sitemaps Errors To Google Webmaster Tools

Posted: August 9th, 2010, 3:54pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has been explaining to us recently that videos and video sitemaps will be something they are focusing a lot of effort on over the rest of this year. Matt Cutts has recommended SEOs focus a bit more on their video sitemaps efforts because of this change.

Over the weekend, Google has added a "Video Sitemaps" section under Google Webmaster Tools's "Lab" section. When you access it, it tells you:

Video Sitemaps Errors. We are constantly updating our data, so please keep checking back with us to make sure your sitemaps are healthy.

Currently, for all my Sitemap feeds in this report, I see "No information found." I honestly do not see how this differs from the "Sitemaps" under "Site configuration," where you can learn more about your Sitemaps errors there. But Google has added a special Video Sitemaps page to the Labs section for a reason.

What can we take away from this?

(1) Video Sitemaps are becoming more and more important.
(2) Something different will be shown here, compared to the Sitemaps section under Site configuration.

Here is a picture of what I have:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld& DigitalPoint Forums.

Since MayDay/Caffeine is PageRank Being Diluted More When 301 Redirected?

Posted: August 6th, 2010, 3:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In March, we learned that there is some dilution of PageRank when 301ed from another URL. That means, if I have PageRank on example.com/page1.html and I redirect that page to example.com/page2.html, most but not all of the PageRank from example.com/page1.html will pass to example.com/page2.html. This was contrary to what most people felt was really happening. Most people felt that 100% of the PageRank would ultimately pass form one URL to the next if a 301 redirect was used. So now maybe 99%?

There is some early and new chatter buzzing around the SEO forums that since either MayDay or the Caffeine launch, that even less PageRank and/or link popularity is passing through 301 redirected URLs.

I spotted through threads with this speculation going on, one at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld. We have two different people asking, I'll quote both:

What I have noticed since the MayDay update is that the 301 redirects dont seem to pass through as much link juice anymore.

Did the May Day Update reduce the amount of LinkJuice that gets passed through 301 redirects???
A lot of web masters on different forums are saying that, and I was wondering if the regulars on this forum felt the same way.

This may be one of those wild theories but sometimes these wild theories come out to be true. And when they come out to be true, either Google says so, doesn't say so or fixes a bug and admits fault.

Do you think there is anything to this theory?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

Google Doesn't Use Alexa Data For Sitelinks or PageRank

Posted: August 6th, 2010, 3:14pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I spotted a funny but yet basic SEO concept in a Google Webmaster Help thread.

One webmaster asked, and I quote:

It true that Get sitelinks from Google is directly related to traffic of alexa.com

The first flag that this is a poor question is that I had to edit several typos in the question itself.

The second flag is that a Googler comes in and gives a straight forward answer, as opposed to tip-toeing around the response.

JohnMu from Google clearly said, no! He said:

Just to be very clear: Alexa's metrics do not play a role in whether or not Sitelinks are shown for a site for a specific query.

There you have it - a clear, very clear, response from Google on Alexa's role at Google, or lack there of.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google's Norvig: Most Popular Result First, Then A Diverse Result Second

Posted: August 5th, 2010, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Slate published an article named Error Message: Google Research Director Peter Norvig on Being Wrong and a lot of people are talking about his philosophy on Google and him being wrong. Cool!

But he did lay down some tidbits on Google's ranking algorithm. Let me share them with you. One of the more interesting quotes, for me, is:

Yeah, that's always a problem. One way we try to counter that is diversity. We haven't figured out any way to get around majority rules, so we want to show the most popular result first, but then after that, for the second one, you don't want something that's almost the same as the first. You prefer some diversity, so there's where minority views start coming in.

So for the first search result, Google is looking for the "most popular" result to place first. Not necessarily the most relevant or the best match, but most popular. Great, so how about the second result, is that the second most popular result? No! Instead it is a diverse result, something that differs because "you don't want something that's almost the same as the first," Norvig said.

As Tedster points out in the WebmasterWorldthread discussing this, he sees this often and this is where Query Deserves Diversity comes in.

Another interesting quote revolves around real importance of PageRank:

It sounds like page rank uses consensus as a stand-in for credibility. That slippage is hardly unique to Google-all of us use consensus as a stand-in for credibility sometimes-but it can be pretty misleading.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld& Google Blogoscoped Forums.

Google: "Probably Possible" 3rd Party Bad Links Can Hurt You

Posted: August 4th, 2010, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Time after time, Google has said spam links can't hurt you. Google said it a bunch of times, competitors can't hurt you, but most SEOs do not believe that.

I spotted a new thread at Google Webmaster Help where Google is somewhat changing their tune to this claim.

JohnMu of Google said "theoretically, it's probably possible" that competitors can use links to hurt your rankings. Of course, John said it is extremely unlikely, adding:

But in practice, we have a lot of safeguards that help our algorithms to evaluate sites in useful ways. Our algorithms are pretty complex, it takes more than a handful of bad links to sway their opinion of a website. Even if Webmaster Tools shows a million links, then that's not going to change things if those links are all ignored for ranking purposes.

But this is one of the first times I have seen a Googler say, it is "probably possibile" for a competitor to use links to hurt a site. Of course, SEOs believe it was possible, right?

Take my poll, do you think a competitor can hurt your site in Google by using spam links?

Can Spam Links By Competitors Hurt You In Google?Market Research

This post is timely because someone tried this to my corporate site Sunday night. You can read that story at RustyBrick's blog. Personally, I am not worried about my site taking a dive in Google from this spam attack - but maybe I am naive.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Citing MayDay Update For Poor Google Rankings

Posted: August 4th, 2010, 3:21pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We all know a heck of a lot about the latest large Google Algorithm update named May Day or MayDay. If not, click those links to learn about it.

Colin McDermott pointed me to a Google Webmaster Help thread where a Googler, JohnMu, is using May Day as an excuse for why a particular site does not rank well.

John said:

It looks like the changes you're seeing here may be from an algorithmic change. As part of our recent algorithmic changes (which the outside world sometimes refers to as the "May Day update" because it happened primarily in May), our algorithms are assessing the site differently.
This is a ranking change, not any sort of manual spam penalty. You can hear more about this change in Matt's video at [www.youtube.com].

Working on making sure that your site is of a high-quality and has unique and compelling content is certainly a good idea, and something I would always recommend working on, regardless of the site's current standing.

I don't know if this is the first time a Googler cited MayDay as the reason behind a particular site not ranking well, but it is always interesting to see this.

Of course, this May Day response isn't all that helpful for all webmasters. The webmaster replied:

I have been working like mad on the site, writing lots of new unique content and getting rid of the bulk of the duplicate content, I have noticed a few pages appearing today, I really hope that this is the start of things returning to normal for us, as I am sure you can appreciate this has had a devastating affect on our business.

I have been working up until 11.00 most evenings adding informative text to each page and I now think that nearly every page on my site has unique content. I submitted a reconsideration request and heard back to say that this had been processed, I have also had the DNS errors fixed.

With this, time and constant content and linking is the solution. So there is really no quick fix.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Yes, Yahoo Slurp Is Still Active

Posted: August 4th, 2010, 3:05pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread asks if Yahoo's crawler, Yahoo Slurp is still active. As we know, Yahoo has begun testing Bing powered Yahoo search results and may transition completely over as soon as this month.

But what will happen with Yahoo's crawler? Ultimately, I believe it will go away. But right now it is active. I see it in my logs and so do other webmasters.

So what will happen with Yahoo Site Explorer? Will it continue to exist? If so, will the data go stale? Will it be migrated over to Bing? Bing's new webmaster tools currently has no link reporting tool.

As you can imagine, this leaves some SEOs a bit concerned. There are alternatives, but many loved Yahoo Site Explorer. Yahoo Site Explorer was really a revolutionary tool in the industry, launching in September 2005 under Tim Mayer's leadership (who we will talk about a bit later today).

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Linking To Internal 404 Pages Can Cause Search Ranking Harm

Posted: August 3rd, 2010, 3:37pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

An excellent WebmasterWorld thread has one webmaster who noticed he was accidentally linking to thousands of 404ed internal pages. He believes due to that issue, his site's rankings have degraded in Google.

To me, it doesn't sound far-fetched. I wouldn't call this a penalty, but rather a major internal linking issue. Internal linking is important for many reasons, two of which include giving search engines a way to discover your content and showing them what your content is about using anchor text. If you link to pages that don't exist, well - that cannot help you or the search engine. Forget the importance of using internal linking for other reasons, discovery is the basic purpose.

PageOnResults in the forum also added his personal experience with such an issue:

I have personally experienced a degradation in rankings due to a 404 mishap. The site has approximately 1,000 documents. After launching a new application, we discovered a bug in the rewrite that caused Googlebot to index 1,000+ documents that were returning a 404. Unfortunately we did not catch this in a timely manner and sure enough, not long after, we started to lose organic traffic.
Since we are in a very controlled environment, we were able to determine that the loss in organic traffic was a direct result of the 404 issues. After correcting the rewrite, traffic returned to normal within 30 days and actually improved a little thereafter.

It happens, and you can recover.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Interesting Comment From Google On Most Common Keywords Report

Posted: August 2nd, 2010, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

If you login to Google Webmaster Tools and go to the "Keywords" under "Your site on the web," Google will show you the "most common keywords Google found when crawling your site." In fact, Google said, these keywords "should reflect the subject matter of your site." But what if they don't?

A Google Webmaster Help thread has one person complaining his blog shows the months of the year as being his most common keywords in his report. What should he do?

Googler, Jonathan Simon replied saying:

I took a look at some of your site's pages and found that month names are fairly prominent on your pages especially when there are comments (where each comment has a month name associated with it). You could modify the date format associated with comments so that dates are displayed in a different format like MM/DD/YYYY but I don't think you should really spend your time worrying about this. A better way to address this issue would be to focus on the keywords in the list that are representative of your blog's content. Consider how your blog includes those Keywords and do something similar for other keywords that you'd like your blog to be associated with. I find it's helpful to view the Keywords list in combination with the queries (reported in the Search Queries section) which are generating impressions and traffic for your site. If you see queries that are bringing your site lots of impressions but only few clicks and find those same queries aren't listed the Keywords report for your site, then that information should assist you in prioritizing your efforts when you're considering adding new content to your blog.

Maybe this comment can help others?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Site Speed: Two Factors, GoogleBot & Users

Posted: July 30th, 2010, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Tedster started an outstanding thread at WebmasterWorld, something I personally never thought about but is all so valid.

All this stuff around having fast sites, cause Google is now looking at site performance and speed is important. It is not as important as most SEOs make it out to be, but the bottom line is, make sure your site is not too slow.

Tedster points out there is often confusion on how to determine if Google thinks your site is slow. There are two key reports in the Google Webmaster Tools:

(1) Crawl stats under Diagnostics section

(2) Site performance under Labs section

Crawl stats has a metric that tells you the time spent downloading a page (in milliseconds). That is, how much time GoogleBot spent downloading your content. It really doesn't say if it is fast or slow. I should note, you can set your crawl speed under Site configuration and Settings. If you can't, then maybe that is a sign of a slow site?

Site performance shows you data based on users with the Google Toolbar. Basically, it shows you how long a normal user takes to download the content on your site. I believe this is a more important metric for the site speed factor.

Site site performance is more about the speed algorithm factor, whereas, if you have a problem with GoogleBot crawling your site, your pages won't be included.

In any event, there is a lot of discussion around the two metrics and what you can do to leverage both at WebmasterWorld. So join the discussion.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google News Sitemaps: One Language Per Sitemap File

Posted: July 30th, 2010, 3:32pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

This week we covered the Google one language per page rule and today I spotted a thread specific to how this works with Google News.

A Google News Help thread has Googler Inbal saying you should submit a News Sitemap file for each language. Inbal from Google said:

If all your languages editions are published on one site, the Google News preference is for one news sitesmaps for multiple languages.

It is also important to set the language in the News Sitemap file using the n:language tag.

For more on News Sitemap files see here.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Google: The Robots Meta Tag Is Cumulative (First Come First Serve)

Posted: July 30th, 2010, 3:11pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Here is a little SEO bit that some of the even more experienced SEOs may not have heard of. The order of the meta robots tag is incredibly important. Did you know that the effects are cumulative when it comes to Google understanding the restrictions set in the tag?

Google's JohnMu said in a Google Webmaster Help thread:

For the robots meta tag, the effects are cumulative with regards to the restrictions, eg:
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
<META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="INDEX, FOLLOW, NOODP, NOIMAGEINDEX">

would result in Googlebot treating it as a noindex, nofollow, noodp, noimageindex. This is different than the robots.txt file. You cannot provide more restrictive directives for the generic "robots" setting than for individual crawlers.

So if you need more granular control over controlling robots, use the robots.txt file.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and hat tip to Colin McDermott.

SEO Is Not All About Technical Changes

Posted: July 29th, 2010, 3:20pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread makes a basic and obvious point that many newbies miss. SEO is not just about technical implementation. You can place your title tags in the right place, have a nice site architecture, get links and so on but still not rank well if your site is not useful.

The thread creator said it nicely:

People come here with a problem about traffic dropping and people try to help by asking technical questions about the website in question.
I often wonder what is the business model of the site that dropped. Because Google appears to be grading business models. Example. I have a prospective client who wants me to fix his traffic loss. He has 20 domains each one for each brand. No real info on any of his sites and he is selling some information on each brand. I can see some value to his service but I am sure Google considers it a spam service. 20 sites all the same linked selling the same product.

No amount of tweaking to this site or that site is going to fix his problem in my opinion.

In fact, today, someone forwarded me a site that fit this example. It was built fine, but it had almost no useful content. Nothing was there and the guy was looking for technical help on how to fix it.

To fix it, you need content - content that gives people a reason to want to go to the site, read it and recommend it to others. If the site has nothing to offer, why would it rank well even if it is technically SEO friendly?

So many new SEOs, new webmasters and new site owners just don't get this. It is a shame.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Sliced Images? Can You Optimize Them For Image Search?

Posted: July 28th, 2010, 3:45pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Sometimes web designers break up a single image into slices of images. They do this for many reasons, but the question is - can you optimize that image for image search?

John from Google chimed in about that in a Google Webmaster Help thread. John basically said, when you have this situation, you want to assign the alt attribute to only of the the images and not all the additional pieces of the image.

Of course, John doesn't recommend slicing up a single image into multiple images for a few reasons.

John said:

I'd recommend applying the alt-attributes only to one of the slices in a case like this. In general, I'd probably recommend not slicing images though, unless there are important reasons to do that. For example, it would be much harder to recommend your images in Image Search if we are not able to index the images as individual images.

Regarding the choice of slicing, I would take a good look at whether or not you're actually saving load time. With multiple image files, you're forcing the browser to download more files than would be necessary, with all of the associated overhead (also, most browsers have a limited number of parallel downloads from the same host, so the multiple slices might be blocking more important page elements from being downloaded first). Also, I would double-check to see if you can't achieve the same (or similar) text effects using HTML for the text; Google has a new font API that may be able to help. If you can use HTML text instead of having it in the image, you can skip the question of alt-attributes and make your content more accessible at the same time. These things aren't critical, at any rate, but I thought I'd mention them none the less :)

Have you run into this?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google To Warn Webmasters Over Dramatic Site Issues

Posted: July 28th, 2010, 3:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google announced on the Google Webmaster Central blog that they will now send out notifications via Google Webmaster Tools for a spike in site crawl issues.

The warnings are called SiteNotice and are sent out when Google sees a significant increase in the number of crawl errors on a site. A crawl error can be when GoogleBot has issues access web pages. Sometimes this may be intentionally done by the Webmaster, but Google thinks it is a good idea to warn the webmaster anyway.

Here is a sample of the SiteNotice:

Now, if you don't log into Google Webmaster Tools daily or often enough, you can always use the forward to email feature, it does seem to work now.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google's One Language Per Page Rule

Posted: July 27th, 2010, 3:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

For those of you with multi-lingual web sites, you want to make sure to keep your languages set on each URL of your web site. Try not to have some English and some French on the same page, keep the different languages on different pages when possible.

A Google Webmaster Help thread has Google's JohnMu clearly saying you do not want two different languages on the same page. He said:

In general, we recommend sticking to a single language per page. If you have multi-lingual content on your website, I'd recommend using separate pages per language. Our language recognition tries to find the most relevant language from your content, so that we can send you users searching in that language. Having the language in the URL (as Robbo suggested) is a great way to make the language of the pages clear to users, so if you can do that, it might make sense (Google determines the language based on the content, so it's not necessary for us).

Of course, there are exceptions.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Matt Cutts On Hacked Site & Hand Editing Search Results

Posted: July 26th, 2010, 4:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google's Matt Cutts spoke at a SEO conference in Belgium named Search University II. He spoke for about twenty minutes about a lot of SEO topics. The specific topic he put more stress on was about hacked sites - which is a big concern out there. I'll post the video below for all to watch.

I spotted three relevant threads over the weekend, so I thought I discuss them all in this single post.

A Google Web Search Help thread has a classic example of a site being hacked to target a search query that is timely. The search query was mentioned on TV, a site was hacked to take advantage of it and the first result was impacted. The thread creator said:

I happened to be watching Deadliest Catch on Discovery tonight and when I went to Google and searched for 'phil harris' the top result is corneliamarie.com but the title of the search result is:
Cheap Cipro (Ciprofloxacin) Online - Reliable Online DrugStore...

Google's JohnMu was quick to respond, saying:

It looks like that website has been modified (probably by a third-party) to return pharmaceutical content to Google. In other words, when Googlebot looked at those pages, we saw something with that title (you can see the whole page by clicking on the "Cached" link for the search result), and not the content that you see when you visit yourself. This is something the website owner needs to fix, so I sent a short email to let them know about it :).

Matt Cutts said Google would take immediate action on certain sites that are hacked or intentionally are manipulating the results, when necessary. In a case like this, where a computer can be infected, you can see Google pull the result quickly.

A WebmasterWorldthread talks about Google hand editing search results. The consensus in that thread is that Google does not hand edit the top 10 results, but of course, when spam or hacked content gets in, they would.

In a Google Webmaster Help thread, Googler JohnMu gives advice to a webmaster who recently saw his site hacked. John said:

- You can help verify the age of a cached page by automatically adding today's date to your pages (it could be in a HTML comment, if you want).

- Set up Google Alerts for your site with problematic keywords (eg add "site:eliwhitney.org viagra|ringtones|casino" as an alert). Google Alerts is a fast way to get notified of new, potentially problematic content.

- Use the "Fetch as Googlebot" feature to double-check any suspicious page.

And now for that video:

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Webmaster Tools Query Report Relates To AdWords Exact Match Tool

Posted: July 26th, 2010, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

One of the more typical questions you find in the Google Webmaster Help forums is why do not search query reports in Google Webmaster Tools look wrong.

In one explanation from a Googler, he explains how the numbers actually work. Google employee, Asaph Zemach, said in the thread:

The keywords you see in webmaster tools "Search Queries" feature correspond to the AdWords tools when you set your matching mode to "[exact]" (use the box at the bottom left of the screen). If you do that you will see that the total monthly search volume for [trading software] is actually 14,800. What the information in WMT is telling you is that of those ~15K queries, you showed up in ~2400 with an average position of 8. Given that your site ranks towards the bottom of the page, it's quite likely that under different circumstances (different users, different locales, etc) it would drift between the first and second page, so the ratio of 2400 impressions for you vs 15K global impressions does not seem unreasonable.

This may be one of the clearest and most precise answers I have seen to this question. Of course, it is pretty detailed and specific but if you read it a few times, it should make things crystal clear.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Misclassifying Some Sites As Parked Domains & Booting Them From Search Results?

Posted: July 22nd, 2010, 4:02pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I spotted two isolated issues where a Googler confirmed a weird bug in Google's web search & quality classification system. TheJack from Google posted responses in two different Google Webmaster Help threads.

On one he said a site was having issues showing up in Google's search results due to Google having "misclassified the site as a parked domain." He added:

Looks we misclassified the site as a parked domain. Apologies that you were hit by this bug. We're working on getting this fixed. Should be cleared up in the next couple days.

This specific problem was only effecting this particular site. Outside of Google there's no way to tell unfortunately when this type of issue crops up. These are very rare occurrences so best thing for folks to do is to post here if they are seeing very fishy things happening with their ranking.

I then spotted an additional thread within the same time frame where TheJack, a Google employee, said a similar thing:

The drop in ranking is in no way related to anything you've done. This was simply a bug in one of our classifiers. Being fixed now so you should see things go back to normal over the next couple weeks.

This was a very specific issue. It was just this particular site, no cause for alarm.

He recommends, in some cases, if you are having issues with your rankings, it's best to post them at Google's forums.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Twitter Usernames Ranking Very Well in Google

Posted: July 22nd, 2010, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Conduct a search for literally any letter in the alphabet. Try a search for [s] in Google and the number two result, at least for me, is a Twitter username/profile.

Most single letters come up on the first page. Try [a], [b] or c], all on the first page. Not every letter is on page one of Google, but many.

This was pointed out in a WebmasterWorldthread. Tedster, the administrator of WebmasterWorld said:

Funny you should mention it - yes, Twitter profile names do seem to be ranking better.

Twitter, the next Wikipedia?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Searchers Seeing Bing Powered Yahoo Results

Posted: July 20th, 2010, 4:19pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Yahoo said they will be testing Bing powered search results this month.

Since then, I haven't really seen anyone say they see it. How will you know if you are in a test group that is seeing the Bing powered Yahoo search results? Simple. The organic results should match Bing exactly.

Now, a senior member at WebmasterWorld said he saw the exact same results on Yahoo that he sees on Bing. He then eventually cleared his cookies and the results no longer matched. I trust him, he was 100% in the test group seeing Bing powered Yahoo results.

Textex, the person who saw it said:

I was seeing it for all queries. I then cleared my cookies and it was gone.

I personally tried it on several browsers and operating systems and did not see it myself. But who knows how likely I am to see these results.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

50% Of SEOs Use Nofollows Internally & 50% Don't

Posted: July 20th, 2010, 3:20pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Despite the advice of Google's Matt Cutts, SEOs are continuing to use the nofollow attribute for internal linking. A few weeks ago, Matt advised against using the nofollow for internal linkage and PageRank sculpting.

We decided to run a poll asking SEOs if they agree with it. Believe it or not, many SEOs don't believe Matt and do things despite his advice.

The results are in and with 176 responses, 88 of them said one thing and the other 88 said the opposite.

I asked: "Do You Use Nofollow on Some Internal Links?" Here are the responses:

I am surprised, honestly surprised, by the results.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Want in Google Definitions? Maybe Use DL, DT, and DD Tags

Posted: July 16th, 2010, 3:34pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The last time we discussed how to rank in Google Definitions was about two-plus years ago. Although Google has consistently removed the traffic value for third-party sites with Google Definitions, it still can drive some traffic to your site.

A new WebmasterWorld thread has revived interest around getting included in Google Definitions. In that thread, WebmasterWorld administrator says he has had success using the DL and DT tag/elements.

You can learn more about how to use those elements in your HTML at w3.org. Here is a sample of HTML:

<dl>START DEFINITION LIST
<dt>FIRST TERM TO BE DEFINED GOES HERE</dt>
<dd>DEFINITION OF FIRST TERM GOES HERE</dd>

<dt>SECOND TERM TO BE DEFINED GOES HERE</dt>
<dd>DEFINITION OF SECOND TERM GOES HERE</dd>

CONTINUE MORE TERMS ...

</dl>END LIST

Anyone have success with that? That was part of our recommendation in 2008.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Official: Yahoo Testing Bing Powered Results In July (aka Now)

Posted: July 16th, 2010, 3:20pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Yesterday, I received an email from Yahoo that discussed the migration plan for the organic side of Yahoo Search. As I wrote at Search Engine Land, in that email, Yahoo officially confirmed that they will (if not already) that they are testing Bing powered Yahoo Search results this month.

The email said:

Though much of our testing is already happening offline, this month we’ll also test the delivery of organic and paid search results provided by Microsoft on live Yahoo! traffic.

You can read the full email over here.

Key points:

Testing Bing powered Yahoo results this month.
The transition for organic is on target for August/September.
Testing volumes specifically for paid search will be very low, to not impact current campaigns.
When the switch over happens, Bing will power about 30% of all search queries worldwide.

Have you seen any Yahoo and Bing search results matching? If so, email me screen shots.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Google Posts Maps & Places Video Answers, Like Matt Cutts

Posted: July 15th, 2010, 3:58pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google Maps team has been fielding questions via Google Moderator and has produced currently eight video responses to the most popular questions. This is very similar to what Matt Cutts does on the Google Webmaster Help YouTube channel.

Google Places also has a YouTube Channel but let me share with you the 8+1 specific new videos of questions and answers:

Forum discussion at Google Places Help.

PageRank META Tag In Real Life Use

Posted: July 15th, 2010, 3:35pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

You need a laugh, don't you? Well, I got one for you.

Spotted via a Google Webmaster Help thread, one webmaster is asking why his site "went to spam and not showing and ranking." The funny part is not the poor English or the fact that his site is indexed, but rather a look at his meta tags.

Here is a look at some, I repeat, not all but some of the meta tags on this site:

Yea a meta tag for <meta name="pagerank™" content="10"></meta>

This was actually made fun of in a 2006 WebmasterWorld thread. But I haven't seen it since.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and hat tip to Colin McDermott.

Yahoo Search's URL Ping Server Goes Offline. Beginning Of The End?

Posted: July 15th, 2010, 3:15pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

WebmasterWorld's moderator, incrediBill, posted a thread at WebmasterWorld noting that Yahoo's URL Ping server seems to have gone offline recently. As he explains, when he tries to access the documented Ping URLs, he gets a dead response.

Try it yourself, try sending a ping via the documented example URLs:

http://ping.feeds.yahoo.com/rss/ping?u=http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories
http://ping.feeds.yahoo.com/rss/ping?u=http://site.example.com/blog

The API URLs are dead as well, see [api.my.yahoo.com].

Is this the beginning of the end to Yahoo Search?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Bug: Google Maps Pulling Wrong Star Ratings

Posted: July 14th, 2010, 4:03pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google Maps has become an extremely popular local search destination. Thus, making sure your Google Maps reviews are in order is an important part of your overall SEO and SEM routine.

A recent report at Google Maps Help forums has a confirmed bug where Google is pulling the wrong star values from third party review sites. In one case, Google is counting 4 out of 5 stars as 1 out of 5 stars - yes, that can be devastating.

Here is an example:

Look at this Google Places page review:

Google Maps shows one star, but when you click through and look at that specific review, it shows up as four stars:

Google's Joel Headley confirmed the bug and said "We're working on a fix and hope to get it resolved soon. It will likely be a multiple weeks before it's resolved."

Oh, if you are bored, feel free to drop my company a positive review. :)

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Top SEOs Analyze Glorified Scraper Sites After May Day

Posted: July 13th, 2010, 3:44pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

WebmasterWorld's administrator, Tedster, posted a thread at WebmasterWorld that takes a deeper look at the May Day update by looking at sites that should be impacted by the update and were not.

Tedster does something you rarely see at a WebmasterWorld thread and picks apart a specific site that is doing well. Then you have some really well-known and respected SEOs come in and discuss why those sites are doing well in the May Day update and others are not.

He posted, in part:

When Mayday first dropped on us, there was a sudden INCREASE in rankings for mash-up sites. You can see examples of what I'm talking about at daymix.com, leapfish.com and picdigger.com and Alexa shows their increases in traffic.
These are often sites with some substantial financing, and even relatively famous owners or CEOs. But to my view, they are a plague on the web and in no way offer the "better long tail results" Google was aiming for.

As one example - do a Google search for site:daymix.com webmasterworld - I currently see 297 pages built from bits and pieces of our content. Try it for other domains and you often see much the same thing.

The goal, figure out why these sites are doing well in Google and replicate it so your scraper can do well also.

Here are some, not all, of the responses on what some top SEOs feel is working for these sites:

The site in question does do quite a bit of linking out to other sites that provide additional information within the mashed up content. Clicking the link goes to the site the content was ripped from. All the links are nofollowed so I wonder is this something we need to take another look at.
Adding more outgoing links to provide more information on the subject/product the page is about.

Daymix doesn't just scrape the Google serps pages and lift the titles and descriptions of the highest ranking/most relevant pages for a query, though, the way scrapers used to. It emulates Universal and scrapes the highest ranking/most relevant sources for different types of data that make up a Google serps page.
Daymix displays a mixture of web, news, blogs, images, videos, Twitter content, etc... and it's good enough, eg, to know when Twitter content might be appropriate for a query and when not; and what the most authoritative sites in a given field are to scrape. Apparently, the vocabulary and media mix is attractive to Google.

He then says this is similar to Google Place Pages.

I took a look at the daymmix site, and one thing I noticed is that when I looked at a result that specifically brought up my site, I have a script that displays the user agent of the visitor, and that the user agent is listed as googlebot. So I can confirm that they are scraping Google SERPS, or they are changing their robots names, and not obeying robots.txt.

Finally, Aaron Wall:

They fund a lot of the duplication...and they need to focus more on ways to promote / subsidize the cost of quality & encourage it. Minimizing the role of the scrape and mash game would be a big step in that direction.
But if end users don't know the difference (and don't understand the business connections) does it harm Google to make the media ecosystem weaker and more desperate for negotiations? I see it as the strategy of funding a third party to make a future partner weaker so you have more leverage at the bargaining table. But some might claim that is a cynical way of looking at it :D

This discussion and thread is just going to get better, so keep an eye on it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: I didn't realize that this thread was private. Now that I posted the quotes, removing them doesn't make sense (it is out there in the feeds already). Trust me, there is a ton more discussion in the thread. I only pulled out excerpts from the thread - so this is one reason to become a paid member of WebmasterWorld.

Google Not Sending Referrer Data Again?

Posted: July 13th, 2010, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A new WebmasterWorld thread reports several webmasters complaining that Google is not sending referrer information for all clicks from a Google search engine.

First reports came from WebmasterWorld yesterday, July 12th. The individual said:

More and more visits from Google in my server log files are without exact referrer information, and have only "http://www.google.com", "http://www.google.com.au", etc. which doesn't allow to find out keyword and SERP page from which this visit was made.

Several other webmasters confirmed seeing the same issue. Zett, a senior member said, "I am seeing that as well. Not too many yet (maybe 2 to 3% of all referrers from Google), but still noticeable."

Another person posted what he thinks it might be:

I can confirm the original observation: more and more accesses just contain a bare "http://www.google.foo/" referrer. It started on July 1st/2nd (a rise from about .1 percent to about 3 percent of all Google referrers), and judging by the HTTP headers and access patterns, these are definitely legit accesses, not bots, in particular as a possible rel=prefetch access (for top-ranked search hits under Mozilla-based browsers) directly preceding the actual user-driven access still _does_ contain the full list of Google search parameters in the referrer.

This happened before when Google switched to testing AJAX based results, which caused an uproar amongst webmasters who were unable to track referrers.

There was some discussion that Google would being back the AJAX results after they figure out a way to pass along the referrer data. Not sure if this is them testing this or something else.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Matt Cutts of Google confirmed an issue when Google was not sending referrer data in the thread. He said:

Hey everybody, I asked folks who would know about this. It turns out there was an issue a couple weeks ago where some code got refactored, and the refactoring affected referrers for links opened in a new tab or window. Right now the team is expecting to have a fix out in the next week or so. Hope that helps.

Google Changes Maps OneBox Design

Posted: July 12th, 2010, 4:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are a few Google Maps Help threads with reports of changes to the maps OneBox design found in Google's web results. Mike Blumenthal documented these changes and I wanted to share them with you as well.

For example, search for [General Patent Corporation International 10901], you will see a new look for the Maps OneBox:

The main change is that clicking on the OneBox result doesn't take you to the business owner's web site. It now takes you to the Google Places Page for that business owner. This is because Google is placing the web listing above the OneBox result.

The other main changes include:

The search result for the OneBox match shows above the OneBox map now.
The "More info" link has been renamed to "Place page"
Reviews don't show unless they meet certain criteria
A maps ballon/marker shows near business name outside of the map

I personally like that the search result is now at the top, above the map. But I am not sure about the click behavior on the map itself. As a searcher, it makes sense to me to take you to the map or places page. I guess.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Google Bans AdWords Help For Cloaking, Making It Hard To Help Advertisers

Posted: July 9th, 2010, 3:32pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

On July 1st Vanessa Fox and the team at Search Engine Land broke a story that Google was cloaking AdWords help page and ultimately had to ban the AdWords Help area from coming up in Google's search results. It turned out to be all the help pages cloaking, so Danny Sullivan asked why didn't Google ban all the Google help areas.

I won't get into why Google didn't, Google commented on Danny's post. Personally, I think Google should have let the cloaking mishap slide.

Why? Two reasons: (1) Google had no intent to abuse their own search engine. (2) This is making it hard for people to find answers in the search results, specifically for their own popular AdWords product. Let me share an example with you.

A Google AdWords Help thread has top level forum helpers in the AdWords Help forum complaining it is harder for them to help people asking questions. In this specific complaint, when AdWords experts reply to thread, they often like to use the "Reference" feature, which let's them cite other help articles in the Google help area. The thing is, it is virtually impossible for them to search for help content.

Here is a picture showing "no results" for a simple search via the "Add references" section:

As you can see, it is hard to find help content to add as references when helping people with questions in the forum. Plus more and more people have questions, because Google banned the AdWords help documents from ranking in the Google search results. Who really wins here?

One of the top helpers said:

I never realized how much I used the feature and now that it's gone, I feel helpful-less :)

AdWordsPro, an official AdWords representative said he hopes it is "fixed" soon. But does that mean Google will remove the ban from AdWords?

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Changing Old Code To CSS Killed One Webmaster's Google Rankings

Posted: July 9th, 2010, 2:58pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A featured WebmasterWorld thread has one webmaster who said his 13 year old well ranking web site was updated to use the latest CSS and coding techniques. The page content, titles, meta information was not touched, only the way the page renders, by using the latest CSS techniques to reduce page load time and page redenering. He said, immediately after the site went live, his rankings for keywords he ranked well for since the site was first launched 13 years ago - have vanished.

Let me quote what he said:

13 year old site. Using 13 year old code.
I decided to modernize using the cleanest of standards. I'm using the STRICT doctype (minimal errors upon validation) ... pure CSS, one stylesheet controlling everything which is minified... all pages compressed with gzip. No header information was changed... same titles, same meta. Basically I know what I'm doing.

I effectively took my average page size from 80k to 20k (before gzip compression) and the site is lightning quick. Visitors have been super happy with the improvement.

Every visitor but googlebot apparently.

The DAY after I rolled this major revision out, I began losing my major keywords. Every keyword was top 10, now I'm gone... not in supplementals - nowhere. Keywords dropped over the last 3 days... today there isn't much left.

He posted that on June 27th and today, two weeks later, there has been no improvement.

Now, if the URLs, title, content and everything else stayed the same and the only thing you updated was how the page source code is implemented, a ranking change should not been seen. I have to suspect that this webmaster is missing something, but he is confident he is not.

Tedster, WebmasterWorld's administrator said:

I've been involved in hundreds of redesigns over the years, some with content changes and some with only mark-up changes. I never ran into this problem.
I know flicky is reporting a big problem, and I'm not trying to diminish its devastating impact on his business. But I am cautioning against making generalizations based on this.

Have you experienced this? I just find it hard to believe that there are not other factors involved here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Bug Serves "Redirect Notice" On Queries With Hashes

Posted: July 8th, 2010, 3:48pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has confirmed a bug where searchers are forced through a Google redirect page prior to ending up on the ultimate search result. This only happens when you search for something with a hash, for example a search on [c# language].

If you search for that, you are presented with search results, but if you click on the search results, you are prompted by a Google redirect warning. Here is the path:

You can see the warning by clicking here.

I wonder if people who rank well for # related keywords have noticed a major drop off in referrals from Google?

Google confirmed the bug in a Google Web Search Help thread, saying:

Thanks for reporting this issue. I saw the same redirect page when I clicked on the first result for my [h#] search. We're looking into what might be causing this and I'll let you when we get an update.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Breaking: Yahoo Now Testing Bing's Search Algorithm & Results?

Posted: July 4th, 2010, 5:18pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

There are two large threads that started over the weekend at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums with discussion around the Yahoo Search results.

The thing is, I have never seen such a large influx of buzz around Yahoo Search results, at least not for the past 3 years or so. People are reporting huge, I mean huge, shifts with Yahoo's search results.

At first, the folks at WebmasterWorld have called it a bug but some are now suspecting this has to do with Yahoo testing Bing results. Yes, as expected, Yahoo should begin testing the Bing powered results on Yahoo Search any time now. Maybe this is the first signs of it?

Why would Yahoo spend the time drastically revamping their algorithm? Either this is a huge bug or Yahoo has let some people into a bucket testing of the Bing search results.

The thing that kind of makes me feel this is more of a bug than a Bing powered Yahoo is the results. I tried to personally match up Bing and Yahoo results and they are different. Some said in the forum that the results "looks like a mix of bing and google." But honestly, when Yahoo begins Bing powered results, the results of the organic listings, the ranking and order, will be exactly the same as you see them on Bing. Yahoo may throw more visual results at the top, middle and so on, but the organic result should be exactly the same.

Maybe I am not in this bucket test and maybe this is Bing on Yahoo?

What do you see?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Kills 100 Result Output Page? Scroogle Taken Down Again

Posted: July 2nd, 2010, 3:51pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

An ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has been tracking the various advanced search result pages from Google since the Google redesign.

Back in the day, google.com/ie would let you set a special URL parameter to show 100 results on the page. Google killed it and it gave Scroogle a set back for a little while.

But webmasters and Scroogle found an alternative URL to get the same results. The alternative URL was adding on &output=ie to the Google URL.

Today, that URL also no longer works for many. It does work for me, but I guess it is a matter of time until the URL goes away. Try it yourself.

As Tedster said at WebmasterWorld, "Curses, foiled again! Time to get a script written, I guess." But as I said, Scroogle is out of business also. They wrote a message on their site saying:

We regret to announce that our Google scraper may have to be permanently retired, thanks to a change at Google. It depends on whether Google is willing to restore the simple interface that we've been scraping since Scroogle started five years ago. Actually, we've been using that interface for scraping since Google-Watch.org began in 2002.
...

Thank you for your support during these past five years. Check back in a week or so; if we don't hear from Google by next week, I think we can all assume that Google would rather have no Scroogle, and no privacy for searchers.

What will happen is unclear. Google never particularly went after Scroogle, but they won't go out of their way to let a scrapper site do their work. Time will tell.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld& Google Blogoscoped Forums.

Google Sitemaps Now Allows One File For All Formats

Posted: July 2nd, 2010, 3:43pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google announced you can now use a single sitemap file for all the various content types. Vanessa Fox has the best analysis of what this means to webmasters and other search engines at Search Engine Land.

In summary, it may lead to making things easier for SEOs and webmasters to worry about a single file. But sometimes, it makes sense to keep them separate. At the same time, it is questionable if Bing and other search engines will support this or not. As Vanessa said:

A lot of work went into the launch of that alliance, with the goal of making things easier for content owners web-wide, and not just for one search engine. So the partial dismantling of it, even in spirit, is a bit disappointing.

So will this confuse webmasters and just benefit Google? Time will tell. I guess the other search engines can just follow Google's lead?

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Google Webmaster Tools Reporting Slow For New Sites

Posted: July 2nd, 2010, 3:25pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has confirmed reports that for new sites and some others, the reports in Google Webmaster Tools may be delayed.

JohnMu from Google said in the thread:

It looks like this is a general slow-down in our Webmaster Tools reporting pipeline for some new sites and not something due to your site in particular. I would just give it more time, though I'm afraid I don't have any particular timeline that I can promise. Thanks for your patience :)

There is clearly something clogging the pipes and Google for some sites. Whereas others are recently seeing huge increases in reporting numbers at Google Webmaster Tools.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Says New Links In Webmaster Tools Are Correct & Will Grow

Posted: July 1st, 2010, 4:02pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Monday we reported that the link reports in Google Webmaster Tools appeared to inflated.

Many users started noticing huge increases (few noticed declines) in the number of links being displayed in the link report in Google Webmaster Tools. Most thought the spikes were unbelievable and had to be a bug. Some suspected it might have to do with the new Caffeine index launch.

Well, Google finally replied telling us it is Caffeine related. JohnMu of Google said in a Google Webmaster Help thread:

Yes, we revamped the data behind the backlinks feature in Webmaster Tools -- it has started using more data from "Caffeine" for some sites and is planned to continue with a bit more data in the next week or so. The goal is to have more fresher & up-to-date data there :-).

So it seems like you can now expect a heck of a lot more data to be shown in the link reports and likely the other reports as well.

Good stuff!

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Confusing 301 Redirects?

Posted: July 1st, 2010, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has reports that Google is confusing 301 redirects as 302 redirects. This can be a serious issue, because 301s are the type of redirects SEOs and webmasters use to properly pass link juice and page factors from an old URL to a new.

If Google considers these 301s as 302s, temporary redirects, it can cause pretty large issues with passing link value from one URL to another. At the same time, there can be sticky issues that may lead to hijacking URLs and so on in the Google search results, when using 302 redirects. So this can lead to some serious issues, from what I understand.

A senior member in the forum said:

I have set such a redirect over a year ago, and still several thousand of the redirected URLs show in the SERPs.
There's something broken in their system.

This morning I also saw Dave Naylor write on Twitter:

.bbpBox17489263787 {background:url(http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/113704743/bg.jpg) #000000;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

@neyne have your seen all the 301 fuck ups at the moment ..less than a minute ago via web Dave Naylor
DaveNaylor

.bbpBox17490942128 {background:url(http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/56926447/lab_bckg_s.jpg) #fbfbfd;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

@rustybrick check out Dave's tweet with SERPless than a minute ago via ÜberTwitter Branko Rihtman
neyne

.bbpBox17490376439 {background:url(http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/113704743/bg.jpg) #000000;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

@rustybrick @neyne I'm seeing 301 redirects ranking in google along with target sites like [bro.gs] seeing more pop everydayless than a minute ago via web Dave Naylor
DaveNaylor

Are you noticing this as well?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Getting Your Blog In Google Blog Search

Posted: June 30th, 2010, 3:47pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has advice from Googler, JohnMu, on how to help get your blog included in the Google Blog Search index. John said to basically manually ping Google with their pinging service.

To do so, go to [blogsearch.google.com] and add your blog.

John said:

We use blog-search pings to pick up blogs. From what I heard back, at the time of the last ping there were some small technical issues with your site, making us abort the fetching for Blog-Search. A simple solution to that is to just do a manual ping via the web-interface ( http://blogsearch.google.com/ping ), which is what I did yesterday. Apparently it's been picked up now and should be trickling through the pipeline soon'ish :-). This is usually not a problem, especially when the blog regularly adds content, then missing a single ping won't break things. But if we really rarely see blog-search pings, then missing any of them can cause hiccups like this.
So my recommendation to sites in a similar situation is to do a manual "ping" (and double-check to make sure that you're really pinging Google's Blog-Search automatically), and generally to work on regularly adding content to your blog. That said, keep in mind that your content will be available through our web-search regardless of whether or not it's seen as a blog or also indexed in Blog Search :)

The pinging service launched in October 2006 and Google Blog Search in general launched September 2005.

To be honest, it seems to me that Blog Search is slowly being phased out in exchange for a focus on real time search. The last time we really wrote about Google Blog Search was just about a year ago. So I am just under the impression that Google is not caring much about blog search and focusing efforts in other areas - which is fine.

Do you think this is true and if so, is it a bad idea?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google's Matt Cutts Says Again, Don't Use Nofollow For Internal Links

Posted: June 30th, 2010, 3:35pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google's Matt Cutts posted a video yesterday on the topic of PageRank sculpting using the nofollow attribute and/or using the nofollow attribute on internal links. Here it is:

In short, Matt says do not use it for internal links - never.

But do you agree? Some webmasters do and some don't. Here is one SEO on Twitter that said no:

.bbpBox17357614309 {background:url(http://s.twimg.com/a/1277242272/images/themes/theme4/bg.gif) #0099B9;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

Don't follow his advise :) @mattcutts from @google on nofollow used for internal links [youtu.be] /via @rustybrick less than a minute ago via Twitterrific Tomy Lorsch
tomylorsch

But in a WebmasterWorldthread, Tedster said it does work and shared a story. He said:

Last year I was asked to look at a site that had major ranking troubles. They had used nofollow extensively, trying to sculpt PageRank to go only to those pages they wanted to see in search results. Even some main menu items had nofollow!

At the time they were below 10% of total traffic from search. I suggested they remove all of the nofollows and they did. One month later they were up to about 30% traffic from search. I haven't checked in with them lately, but I'd guess they continued to improve - unless they got tricky again.

Do you use it at all? Take my poll below:

Do You Use Nofollow on Some Internal Links?online survey

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

GoogleBot Acting Weird

Posted: June 30th, 2010, 3:21pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Around June 15th, GoogleBot reportedly slowed crawling of web pages and documents. Then ten days later, GoogleBot started crawling again. Today, I am seeing new reports of sporadic, somewhat spastic crawl behavior.

A WebmasterWorld thread has reports that GoogleBot stopped crawling some sites late June 28th and then started again early this morning. It seems that maybe GoogleBot gets stuck on some sites or something has changed.

Maybe this is the new behavior since Caffeine launched or maybe there is a bug, I am not sure. But the reports come from obsessed SEOs and webmasters that track Google like they would their own daughter.

Are you seeing weird crawl (or lack there of) patterns from GoogleBot?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Reporting Inflated Link Counts

Posted: June 29th, 2010, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Have you checked out link count in Google Webmaster Tools today? If not, you may be in for a surprise when you do. It seems like most people's link counts are incredibly inflated.

A Google Webmaster Help thread and WebmasterWorld thread has several webmasters noticing the major inflation of their link counts in Google Webmaster Tools.

Personally, I see Google is telling me I have 974,494 links to this site. But some people are reporting just under 2.5 million links, where millions were added over a single night. Here is one report:

Today i have seen my webmaster account for my site to see "links to your site" section. It amazed me when i saw a figure "2,439,598" which is thousand times higher then what i've noted yesterday. Is it a bug in webmaster tools, or i actually have all these links.

So if you see some numbers that don't make sense in the Google link tool report, don't worry - it seems fairly wide spread.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

On Page SEO VS. Off Page SEO: Which Trumps?

Posted: June 29th, 2010, 3:09pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

"Content is King" or Links are supreme - that is the classic SEO debate. Which SEO component is more important? Links or on page SEO? This debate is as old as Google and while it was much more of a debate years ago, it still triggers some debate nowadays.

These days, even the biggest link builder would admit you need strong content and some basic SEO to rank well for competitive keywords. Or maybe not?

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around this topic. One person said he ranks top for a competitive keyword with zero content on his page related to that keyword. He thinks that you don't need the content on the page to rank well. Maybe, I think it depends.

Tedster, WebmasterWorld administrator cited a client case. He said:

I can guarantee you from the past week's experience that there is. I have a client whose highest traffic page fell from #1 on two big query terms to pages 3 and 4. What they did was change (not tweak, demolish) ALL the body content and the page template. I was not informed ahead of time and I only learned about it after the traffic drop appeared.

What do you think? Take my poll below:

On Page SEO VS. Off Page SEO: Which Trumps?online surveys

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google "Strongly" Recommends Not Using Meta Refresh Redirects

Posted: June 28th, 2010, 3:43pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In a Google Webmaster Help thread talks about the different types of redirects Google likes and dislikes. I figured, since I just wrote about using redirects for affiliate links, it would make for a nice subtopic.

JohnMu, a Googler, strongly warned against using any type of meta-refresh redirect for any redirects. He said, when redirecting, it should be done on the server side level. Let me quote JohnMu from the thread:

I would strongly recommend not using meta refresh-type or JavaScript redirects like that if you have changed your URLs. Instead of using those kinds of redirects, try to have your server do a normal 301 redirect. Search engines might recognize the JavaScript or meta refresh-type redirects, but that's not something I would count on -- a clear 301 redirect is always much better.

How can you check what type of redirect you are using? SEO Consultants has a nice tool that shows you. You can see, that http://seroundtable.com/ redirects using a 301 server side redirect to http://www.seroundtable.com/:

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Another Google MayDay Tweak, June 23/24th?

Posted: June 25th, 2010, 3:19pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A new WebmasterWorld thread that has continued Google obsessive watching, is showing signs that Google did another tweak to their latest ranking algorithm.

It seems like the Google MayDay update, which we covered at exhaustion here was not just tweaked a bit on June 2nd but also possibly June 23rd and 24th.

Several SEOs and Webmasters are asking if there is a new update going on. Walkman, a senior member of the forums said:

Lots of tweaking, ups and down for no reason. As much as 10-20% a day.

Another senior member, Shaddows summed up his recent Google experience:

We've had a major shift in referal patterns again.

Just to be clear, when I say "major" I mean, Vince-like. Normally, we see one or two a year. Recently, we have seen them

MayDay Part I
Mayday Part II (around 14th)
June 2
June 23/24

Each of them are "game changers" that would cause a strategic change in SEO practice- a change in how you go about things, not fixable by "fiddling" at a page level.

Have you noticed a change over the past two days with your Google rankings or traffic?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Want Google To Show Your Rich Snippets? Here Is How

Posted: June 25th, 2010, 3:11pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Over a year ago, Google launched rich snippets, giving webmasters a way to show richer search results within Google and giving Google a way to better determine content within a particular page. Rich Snippets allow webmasters to markup their HTML so Google can display search results that look something like this:

Soon after, Google released a Rich Snippets Testing Tool because Webmasters really didn't know if their markup was working. Why? Well, they would add the rich snippets markup and wouldn't know if it was valid or if Google just didn't want to show it for their web site. So now, you know if it is valid or not.

But what do you do when Google simply does not show your results with the special rich snippet features in the search results? Googler, Jonathan Simon, said in a Google Webmaster Help thread that you can notify Google that you are using rich snippets via this feedback form. He said, it won't guarantee they use your rich snippets but "it will help us to be aware of your site's microformat implementation as we increase our support of microformat markup/"

So if you are stuck in this situation, use the form, it can't hurt. You can learn more about Rich Snippets over here.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

GoogleBot Back In Business, Crawling & Crawling

Posted: June 25th, 2010, 2:56pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About ten days ago, I reported that GoogleBot stopped crawling many web sites, or at least slowed the crawl.

I am glad to report that many webmasters are reporting at a WebmasterWorld thread that GoogleBot is back in business. GoogleBot found its legs and is crawling and crawling through sites, like it once did.

Gabs from SEO Home sent me a graph after posting this from Webmaster Tools showing the crawl activity spiking back:

We did report on an issue where it was crawling too much, specifically on WordPress hosted blogs.

It is believed that the Google Caffeine launch had something to do with the slow crawl, but we have no evidence of that.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google News Quality Post: Spam Getting Worse?

Posted: June 24th, 2010, 2:51pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Earlier this month, we speculated that Google News is getting spammy, way spammier than it ever was.

We based this assumption based on the number of complaints in the forum thread.

Today, I spotted a Googler, Inbal, posting a single thread talking about quality in the Google News Help forum. Inbal said:

Thank you for taking the time to share your specific issues about the quality of Google News sites. While we usually won't reply to most feedback, please know that your feedback is helping to improve the experience for millions of other Google News users.

Seems interesting to me that Google would say something like this now. Is this a sign that there is an issue or like I said last time, are more people just aware of how to complain?

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Should Google's Organic & Paid Side Get On Same Page?

Posted: June 24th, 2010, 2:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A new thread at WebmasterWorld has one Webmaster complaining that pages the do incredibly well in Google AdWords have been hit hard by the MayDay update. Now, this is one person complaining, so I am not sure how much weight we should put on this report.

He said:

My sites and pages that are not good enough to be ranked or even indexed any more in the organic search (the results that are pushed even further down the page with each passing year) are absolutely fine for paid advertising (the results that are pushed further and further in the faces of users).

Over time, Google AdWords has continued to add more and more quality factors to determine ad rank and price. So AdWords is getting more and more strict about quality, more so than most networks. In fact, advertisers often complain about those "quality" factors.

I am not sure I agree with this statement and theory. Do you?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Wrong Post & Author Information In Google Snippets? Tell Google

Posted: June 23rd, 2010, 3:40pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

You see it often, especially in the forum or blog type of search results. Google shows the post count and author counts near in or above the search result snippet. Here is a picture to illustrate what I am talking about:

We first saw this in October 2008.

But we really never saw a way to complain about this information being inaccurate, which it often is.

Today, I spotted a thread at Google Webmaster Help thread where Googler, Sagar, replied to a person complaining asking for their URL.

Sagar said:

Can you please provide the URL to your site, I can forward it on to the appropriate individuals?

The user then posted URLs and Sagar said "No problem. I will forward these on to the team."

So if you are upset with how Google shows this data in their search results for your web site, then maybe join the thread and say so.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

More Reports of Google Referrals Down Despite Top Rankings

Posted: June 23rd, 2010, 3:28pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back in May we ran a poll asking if your Google referrals were down and 43% said they were.

There was some speculation if the poll was valid, because of although there was a new Google design launched in early May, there was also the MayDay update. I told people to take the poll based on their rankings not changing, but you never know if people listened.

Today, I spotted a new WebmasterWorldthread with more webmasters complaining about the same situation. Many are saying that they still have top rankings but the traffic from those rankings have plummeted recently. One person said:

We're back to a position we used to hold a good year ago. However, we're actually seeing traffic drop - we know what these positions should bring, but it's no where near old traffic levels.

Another person said:

I have a similar experience ..very stable serps but huge traffic drop..i am hoping it is world cup related as the globe seems a little distracted at the moment and the traffic drop coincides with the world cup period...fingers crossed.

It does seem to be related more to the new design than world cup, in my opinion but who knows.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

WordPress System Admin Calls Out Google's Evil Spiders

Posted: June 23rd, 2010, 3:20pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has one of the system administrators from Automattic, the company behind the most popular blogging platform out there, WordPress, complaining about GoogleBot's recent behavior.

He said recent GoogleBot behavior is similar to that of a DoS attack. He explained that "starting around 6:57 EDT today, one of our user's site started getting hammered by dozens if Google Bots instances concurrently, coming from dozens of legitimate IPs in the 66.249.71.n range."

He verified it was from Google's IP range and is concerned that there is a "bug" with Google's crawlers. He then warns Google that WordPress may need to block Google from crawling the blogs if they don't act fast. He said:

We of course do not want to block the Google bot from crwaling this or any of the public content on any of the WordPress.com sites, but since it does not support any of the crawl throttling directives others do (http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=2caa38cb3d55bfa0&hl=en), I'm at a bit of a loss on how to effectively stop this from happening again without taking some drastic measures I'd like to avoid.

JohnMu of Google replied pretty quickly saying:

Thanks for posting -- I'll pass it on to the team here to review. If this is just for one site, using Webmaster Tools would probably be the best way to solve this problem, but it might be useful for our engineers to take a look to see what caused it in the first place.

We have not heard back from Google if it was a bug or if anything changed. Nor did we hear from WordPress if it has been resolved.

But it is pretty cool that WordPress posted this.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google's Maile Ohye On The MayDay Update

Posted: June 23rd, 2010, 3:06pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In our continued coverage of the Google MayDay update which we have been tracking since May 3rd, I wanted to share another Googler's statement on it.

We already heard from Matt Cutts, but what about Maile Ohye, a Tech Lead at Google mostly responsible for Webmaster Tools.

Maile was the keynote at SES Toronto and TopRank covered that keynote. Here is his coverage:

Mike Grehan: After a previous update, we heard a story of someone ranking #1 who lost positioning (and was previously making $10,000/month just from that one ranking). The same thing again seems to be happening with the Mayday update. What exactly is that it?

Maile Ohye: We tweak little things in our algorithm all the time. Mayday was a significant update that really impacted long tail terms. A lot of people were leveraging long tail phrases for lots of traffic but it was frequently done via automated methods. We’ve looked to eliminate spam, and that’s been a big priority for us. At the same time, there were people developing not quality content (not a violation of guidelines, but also not providing value). What it does is for long tail queries, is we now just consider them queries like anything else. We are going to put as much value in those search results as all search results.

So, you can’t just add a bunch of keywords on a page and expect results just on that. This type of update is continuing and it’s a focus we have. We have other projects too to help continue making long tail traffic highly relevant.

Mike Grehan: Are you saying with long tail terms, are queries getting longer?

Maile Ohye: Yes, people have evolved as searchers. With Google when you search for over 3 terms, the snippet link increases in importance as people expect to find long queries and we want to deliver a better experience.

As you can imagine, the folks over at WebmasterWorldare chewing, digesting and then dissecting each and every word from this live blog coverage.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo Search 404 Handling Poor Again?

Posted: June 22nd, 2010, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has several webmasters complaining about how Yahoo Search handles 404s.

There is a really good analysis by Frank Rizzo, a senior member from 2002 at WebmasterWorld, who shows how Yahoo is doing three weird things on his site, in regards to 404s. He said Yahoo is showing:

Genuine 404s from pages which were deleted a while ago.
404s from what seems to be badly configured software
404s from what seems to be attempts at exploits.

Others are reporting similar issues as of this month and some are even thinking about blocking Yahoo's spiders over the issue.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Says Soft 404s Don't Result In Penalty, But Do They Hurt?

Posted: June 22nd, 2010, 3:23pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last week, I wrote how Google was fixing the issues with the new soft 404 errors showing now in Google Webmaster Tools.

I also went off a bit on a rant about how this is a big concern for me. I wrote:

Honestly, this really concerns me. Google clearly was using soft-404s behind the scenes for a long time. Providing this data to webmasters resulted in many claiming Google was soft-404ing pages that should not be 404ed. Now, with webmaster feedback, Google can address the issue. This is just concerning.

Now, Googler JohnMu is saying in a Google Webmaster Help thread that there is no penalty for soft-404s. He said:

To be clear: Google will not penalize your site for having soft-404 pages. Having soft-404 pages makes it harder for us to recognize new and updated content on your site, but it does not mean that we would see you site as being any less valuable in the search results :-). There's no need to rush and do something drastic here. Yes, it would be great if it could be cleaned up (that's why we have started reporting these things), but in general, it's not critical.

Honestly, I never thought there was a "penalty" but my main issue is that if Google misclassifies a page of yours as a soft-404, then by definition, Google won't include that page in their index or at least, not rank it well. It is not a penalty, it is just an issue with the page. Now, in some cases, this is the webmaster's fault and in other cases, it is Google's fault.

Either way, this is not a "penalty" but it doesn't lead to good Google search results for your pages classified as soft-404s.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Article Too Long Errors On Google News? Get Special Consideration

Posted: June 22nd, 2010, 3:17pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A year ago, Google News started showing errors in Google Webmaster Tools named article too long. For these errors, Google would not include your article in Google News because it was too long.

Sounds a bit crazy, but I guess there is some logic to it. Articles that are too long may not be articles at all, they may be privacy policies and so on. It may be hard for Google to determine what is an article on a web site and what is not, so maybe length is a characteristic.

I recently spotted a thread at the Google News Help forum where Inbal, a Google News representative, said that they allowed one site to submit articles that would typically be flagged as too long.

She said:

Thanks for providing these examples for the "Article too long" error. I've updated your site's info. in our system to include more of your content in Google News.

So it seems that Google can make exceptions for some sites with this error message. If you see it happen often, reach out to Google in the forums.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Google Warns Against NOSCRIPT Element

Posted: June 21st, 2010, 3:51pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The NOSCRIPT element is often used to provide users that have browsers that don't read JavaScript and alternative method of accessing the web site. I actually used it on my old web site when the home page was very JavaScript dependent.

Today, I saw a thread where Google warned against using the NOSCRIPT tag.

Googler, JohnMu, said in a thread, "the problems with noscript is that it's been abused quite a bit by spammers, so search engines might treat it with some suspicion." In fact, in 2006 Brett Tabke said links in noscript tags didn't pass PageRank.

JohnMu actually offered it as an alternative for one webmaster, saying, "I imagine the use of a noscript element in the way you are using it might be a fairly safe compromise." But then went on to say that search engines are suspicious when it is used. Let me quote John fully:

Failing that, I imagine the use of a noscript element in the way you are using it might be a fairly safe compromise. One of the problems with noscript is - as others have mentioned - that it's been abused quite a bit by spammers, so search engines might treat it with some suspicion. So if this is really important content, then I wouldn't rely on all search engines treating your noscript elements in the same way as normal, visible, static content on your pages. If this is "just" for comments, then that might be worth considering regardless, especially if the alternatives are much more complicated.

So be careful when using this and try everything you can do avoid it.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Search Spammers Targeting Google Images At Higher Rate?

Posted: June 18th, 2010, 3:08pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I am seeing sporadic but yet recent reports from WebmasterWorld and Google Webmaster Help with complaints about Google Image Search being spammed and taken advantage of.

The complaints come in the form of spammers taking images owned by a particular webmaster and putting them on a third party web site. Then Google picks up the stolen images and ranks the stolen image about the original owners image in Google Image Search. This has always been an issue, but maybe people are taking advantage of this more often now.

One webmaster said:

As if all the wordpress, keyword domain name generated MFA sites were not bad enough, my niche image results are now being infiltrated by the same sites having copied my images, which have been there for years, and these sites are literally only a few months old max.
They've bought hundreds of keyword domain names and just stuffed single pages and incorporated AdSense, total and absolute garbage.

I suggest Google ought to get some human intervention since results like this will only lead to more advertiser dis-satisfaction.

WebmasterWorld's administrator, Tedster, confirmed saying:

Somehow Image Search, which improved quite a bit recently, seems to have slid back now. I wonder if the hired crew of 10,000 manual reviewers ever looks at Image Search. My sense has been that they are mostly for organic text results, but what you describe does sound like it would take a human inspection to get on top of.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

GoogleBot Stop Crawling Your Site On June 15th?

Posted: June 16th, 2010, 4:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are several webmasters complaining in Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld that Google has stopped crawling their site's as of yesterday morning.

Some say the crawling has not stopped completely, but rather dipped to a tiny fraction of the crawl rate they normally see.

Even senior member, Walkman, agreed and said:

I got 50 googlebot visits, down from over 1000 normally

There was some speculation that this was only impacting European web sites, but it seems to be larger.

Another senior member said:

Same here, daily average for the last 7 days was 20,000 gbot hits. Yesterday was 150 total gbot hits. Site is a US based site so I don't think this is a European only event.

Is this related to the Google Caffeine launch? I highly doubt it, being that Google Caffeine has been rolling out slowly and slowly over time, so I doubt it is specific to that.

Maybe it has to do with some sort of malware misclassification issue where Google will stop crawling sites until they are de flagged? Maybe it is something completely different. I am not sure.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

World Cup: Webmasters Complaining About Less Searches, Traffic & Ad Clicks

Posted: June 16th, 2010, 3:14pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Some webmasters are complaining that they are noticing less traffic to their web sites due to possibly people watching the world cup. Instead of people sitting on their computers and browsing, shopping, searching - they are sitting in front of their TVs watching FIFA World Cup.

I am sure there is an incredible spike in soccer, world cup related keywords. But when it comes to your online lamp store, I doubt there is a spike in searches for that.

We have two thread at Webmaster World complaining about less traffic from Google, less traffic in general and less revenue and ad clicks on their AdSense ads.

Creative webmasters would use the world cup as a way to generate more traffic. For example, maybe the lighting store would write a story or have a category of specially designed lamps for your favorite country/team. Or maybe they write a post about how it is important to use proper lighting to enhance the game watching experience. Those are just two ideas off the top of my head.

Have you noticed a drop in traffic in the past week or so?

Forum discussion at Webmaster World.

Google To Fix Soft 404 Reporting in Google Webmaster Tools

Posted: June 15th, 2010, 3:19pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last week, Google added 404-like soft 404s reporting to the Google Webmaster Tools reporting engine. As soon as Webmasters got their hands on this tool, they started to notice issues.

Many reported that Google was thinking that their real pages should be 404 (page not found) pages. This was obviously a concern to webmasters. Why would Google consider their real pages to be pages that should return a page not found response.

Googler Jonathan Simon confirmed the issue and promised the report will improve over the next two weeks or so. Jonathan Simon said:

Based on a quick check of the URLs you list it looks like these pages are being incorrectly flagged as soft 404 pages. Since this feature was just released we are still working on improving our detection of true soft 404 pages. In the near term you should see the number of legitimate pages on your site disappear from the soft 404 crawl errors report. So please check back in with Webmaster Tools over the next few weeks and if you continue to see a high number of pages on site improperly listed as soft 404s you can post the details to this thread and we'll investigate further.

Honestly, this really concerns me. Google clearly was using soft-404s behind the scenes for a long time. Providing this data to webmasters resulted in many claiming Google was soft-404ing pages that should not be 404ed. Now, with webmaster feedback, Google can address the issue. This is just concerning.

I guess providing the report to webmasters is a win-win for both webmasters and Google. I assume Google will only continue this route.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google News Hasn't Crawled News Sitemaps For 2 Weeks By Accident

Posted: June 15th, 2010, 3:09pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

All that fuss about upgrading to the new News Sitemap format and now we see Google News has not crawled or indexed any new News Sitemaps files since June 3rd.

A Google News Help thread has a single post from Googler, Inbal. Inbal is responding to a lot of questions in the Google News help forum about them indexing the News Sitemap file.

Inbal said:

We've recently noticed that at least since June 3rd we haven't added any new News sitemaps to our crawl. Please be assured that our engineering team is working to find a solution. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope to resolve this issue in the near future.

I don't know how big of an issue this is in terms of crawling but some new publishers are also complaining at WebmasterWorld. So I think this only impacts new publishers or even old publishers with new Sitemap files but everyone else should be fine.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Was There a Google May Day Tweak On June 2nd?

Posted: June 14th, 2010, 3:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Every SEO in the world should have heard of the May Day Google update by now. I mean, we covered it on May 3rd, May 14th, May 25th, May 28th and once again on May 30th. But I am sure there are some that never heard of it.

In any event, we may have an update for you.

A WebmasterWorldthread has several webmasters reporting a ranking change in Google on June 2nd. We have several webmasters all saying the same thing. They had great rankings in Google on June 2nd and then June 3rd, the rankings are gone.

Some are saying the site is gone and some are saying just downgraded. To me, it sounds more like a link or trust penalty of some sorts. Here is one quote:

Yes I noticed a drop in traffic on all my small sites with exact keyword in domains, low in bound links or non quality.
Mine have not dropped off the map just a page or 2 from #1.

All my normal larger, older sites have been doing very well.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Bad Links: Words From Google

Posted: June 14th, 2010, 3:43pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I often quote different search representatives from what I find they say in the forums. One of the most quoted search reps is JohnMu, a previous webmaster turned Googler. I often quote him, then try to figure out any insight into the Google black box on what he said. I am sure he finds it funny, but hey - it is what I do.

In a recent Google Webmaster Help thread, John replied to a webmaster over links pointing to his web site from a spammy site. He was concerned it was or would lead to a penalty of some sorts.

Here is what JohnMu said:

In general, bad links like that to your site will not affect your site's crawling, indexing or ranking in Google's search results. Looking at those particular URLs, it seems -- at least for the ones that I checked which were still live -- that your site's URL is only used as text on those pages, the actual links are pointing to other pages. It's fairly common for spammers to use random text that they found on the web, so I wouldn't worry about this.
That said, if you should find actual links pointing to pages on your own site, then I would double-check to make sure that your site is not hacked. It's sadly also common for spammers to link to hacked pages.. but if you are certain that your pages are ok (if the cached version of those pages is correct, that's usually a good sign), I would not worry about that :)

So what do we learn from this?

(1) Generally, bad links pointing to your web site won't hurt you. A topic we discussed and debated here over and over again.

(2) Many spammers may include links to your site, but not activate those links, so you have less to worry about.

(3) Spammers often link to sites that are hacked.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Will Google's Index Size Increase With Caffeine?

Posted: June 14th, 2010, 3:16pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread asks if Google's index is indeed expanding with Caffeine or not. As you all know, Google Caffeine officially launched last week after much speculation, anticipation and confusion.

Caffeine, as we have said to exhaustion by now, is not a ranking algorithm change. It is a change to how Google stores data in their index and how they find new content for their index. It is an indexing game changer for Google, but not a ranking algorithm change.

Google said they are able to index and show that new indexed content faster in the search results. Google said they can index more and more, because the infrastructure scales better. Google said they can pull out meta data from pages at a better and more accurate rate than ever before.

So will Google's index size increase? Matt Cutts of Google said that Caffeine's index size is about the same size as the previous index. So one would have to assume that over time, Caffeine will be much larger than the previous index. Larger in size in number of documents indexed, larger in size in fresh content and larger in size in meta data captured.

I believe that once Google is more comfortable with Caffeine out in the public, they will be more comfortable crawling more and more content at rate they never did before. Will that content rank? That depends on how well you pass the May Day test.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Confirms Webmaster Tools Stats Delay

Posted: June 10th, 2010, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Yesterday we reported that Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries Report Impression & Click Drops. This morning, Google confirmed the bug.

JohnMu at 6:30am wrote:

Thanks for posting! We have been analyzing the situation and found the problem. The data should be visible within a week or so.

So if you are affected by this, you should be okay within a week. Google also posted it as a known issue:

The search query data shown in Webmaster Tools for the month of June may not be complete for some sites at the moment. We are aware of this issue and are looking into it; you do not need to take any action. We hope to have the full data shown again in the near future. This will have no effect on your site's performance in search results. Thank you for your patience.

Forum discussion continued at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries Report Impression & Click Drops

Posted: June 9th, 2010, 4:04pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are several webmasters reporting that their search query report, which now shows impressions and click throughs, is showing a major drop in those impressions and click throughs as of June 2nd and 3rd. The reports come via Google Webmaster Help forums.

Yesterday, one webmaster came in and said:

WT Search Queries number of impressions and number of clicks dropped severely on 6/2 and this drop is not reflected in any other stats including Google Organic visits per Google Analytics.

Several other webmasters came in after confirming they are seeing the same thing.

Is it Google Caffeine being live related or something related to May Day or is it just a bug in Webmaster Tools?

Google has not confirmed or denied anything as of yet.

Here is a picture of a site affected by this Webmaster Tools bug named SEO Home blog:

You see that drop off? This webmaster said this has zero correlation with Google Analytics, so it must be a bug.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Update: Google has now confirmed this bug.

Google Caffeine Is Finally Live: Google Just Got A Lot Faster

Posted: June 9th, 2010, 3:53pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

As I noted in my live blog coverage last night at SMX Advanced, Matt Cutts of Google announced that the Google Caffeine infrastructure is now officially completely live.

Here is a video from Search Engine Land of the SMX announcement by Matt Cutts:

Main things to know:

This is not a ranking change, you should NOT see major ranking changes from this
This does change how Google indexes pages, the speed, scalability and how deep they can get into a site and even into a page
Search results should be fresher
Search results should go deeper over time

Vanessa Fox at Search Engine Land has some great information. Google explained:

Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks. To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you.
With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.

Caffeine lets us index web pages on an enormous scale. In fact, every second Caffeine processes hundreds of thousands of pages in parallel. If this were a pile of paper it would grow three miles taller every second. Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day. You would need 625,000 of the largest iPods to store that much information; if these were stacked end-to-end they would go for more than 40 miles.

We've built Caffeine with the future in mind. Not only is it fresher, it's a robust foundation that makes it possible for us to build an even faster and comprehensive search engine that scales with the growth of information online, and delivers even more relevant search results to you. So stay tuned, and look for more improvements in the months to come.

For more history on Google Caffeine see our Google Caffeine archives, we covered it many many times.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Google Blogoscoped, Google Webmaster Help, DigitalPoint Forums .

How SEO Experts React To Search Rank Drops

Posted: June 8th, 2010, 4:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has advice from Roger Monti, also known in the forums as martinibuster, on what he does when he is impacted by a Google algorithm change. I thought the advice was so good that I wanted to highlight it here.

He said:

Step One: Do not panic and wait for about a month to see if Google makes tweaks to the algorithm change they put into place earlier.

Step Two: When rankings do not return after a month, then look at what is ranking well in the search results and then tweak your pages to go with that strategy.

Step Three: Have an SEO friend help you by taking a fresh look at your site. Often, when you are so close to a site, you may miss big issues. So have a friend give you an opinion or two.

The WebmasterWorldthread continues on with advice from other long time SEOs on how to handle ranking changes.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

404-Like Content In Google Webmaster Tools: Soft 404s

Posted: June 7th, 2010, 8:20pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google is now showing soft-404 pages in the page not found error report in Google Webmaster Tools. Google just confirmed this on the Google Webmaster Central blog, and it was first noted in a WebmasterWorld thread early this morning.

I personally tried to verify this, but did not see them in my reports. But Google did post a screen shot:

A soft 404 is a page not found page that returns a 200 status code, instead of a 404 status code. Often, webmasters create custom 404 pages, but neglect to show a 404 header status code. This can cause issues for search engines and users.

So this report is to help webmasters discover this error and fix it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo Search Unstable?

Posted: June 3rd, 2010, 4:11pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has limited discussion on Yahoo. In the old days, when Yahoo made changes or if there were issues, there would have been a lot more activity, which makes my job hard to figure out if this is a bigger issue than it is. So I start with that, because I do not know if this impact a small number of sites or a nice amount of sites.

The thread has complaints from two different webmasters that Yahoo Search is going to the dogs. A long time senior member at WebmasterWorld said:

12 year old site authority in nitch went poof yesterday at about 4:30 pm. How I know looking at referrals from yahoo on a big term last one was that time. Site is gone still indexed but for all the main terms went poof.

And then a member since 2002 wrote:

On one site :
1. after a revamp of the site and 5 months of constant crawling all Y has to show for is 3 pages indexed, two of which are irrelevant to searchers
2. after several years of crawling the site Y stepped twice in my honeypot in the space of two weeks, go figure

It looks like Y has all but given up.

Clearly, these are two members who know their SEO and have been around for a long time.

We know Bing will ultimately take over Yahoo, so I probably shouldn't be covering this but I miss the old Yahoo.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Why You May Have To Use Google AdWords Even With Top Organic Rankings

Posted: June 2nd, 2010, 4:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A featured WebmasterWorld thread has a webmaster who is upset that although he has remained the number one ranking for a competitive term in Google for 8 years or so, he has seen his click-through rate from Google dwindle down and down as time goes on.

He said, over the years he first noticed AdWords ads push down his organic listings. Now, he is not only being pushed down by AdWords but also by the Google local listings (Google Places). You also often have Google Shopping results push down listings as well.

His CTR has dropped and that number one listing has become worth a tiny fraction of it was once worth. The webmaster said, "I'm surprised on how useless the organic result become so fast."

Tedster shares some interesting data, one from AOL's data leak in 2006 and one from Chikita's recent report:

The 2006 AOL click rate for #2 was 3.5 times less than #1
The 2010 Chitika click rate for #2 was 2.0 times less than #1

But Martinibuster tries to see what can be done to help the webmaster, he said:

So here is one way to deal with a specific situation that may or may not relate to the OP. If the phrase is directly or indirectly related to products, but it's not an explicitly buy type of phrase (example: cheap widgets), then I can almost guarantee you that those advertisers are bottom feeding that phrase and it may be possible to push them out.

Has your number one listing become less valuable over the years? What are you doing about it? Buying adds, doing local, adding shopping feeds or blog entries?

Google Webmaster Tools "Not Found" Errors Won't Hurt Your Rankings

Posted: June 2nd, 2010, 3:55pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has confirmation from Googler, Jonathan Simon, that the page not found errors found in Google Webmaster Tools won't necessarily hurt your Google rankings.

Jonathan basically explained that if someone is linking to a page that is not found, there is not much you can do to prevent that from happening. Jonathan said:

Since you can't control who links to your site these Not Found errors won't negatively impact your site's ability to rank in the search results. It sounds like you've got a reasonable workaround with the .htaccess redirect you mentioned. I'd just keep an eye on the Not Found errors in Webmaster Tools and add redirects when it's necessary.

But it is important to track not found errors in both Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to make sure to redirect the page when applicable, so that traffic is not lost. And it is almost always a good idea to make sure you have a useful and pretty custom 404 page for those reasons.

But ultimately, Jonathan said Google won't penalize you for 404s.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Increased The Title Tag Limit To 70 Characters?

Posted: June 1st, 2010, 3:08pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread says that Google has increased the title tag limit from 66 characters to 70 characters. By that I mean, some are reporting Google is showing the blue clickable link with a maximum character limit of up to 70 characters, which is up from 66.

Some are even saying that the title tag is wrapping to the second line. Personally, I do not see that but I am seeing some titles that are up to 69 characters and I am sure if I dig around enough I can find some that are 70 characters long.

Tedster, the WebmasterWorld administrator, validated this observation by saying:

I think you're right - I am seeing 70 characters on some titles, although in my browser, it's still just one line. Can't say for sure when that change happened, though.

Some are saying this dates back to March but I am not sure if anyone noticed back then.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

No Title Tag? Google May Use Text From Next "Large Font"

Posted: May 31st, 2010, 3:35pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Most webmasters and SEOs know by now that Google tends to typically use the title tag of the page as the blue, clickable link in the search results. But that may change based on query or other things. But what if you are missing a title tag in your page source, what would Google use?

I spotted a thread in the Google Custom Search Help forum discussing this. I should note, Google Custom Search is not the same as Google web search, but they do pass over similar algorithms and techniques, as one would imagine.

Googler, Prathap Reddy said in that thread:

Google uses the title of the document from file properties as title of the search results. If no title is found, the first found large font is used as title for the document, with some exceptions.

Now, again, I am sure this can be easily verified with some SEO testing but as far as Google Custom Search goes, if the title tag is not there, Google may use the first large font found on the page as the title (clickable link) from the search results.

Forum discussion at Google Custom Search Help.

Update Robots.txt 24 Hours Prior To Adding New Content

Posted: May 31st, 2010, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

On Friday, Google's JohnMu tweeted an important tip. Let's say you block a directory from being crawled in your robots.txt file. Let's say you want to add content in that directory to be crawled by Google. John explained that since Google caches your robots.txt, you want to update the robots.txt file at least 24 hours prior to update content within that directory.

Here is JohnMu's tweet:

.bbpBox14893860956 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/635162/backgr2.jpg) #e0e9f2;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

Robots-tip: crawlers cache your robots.txt; update it at least a day before adding content that is disallowed. Q&A in Buzz.less than a minute ago via web John Mueller
JohnMu

Tedster in WebmasterWorldposted this tip and added:

I never thought about this before, but we certainly know that googlebot works off a cache of the robots.txt most of the time. Otherwise it would need to ping robots.txt right before each URL request, and that would get nasty pretty fast.
So apparently, 24 hours is what John is saying is the length of the cache time. Good to know. When Disallowed content gets place online, this is one precaution I never thought about.

The discussion goes off on to if you should use the robots.txt protocol to block content or not. But I won't get into that debate in this post.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google News Shows Publishers How To Optimize YouTube Videos

Posted: May 25th, 2010, 4:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Inbal from the Google News team posted a Google News Help thread linking to a blog post explaining how to optimize your YouTube videos to show up well in Google News.

Here are the tips from the blog:

1. Timely uploads
Videos should be uploaded as quickly as possible -- this will help them reach the news homepage faster and be grouped with the most recent articles.

2. One story per video
Instead of having one video that contains multiple segments covering several different stories of the day, it's a better user experience (and easier for us to index), when there is one story per video, and the video title is specific (not something generic like “Breaking News”). At the very least, the description of the video should match the first story in the video.

3. Categorization
If you are providing general news coverage, select YouTube category “News & Politics” (which is youtube_category_id 25) when uploading your video. If you have multiple channels, clearly identify each category (politics, business, entertainment, sports, etc.).

4. More detailed descriptions
Similar to the first paragraph of a news article, descriptions of the news video should convey the who, what, when, where, and why of the story in a few sentences -- the more detail you can supply, the better.

5. Rich tags
Another way to convey the content of the video is using the keyword tags. Providing keywords that might not be in the description gives us more knowledge of what the video is about. Especially helpful are proper nouns: the names of the people, places, companies, etc. mentioned in the video.

6. Make it Embeddable
Be sure your video is embeddable on other sites since this is currently a technical requirement for being displayed in Google News. Additionally, if your videos are geo-blocked in certain regions, they will not appear in Google News.

They also posted this older video with additional tips:

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

PDF ReCrawling Takes Longer Than Web ReCrawling

Posted: May 24th, 2010, 3:58pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has a nice little crawling tidbit for advanced SEOs. Did you know that it typically takes a long time for a PDF document to be recrawled and indexed by Google? Exactly how long, I am not sure, I wonder if someone has done some tests on that.

But JohnMu from Google made a comment about this topic, saying:

Reprocessing a PDF can generally take a bit of time, so if it is urgent that you have this information removed from all places, it would be necessary to do a normal URL removal. One way to do this would be to do as Squibble suggests, simply renaming the PDF file so that you can request that the old URL be removed. Apart from that, there is no way to speed up these processes for a single URL.

So when you have PDF documents on the web, keep in mind, do it right or it can take a while for those PDFs to be recrawled.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Site Performance in Webmaster Tools Updating Often Now

Posted: May 24th, 2010, 3:38pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There were some Google Webmaster Help thread with reports that the site performance reports in Google Webmaster Tools was not updating that often. Normally, it should update every other day or so but recently it has not been doing so.

A Google Webmaster Help thread has confirmed reports of the issue and that it should now be resolved. sreeram from Google said:

Yup, there was another temporary glitch. Things are back to normal now.

I checked several site performance reports and they all seem to be within two days or so old.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Links Return To Yahoo Site Explorer

Posted: May 24th, 2010, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

On Friday we reported that Yahoo Site Explorer links went missing and literally about a 100,000 of the links were lost to this site. Well, I guess it was a bug, because our links are back and so are everyone else's.

Here is a screen shot from today:

Here it was from Friday:

As you can see, I acquired 100,000 or so links over the weekend - not bad.

Clearly there was some sort of bug and now it is fixed. Yahoo has not confirmed the issue.

Forum discussion continued at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yahoo Site Explorer Link Count Drops Significantly

Posted: May 21st, 2010, 3:14pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Several webmasters and SEOs are reporting that the link reports in Yahoo Site Explorer is reporting drastically less links than ever before. I assume this is not being discussed as much as it would have been a year or two ago, simply cause Yahoo is out of search but some webmasters and SEOs are concerned over the major link drop.

I personally checked my January 2009 screen shot and compared it to today and I noticed a drop of over 100,000 links! Here is a before and after screen shot.

Today:

In January 2009:

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a post about this drop, as well as some tweets.

.bbpBox14263109799 {background:url(http://s.twimg.com/a/1274144130/images/themes/theme1/bg.png) #9ae4e8;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

@rustybrick Do u have any theories on why people are seeing lots of link loss in Yahoo SiteExplorer? I saw you covered this topic...less than a minute ago via HootSuite Susan Urban
UrbanSeattle

.bbpBox14300877012 {background:url(http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/76396131/matrix-1280x1024.jpg) #1A1B1F;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

Noticing a significant drop in link counts in Yahoo's Site Explorer for the "link:" - "except from this domain" option. Anyone?less than a minute ago via Echofon G-Rod
grod69

.bbpBox14231514509 {background:url(http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/37858893/BanksyBalloonGirl.jpg) #c2c2c2;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

Seeing a big drop in number of backlinks reported by Yahoo Site Explorer. Anyone else?less than a minute ago via Echofon Dan Sharp
screamingfrog

Did you notice a major drop?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update May 23, 2010: Seems like most of the links lost are now back.

43% Of SEOs Say Traffic Down Since Google Redesign

Posted: May 20th, 2010, 3:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Earlier this month, Google launched their new design to all and even though many hate it Google is sticking with it and pleading for searchers to stick with it also. But from an SEO's or Webmaster's perspective, is the new design bad?

Some are reporting that the new design is sending fewer referrals and less traffic to their web site. Now, that can be a huge deal for a site that gets a lot of traffic from organic Google search results. Back then, the report came from WebmasterWorld, yes a thread but also the site said they are suffering with the new design. So I decided to see if it is widespread or specific to WebmasterWorld.

I ran a poll asking you if your Google referrals have changed since the redesign. With over 200 responses, I decided to post the results. In short, over 43% of you said your referrals from Google have declined since the redesign, whereas another 40% said traffic has not changed at all since the redesign. Only 12% said their traffic is up since the redesign, I was honestly hoping to see more saying traffic was up.

Here is the pie chart:

I do find it interesting that so many people said their traffic is down since the redesign, but at the same time so many others said it was not down. What concerns me, like I said above, is that not as many people said their traffic was up. Is this related to the Google MayDay update, it shouldn't be, because this is dependent on rankings being the same, but traffic not.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

This was scheduled to be posted today. I am offline today and scheduled several polls for the days I am offline. I am back Friday, May 21st.

SEOs Are Set In Their Ways About CMSs

Posted: May 20th, 2010, 1:58pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Content management systems are pretty much the norm for most web based content sites these days. It is rare to find a content site on the web that is updated weekly or more to not have a content management system (CMS). Which is why I asked the question Do SEOs Prefer Page Creation Via CMS Or By Hand?

With almost 200 responses I wanted to share the results with you.

Question: Do SEOs Prefer Page Creation Via CMS Or By Hand?

36.81% said they prefer using a CMS for page creation
34.07% said they prefer using a mix of both CMS & some pages by hand
26.92% said they just like to create pages by hand
and the rest were other answers

Forum discussion continued at HighRankings Forum.

This was scheduled to be posted today. I am offline today and scheduled several polls for the days I am offline. I am back Friday, May 21st.

Google's Testing A Self-Improving Ranking Algorithm? (MayDay)

Posted: May 14th, 2010, 3:23pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Early May we reported on a possible Google Update coined the Google MayDay update. Now, I know Google wanted examples of sites claiming they were hit, so here you go, SEOmoz said they were impacted by MayDay.

What is MayDay, well - a lot of sites are claiming they lost rankings in Google for their long tail keywords, which resulted in a drop of traffic of about 10 - 20% or more. Now, with the launch of new Google design some are blaming that for a Google referrer drop but some noticed it before the redesign.

A new WebmasterWorldthread started on the topic, the second one on this topic. We have some smart SEOs and webmasters formulating ideas and theories, some of you who may disagree with them, but I will document them here anyway.

Tedster believes that what we are witnessing over at Google now may be a "automated, and self-improving algorithm" deployed by Google. Possibly part of how Google indexes content with "un-launched" Google Caffeine update. He explains:

There is a lot going on with Google and we may need to approach the Google SERPs from an entirely different model than the "data set" concept that we've been using in recent times. I'm currently thinking of something more along the lines of waveforms and continuous statistical testing... with near-real-time adjustments and experimentation in a kind of feedback loop. Something like automated algorithm evolution.

Rand from SEOmoz also formulated some theories, which he posted in his video.

I really think Google needs to do a blog post about what is going on or not going on soon. Between Caffeine, the new design and this - there is just so much confusion out there. Today's Google should not be like this, their communication has been outstanding but when it comes to this topic - it is like they are hiding something.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Removing URLs in XML Sitemap Won't Hurt Your Google Rankings

Posted: May 14th, 2010, 3:14pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Cre8asite Forums thread, one of the last non-Google forums to still have a webmaster related Googler stop by, has discussion around removing URLs from your XML Sitemap file. There is a myth that if you are missing URLs or remove URLs from your XML Sitemap file, that Google would remove and not list those URLs in their index. That is not true and there is nothing more false about that.

An XML Sitemap file is just an extra tool for Google to discover your content, but it is not necessary for Google to index your content.

Googler, JohnMu, said:

We use Sitemap files for discovering new URLs and recognizing when existing ones have changed; we don't remove URLs from the index that aren't in a Sitemap file.

But if you do remove a URL from the Sitemap file, Google may take that as a sign to check the URL and see if it is still there. If the URL is still there, then no worries. John added:

In the worst case we'll just recrawl it to see if it has changed.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Google Using Whois Data For Keyword Matching?

Posted: May 12th, 2010, 3:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The question of how Google may use whois data in ranking or spam detection has been discussed over the years time and time again. There are many ways Google could use the data, from checking who owns which web sites, checking site age, checking transfer of ownership of domains, and possibly for some sort of keyword relevancy factor.

The keyword relevancy factor is now being discussed at a WebmasterWorld. One person said that when he Google'd his name, a site that he owned but had no mention of his name on and no links pointing to the site with his name as the anchor text, came up. Thus, he suspected Google used whois data, the registration data, to match the site with his name and show it as a keyword match in the search results.

He said:

I just Googled my own name and found an interesting result in position #3 organics was my 10 year old website. The interesting thing is that there is no reference to me at all anywhere on the site. The result was the index page and of course there was no highlighted text that matched my name search. It's a pretty strong indication of whois influencing search results I think. I wonder if they can and do use whois to track those who would flirt with the dark side...

Do you think Google would use whois data for keyword relevancy matching? Does it make sense to do it this way?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google's Link Reports Recently More Robust?

Posted: May 10th, 2010, 4:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that some SEOs and webmasters are saying that the Google Webmaster Tools report for links to your site has improved drastically over the past week or so.

The first mention of this was at the WebmasterWorld thread on Friday night. The webmaster said:

I don't know how recent the change is but I'm seeing much better reporting depth for incoming links from Google WMT tools today. Yahoo site explorer still reports many more but only allows you to export the first 1000.

Personally, I don't really keep track of these reports that closely, but WebmasterWorld administrator said:

In the past few weeks, I've been delighted with the reports of backlinks to internal pages - some very helpful information has been surfaced here.

Have you noticed more depth in those link reports?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Accounts Access Unverified Over Weekend

Posted: May 10th, 2010, 3:55pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are a bunch of reports in the Google Webmaster Help forum where people are saying they are receiving emails that their Google accounts are "no longer verified by Google" to access their Webmaster Tools login.

The message reads:

[email address here] is no longer verified by Google. Please verify the address or select a different email address.

JohnMu from Google promised to look into the issue, he said:

Thanks for posting! I've passed this issue on to the team to look at. I'll post as soon as I have more to share!

This does seem fairly wide spread, although I personally did not have an issue.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Adds Average Position & Stars To Search Query Report

Posted: May 7th, 2010, 3:53pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Less than a month ago, Google wowed webmasters by adding more queries, neat charts, impressions, clicks and click through rate data to the search query report. Last night they added the "average position" data to the report, renamed the report from "Top Search Queries" to "Search Queries" and let webmasters star queries. Staring queries sorts those starred queries at the top of the report.

The Google blog post said:

This provides a quick at-a-glance way to see where your site is showing in the search results for specific queries. The other change you'll notice is that we're showing a "Displaying" number for Impressions and Clicks. This number represents a total count of the data displayed in the Search Queries table. The number in bold appearing just above it is a total count of all queries including the "long tail" of queries which are not displayed in the Search Queries table. When the "Displaying" number is not visible, such as when you select a specific country from the "All countries" drop-down menu, then the bold number is the total count of the data displayed in the Search Queries table.

Have an issue with this report, join the Google Webmaster Help thread where there are two Googlers responding to questions.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

When Does Google Prefers 302 Redirects?

Posted: May 7th, 2010, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has a discussion around using redirects. Typically, you should always use a 301, permanent, redirect when you are redirecting a page to another page. But Googler, JohnMu, said there is one occasion where it is preferred to use a temporary, 302 redirect.

When is it preferred to use a 302 redirect? John said:

A 302 redirect is the correct redirect from a root URL to a detail page (such as from "/" to "/sites/bursa/"). This is one of the few situations where a 302 redirect is preferred over a 301 redirect.

But he does add that when possible, try to avoid the redirect all together and show the detailed content on the main root URL. John added, "if you were hosting this yourself, you might want to look into saving an additional jump by just serving the content directly (it's not necessary, but if you can do it, it's always nice to save the user a redirect)."

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Are More 'White Hat' SEO Techniques Being Classified As 'Black Hat'?

Posted: May 6th, 2010, 3:22pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread reminded me of a piece I wrote that attracted a lot of feedback from the industry. It was named Are SEO Blackhats Turning White or Is The Industry Melting? if you have not read it yet, go ahead, read it. Back then, I discussed how tactics that may have been considered black hat by some extreme white hats were no longer seen as so black. As tactics and Google became more transparent, people gained more knowledge and understanding and thus were better able to classify things into buckets. But is this trend changing?

The WebmasterWorld thread has a rant from an SEO who is upset that there are now an influx of webmasters who think they know it all, but know very little. The user summed it up nicely at the end, where he said:

Frowning on black-hat tactics is understandable, but increasingly things that were considered white-hat before are being treated as undesirable. The "hippie" days of the internet characterized by generosity and opportunity are long gone. Now it's all about the money, and this attitude has seeped into every corner of the web in a VERY preemptive manifestation.

It's true, you have webmasters who are confused about what is good linking and what is bad linking. But as more and more webmasters begin to learn a little bit about SEO and link building, more and more form opinions and rules that may be wrong. The open nature of linking has changed from just a few years ago. Those after links, often look for the wrong qualities, and those giving links are often not giving them due to the wrong reasons. Who is to blame? Google? Me? You? I am not sure. But there has always been confusion in this area and it does seem to get worse over time.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Old Google News Sitemaps Format Discontinued

Posted: May 5th, 2010, 3:47pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

This has been coming for a while now and as of yesterday, the old format for Google News Sitemaps files has changed. An updated Google News Help thread from Googler Inbal said the last day for the old format was yesterday, May 4th. Today, the old format will no longer work, so I do hope you publishers updated your sitemaps to be news specific.

If you have not done so already, it is not too late. You can create your news specific sitemap and submit it to Google Webmaster Tools. For more details on the format, see the News Sitemaps help section and for also check out the FAQs.

This was a six-months transition period and if this is the first you are hearing of it, I am sorry. We blogged it here a couple times and I know the Google News blog also mentioned it at least once.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Don't Ask Googlers For Help & Lie To Them

Posted: May 5th, 2010, 3:27pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is a nice number of Googlers paid to help webmasters in the Google Webmaster Help Forums. In one Google Webmaster Help thread, a webmaster noticed his site dropped in the search results and came to the help area to ask a Googler for help. The issue is, he lied - and it was a bad lie.

He ended his post saying, "I know nothing about these SEO thing." But then Googler, JohnMu, looked at his web site and on the site it said that his company is a "professional SEO company." John said it well, so let me quote him:

I'm a bit worried. On the one hand, you mention that you "know nothing about these SEO thing" - on the other hand your site mentions on http://www.hindustanexperts.com/SEO.aspx that you're a "professional SEO company."

That being the case, John has looked past the little lie and asked him to elaborate on his issue so he can help him out. Isn't it nice that even after being lied to, John wants to help him out?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google MAYDAY Update Hitting Long Tail Ranking?

Posted: May 3rd, 2010, 3:10pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Our ongoing WebmasterWorld thread hit a new month and although I normally cover this type of thread as an overview of the past month, today, the thread took on a new development. So maybe later this week I will do the Google May report, but today, I am discussing what SEOs and Webmasters codenamed "MAYDAY."

The WebmasterWorld summarized what many webmasters have noticed over the past few days with Google. That being, and I quote, "webmasters from very clean, very large websites report dramatic drops in long tail search traffic. MAYDAY seems to be the appropriate shout-out for those affected."

Yes, most of these complaints come over webmasters seeing a huge drop in traffic from Google over "long tail keywords." Keyword phrases that are 3 or more keywords long. One person said he had a "traffic dropped 50% in a few days, 100,000's of long tail k/w." Another person "recovered until this Mid April, when it started seeing some recovery, then bang now 90% of its traffic, mostly long tail disappeared." Then we get the "me toos," "that's exactly what has happened to my site. 50% loss of traffic and constant hammering by googlebot."

Tedster, WebmasterWorld administrator pulls out a patent to explain what might be going on. He said:

I'm wondering if Google has made a change in their phrase-based indexing approach - something that the new Caffeine infrastructure makes feasible. Recently there has been more patent activity in that area.
"Indexing of phrases is typically avoided because of the perceived computational and memory requirements to identify all possible phrases of say three, four, or five or more words.

For example, on the assumption that any five words could constitute a phrase, and that a large corpus would have at least 200,000 unique terms, there would be approximately 3.2.times.10.sup.26 possible phrases, clearly more than any existing system could store or otherwise programmatically manipulate."

In other words, until recently queries for long phrases may have had something like "best guess" results using some secondary signals -- but now Google has the infrastructure to index longer phrases much more directly.

It's a brainstorm idea at present, and not a solid "statement of fact". But hey, we have to start somewhere.

In short, Tedster said, "Something very real has shifted at Google, but apparently it takes a certain type of webmaster/website to notice it - significant long tail traffic closely monitored in detail."

Some are arguing about if this is "long tail" or "fat belly" keywords. Fat Belly is more like 2 or 3 keywords in a query, long tail is normally a bit longer. That being said, a shift like this of course has people wondering about Google Caffeine and the status of that index.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo Search Update: April 2010, Really?

Posted: April 30th, 2010, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Yesterday, Yahoo announced that they are doing a search index and algorithm update. They said, like they do almost every month:

The Yahoo! Search engineering teams are rolling out updates to crawling, indexing, and ranking algorithms. Similar to previous updates, you may notice some ranking changes and page shuffling during the process, which we expect to complete over the next few days.

But like last month, no one really noticed anything when the announcement went live. Back in the old days, we normally saw forum discussion before the announcement - with SEOs and webmasters noticing changes before Yahoo was ready to admit it. But the past few times, no one was talking about changes even a day or so after Yahoo announced it.

Why aren't people talking about it like they use to?

(1) Webmasters don't care about Yahoo anymore?
(2) Traffic from Yahoo may be insignificant to most webmasters for them to notice
(3) Yahoo is more proactive about letting us know before any changes are made
(4) Yahoo is not really doing a serious update

I don't see any discussions on this currently at WebmasterWorld (this may change soon, since I posted a thread). I do see one webmaster at DigitalPoint Forums complaining about his link count in Yahoo, but people suspect this is unrelated to the update and more related to his site being considered web spam.

So what is up Yahoo? Really? Why invest in search backend when Microsoft will soon take that over?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Not Only Are 410 Response Codes More Permanent, They Are Faster

Posted: April 30th, 2010, 3:23pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Googler, JohnMu, said in a Google Webmaster Help thread that 410 status codes "generally" work faster in getting your content out of Google than a 404 status code.

Now, we knew using 410's are more permanent but we did not know it would result in removing content from Google faster until now.

Google's JohnMu said:

A 410 will generally result in us removing a URL faster from the index.

He does add that although 410s are almost permanent, they are not 100% permanent. John added, "we will generally retry 404s a bit more frequently than 410s, but we will still retry them especially when we find new links to those URLs."

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Are Mobile Sites A Duplicate Content Issue?

Posted: April 29th, 2010, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Bryson Meunier wrote a piece at Search Engine Land named Don't Penalize Yourself: Mobile Sites Are Not Duplicate Content. The article basically explains that if you have a mobile web address, i.e. different URLs for your mobile content, with the same content you have on your main URLs, it is NOT duplicate content. He said, Google is smart enough to figure out your mobile content is not duplicate to your main content - because they are smart enough to know when to show you the mobile content versus the normal content.

He said:

Knowing that search engines index and return mobile content for relevant queries, and that they have blended mobile ranking algorithms to rank mobile content for mobile queries and desktop content for desktop queries, it’s clear to me that they don’t treat mobile sites like traditional desktop duplicate content. Knowing this, it’s a wonder that many mobile SEO experts, including some whose opinions I generally respect, would continue to recommend blocking your mobile site from Googlebot and other web crawlers.

A Sphinn thread has a comment about this from Sebastian who said:

So many webmasters and SEOs are totally ignorant WRT more or less identical content presented on different platforms vs. duplicate content flooding a single channel. Hopefully this piece pushed to the front page will enlighten many of them.

Honestly, what I still don't get is why are webmasters still creating different URLs for mobile content? Why aren't they detecting useragents and showing a different stylesheet for those mobile handsets? I really don't understand why bother with special URLs? I mean, yea, Google is smart enough to know a mobile URL from a non-mobile URL based on the content. But when someone links to your mobile URL, that link doesn't help you as much as it linking to your main URL. I rant about this more over here and give pretty good examples of how this works.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Google UK Drop UK Country Filter?

Posted: April 29th, 2010, 3:18pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In an ongoing and constantly updated WebmasterWorld thread, it appears some people are reporting major shifts in Google UK. People are saying that the search results dramatically changed. But some suspect that the UK specific filter that makes Google UK, umm, UK specific, was turned off.

Here are some of the reports in the thread:

I have noticed that all of a sudden my rankings are back to when caffine done it's first roll out. It was temporary but this time I have noticed that big sites have dropped as well but in other industries. The .co.uk rankings are very similar to .com. Anyone else see this?

not sure what they have done today in the UK but my traffic on one site has gone crazy, i hope they dont turn it back.

Senior member, InternetHeaven said that Google does occasional flip the UK filter switch off. He said in response to the UK results looking like US results:

This happens from time to time. It's like the UK filter is turned off for a bit. Worst still is the AU infiltration! Every so often the UK Google results are crammed with AU results - now that's always a dark day for us...

About a year ago, there was a major Google UK shakeup, which resulted in an explanation from Matt Cutts on the state of Google UK. Just two days ago, Matt Cutts did a new video on the UK Google results. Here it is:

So is something up?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Is Google Crippling The Site: Command?

Posted: April 26th, 2010, 4:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Tedster posted a thread at WebmasterWorld asking if Google is intentionally crippling the site: command. The site command basically let's you filter the Google search results to a single site, and is often used by SEOs and Webmasters to see how many pages Google has in their index.

In fact, we know Google has time and time again told us to ignore the site command. We also know that most SEOs now use Google Webmaster Tools to check the number of pages Google has indexed of their site, but still many use the site command.

Tedster said:

But these newly uninformative site: results have now been with us for many months and in the last few weeks the distortion seems to be intensifying. It is heartening that Webmaster Tools reports higher numbers in many cases - but does this mean Google won't be showing accurate numbers to anyone but those verified as responsible for the website?

Do you think this is Caffeine? Do you think Google just doesn't want to put resources towards this command? Do you think Google wants the site command do die?

Honestly, I am not sure - I just can't see Google killing the site command, it is too useful for site specific filter searching.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Says Trailing Slash & Non-Trailing Slash Are Different Pages

Posted: April 26th, 2010, 3:04pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Google posted a blog entry on how Google handles URLs with and without trailing slashes. For example, how does Google handle rustybrick.com/blog versus rustybrick.com/blog/?

Technically, Google would consider them unique pages if they didn't have the same content on them. Google said:

Google treats each URL above separately (and equally) regardless of whether it's a file or a directory, or it contains a trailing slash or it doesn't contain a trailing slash.

But Google isn't dumb and they know "trailing slash and non-trailing slash URLs often serve the same content." So they suggest you pick one and stick with it. Redirect the one you choose not to be your main URL to the other, so if you pick you want a trailing slash, then redirect the non trailing slash. Similar to what I do at rustybrick.com/blog versus rustybrick.com/blog/.

This is nothing new, we discussed this in 2004.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Caffeine Unofficially Live on 80% of Google Data Centers?

Posted: April 23rd, 2010, 3:38pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We have covered the Google Caffeine index update at exhaustion here. So I won't summarize all the times people thought it was live and all the times we saw issues with what appeared to be Caffeine. If you like, scan through our archives.

An updated WebmasterWorld thread has many convince webmasters and SEOs saying Caffeine is live in the majority of Google's data centers. Senior member, whitenight said:

For the UNOFFICIAL record, I'm calling Caffeine UNOFFICIALLY launched.
Why?

** It's on 80% of all DCs.
The remaining 20% have been getting Caff datasets flickering for the past 24-48 hours.
The "old" SERPs and Algo are now the minority.

** At the time, I couldn't be bothered to post and then argue with the masses,
but the INFRASTRUCTURE (NOT datasets) has been fully live and operational for ALL DCs for about a week and half now.

since testing the INFRASTRUCTURE is far more complicated than observing datasets, you'll forgive me if i don't give any practical examples... other than pointing out i've given past examples of how ANYONE can do this on their own in the earliest Caff threads.

Got all that? But another senior member, walkman, said that although it may be on 80% of the data centers, maybe the 20% of those data centers that it is not on get's more traffic? I don't think it works that way... But he said:

I agree that it's on almost all but strangely I have checked on google.com, www2 and www3 with several googledance tools and in my own area and I don't see it there. Maybe those 20% of DCs without the caffeine are getting more traffic?

It has been a really long time since Google or Matt did a post on Matt's blog or Google's blog about the status. Maybe it is a good time to just check in and say, here is where we are and where we see we are going in the next 3 to 6 months? Or maybe SEOs and webmasters should stop obsessing over it?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Indexing Content Via Referral Logs?

Posted: April 21st, 2010, 3:14pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Brett Tabke, founder of WebmasterWorld, asked in a WebmasterWorld thread if Google is once again crawling and indexing new content discovered from referral logs? Let me quote his full question:

Google started indexing SERPS from our new site search engine. The question comes up, HOW are they getting those search links? These are full keyword searches as performed by users.
When someone searches Google/bing/yahoo/alltheweb and then comes to WebmasterWorld - we highlight the page with those kw's and we also print "try this search on webmasterworld" with a full keyword link to perform a search on our site search engine. So a raw http link is there on the screen, only when someone kicks out a referral from a search engine. How does that link get into GoogleBot?

The only way I can think of is if google is reading pages via the tool bar or via that google accelerator proxy? Or is this just a reconfirm that Google is crawling out of it's referral logs?

You can see that Google has indexed thousands of search results from the new WebmasterWorld search. Now, Brett just changed the url from newsearch.cgi to search.cgi.

What is interesting is that just yesterday I noticed that thousands of rustysearch results are now in Google. I believe this is new and I will try to get them out but it is an interesting coincidence. More details on RustySearch over here.

In any event, I am not exactly sure what is going on. That is why we have forums to discuss it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Crawls Sitemap File Based On Update Frequency

Posted: April 21st, 2010, 3:06pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread asks how often does Google crawl your XML sitemap file. Google's JohnMu replied saying it depends on how often the file is updated.

John said:

Google's Sitemaps crawler usually reacts to the update frequency of your Sitemap files. If we find new content there every time we crawl, we may choose to crawl more frequently. If you can limit updates of the Sitemap files to daily (or whatever suits your sites best), that may help. Similarly, if you create a shared Sitemap file for these subdomains, that could help by limiting the number of requests we have to make for each subdomain -- you could let us know about the Sitemap file by mentioning it in your robots.txt file using a "Sitemap:" directive (the Sitemap file does not have to be on the same host or domain as the site itself). If we're generally crawling your sites too frequently, you can also set the crawl rate in Webmaster Tools for those sites.

In short, John said "Google's Sitemaps crawler usually reacts to the update frequency of your Sitemap files."

This is pretty much how Google decides to crawl your pages. If you update your pages frequently and you have a normal PageRank, Google will likely crawl your web site more often.

I should add that more web site crawling down not necessarily mean higher ranking in Google. It may be fresher content from your site being included in Google, but doesn't mean you will rank higher.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Do SEOs Prefer Page Creation Via CMS Or By Hand?

Posted: April 19th, 2010, 2:51pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A HighRankings Forum thread has one member asking if SEOs prefer to code new pages by hand or to use an CMS (content management system). The difference is often very minor, but there is no doubt that you have more control over a specific page when you code it by hand. On the other hand, it is often harder to create some order and structure to a site coded all by hand.

Personally, I have always been about building a strong foundation through technology and then letting the foundation help you with your SEO. That means, building a very search engine friendly CMS and using that CMS to ensure you create new pages that are SEO friendly. That means a CMS that does not generate duplicate URLs, duplicate content, has search engine friendly URLs, the navigation is user and search spider friendly and so on. A good CMS, in my opinion, can offer huge advantages.

On the other hand, there is something to be said about having ultimate control of every line of the source code of each individual page. Of course, a CMS can give you enough control of every page, but not over 100% of the page in most cases.

Which do you prefer?

SEOs: Do You Prefer Page Creating By Hand or Via CMS?online surveys

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Google Wows Webmasters With New Search Reports with CTR

Posted: April 15th, 2010, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has wowed webmasters with a new feature just added to Google Webmaster Tools, the Top Search Queries report. Not only did Google add more queries and neat charts, they also added impressions, clicks and click through rate data - yes on the organic search results. Not only does this really trump keyword ranking reports, but it also unveils how important being in the top three positions on Google.com.

First let me show you an abstract of the reports for this web site.

A closer look at a specific keyword's page position, impressions, click through, and click through rate. Plus it shows this detail based on the landing page of the search result:

Here is a report where I filtered the report by a keyword phrase:

It is pretty revealing looking at the CTR between the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and then lower positions.

Like I said, webmasters are really wowed by this report. Here are some comments from threads at WebmasterWorld, Google Webmaster Help and DigitalPoint Forums:

The most interesting webmaster information published to date.

Seriously, A++ move on Google's part.

Holy god that is amazing...

Forum discussion WebmasterWorld, Google Webmaster Help and DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Does Remove Malware Results Fast

Posted: April 13th, 2010, 3:05pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I received a tip yesterday via a DigitalPoint Forums thread that Google was showing a lot of malware for certain keywords, including a search for [racketeering]. When you searched for these results, Google was showing search results that contained spyware and malware.

This was posted at DigitalPoint Forums at about 3pm yesterday. I confirmed seeing the spyware/malware results in Google around 4pm yesterday. I knew Google was quick at malware detection and removal, so I thought it would be a good test to see how long it will last. I did not notify Google, I did not flag the thread - all I did was wait. Now, this morning, less than 24 hours since the results were first spotting in Google, they are now gone.

So yes, Google malware detection is faster and better. Although the report offensive images is not something that Google has somewhat automated yet.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

SEOs Blaming Site Speed For Rankings Already

Posted: April 12th, 2010, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Friday afternoon Google announced that page and site speed is now a ranking factor. Yes, we knew this was coming for months now and Google gave us tools to prepare for this, but how much of an impact does it play in the overall ranking algorithm at Google? Very little!

Google said:

While site speed is a new signal, it doesn't carry as much weight as the relevance of a page. Currently, fewer than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed signal in our implementation and the signal for site speed only applies for visitors searching in English on Google.com at this point. We launched this change a few weeks back after rigorous testing. If you haven't seen much change to your site rankings, then this site speed change possibly did not impact your site.

Yes, less than 1% of the search queries are impacted. That is pretty minor. You can always read what Matt Cutts said or what Search Engine Land said. But this is often missed and people misconstrue things.

A Google Webmaster Help thread already has one webmaster who blames his hosting company for a downgrade in rankings. He said that because his website was down for 40 hours, it impacted his site speed ranking. Um, if your site is down for 40 plus hours, Google may remove you for a bit for other reasons.

I am sure more and more webmasters and SEOs will bring up site speed issues as a ranking issue in Google. Yes, having a fast site is important but you need a really really slow site to impact your Google rankings.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and Google Webmaster Help.

Google Malware Detection Gets Faster & Better

Posted: April 9th, 2010, 3:32pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Earlier this week, we reported that Google graduated malware details in Webmaster Tools by taking it out of the labs. Well, the malware details section is not just graduating, it also got faster and better.

Google announced last night that they now update the malware data "four times faster than before" plus they updated the "algorithms for identifying injected content." That means they are able to identify exploits which they were unable to catch earlier.

Since hacking has become a major issue for many sites, this is a welcomed enhancement to Google Webmaster Tools.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Does Read Spam Reports, They Do

Posted: April 9th, 2010, 3:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are many people who submit spam reports to Google, for one reason or another. Some SEOs would never submit a spam report to Google on principle. Some SEOs don't believe submitting spam reports work or even get looked at by Google.

Well, Google does look at spam reports. Matt Cutts made a short video saying that they do. Here is the video:

Don't believe him? Fine, but maybe you will believe a former Googler, Bergy, who tweeted:

@marrrr @mattcutts I kinda miss seeing spam reports. I REALLY miss reconsideration requests.

Why would he Tweet that if he really didn't look at spam reports.

So there you have it. Googlers do look at spam reports but do they act on all of them? Not all of them.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Sitemaps Now Accepting Images

Posted: April 8th, 2010, 3:28pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Sitemaps has truly been a basic SEO step for many large or even medium sized web sites. Google Image search has been a strong driver of traffic to many sites, but sometimes it is hard for webmasters to get their images indexed. Google announced support for images in Sitemaps.

Here is an example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
   xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1">
  <url>
    <loc>http://example.com/sample.html</loc>
    <image:image>
        <image:loc>http://example.com/image.jpg</image:loc>
    </image:image>
  </url>
</urlset>

With this you can specify image, location, caption, geolocation, title and license. For more details, see this document.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Messages Not Forwarded by Email?

Posted: April 7th, 2010, 3:28pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About 10 months ago or so, Google added a feature to email messages from the Google Webmaster Tools message center to verified email addresses. This was very handy for people who did not login to Google Webmaster Tools on a regular basis.

The thing is, it doesn't often work. I have mine set to send an email to me and I would say that maybe 20% of the time, I will get an email notification when there is a new message in the message center.

I am not the only one with this issue. There is a report at Google Webmaster Help where one person said:

Messages from my Webmaster Tools account are not being forwarded as set. This has proved important recently as I discovered a blocked URL message that had not been forwarded from two weeks previously.

It can be an issue with Gmail or a spam filter blocking the messages but that is still an issue.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Reverse Pagination For SEO?

Posted: April 6th, 2010, 2:04pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Many sites with pagination have an SEO problem. As you add new content to the site, more pages are created and the older content moves from page 1 to page 2 and so on. This produces an issue where (1) Google's page one content is out of date to what users see, (2) page one content can sometimes be duplicate to page two, based on a crawl lag and (3) even with different content, many paginated pages are seen as duplicate by search engines for one reason or another.

A supporters only WebmasterWorld thread (paid access required for link) describes this problem. Senior member, g1smd, has tried a reverse pagination method to try to solve the issues.

By reverse pagination, I mean, that instead of putting new content on page one, you keep the page number you assigned for the new content as it ages. So for example, content piece A was assigned page number X, as that content A gets older and newer content comes, the page number for X remains page number X. Maybe you use time based URLs to achieve this or maybe just some unique string of some sorts.

g1smd said "I've done that with a site, and the URL stability seems to result in much better site indexing."

What do you think of this and have you tried any alternatives?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Malware Details Graduates In Google Webmaster Tools

Posted: April 5th, 2010, 2:57pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

On Friday, @websonic asked me where the Malware Details feature in Google Webmaster Tools went. Ultimately we found it under the "Diagnostics" section in Webmaster Tools.

Yes, it was moved from the Labs section of Google Webmaster Tools to the Diagnostics section. Malware details has officially graduated from Webmaster Tools Labs. I believe this may be the first feature in the Webmaster Tools Labs that graduated.

JohnMu confirmed the change via Twitter saying:

@RalphMRivera @rustybrick @websonic : The malware details are now under "diagnostics" in Webmaster Tools, graduated from Labs :)

Congrats!

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Note: This was written Sunday, April 4th and scheduled to be posted today.

Another Matt Cutts Google Video Interview to Watch

Posted: April 2nd, 2010, 2:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Mike McDonald from WebProNews has an excellent interview with Matt Cutts of Google. In the video, Matt and Mike discuss the latest changes taking place at Google and go over many hot SEO topics.

Here is the video:

More WebProNews Videos

Definitely worth setting 20 minutes of time aside to watch or listen to it.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Breaking: Google Caffeine Now Live, Renamed 'Kaffein'

Posted: April 1st, 2010, 4:21pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We have been tracking the Google Caffeine index for a really long time. We recently reported it was almost live but today is that day - Caffeine is live!

What took so long? Well, we knew it would launch soon but due to mormons being upset with the code-name "Caffeine," due to their dietary restrictions, Google had to change the name.

Changing names is a very political and long-process at Google. Google, being Google, decided to go with the German spelling, "kaffein." A German chemist, Friedrich Ferdinand Runge, came up with this in 1819. So due to the issues with naming it "Caffeine," Google decided to put the breaks on that and use a less known word for it, kaffein.

Now that Google Kaffein has been renamed, Google has now taken it live.

Webmasters at WebmasterWorld seem to confirm the launch of kaffein. We have dozens of reports that it is now live, the reports starting coming in last night.

This does not appear to be an April Fools joke!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

14% Say The Canonical Tag Doesn't Work on Google, Really?

Posted: March 31st, 2010, 2:53pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A couple weeks ago we asked if the canonical tag works well on Google. Since it is poll week, and I am offline, I figured I post the results from the poll.

We had just under a hundred responses and I am surprised to see as many as 14% said the canonical tag does not work for Google. Most said it does work, but 14% said it does not. There must be some type of bug for those 14%?

Here is the break down of the results:

Do you agree?

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Poll: Most SEOs Use Webmaster Tools But Many Still Use Site Command

Posted: March 30th, 2010, 2:59pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last week we asked how you check to see how many pages of your site is in the Google index. With almost a 150 responses and since this makes for a good scheduled post (I am offline), I figured I'd share the results.

47% said they use Google Webmaster Tools to see how many pages of their site is in the Google index. But 31% said they still use the Google Site Command. I am a bit upset to see so many people using the site command but I guess it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks?

7% said they don't bother checking the number of pages they have indexed and 5% said they have custom tools that check. Here is the break down:

Forum discussion continued at HighRankings Forum.

Google: Large Number of 404s Doesn't Hurt You

Posted: March 29th, 2010, 2:38pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has Googler, JohnMu, replying to some concerns about using 404s, page not found commands.

JohnMu said:

Having a large number of 404's on a site is generally not a problem for us, especially if the 404 page helps the user to find related entries within your site.

Of course, Google likes when webmasters return proper http header codes, especially in the page not found case. JohnMu explains:

Using a 404 (or perhaps, if you're certain that the page will be gone forever, a 410) is a good idea because it helps us to remove the old entries from our index over time.

Some people feel 404s are a bad thing. They are not. Use them properly and they can be extremely helpful to the health of a whole web site in a search engine.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Webmaster Tools Verification Goes Down

Posted: March 26th, 2010, 2:29pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are dozens of reports in the Google Webmaster Verification Help section from disgruntled webmasters where they cannot verify their web sites with Google Webmaster Tools.

Jonathan Simon and other Googlers are replying to webmasters that this is a bug and will be fixed soon. In one Google Webmaster Help thread, Jonathan said:

Our verification service has been experiencing intermittent issues today. Please retry verifying your site and post back here if you're still seeing the same error message.

And Dennis G. from Google said in another Google Webmaster Help thread:

Sorry, we had some server trouble this morning. Service should be returning to normal now.

I hope this is resolved soon, if not already.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Verification Help.

Google Cache URLs To Be webcache.googleusercontent.com?

Posted: March 25th, 2010, 12:48pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that some users are seeing the URL webcache.googleusercontent.com being used for the Cache link in the Google search results. Typically, Google does not use a name based URL for the cache link, such as google.com or the one above. Typically, Google would use an IP address.

But some users are spotting webcache.googleusercontent.com being used instead of the IP address.

If you try going to webcache.googleusercontent.com it will actually load a Google search page. Google is the owner of googleusercontent.com and currently, webcache.googleusercontent.com's IP address for me is 74.125.45.132, which is the same IP I see being used when I click on a cache link in Google.

I have never seen this domain being mentioned before either. I guess it would make things cleaner to use a domain for the cache URL.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google To Continue Site Performance Stats By End Of Week

Posted: March 25th, 2010, 12:43pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

March 10th or so, Google stopped updating the site performance reports in Google Webmaster Tools. Googler, "sreeram" said they are "making some changes to the algorithms and pipeline," and thus had to pull down the tool for a bit. He hoped it would be available within a few days, but it seems like the report stopped running or updating since then.

A new Google Webmaster Help thread has sreeram saying that he hopes to bring it back online by the weekend. He said:

No, this is an issue with our data pipeline. We are actively working on it; updates should resume by the end of this week.

Many webmasters take these metrics and reports very seriously, so I hope it is up and running, accurately soon.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Poll: How Do You Check Pages Indexed By Google?

Posted: March 24th, 2010, 2:14pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Many SEOs determine the health of a site in Google by the saturation of the number of pages Google has indexed. They basically want to know how many pages of their site Google has in their index. So if I have a site with 1,000 pages are a 100% of them indexed by Google?

The way SEOs go about it differ. Back in the day, most SEOs used a site command. For example, they would plug into Google [site:www.seroundtable.com]. But when Google released Google Webmaster Tools, SEOs began to notice a difference between the index count in Webmaster Tools and the Site command. So which is right?

JohnMu from Google said that the site command is not useful and does not lead to accurate results. Hey, look, a site command leads to over 15,000 pages indexed on this site:

But Webmaster Tools shows only 8,000+:

I tell clients to ignore the site command and just look at Google Webmaster Tools. What do you do? Take my poll:

How Do You Check Pages Indexed by Google?opinion

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Only 13% Say Google PageRank is "Very Important"

Posted: March 19th, 2010, 2:35pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A week ago, we asked our audience to vote on how important Google PageRank is in the overall SEO picture. After a week of time, I wanted to share the 300 plus responses.

What I am happy to say is that only 13% said that Google PageRank is very important. I believe two years ago, 40% would have said it is very important. In fact, 18% said PageRank is not important at all. Let me give you the pull break down.

How Important is Google PageRank in 2010?

Do you agree with this break down?

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Users Get Spanish Version

Posted: March 19th, 2010, 2:30pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A thread at Google Webmaster Help reports a few users complaining that when they go to Google Webmaster Tools it shows them everything in Spanish.

The first report came yesterday and it read:

Yesterday everything was fine, but today when I go to www.google.com/webmasters everything is in Spanish, since I do not speak or read Spanish this is a problem. I've searched but can't seem to find any answers on why this is happenning or what to do to change it back to English.

A few other webmaster tools users said they experienced the same thing. It worked in English the day before and then when they tried it yesterday, it took them to a Spanish version.

A fix, which Cristina posted in the forums was to append hl=en to the end of the URL string, after you are logged in. That fixed it for everyone, but why did it switch over in the first place?

Google has not yet chimed in on the thread, so I am not sure how big or small of an issue this is.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Does the Canonical Tag Work Well on Google?

Posted: March 19th, 2010, 2:03pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google introduced the Canonical tag a while back now. It basically is a 301 redirect, but without redirecting individual users. We know it has yet to be supported on Bing or Yahoo, but Google supports it and they even support cross domain canonical instructions.

A WebmasterWorld thread has some SEOs discussing how effective it is. Some say it is really slow but ultimately works, some say it is very fast and works well. What do you say?

How well does the canonical tag work on Google?

Does The Canonical Tag Work For You?answers

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

SEOs Continue To Dissect Eric Enge's Interview of Google's Matt Cutts

Posted: March 17th, 2010, 2:26pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

As most SEOs know, Eric Enge interviewed Matt Cutts, of Google. Eric is probably one of the best technical interviewers I know, so whenever he posts an interview, I try to read them carefully. When he posted an interview of Matt Cutts, I, as well as other SEOs, really read it carefully.

The biggest tidbit that came out of the interview was that 301 redirects lose some PageRank when used. We discussed just that the other day and it was a pretty hot topic. But there are many other important topics and items that were revealed in this excellent interview.

A WebmasterWorldthread is discussing them and I wanted to bullet point most of those tidbits.

301 redirects don't pass all of its PageRank
Crawling and indexing is related to PageRank of the pages
Low PageRank pages compete internally with higher PageRank pages
Google automatically will migrate duplicate page's (that they deem to be dups) PageRank for you
Don't use session IDs
Paid affiliant links are normally detected and not counted
Blocking pages in your robots.txt won't save your crawl budget
Shared servers may impact the number of pages Google crawls of your site.

Those are just some of the interesting tidbits from Eric Enge interview of Matt Cutts.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

More Google Caffeine Speculation : Is It Almost Live?

Posted: March 17th, 2010, 2:16pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Let me start off by saying this is speculation, Google has not (I repeat, NOT) confirmed this. A WebmasterWorld thread has renewed reports that Caffeine, Google's new index, is going live really soon.

Since yesterday, dozens of webmasters in the thread have been swearing that they see the new Caffeine results in Google.com. Yes, it is possible that they are hitting the single data center that has the Caffeine index but some are saying they are hitting multiple data centers and they all have Caffeine.

Here is one of the many reports:

I am seeing caffeine on all the proxies I watch. A few hours ago it was caffeine on the east coast proxies and non caffeine on the west cost. Now they are all showing caffeine. As louieramos said, let's keep our fingers crossed.

Can this be the launch of Google Caffeine? I don't know. I'd say wait until you see a blog post at one of the Google Blogs. But we did report last month that Caffeine will be launching in the upcoming months. But at the same time, we expected it to launch after last holiday season.

So right now there are rumors from a forum thread that Caffeine is going live. Google has not confirmed that this is indeed happening. So no need to panic.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Providing SEO Support For Muti-Regional Web Sites

Posted: March 16th, 2010, 2:52pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

JohnMu from Google posted a blog post named Working with multi-regional websites. The post goes over many of the SEO implications behind making multiple web sites all targeting different regions around the world.

John discusses URL structures, hosting, domains, using Webmaster Tools and much more. If you ever had to deal with a multi-regional web site before, this post is something you should read. It does not however fully cover multi-lingual issues, but a post on that is coming soon.

The beauty of this post is that it is living over in the Google Webmaster Help forums. John is there answering additional questions that were either confusing or not clear to readers. So if you have additional questions, hit up the forums.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

301 Redirects Do Not Pass Full PageRank & Link Value

Posted: March 15th, 2010, 2:42pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Eric Enge interviewed Matt Cutts of Google and uncovered a few interesting tidbits about Google, but the most significant piece of information was that 301 redirects do not fully pass the PageRank from the redirect. Let me quote you the interview from that piece:

Eric Enge: Let’s say you move from one domain to another and you write yourself a nice little statement that basically instructs the search engine and, any user agent on how to remap from one domain to the other. In a scenario like this, is there some loss in PageRank that can take place simply because the user who originally implemented a link to the site didn't link to it on the new domain?
Matt Cutts: That's a good question, and I am not 100 percent sure about the answer. I can certainly see how there could be some loss of PageRank. I am not 100 percent sure whether the crawling and indexing team has implemented that sort of natural PageRank decay, so I will have to go and check on that specific case. (Note: in a follow on email, Matt confirmed that this is in fact the case. There is some loss of PR through a 301).

Whenever you move a URL or a domain name, we are told by Google to use a 301 redirect, if we cannot keep the existing domain or URL. We were also told that a 301 redirect would pass the PageRank. But that is not fully true. As you can see from the interview above. Some of the PageRank from the redirected URL will be lost. How much exactly? That is hard to say but some is lost.

I personally never like changing URLs but sometimes you don't have a choice.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Keyword Data in Google Webmaster Tools Goes Blank For Some

Posted: March 15th, 2010, 2:35pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Over the weekend there were several reports in the Google Web master Help forums that the data in the keywords reports within Google Webmaster Tools was empty.

Here are some of those reports:

Yesterday and for the last few months the Keywords section in google webmaster tools had keywords listed, now today it says "No Data Available".

The GWT shows no keywords... any idea why?

Google confirmed the bug in these threads. Googler Jonathan Simon said in a couple threads:

There was an issue with the Keywords data that prevented it from being displayed properly for some sites. This issue should be resolved shortly. Please stand by...

There was an issue that caused the Keywords data to disappear for some sites. It should be resolved shortly. This issue was isolated to the Keywords report in Webmaster Tools and is not related to your site's performance in the search results.

And Googler, JohnMu said:

It does look like something got stuck there on our side. This does not have any impact on your site's crawling, indexing or ranking, it is only the display in Webmaster Tools. It should be back to normal in a few hours, we apologize for the inconvenience.

It looks like something got stuck on our side there, sorry! The keywords information should be back in a little bit! Thanks for posting!

It seems to be back now, if you still have issues, take them to the forums.

Forum discussion at Google Web master Help.

How Important is Google PageRank in 2010?

Posted: March 12th, 2010, 2:10pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Every year or so, the Google PageRank debate lives on. Some people say Google PageRank is the number one important attribute to have a page rank well in Google. Some say PageRank is worthless and should be completely ignored. Others take a middle ground. SEO's opinion on the topic changes from year to year - even mine.

A WebmasterWorld thread has renewed discussion on the topic. So I thought it would be a good time to run a poll and see how important you all feel PageRank is nowadays. Here is the poll.

How Important is Google PageRank in 2010?online surveys

Now that you have taken the poll, I want to share some recent Google chatter on PageRank.

A couple weeks ago at SMX West Google's Director of Research, Peter Norvig told Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman that PageRank is overhyped. Here is an abstract from Search Engine Land's coverage of the event:

One thing that I think is still overhyped is PageRank. People think, yeah, you do this computation on the web graph and then you just order all the pages by that [PageRank]. Yes, that computation is important but it’s just one of many things. And people say, “Oh, well you’re stuck if you don’t have that.” We never felt that way. We never felt that it was such a big factor. It’s got the catchy name and the name recognition, but we’ve always looked at all the available data….
There is this confusion that there’s this one component that’s called PageRank, but the whole thing [Google's algorithm] has [also] been called that. That was a mistake. We need some better branding.

There is no doubt that Googlers involved with webmasters want to remove the PageRank values from the toolbar. In fact, PageRank was removed from Webmaster Tools last year after concern of PageRank became overwhelming for many. Since before 2007 Google wanted to remove PageRank from the toolbar. In fact, then Matt Cutts personally wanted it gone, but I guess he failed? And my new favorite Googler, Tomer Honen tweeted, "And that's why I don't use Twitter that often - only 140 characters... Get over PageRank!"

As you can see, I did not make a distinction here between real PageRank and Toolbar PageRank.

So what do you think? Take the poll and feel free to comment.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo Search Update: March 2010

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 3:27pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Yahoo announced a new search update, or what they call a "weather report" for their index. Yahoo said you may notice ranking changes in the Yahoo Search results. They said:

The Yahoo! Search engineering teams are rolling out updates to crawling, indexing, and ranking algorithms. Similar to previous updates, you may notice some ranking changes and page shuffling during the process, which we expect to complete over the next few days.

I have not seen any discussion around this but there may be an issue with the Yahoo Search WebmasterWorld forum, so I am not sure.

I did spot two threads discussing an update with Yahoo Site Explorer. One thread was at the Site Explorer Suggestion Board and the other at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: I was able to post a thread at WebmasterWorld (maybe there was a bug on my side) and now we have a nice amount of feedback on how significant this update is. Here are some posts from the thread:

I'm seeing a small but statistically insignificant increase from Yahoo!

We had been showing a steady increase in traffic until yesterday (March 10th). Today, we've lost about 20% of our traffic from Y!.
This is a pattern that seems to repeat with each update. After the update we drop in ranking but slowly climb back before the next update.

They are showing lots of love for Wikipedia.

I'm seeing huge differences not in the results but the output...5 natural results for some queries instead of the usual 10 and quite frankly I like it shortened like this. Top 5 or go home.......

Stealing Google Maps & Local Citations

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 3:07pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google Maps has been a extremely important area for SEOs and SEMs to focus on for their clients. Ranking in the Google results that have a maps result is often critical to these businesses and those map results come up more often in the web results at Google on a daily basis. So when you see bugs reported, especially ones that can end up in a competitor claiming your spot, you get worried.

A Google Maps Help thread has an excellent video demo of a possible bug or issue with how Google Maps citations can be poached from competitors. I am not sure what the issue here is, but let me share the video here.

The video is on ScreenCast.com is about 4 minutes long. It was created by the Small Business Online Coach and documents the issue very well.

I am not sure how serious this issue is, what do you think?

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Google Shuts Down "Site Performance" Tool While Upgrading It

Posted: March 10th, 2010, 2:52pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

An updated Google Webmaster Help thread has confirmed reports from Google's "sreeram" that Google is updating the Site Performance reports in Google Webmaster Tools.

During this update, Google has temporarily stopped updating the existing reports. The Googler said:

We are making some changes to the algorithms and pipeline behind the site performance feature and so had stopped updating it for a bit. We'll resume the updates soon, hopefully within a day or two. Do stay tuned and keep giving us feedback.

One new feature I am expecting is a trustworthy indicator to be added to the tool. I also suspect the tool to update more frequently and possibly offer better explanations of what can be improved.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Have Google Index Your AJAX, Here Is How

Posted: March 8th, 2010, 1:56pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In October 2009, Google proposed a way to index AJAX. Back then, all it was, was a proposal, but it was not implemented. However, last week, Vanessa Fox reported that the AJAX feature for Google is now live and well.

I am not going to get into the technical details of how it works again. In fact, you can read about that over here and begin implementing it as soon as you like. We currently have no real feedback on how well it works yet, so I will keep my eyes open on that in the forums.

However, Vanessa Fox did see signs of Google crawling AJAX earlier this year and wrote up some of the pros and cons related to that.

In any event, I may want to give this a try myself on some of our sites and let you know how well it works or not.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Adds Sidewiki Control to Google Webmaster Tools

Posted: March 5th, 2010, 12:58pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

If you login to your verified web sites at Google Webmaster Tools and go to the "labs" section, you may notice a new feature to help you control your Sidewiki messages.

Here is a picture:

The feature basically let's you control the message you show to users who use that Google Sidewiki within the Google Toolbar. In the past, webmasters had to use the Google Toolbar to add a site owner message. Danny has a great article on how that worked at Search Engine Land.

Now this can be done directly in Google Webmaster Tools. I do not believe Google announced this feature yet.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld& DigitalPoint Forums.

The Google 7 Day Index Delay?

Posted: March 5th, 2010, 12:40pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is a new Google theory going around, possibly a penalty or possibly a Google bug - no one is sure. There are a couple threads on the topic, one at HighRankings Forums and Google Webmaster Help.

In short, webmasters are claiming that they will post content and it would take seven full days for Google to index the content and rank it in the search engine. I can't seem to replicate this on any site that I run. But there are several webmasters complaining about the issue.

Is it possible that this type of behavior is some sort of penalty? Can it be a delay based on data center issues? Can it be an indexing bug on certain types of sites or code sets?

There are many examples of URLs and domains claiming they have this issue in the Google Webmaster Help thread.

So what do you think?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

.TV Domains Can't Set Crawl Rate in Google Webmaster Tools

Posted: March 5th, 2010, 12:27pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread reports that there is an issue with some domains setting the crawl rate in Google Webmaster Tools.

The report came in from an owner of a .TV domain. The person said:

I have registered www.themediagroup.tv and themediagroup.tv with Webmaster tools and I want to change the crawl rate. But I keep getting an error 'Setting is restricted to root level domains only'.

JohnMu from Google confirmed the issue and said:

This looks like a bug -- thanks for bringing it up! If you want to change the crawl rate in the meantime, you can request the change through the problem-report form linked from the "learn more" text.

There is currently no ETA for a fix.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Grades Themselves on Their SEO Skills

Posted: March 4th, 2010, 1:22pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google Webmaster Central Blog posted a Google SEO Report Card as a detailed PDF document. The document breaks down the SEO report on the following areas:

Search result presentation
URLs and redirects
On-page optimizations

Google said:

The project looked at the main pages of 100 different Google products, measuring them across a dozen common optimization categories. Future iterations of the project might look at deeper Google product web pages as well as international ones. We released the report card within Google last month and since then a good number of teams have taken action on it or plan to.

Tedster said in a WebmasterWorld thread:

What I'd say is it is an ingenious way of spreading the word about SEO basics to a world that is far from understanding them at this point.

Either way, SEO audits for any site can always prove to help SEOs learn a tidbit or two - so read it over, it is fun.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

March 2010 Google Webmaster Report

Posted: March 4th, 2010, 12:45pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Our monthly Google webmaster report based on the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread is now pretty large enough for me to give you an status update. The thread is actually pretty long now, which is not always the case this early in the month. Here are the key points discussed in the current thread:

Site command showing less results (less pages being indexed)
Crawl rates in Webmaster Tools go flat for some
Fluctuations on search results for the positions 2 and 3
Very old Cache dates

Here are the key topics we covered webmaster related to Google in the past month:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Bolsters Notifications & Eases Sharing

Posted: March 3rd, 2010, 12:33pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google Webmaster Tools team released two new features in the past two days that are very welcomed by the webmaster community. They announced new notifications of hacks and spam and a new way to share your verified sites with others.

Hack & Spam Notifications:

Starting this month, we will notify more webmasters of more potential issues we've detected on their websites, including:

Spammy or abused user-generated content
Abused forum pages or egregious amounts of comment spam
Suspected hacking

These notifications are meant to alert webmasters of potential issues and provide next steps on how to get their sites fixed and back into Google's search results. If it pertains to a hacking or abuse issue, the notification will point to example URLs exhibiting this type of behavior. These notifications will run in parallel with our existing malware notifications.

Sharing Verified Sites:

In the past, the only way to share data in Google Webmaster Tools for sites was to have each person verify the site under their webmaster tools account. That is no longer needed. Now, you can add people easily.

(1) Go to the Verification home page
(2) Click on "Verification details" for the site you want to share
(3) Click on the Add a user..." button on that page
(4) Type in the user's Google account and it will be shared

Note: You can remove that ownership at any time by clicking the "Unverify" link next to the person's email address on the Details page.

These features are very welcomed.

Forum discussion on the new messages and alerts at WebmasterWorldand on new sharing feature at Google Webmaster Help.

Yes, Google Has Rich Snippet Product Info

Posted: March 2nd, 2010, 9:48am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has been supporting Rich Snippets for a while now. Most recently, they added a more types of markups to add to your HTML in order for Google to provide richer descriptions in the search results.

One of those additions is product data and a WebmasterWorld thread now has discussion around it. There is a lot of technical detail on the Products microformats or RDFa labels at Google.

Here are the fields allowed:

brand
category
description
name (fn)
price
photo
url

Forum discussion WebmasterWorld.

"0 Indexed URLs" In Google News Sitemaps Bug

Posted: March 1st, 2010, 10:32am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google News Help thread has some reports of publishers reporting that their Google News Sitemaps are reporting "0 Indexed URLs" in Google Webmaster Tools.

I too saw this issue and I thought that perhaps there was a bug in my sitemap file. But Google did not report any issues with my sitemap file, plus, I saw my articles were being indexed within Google News. So I figured, it was a reporting glitch in Google Webmaster Tools. It appears I was right.

Inbal from the Google News team said in a Google News Help thread:

Just a heads-up that the issue with Google News Sitemaps is showing "0 Indexed URLs" is a known issue. This number does not reflect the accurate number of the URLs indexed from your site. The correct number is the number of all the articles you've submitted within your sitemap minus the articles that show News-specific crawl errors under Diagnostics.

I assume this error is being fixed, but there is currently no estimate time for the fix.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Google May Verify Your Sites in Webmaster Tools Without You Clicking Verify

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:47am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has a report that someone noticed their site was verified in Google Webmaster Tools without them actually clicking the "verify" button. How did this happen?

Well, first of all, the www version of the site was verified. The non-www version they did not manually click verify for. So, Googler, Dennis G. explained in the thread:

Sometimes we can tell that you have a site verified even if it does not show up in your site list in Webmaster Tools. Usually this is because you verified the site a while ago and removed it from the list, or because the verification bot detected that its the same site (common for www/non-www URLs) and had the same verification tokens in place. That latter check doesn't happen in most cases any more, so you're more likely to have to explicitly add and verify the non-www site. You can then delete the site from Webmaster Tools if you like; we'll know you're still verified. On the other hand, sometimes there is useful feedback about your "other" site, so it's not a horrible idea to leave it there and check on it every now and then.

Pretty neat, at least I think so.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Report: Google To Launch Caffeine Index In Upcoming "Months"

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:10am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Search Engine Land's Matt McGee reports Google will be launching the Caffeine index update, the one many believe is already live, in the upcoming months.

He received a statement from Google saying:

We expect to roll it out to all data centers over the coming months.

Why didn't it launch after the holidays? What is the hold up with Caffeine launching? Google sent a statement about that:

We run lots of tests with this big a change to our infrastructure. We want the new system to meet or exceed the abilities of our current system, and it can take time to ensure that everything looks good.

Again, many people will swear it is live. It is live, but only in one of the many Google data centers. So just be patient and hopefully it will go live before Bing powers Yahoo fully.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Webmaster Tools Bug In Indexed URLs Report

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:26pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There was a brief time where Google Webmaster Tools was reporting the wrong number of indexed URLs for a web site. JohnMu from Google confirmed the issue in at least two Google Webmaster Help threads. He said:

We recently had a small issue with the indexed URL counts in Webmaster Tools for some sites. This should be resolved now and back to normal for most sites that experienced this issue (it might take a day or two to catch up everywhere).
Thanks for your patience!

So if you feel your index count is wrong, it certainly may be wrong.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Note: I just landed in Jerusalem, after an 11 hour flight. I am typing as fast as I can, so please excuse typos, grammar and any non-sense.

Wired Article Implies Google Caffeine Is Live But It's Not

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:21pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

An article at Wiredhas a ton of details about how Google's search algorithms, index, crawlers and so on evolved over the years. I highlighted many of the points in my Search Engine Land write up on it.

A WebmasterWorld thread quotes a piece on the Google Caffeine index, asking if that means it is live.

"The most recent major change, codenamed Caffeine, revamped the entire indexing system to make it even easier for engineers to add signals."

One webmaster asked, "Does this mean that Caffeine is now live:)?"

We thought it was live dozens of times, but nothing really has changed since then. I fully believe that when it goes live beyond one data center, Google will let us know. I just don't think that the quote above can fully mean it is live. I believe Search Engine Land will post a statement from Google on this topic later today - but as far as I know, it is not live.

Meanwhile, reading the Wired piece is both fun and educational.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Note: I just landed in Jerusalem, after an 11 hour flight. I am typing as fast as I can, so please excuse typos, grammar and any non-sense.

Why Do Google Webmaster Tools Messages Disappear?

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:19pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has a report from a webmaster that he is missing a message in Google Webmaster Tools, which he normally sees. The message is:

Googlebot has succesfully accessed you homepage. Pages from your website are included in the google index.

Typically, sites would have this message in the dashboard when everything is in good order. But sometimes the message does not show.

Personally, I do not currently see the message myself, even for this site. So maybe something is up? Maybe Google removed it? Maybe there is a reporting bug of some sorts?

I doubt anyone should worry if they do not see this specific message, unless there are other issues being reported about a particular web site.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Rumor: Google Search Updates Rolls Out First to Mobile Devices

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 2:46pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is a very non-factual rumor, with very little current backing, that when Google does search updates, it first updates the mobile phone index, the one that iPhone, Android and Palm OS uses, and then the main desktop index. I don't think they have different indexes for mobile phones to access versus desktops to access - but it is possible they show a fresher Google data center to mobile users or test things out first on mobile users.

Again, this is all early speculation, that even if true, could have happened once and could never happen again. Here is the first post from WebmasterWorld with this discussion:

Have any of you guys monitored your keywords via your mobile phone (I'm using the Droid phone) and noticed a difference in the SERPS between you cell phone and your home computer?
Since beginning of January, whenever a ranking change would occur, I would notice it first on my droid phone (after being logged out) and then a day or two later, in the SERPS when the same query was run on my home computer.

Is there any correlation between the two or am I just experiencing an anomaly?

Senior member, whitenight, said he was considering the same thing but didn't want to say anything yet. While administrator, Roger, found the theory to be "interesting."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Image Search Filter Now Faster?

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 2:09pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Zeus, a member at WebmasterWorld, is known by the members there as the guy who watches over Google Image Search. Whenever there is a Google Image Search change, he is aware of it and lets the rest of us know.

Most recently, he is reporting that Google Image Search's SafeSearch filter is getting a bit faster. In the past, it took three to six months for Google to update the images caught by their filter. Now, he said, it took less than two weeks. I am not sure if it is just a coincidence or something else, but this is what he said:

For about a year ago you could wait up to 3-6 Month if you have made some changes to your site to get more images listed under "Moderate search", last week I made a test with a website, which have been online for a long time, but no biggie. On the site there where a few bad comments to some images, the site lost a lot of images in Moderate search, went down to 91 from about 500.
Now i removed those comments and waited for only about 7-10 days and all images where back in moderate search, thats a VERY good improvement to the filter, still some images are lost in filter which should be shown, but I think thats ok a Images search algo is almost as if a blind person have to filter the images in good or bad, they cant see the images.

Has anyone else noticed Google updating the image index faster, in terms of those images being filtered by SafeSearch?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Is Not Offering SEO Services, They Help Webmasters Every Day

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:48pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Yesterday, the SEO community went nuts after they learned about a Norwegian AdWords blog post announcing that Googlers will be providing site clinics to help webmasters on the SEO front. You can read the translated version over here.

Yes, it is weird that an AdWords blog is talking about SEO site clinics. But it is not like Google is offering SEO services, where they provide link building services, make changes to your web site, give detailed site audits and you are paying for it. Google is basically offering best practice advice, which they do every day in their Google Webmaster Help forums, which comes in many languages.

They have offered live chat events, they come to conferences, they have webmaster tools and more. They haven't done detailed site clinics like this in the past, but this is far from SEO services in my opinion.

Matt and Danny put together a nice history on Google helping with SEO. It may be worth a look.

In fact, I actually was emailed or saw a forum thread on this a while back. I forgot exactly why I did not cover it, but to me, this did not seem like such a big deal.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums, Sph inn.

Obscure Google Webmaster Tools Verification Bug

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 2:53pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A thread at Google Webmaster Help has a confirmed report of a bug with verifying certain sites in Google Webmaster Tools.

The issue was reported by the webmaster of http://nhschoicespreview.nhs.uk/. The domain would not verify.

Googler, Dennis G., who is the man behind verifying websites in Webmaster Tools, said:

It looks like you found a bug in our code. It currently does not believe that nhs.uk is a valid domain. We'll get a fix out soon. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I am not sure if this is more widespread than a single domain, but I suspect so. I just enjoy reporting these very advanced topics.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google On Moving Servers & Hosting Companies

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 2:45pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A new WebmasterWorld thread asks about moving from one server to the next and what to expect on the SEO front, specifically with one's Google rankings. The thread is very timely, being that Matt Cutts of Google just posted a video on the topic yesterday. Here is that video:

Google also has a help document on the matter.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

When Not To Use Canonical Tags With Pagination

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 3:09pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

When Google announced support for the canonical tag just about a year ago, webmasters were excited for the possibilities of a serving a 301 redirect to spiders but not users. But when should you not use it?

A Google Webmaster Help thread has Google's JohnMu explaining some situations as to when you should or should not use it.

In summary, think of the canonical tag as a real 301 redirect for spiders. If a spider is redirected away from new content, then that is an issue. When it comes to paginating content, such as product category pages or article archives, you really need to give a way for search engines to find that content. If you set the canonical tag to redirect spiders from page 2, 3, 4, etc of your product category pages to page one, then the spiders might never be able to index the products on page 2, 3, and 4.

John explained this well, saying:

Pagination: this is complicated, I personally would be careful when using with rel=canonical with paginated lists. The important part is that we should be able to find all products listed, so at the very least those lists should provide a default sort order where we can access (and index) all pages. Since this is somewhat difficult unless you really, really know what you are doing, I would personally avoid adding rel=canonical for these pages. One possible solution could be to use JavaScript for paginated lists with different sort orders, for example, that way you would have a single URL which lists all products.

This is something to keep in mind when building out the canonical tag within your content management system.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Learn SEO With the Google Webmaster Quiz Answers

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 3:01pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A week or so ago, Google posted a webmaster quiz for people to answer. Today, they posted the answers to the quiz. The beauty of this is that you can really learn a lot about Google's SEO best practices by just reading the questions and answers.

You can read all the questions and answers or see how well you did on the test, if you took it.

Only three people got all 40 questions correct, they include ChrisRaimondi, theopeek and beussery from the forums.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

A Week Later, Google Fixes Webmaster Tools iGoogle Gadgets

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 2:38pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A week ago, we reported that the iGoogle Webmaster Tools gadgets were broken. Google confirmed the issue then and said they would be working on fixing them.

Yesterday, Jonathan Simon of Google said it was fixed. He said:

Good news...the Webmaster Tools' iGoogle Gadgets should be functioning as expected again. Thank you for hanging in there while we worked on getting this fixed.

Some confirmed the fix is indeed working. But when I checked it this morning, it doesn't seem to be fixed for me. Hopefully it is just me and it did not break again.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Remove Pages From Google ~Forever Using a 410 Status Code

Posted: January 27th, 2010, 2:32pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In October, we reported that Google treats a 410 stronger than a 404 status code. I am not sure exactly when Google made the 410 status code that important, but I believe it was sometime in October.

A new thread surfaced in Google Webmaster Help where it was suggested by a Googler to use the 410, once again.

Googler, Jonathan Simon said:

Last year we started started treating 410 Gone responses as being a stronger signal for indicating when a page no longer exists. So for the situation you describe (where 301 redirects aren't practical) returning a 410 response is the way to go.

It seems to me that when Googlebot discovers a 410, it will communicate to Google to not index that page for a really long time. I believe Google will check pages they know to be 404ed every now and then. Maybe a 410 will tell Googlebot to never check back or check back extremely rarely?

Just keep in mind that the 410 is much stronger than a 404 response - it may come in handy in your future SEO projects.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Duplicate Content Between HTML & PDF Pages? Google Should Figure It Out

Posted: January 27th, 2010, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has discussion about a potential duplicate content issues between HTML and PDF documents. In this case, the content found on the HTML is the same as on the PDFs. Be it an automated "print as PDF" feature or manual download of the content in PDF format.

How does Google handle the duplicate nature of such content available on the web?

JohnMu at Google chimed in saying that in most cases, they will use the HTML file. He does recommend that in these cases, you block the PDFs from being crawled and indexed. But ultimately, he said, that is your call. Google will likely just want to keep the HTML version in their index.

John said:

If you have the same content in PDF as in HTML pages, in most cases we'll probably show the HTML versions above (or in place of) the PDF versions. If this is a problem for your specific situation, I'd consider using the robots.txt or x-robots-tag to prevent the PDF files from getting indexed. I imagine for most sites this is not really a problem, so I wouldn't suggest blocking indexing of PDF files without confirming that it's really necessary.
The only situation where I would consider doing something in advance is when the CMS automatically creates PDF-copies of normal HTML pages. Generally speaking, this shouldn't cause any problems, but those PDF versions are likely not compelling enough to merit getting indexed separately (and crawling them will possibly put a load on your server that you could avoid). Ultimately, it's up to you to determine which content you wish to have crawled and indexed :-) -- if you feel that PDF-copies of your content are compelling enough for users who search for your content, feel free to make them available.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Treats Punycode Domains As Unicode (Japanese Domains)

Posted: January 26th, 2010, 2:27pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has discussion around Japanese domains and how Google may treat them. Honestly, I know very little about this topic, so I hope I do justice to this thread.

Example of Punycode domains versus Unicode:

Unicode - http://アアアアア.com
Punycode - http://xn--cckg5dfdwc.com

Google said, for "domain names in Punycode are equivalent to their Unicode versions." There may be an issue with PageRank being displayed in the Punycode version in the Google Toolbar, but Google assures us that there is PageRank, the equivalent to the Unicode version. JohnMu said in the thread that he would "pass that on to check out" why it isn't working properly in the toolbar.

So which should you use? Google said, they generally use the "Punycode versions since this is more likely to work across all browsers."

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Can Too Much Keyword Density Be Interpreted as Boiler Plate Text?

Posted: January 25th, 2010, 2:38pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I spotted an interesting Google Webmaster Help thread where a webmaster was asking why the most used words on his site is not showing up in the keywords report in Google Webmaster Tools. It seems like, at least for this report, Google may consider certain usage of a keyword to be over usage and would consider those keywords either boiler plate text or common words.

Jonathan Simon of Google said in that thread, and let me quote:

The Keywords list will sometimes exclude words that we determine to be boiler plate text or common words. This varies from site to site. The Keywords list is a starting point to see how Google is interpreting your site's content. This list should be evaluated in tandem with what's listed in the Top Search Queries report for your site as well as how your site appears in the actual search results for the keywords you're targeting.

He goes on to explain that although it may not show up in the report, due to possible Google issues, this should not impact the site in a negative way. He said:

Boiler plate and commons words (excluded from the Keywords list) vary from site to site. It sounds like for your site we could be doing a better job here.
The more important question though is if this negatively impacts your site's ranking as you mention. It doesn't. That's why I said the Keywords list is a good starting point and that it should be considered in conjunction with other information.

The question I have, is this not helping your site? I guess not.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

The Google Webmaster Tools iGoogle Gadgets Are Broken

Posted: January 25th, 2010, 2:01pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

For those of you who use iGoogle and use the Webmaster Tools Gadget, you may have noticed that no information is flowing to the gadget. Here is a screen shot from my iGoogle dashboard, which I honestly never go to:

It seemed like the issue became a big issue starting on the 20th. A Google Webmaster Help thread has several webmaster reporting it. Then Jonathan Simon of Google came in and confirmed the bug. He said:

We are currently looking into this issue and hope to have it resolved soon.

There is not estimate time for a fix, but Google is aware of the issue.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google "Answer Highlighting" Upsets Webmasters

Posted: January 25th, 2010, 1:42pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google announced two new features in their web results. First is called "Answer Highlighting" and the second is an enhancement to the Rich Snippets feature.

Answer Highlighting in short basically uses Google Squared technology to highlight in the search snippet the answer to your search query. For example, and I don't see this in the live Google results right now, if you search for [empire state height], in the past (current) you would have seen this:

With the enhancement, you would see the answer:

Getting the answer in the search results, is a goal of Google, but that means, or can mean, less click throughs from Google to your web site. Webmasters often live off traffic and conversions, so this can be a bit upsetting to many webmasters.

Brett Tabke said in a WebmasterWorld thread:

Taking another page out of the WolframAlpha play book, Google introduces Serps with answers. You may never need to visit any site again.

The other enhancement is allowing event data in rich snippets. How does that improve the feature? Just look at this snippet:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Increases Sitemaps Limit to 50,000 from 1,000

Posted: January 22nd, 2010, 2:18pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I am not sure when this happened, but fairly recently, Google has changed the number of Sitemaps you can reference in a Sitemap index file. The number use to be 1,000 sitemaps can be referenced in a Sitemap index file, now the number is 50,000 Sitemaps. This is a huge increase in capacity.

Still, each Sitemap file can contain up to 50,000 URLs, so technically 50,000 multiplied by 50,000 is 2,500,000,000 or 2.5 billion URLs can be submitted to Google via Sitemaps. That is if I can add correctly.

Googler, Jonathan Simon, said this in a Google Webmaster Help thread:

Thanks for resurfacing this thread as we've improved our capacity a bit since then. The limit used to be 1,000.
The Help Center article you point to is correct. The current maximum number of Sitemaps that can be referenced in a Sitemap Index file is 50,000.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

A Real Yahoo Search Update for January 2010?

Posted: January 21st, 2010, 3:13pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Earlier this month, we reported on a rumored Yahoo Search update. Although it appeared to be an update, the consensus was that what people were seeing was the paid inclusion being weeded out of the organic search results.

But the thread at WebmasterWorld has been updated by BillyS, who often tracks Yahoo. Billy thinks that Yahoo is now updating, for real, this time. He said:

Yahoo tweaked something today around 1:30 until 3:00 Eastern time. We had a huge spike in traffic. Anyone else see this?

Yahoo updates typically don't get as much reaction as a Google update. And over the past year or so, Yahoo updates have received a lot less attention then they have in the past. This is likely due to them losing search market share and giving up to Bing.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Disabling Right Clicking Should Not Hurt Your Google Ranking & SEO

Posted: January 21st, 2010, 2:41pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A new HighRankings Forum thread asks if there is any downside in terms of SEO for using JavaScript that disables the ability to right-click on the page. The thread asks:

One of my company's sites has right-click functions disabled (yes, I realize this doesn't really stop people from stealing content - it wasn't my choice). I've noticed when I use a spider emulator (seo-browser.com) that our image alt tags appear to be invisible to the spiders. I can see the alt tags on the actual site, and I've verified that they are in the code, but they don't seem to show up for spiders. Could this be caused by our right-click disabling?

Most people in the thread say that it should have no impact on spiders crawling the site.

I then saw an older thread from Google Webmaster Help where Googler, JohnMu, said the same thing. He said and I bolded the key point:

Personally, I find the use of right-click-blocking JavaScript slightly annoying because there are many legitimate reasons why you might want to use the context menu (eg to bookmark the page) and it doesn't really stop people from viewing the source (Ctrl-U brings it up if you don't want to use the main menu). That said, this is not something that would bother Googlebot :-).

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum & Google Webmaster Help.

Study on Google Personalized Search & Re-Ranking Shows Minor SEO Changes

Posted: January 20th, 2010, 2:34pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In December, Google announced they will be personalizing all Google results by default. SEOs rightfully were a bit on edge after that announcement, but we did link to an old study on how personalized results impact rankings, overall.

The study has been revised and posted at the Huomah Blog. I won't go through all the points, but the conclusion is that currently, the personalized changes are so minor that it is not worth SEOs freaking out about them. The overall conclusion of this study stated:

We shouldn’t be changing how we approach things ultimately… Above the fold is the real estate that’s prime (what else is new?). It may be the measuring that we will have to adapt. You will need to find ways to check rankings from a few locales and discern a mean average instead of a definitive placement.

It is worth while reading the whole report at the Huomah Blog.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Sometimes Google Does Know Best: Use It To Your Advantage

Posted: January 19th, 2010, 2:35pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last week, I wrote about The Google Screw and how Google's "intention engine," as Tedster calls it at WebmasterWorld, can seriously hurt a business and the integrity of a solid search query. But Google is not stupid, they know what they are doing and they feel, for the most part, these types of changes will improve the overall search experience.

Tedster at WebmasterWorld has been one of the more vocal against Google telling you what you really wanted to search for. But he recently found a good use for it. Let me quote Tedster:

I helped a friend last week by cleaning up a smallish database (about 1,000 products) so that it could be used to generate web pages. The database was from his shipping facility and it was full of strange abbreviations so the field would print out on a small shipping document and a shelf label in the warehouse. So the product descriptions worked for the warehouse staff but they were far from doing the sales job they needed to do.
Google's intention engine did the job. I just pasted in that mishmash directly and I usually got back what I was looking for, or at least I made enough progress so that I could make a second try and nail it.

Maybe Google's idea isn't so far off the mark after all.

Pretty neat - he plugged in the weird descriptions from the client into Google and Google told him what he really wanted to use for titles and descriptions. Not a bad use for this, don't you think?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Mass Title Tag Changes: Google Slow Updating?

Posted: January 19th, 2010, 2:06pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion over how Google handles the mass changing of title tags.

In this particular case, a webmaster copied the structure, not the design, of a site to a new site. When they copied it over, they forgot to change the title tags, although the content, design and images are all unique from the previous site. Soon after, they changed the title tags to make them all unique to the content on those pages. Four months later, the title tags Google shows in the search results are the same as they were - i.e. the old, wrong title tags.

Since this is a WebmasterWorld thread, we do not know the specific site having trouble. So as you can imagine, it is incredibly hard to diagnose the issue.

jdMorgan, WebmasterWorld administrator, said:

The one thing that Google "hates" is large, sudden changes. So I'm going to recommend that you grit your teeth and wait it out instead of giving G yet another reason to think your pages are 'suspicious.' Build links, expand and update content -- anything productive to keep your mind off this embarrassing mistake, and suggest that an official "acceptance testing" program (with a formal list of things to check off, including <title> and <meta name="description"> tags) be put into place for new developments so that this won't happen again.
Keep an eye on Googlebot, and once the pages in question have been spidered a couple of times, this situation should resolve itself. It's very hard to be patient and "do nothing," but that's what it takes in this situation; Working on the other aspects of improving the site will help -- both practically and emotionally...

Of course, if he wanted specific advice about his web site, he should go to Google Webmaster Help. However, many people avoid that inorder to keep their anonymity.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The Google Search Screw: Google Knows Best

Posted: January 15th, 2010, 2:40pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Imagine you have been in business, operating on the web for years now. Your name is unique and it ranks number one in the Google results, since it is unique. But then imagine a new site pops up that is similar to your name. Then soon after, Google decided that your name is really not what people want, instead, they want the other name.

In other words, they type in your business name and Google say - no no, you spelled it wrong, you want a competitor or another web site. Google then hides your web site and shows the competitor. How would you feel?

That is the story of a Google Webmaster Help thread. The owner of BrandFreek no longer comes up for a search on [brandfreek], instead, Google shows a result for BrandFreak and shows BrandFreak.com in the first spot. Here is a picture:

This can be pretty upsetting to the owner of the company and also hurt them financially. Google knows this. JohnMu at Google replied to the thread saying:

Thanks for posting! I'll pass your feedback on to the team to review.

I am not sure if Google will change the behavior of this search in the future, but I think they should.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Daily Search Forum Recap: January 14, 2010

Posted: January 14th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

What's The Hold Up With The Google Caffeine Index?

Posted: January 14th, 2010, 2:50pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About 6 months ago, the Google Caffeine public preview went live. In November, they took the Caffeine preview offline and since then, webmasters have been on their toes worried about when Caffeine will go live. We had rumor after rumor with speculation that it was live, as recently as a week ago - but each time, they were false alerts.

The question people are now asking in the long WebmasterWorldthread is where is it already? What is the hold up? A good question. For all I know, it may go live a minute after I post this and make me just look bad. But let me quote you one WebmasterWorld member:

Do you remember waaaay back in late Nov./early Dec when MC told the world that Caffeine was being delayed to "save stress on webmasters before the holiday" and it would be rolled out soon afterwards?
Do you remember what I said was the reason back then?

So here's the question for you, IF as MC said Caffeine was "ready" a month and half ago, where is it now?!

We're halfway done with January...what's the hold up?

A solid question and a question that can be asked. Google does not have to answer but it is a good question. Are there major issues with Caffeine? Are there underlying flaws that will prevent what we know Caffeine to be to be launched? Can the failure of such a launch make Google look somewhat inferior to Microsoft Bing?

All questions that Google's executives and PR team would hate to have to answer. But as time goes on, these questions will begin to be asked.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I Now See Favicons in Google Webmaster Tools

Posted: January 14th, 2010, 2:32pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Two days ago, I reported that people were seeing favicons in Google Webmaster Tools. I personally did not see the favicons until last night.

Here is a picture from my Google Webmaster Tools account:

I like it and so do many others. It isn't a big change, but does help you find the right site in a batch of dozens or more.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.

Want To Rank High in Google's Real Time Search? Get More Twitter Followers

Posted: January 14th, 2010, 1:54pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A month ago, Google added real-time search results in the form of Tweets from Twitter and other real-time search related sources. Yesterday at Search Engine Land I covered an interview with Amit Singhal of Google via Technology Review. The interview explains how Google ranks those real-time search results - on some level.

Want to rank high in those Google real-time results? It seems like all you need is a lot of followers and you should be set.

From the interview:

"One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation," Singhal says. "As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well."

Obviously, Google needs to figure out the value of the followers of followers, but that shouldn't be too hard in this equation.

Another interesting point was in regards to the use of hashtags in Tweets. The interview wrote that hashtags may "serve as red flags to lower tweet quality and attract spam-like content."

Of course, this does not mean anything you Tweet will show up in Google's search results. For that, they need to be trending topics, and a good way to see what is trending is to look at Google Trends.

Honestly, there are some interesting thoughts in the comments on my post at Search Engine Land.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorldand Google Web Search Help.

Google News Page Size Limit Is 256 KB

Posted: January 13th, 2010, 2:49pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Did you know that if you are in Google News, you need to keep your pages below 256 KB to get your articles indexed by the Google News Bot?

A Google News Help thread has Googler, Inbal, explaining to one publisher why his articles were no longer being included in the Google News index. She said:

Thank you for bringing these errors to our attention. It appears that your site's pages are too large. The hub or article page length exceeds the maximum allowed. Pages can be 256KB long. I've updated your site's information in our system. We should begin to crawl more articles from your site within a few weeks.

As you can see, it does appear that Google can make an exception to the rule. She did say that she updated the "site's information in our system" and Google News will begin to crawl the site again soon.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Where Is My Google Reconsideration Request Response?

Posted: January 13th, 2010, 2:38pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread and a WebmasterWorld thread has questions about the timeline for receiving a response from your reconsideration requests.

About six months ago, Google began sending notifications of status updates on reconsideration requests. But there are two times where Google will not send a notification. As Susan Moskwa said in the Google Webmaster Help thread:

(1) If your site is not (never was) in violation they won't email you
(2) If your site is still in violation they won't email you

But recently, over the vacation, it seems like there has been a backlog at Google slowing down the review process. A WebmasterWorldhas two webmasters complaining about the slow down in these requests. Personally, I find it funny they have that much experience with this process that they know when Google is slowing down. Maybe all they do is fix sites killed by Google?

In any event, if you submit a reconsideration request to Google and you did not fix the issues with your site or if you never had issues with your site - you won't get a response.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

Update: Susan commented below, she said:

This is not accurate. We send notifications in all cases after we've processed a reconsideration request. What I said was that if you don't see any significant change in your site's performance after your request has been processed, that usually indicates one of the two items above.

Google Adding Favicons to Webmaster Tools Site List?

Posted: January 12th, 2010, 2:51pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A DigitalPoint Forums thread has an image of Google adding Favorite Icons (favicons) in the site list. I personally do not see them, but here is a picture from the thread:

I am pretty sure this is new, because the favicons are not showing up in my Webmaster Tools console.

What does this do for you? Not much - but it does help you differentiate the sites in the list a bit faster.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Should You Ever Have More Than 5 Clicks To Get To a Page?

Posted: January 8th, 2010, 2:11pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Most search engines find new pages by crawling links from other sites. At the same time, the more links to a page and the quality of the pages linking to a page, drives the quality of the page being linked to. These are all basic SEO principles.

This is why many SEOs place links to their most important internal pages, right off of their home page. Why?

(1) They want them indexed faster and typically one's home page is indexed more often than other pages (not always). So having a link from your most popular page to other pages, help the other pages also get indexed faster.

(2) Also your home page normally has the most amount of links to it, so typically has the higher link equity of all your page (not always), so linking to pages off your home page will funnel some of that high link equity to the pages you are linking to. This may result in a higher ranking for those pages linked to from your home page.

Again, all basic SEO principles.

The myth is having pages based in the root directory of your server results in higher ranking. That is not true, it is all about the click path.

That being said, does it ever make sense to require people to click and click, five or more times to get to an internal page? Since search engines will have to do the same clicking, it might take them longer to find the page and it won't pass the majority of your home page's link popularity.

JohnMu, a Googler, in the Google Webmaster Help forums discussed just that in less than a sentence. He said:

I'd have no problem clicking through 5-6 links to get to highly specific content if I needed it and your site had it.

Google knows that there is a logical site hierarchy. Google knows that there are deeper pages on a site that is important. As an SEO, it is not just about linking to them off your home page, but also about getting external links to those pages. And it is also about utilizing your other internal pages to get the search bots to bite them.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Caffeine Results Now Going Live?

Posted: January 7th, 2010, 2:59pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

This is not a Caffeine update, Caffeine is not live. More coming soon.

There seems to be a lot of buzz going on at the forums about Google's Caffeine index going live on more and more Google data centers.

Let me give you some history on Caffeine. It went live as a public preview in August. Then in early November there were rumors of it going live before the holiday season. Matt Cutts said no way, it won't go live until after the holidays. But it did go live on a single data center, in the Google wild, in late November.

Now, it is after the holidays, after the new years and everyone is waiting for Google to flip the switch. Did Google flip the switch in the past twenty-four hours?

I am seeing tons of threads with people talking about major ranking changes. But there are only a few threads specifically thinking it is Caffeine related. We have threads at DigitalPoint Forums and an updated WebmasterWorldthread. The suspected data centers that Caffeine has been moved to, include:

I emailed Google, Matt Cutts and his team for confirmation - so stay tuned.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Update: A Google spokesperson told me, "we have nothing to announce today regarding Caffeine." Basically, it is not live yet and when it does go live, they will let us know.

Google Back Tracks a Bit on Dropping SEOs & Webmasters from Local Results

Posted: January 7th, 2010, 2:49pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A week or so ago, we reported how Google removed SEOs from local pack in the search results. The move caused a pretty big debate in the industry where many SEOs felt this was a nail in the coffin for Google really hating the SEO industry. Personally, I think it is a fun debate, but I don't think all of Google hates the industry.

In any event, Joel H. from the Google Maps team updated the Google Maps Help thread with a revised statement, implying that Google may change their minds on this decision. He said:

I think I understand both sides of the issue: I understand that local search results can have a positive impact for some businesses. But I also see that some SEOs/web designers want their website, not a local listing, to be the primary destination. And I want to clarify that today we think this is a better user experience - to display primarily web search results for some of these queries. Using words in or near seem to be suggestive of a different intent. In the end, these search results will fluctuate as we fine tune our results pages to get the user the best answer.

Again, he said, "I want to clarify that today we think this is a better user experience." He also then went on to explain why the words in or near don't always provide a clear indicator of local intent.

In any event, if I had to guess - Google will wait to see how both searchers approach the missing SEO or web design related local packs. They will also see if SEOs and web designers calm down over this change. I assume if SEOs don't calm down about the change, Google might consider adding it back. But clearly, Google finds the categories either not relevant or too hard to handle from a spam perspective.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Yahoo Search January 2010 Update?

Posted: January 6th, 2010, 2:46pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

There is a single report at a WebmasterWorld thread of a possible Yahoo Search update. Senior member, textex, is noticing changes in the Yahoo Search results, but clearly, the Yahoo Search Blog has not posted anything since December 15th.

Typically, when it comes to Yahoo Search updates - we normally see it being reported in the forums before Yahoo posts anything on their blog about it. Also, we typically see Yahoo Search update every quarter or so and the last update was in September 2009, so we are do an update.

Do you notice any ranking changes in Yahoo or a shift in your Yahoo referrals?

Note: As Yahoo loses market share, less and less webmasters and SEOs are concerned about Yahoo. So it doesn't surprise me to see such little activity in the thread at this point. I do hope the thread picks up.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Removes SEOs from Local One Pack in Search Results

Posted: December 31st, 2009, 1:48pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In an updated Google Maps Help thread, Joel H. from Google said Google has dropped most of the local results in the Google web search pages for SEO and Web Design related queries. Yes, you heard me right - Google has decided to intentionally not show a local pack for queries that are related to SEO or web design and include a local qualifier. Example searches include [web design 10010], [web design suffern], [seo 90210], [new york seo companies] and so on.

Google first removed web designers from the local pack in November. Then they claimed it was a bug related to a fix for an Orlando Dodge dealership, but that is not true, according to Joel.

Yesterday, Joel from Google said:

Earlier thread, Brian (BB- baseonballs) [a Googler, btw] noted that this may be related to a known issue regarding the display of local search results on google.com. After further investigation, they are slightly different, and I'll explain our intent.

Today, we're intentionally showing less local results for web design / SEO queries. For example, [web design sacramento] doesn't display local listings today. We believe this is an accurate representation of user intent. In some cases, we do show local listings, however (as NSNA/php-er noted) [web design in bellingham]. I'm sure some of you feel we should be displaying local results for queries like [Web Design Vancouver]. I understand that concern, but based on our understanding of our users, we feel this is the right decision for now.

I'll give the usual disclaimer that we're constantly working on improving the user experience and results will vary over time. So, this could change in the future, but I wanted to be explicit about what we're doing today.

Yea, Joel said that. Of course, the logical thoughts by SEOs on this matter is that Google really does hate SEOs. This may be the last Google vs. SEOs controversy of 2009.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Can You Optimize for Stop Words in Search Results?

Posted: December 30th, 2009, 2:39pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A HighRankings Forum thread asks an interesting SEO question. The question is, can you optimize for stop words in Google or other search engines?

His particular example seems flawed, in that he is calling IT a stop word and it is stopping him for optimizing for the query [it companies]. However, when I search for [it companies] in Google, it does seem to figure out, IT here stands for information technology.

But in general, is there a need to optimize for stop words? Do we have more examples of cases? If so, can it be done?

Here is a poll:

Can you SEO for stop words?(polls)

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Update: See Jill's comment below for the issue this SEO has in the thread.

Google Promises to Fix Google Webmaster Tools API Verification Process in January

Posted: December 30th, 2009, 2:08pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Those of you who are patiently waiting for Google to fix the verification tag in the Webmaster Tools API for the past two months just has to wait a bit longer.

In short, those who are tying to use the Webmaster Tools API to verify their sites with Google Webmaster Tools are running into issues. The reason is, the meta tag being generated via the API is wrong and needs to be updated by Google. This has been going on since October 2009.

Dennis G. from Google promised he will finally update it to work in January, sometime. He said:

We've partly updated the API already. The rest will be fixed in January. Sorry for the delay.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google 302 Hijack Attempt on CNN for Blackberry News?

Posted: December 30th, 2009, 1:59pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Conduct a search for [blackberry news] (Note: I wouldn't click on those results, they may infect your computer) in Google and see page two and three of the results. The results are inundated with weird results from random domains that redirect to CNN.com. The redirect is a 302 redirect and the header looks like:

HTTP/1.1 302 => Date => Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:58:52 GMT Content-Type => text/html Connection => close Server => Apache Content-Length => 0 Location => http://cnn.com

Here is a picture of just two of those results:

For a full page of results, see this screen capture.

Now, I do not know much about hijacking search results in Google. I know this was somewhat of a major issue in 2005. Then in 2008, we reporting page hijacking wasn't an issue in Google anymore, until about six months ago, when it popped up again.

So maybe this is a new example of a 302 hijack attempt. This time targeting the popular news source, CNN and going after the keyword phrase [blackberry news]?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Blogger & Webmaster Tools Verification Bug

Posted: December 29th, 2009, 2:29pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread, written in Italian, has confirmed reports of a bug between Google's Blogger and Google Webmaster Tools.

Dennis G. from the Google Webmaster Team, who is specifically involved in the verification process, wrote in a Google Webmaster Help thread:"

It looks like we have a bug in our blogger integration. I'll go fix that. In the meanwhile, try verifying by meta tag instead.

It seems like he is the man that actually goes in to fix the "bug." How cool is that?

In any event, if you are having problems verifying your Blogger blog with Google Webmaster Tools, know that you are not alone.

There is no ETA for the fix, but Dennis made it sound like it is a quick fix.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Uses ccTLD Over Server Location for Localizing Search Results

Posted: December 29th, 2009, 2:20pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Whenever an SEO talks about geo-targeting your site to a specific region, so it ranks well on that localized version of Google they tell you to do a few things.

(1) Host in the country you want to rank well for
(2) Try to use a ccTLD for that country, i.e. domain.co.uk for UK
(3) Set the geographic target in Google Webmaster Tools

However, instead of using a ccTLD, I often see sites deploy a subdomain or subfolder to specify a different language or geographic target. A ccTLD is best, in my opinion. Of course, there are times you want to use a localized language by target the main Google - so that does apply.

JohnMu from Google replied to a Google Webmaster Help thread stating that a ccTLD is much more powerful than hosting your site on a server in that country. Specifically, John said:

Yes, we do try to find context from these two factors (I think this article is being updated to be a bit more clear though :-)) -- however, if your site has a geographic TLD/ccTLD (like .co.nz) then we will not use the location of the server as well. Doing that would be a bit confusing, we can't really "average" between New Zealand and the USA... At any rate, if you are using a ccTLD like .co.nz you really don't have to worry about where you're hosting your website, the ccTLD is generally a much stronger signal than the server's location could ever be.

Google will use the ccTLD over the server location to geotarget your site. This makes sense to me, but I do not think this has been covered here. We covered the overal topic dozens of times, but not specifically which factor is more important.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google & Lightbox JavaScript: Can GoogleBot Index Images in Lightbox JS?

Posted: December 28th, 2009, 2:07pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around getting Google to index a popular image feature sites use to show off images on their web site. It is called Lightbox JS and it basically uses JavaScript to open up a neat larger view of the image on the page.

I use it on many sites, but you can see a quick example on the RustyBrick Mobile Portfolio. Just click on the image and it opens up a larger picture of that image. Here is a screen capture showing the larger image as it overlays on top of the page:

The issue is, GoogleBot is having a tough time capturing these images in their index. WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, explained:

I've been up against the same challenge. Even though regular Google search is aggressively discovering URLs and content by spidering JavaScript, apparently the image bot is not so inquisitive at this point. This surprised me, because there are many images being displayed through Lightbox scripts these days.

Yes, GoogleBot is able to execute JavaScript, but is GoogleImageBot able to at the same pace?

Tedster is exploring other ways to get GoogleBot to index Lightbox JS. He tried the following method, but it doesn't seem to work:

My latest attempt involves making the anchor part of the link a thumbnail image - but the thumbnail is not just a smaller version of the larger image. I use the same exact image file for the anchor, but I resize it on the the page with the HTML width and height attributes. This means that the page loads more slowly, but at least the image bot gets a direct <img src=[url]> style mark-up.

If you have a solution, let us know.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google to Add PDF Support to Fetch As Googlebot?

Posted: December 18th, 2009, 2:48pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A couple months ago, Google released an incredibly useful feature in the Webmaster Tools labs named fetch as GoogleBot. It basically allowed you to see what GoogleBot sees, enabling you to see crawl issues, hacks, injected links and other webmaster related issues as a GoogleBot. But when it came to PDFs, I don't think the tool worked properly (yes, it is in labs).

A thread in the Google Webmaster Help forums has one webmaster asking why the feature doesn't work with his PDFs. He asked:

For example, in the URL in question, http://www.knowitall.com/literature/spec/95731_Pharmaceutical_Excipients_Spec_Sheet.pdf, the text "Pharmaceutical Excipients Database" is in the pdf, but in the "Fetch as GoogleBot" results window, none of those terms are found--the results are basically in binary format. The document is found by the Google Search engine so it is apparently extracting the human readable text.

I couldn't run a test on that document, but I used a PDF on my server to compare. I ran five different tests on two different domains, with a bunch of different types of PDF documents and they all came out with gibberish binary format results in the fetch as GoogleBot. Here is one sample screenshot:

Not, Susan Moskwa from Google said in that thread:

FYI we're looking into this issue, so sit tight. If it looks okay in search results the problem is probably not with your site (we've been able to reproduce it for other sites as well). Thanks for letting us know.

So it seems like they may get the fetch as GoogleBot feature working for PDF documents?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Click Through Rate by Search Engine Result Positions

Posted: December 18th, 2009, 2:23pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

How much better is a number one organic listing than a number two result? That is often a question webmasters, publishers, site owners ask themselves and others. A WebmasterWorld thread asked that exact question.

Tedster, a WebmasterWorld administrator, answered it with AOL's leaked data from 2006. Tedster shared the click-through rate by position:

#1 - 47% click-through
#2 - 13% click-through
#3 - 9%click-through
#4 - 7% click-through

The SEO Black Hat blog went through this in more detail. So take a look there as well.

I should add that Universal Search and the way the search engines are showing more than just organic results on a page may significantly impact these numbers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

New: Cross Domain Canonical Tag Google Support

Posted: December 16th, 2009, 2:50pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The canonical tag was jointly introduced by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft earlier this year. Google hinted they would soon support cross domain canonical tag and they officially announced it last night. What is a canonical tag? It basically allows you to communicate to Google that a page has moved to a new location, without you using a server side 301 redirect.

Why is this important? A few reasons:

(1) Some hosts don't allow webmasters to deploy 301 redirects
(2) Some site owners aren't technical enough to implement a 301 redirect
(3) In some cases, webmasters do not want to redirect users but rather only search engines (i.e. pagination, weird filtering, tracking parameters added to URLs, etc).

Initially this was launched to work within a domain only. So you could only say that domainA.com/pageA has moved to domainA.com/pageB. Now you are able to do this across domains, so you can say, domainA.com/pageA has moved to domainB.com/pageA or even domainA.com moved to domainB.com.

Google made this cute graphic to explain it:

There is a lot of technical detail on how to implement this tag over here but in short, you just add this tag to the head section of your HTML of the page you want to redirect. Make sure the URL you specify is the URL you want GoogleBot to be redirected to:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/true-url.html" />

JohnMu, who wrote the Google blog post also put some FAQs, and note the "hint" he keeps referring to. I assume the "hint" will become less of a hint and more of an "instruction" as time goes on.

Q: Do the pages have to be identical? A: No, but they should be similar. Slight differences are fine.
Q: For technical reasons I can't include a 1:1 mapping for the URLs on my sites. Can I just point the rel="canonical" at the homepage of my preferred site?
A: No; this could result in problems. A mapping from old URL to new URL for each URL on the old site is the best way to use rel="canonical".

Q: I'm offering my content / product descriptions for syndication. Do my publishers need to use rel="canonical"?
A: We leave this up to you and your publishers. If the content is similar enough, it might make sense to use rel="canonical", if both parties agree.

Q: My server can't do a 301 (permanent) redirect. Can I use rel="canonical" to move my site?
A: If it's at all possible, you should work with your webhost or web server to do a 301 redirect. Keep in mind that we treat rel="canonical" as a hint, and other search engines may handle it differently. But if a 301 redirect is impossible for some reason, then a rel="canonical" may work for you. For more information, see our guidelines on moving your site.

Q: Should I use a noindex robots meta tag on pages with a rel="canonical" link element?
A: No, since those pages would not be equivalent with regards to indexing - one would be allowed while the other would be blocked. Additionally, it's important that these pages are not disallowed from crawling through a robots.txt file, otherwise search engine crawlers will not be able to discover the rel="canonical" link element.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

When Will Google Fix the Web Design Local Pack Bug?

Posted: December 16th, 2009, 2:29pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Over a month ago, there were reports in two Google Maps Help threads that the local pack for searches in the flavor of [web design], [web development] and so on, were not triggering local pack results. We covered this about three weeks ago with our story named Google Bug Removes Web Designers in Local Pack and it is still not fixed.

Back then, a Googler said the reason for the bug had to do with a one box local result bug being fixed to show a local 7 pack. That bug was fixed, but it triggered a new bug with queries such as [web design], [web development] and so on. Even if you add a local qualifier to such queries, i.e. [web design new york] or [web design 10010] the local pack is not triggered at all.

Google never offered an ETA for when this would be fixed, but it has been a month since a Googler responded to the issue and we have yet to get an update, while the bug lingers on. Google, when will this bug be resolved?

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Google To Add "Trustworthy Indicator" to Site Performance Tool

Posted: December 10th, 2009, 2:26pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has reports of page load time speeds spiking up to ridiculous numbers in the new Google site performance reports. Google's response to these reports was pretty interesting, I'll get to that soon, firs the context.

A Top Contributor in the forum wrote:

After about 6 months of "flat line" Site Performance reports of averagepage load time around 1 or 2 seconds, I am now seeing in Tools a report that: "On average, pages in your site take 83.1 seconds to load (updated on Dec 7, 2009)." and of course the graph has shot up and I'm tol that my site's average page load time is "slower than 100% of sites".
However, the only two pages listed in that report both show load times of 1 to 2 seconds.

Now a Googler with the code name "sreeram" replied saying:

The 83s number is bogus. Your site's toolbar traffic dropped by more than an order of magnitude in the last few days. You should ignore the average for now. We'll soon be showing site owners some indication of how trustworthy the numbers are, so you can decide when to ignore it and when not to.

Not all URLs may have toolbar traffic, so it's possible to have many URLs indexed, and even visited by users, but only a couple may show up on Site Performance. In addition, when there's very little data for a given URL, we won't display it (for privacy reasons), though it will be included in the overall site average.

So in this case, the site's traffic as seen by the Google Toolbar dropped significantly, which caused a weird spike in the webmaster's site performance reports. Thus, Google promised to provide an "indication of how trustworthy the numbers are" in this report.

Clearly, some of these numbers are not trustworthy, such as factoring in Toolbar fluctuations or Google Analytics speed.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Update: John Mueller from Google sent me a note about this:

The Webmaster Tools team is constantly working on ways to improve the product as well as the data provided there. In general, we prefer not to comment on possible future releases. The Labs section in Webmaster Tools allows us to easily try out and iterate on new and innovative features, which is one reason we launched the Site Performance tool there. Personally, I found the data provided there quite actionable and have seen a lot of positive feedback from webmasters around this tool. To fine-tune a website with regards to speed, it can be useful to start with the information provided here and then to look into the details using browser-based tools such as Page Speed and Speed Tracer.
We're always looking into ways we can take our products and services to the next level. We appreciate all of the feedback and coverage that you provide! I'll get in touch with you once I have more information that I can share.

Google Does Real Time Search : See It For Popeye

Posted: December 8th, 2009, 2:48pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google announced a dozen things yesterday, but one of those announcements was on real time search in the search results. Google teamed up with Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca to make these real time search results possible.

In short, Google sticks another "universal result" in the search results when they feel a real time result makes sense. For example, a search for popeye, which is currently trending due to the Google Doodle Popeye logo, shows this real time result:

Yes, that is my tweet showing a link to this site. In fact, it also shows other Tweeting links to my story. Here is a link to the real time landing page results.

Here is a video explaining this in more detail:

We have threads on this announcement at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums. The consensus in the threads are that this clutters up the search results even more and do not provide a simple interface for people to find relevant results. Of course, most SEOs don't want their web results pushed down in the search results page - but SEOs will adapt and use Twitter, Facebook and so on to make sure their results do show up in that area when applicable.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

SEOs Freak Out: Google To Personalize All Search Results

Posted: December 7th, 2009, 2:13pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back in February 2007, Google began personalizing search results based on your search history. Google would do so, only when you were logged in. Now, Google announced they are personalizing search results for everyone, even if you are not logged in.

Google explains:

Previously, we only offered Personalized Search for signed-in users, and only when they had Web History enabled on their Google Accounts. What we're doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser. It's completely separate from your Google Account and Web History (which are only available to signed-in users). You'll know when we customize results because a "View customizations" link will appear on the top right of the search results page. Clicking the link will let you see how we've customized your results and also let you turn off this type of customization.

This is big stuff for the SEO world. No matter how much we complained earlier that the personalized search results made it hard to "optimize" for, this only impacted a fraction of all Google searchers. Most people had no idea how to even log into Google. Now, Google is personalizing results by default and these same people will have no idea how to turn off personalization. So now all these users will see different results, on some level, and it does impact the SEO space - more so than when Google launched this in 2007.

SEOs, most of them, are mad. Let me quote some of the more trusted names in our forums:

Cre8asite Forums:

So let me get this straight: to completely opt-out, you'll have to login permanently? Which moron came up with that scheme?

Wow... this is really going to overly favor websites like amazon and ebay that already have a huge reach.
The rich will get richer.

HighRankings Forums:

Google is using a "secret cookie" not attached to the Google.com domain to handle the Web History/Personalized Search for users who are not logged in.
The gradual impact over time will be that unaware users who click on Google search listings will reshape their search results. Unless Google develops some sort of injection to show people new (fresh) content, discovery will become more difficult for less sophisticated users.

Good news for Randy and 1dmf's Google Rank Extractor. And also for moving people further and further away from traditional rank checking as a measure of success.

DigitalPoint Forums:

Google are there to find ways to best meet the needs of the searcher. As much as we want them to be, they are not there to meet our SEO needs.

WebmasterWorld:

The possible impact to all is staggering.

This just feels so very wrong-headed that the mind boggles! As I often explain to IT staff, NOT EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE PROGRAMMED SHOULD BE PROGRAMMED.

Sounds like an attempt at a product improvement. SEOs may or may not like it, but the real question is whether Joe Searcher likes it. If Joe does, Google will remain one big step ahead of its competitors. If Personalized Search turns out to be Google's answer to Windows Vista, Google will need to bring back Google XP or leapfrog to Google 7.

Danny Sullivan has an excellent write up about this at Search Engine Land, he doesn't seem to touch on the SEO view of this.

Honestly, if this makes Google more relevant for their searchers - all power to them. I am not going to say I know what is better for the average searcher. They can quickly figure this out after days and decide to keep it, turn it down, or off completely. SEOs will adapt, like they always do - we are a strong and smart bunch - I am not worried.

Forum discussion is plentiful and it is at Cre8asite Forums, HighRankings Forums, DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Google Page Speed Report Comes to Webmaster Tools

Posted: December 3rd, 2009, 3:23pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Like all you know, page speed with be a ranking factor in Google in 2010 and if you didn't believe it until now, maybe Google adding a page speed report to Google Webmaster Tools will convince you of that.

I figured I show you detailed screen shots of how slow this site is, using this tool.

As you can see from the chart below, this site is slower than 86% of the other sites on the Internet. The chart does slow slight improvement, but clearly, I need to clean things up here - quick.

Then Google shows me example load times for specific pages on my site:

Then Google offers speed suggestions:

I can drill down deeper on a specific page to see exactly what is suggested:

Figured I slam my own site over someone elses - why not.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

Short URLs Don't Want Google's Breadcrumb Display URL in SERPs

Posted: December 3rd, 2009, 2:58pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About two weeks ago, Google introduced breadcrumb display URLs in the search results. It was suppose to be for "small percentage of search results" but they are showing up quiet often. Google said they are doing this for URLs that are "too long, too short, or too obscure to add useful information." So Google adds the useful information for you.

Not all webmasters agree that Google is improving their URL structure with the display URL as a breadcrumb. A WebmasterWorld thread has some webmasters complaining and I know, WebmasterWorld doesn't allow examples. So for you Googlers out there that want examples, I'll give you one.

A search for [rustybrick siddur] brings up this new breadcrumb URL. It looks like this:

Now, if this was smart, it would either leave my URL alone, because I feel it is pretty short and very descriptive the way it is. Or Google would show the true breadcrumb which is > iPhone Apps > Siddur as shown here:

Now, it works beautifully for [rustybrick iphone] but even there, is it really needed to change the display URL from rustybrick.com/iphone.php to rustybrick.com > iPhone Apps? I am not too sure.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo Search Unbanning Web Sites After Years?

Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 2:53pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Is it possible that Yahoo is unbanning web sites from Yahoo Search after years of being in the penalty box? A single post by an old time member at WebmasterWorld claims that two of his sites are now back in the Yahoo index after years.

He said:

Just noticed today two of our sites that were previously banned in Yahoo for 2+ years are now receiving traffic once again from Yahoo and are being reindexed. Anybode else noticing their sites being reindexed? Traffic was first noticed on the 25th of November.

Did anyone else notice that their sites that were banned from Yahoo is now back?

Again, this is a single post from one webmaster - so I am trying to see if this is a single incident or a larger one. Please join the thread or comment here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Confirms Bug With Sitelinks Where You Can Link To Competitors

Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 1:59pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About two weeks ago, we reported on rumors of Sitelinks linking to the wrong site. Well, those rumors have just been confirmed by a Googler.

JohnMu in a Google Webmaster Help thread confirmed a long standing rumor where a Sitelink, can link to a third-party site, likely a competitor. John said:

This looks like something that happened long ago because of a bug on our side that's persisted because you're blocking the Sitelinks. Once you unblock them, they can go away on their own :). Sorry about the confusion!

So yes, there was a bug when you blocked a Sitelink that you did not want. You had to unblock them to make the Sitelink go away. Go figure.

I doubt most people will know how to do this or even think this is logical, so I do hope the bug is fixed and Google does this for all sites that are impacted.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

More on How Google News SEO Works

Posted: November 27th, 2009, 2:59pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google News SEO is a fun topic for me because we are included in Google News. Two recent interviews were published on how Google News ranks articles and yes, it is very different from rankings in Google Web Search.

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land and Eric Enge at Stone Temple both ask the tough questions with Josh Cohen, Senior Business Product Manager for Google News.

I suggest reading those interviews and then joining the WebmasterWorld discussion on the topic. Some really good analysis is going on there on these interviews.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Rich Snippets Now in Google UK & Other Non-US Properties

Posted: November 27th, 2009, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

First blogged at BigMouthMedia, Google's Rich Snippets feature which went live in the U.S. in May is now showing up in other Google properties, such as the UK, Canada and other English based language countries.

When it first launched, it was only based in the US. But now if you try to bring up sites that provide rich snippets to Google outside of the US, some show them. For example, Google UK, Google Canada and Google Ireland all show them, but Google Israel, Google Mexico and Google Italy do not. I believe it has to do with the language of that country.

A screen shot of Rich Snippets now showing in the Google UK:

A screen shot of Rich Snippets not showing in Google Mexico:

This was first spotted in a thread we covered earlier that felt rich snippets were coming to smaller sites, still not sure if that is true.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

What Are Google's 200 Search Engine Ranking Factors?

Posted: November 25th, 2009, 3:25pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A neat new WebmasterWorld thread is trying to do the impossible by putting down on paper, what exactly are the 200 or so search engine ranking factors used by Google.

The thread creator put out a few dozen ranking factors, but there is a way to go here. Think this is a possible task?

Even if they do get all the 200 ranking factors down, figuring out the weights assigned to each and how Google scores them based on other factors can be a bit complex. SEOs have been trying to do so since even before Google was born. Back then, it was a lot easier, now - it is virtually impossible. I bet Matt Cutts, who has access to this data, wouldn't be able to get it exact (no offense).

Anyway, trying to come up with the list, in itself, is useful on some level. But understanding where to put your emphasis and time in, is what is most important for SEOs to understand.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

GoogleBot Can Also Crawl Too Much & Be Nasty

Posted: November 20th, 2009, 2:52pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The other day, I noticed a thread at Google Webmaster Help where a person was complaining that they were being hit hard by GoogleBot. In short, Google's spider was crawling his site in a very aggressive manner. He said:

After setting a custom crawl rate using webmaster tools (and robots.txt for good measure) GoogleBot's crawl rate slowed to the specified 1 request per (approx.) 60 seconds. However, as of a few hours ago the crawl rate has increased to an inexplicable 1 request every 2 to 3 seconds which is unacceptable - I've had to take the drastic response of adding a site wide disallow until I can get this resolved. Why would the crawl rate increase in speed so and how can I get it to return to the values specified?

Googler, Jonathan Simon, replied and said there was a temporary bug that cause the issue. He apologized and said it was now resolved. Jonathan said:

I took a look into what you've reported and it turns out that there was a temporary issue in the processing pipeline of the crawl rate settings which caused them to not take effect. This issue is now resolved so crawl rate settings should once again behave as expected.

I often give Microsoft a hard time about MSNBot being too aggressive and not listening to webmaster directives. So this time, I felt I point out an issue with GoogleBot.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Sitelinks Linking to Wrong Sites?

Posted: November 17th, 2009, 2:47pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that someone is noticing that his site's Sitelinks in Google are pointing to a different site. I am not sure how that is possible. How can Google link a Sitelink for one site to a different site? But according to this webmaster, it is true.

I do not have any proof that this is happening, nor will I ever get proof because WebmasterWorld does not allow examples. But I believe it is possible that with DNS changes and shared IPs, it is possible that Google can be confused and link to the wrong place.

There were cases where Google got the wrong site for the info operator and the cache being the wrong page, but never a Sitelink.

If this happens to you, the first thing you should do is block those Sitelinks in Google Webmaster Tools. Then post evidence at Google Webmaster Help.

As Tedster said at WebmasterWorld:

Sounds like a particularly nasty data bug. Does that sitelink show up in your Webmaster Tools account? If so, you can veto it. If not, you could take the issue up on the Google Webmaster forum or try a reconsideration request.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Page Load Time & Speed Will Likely Be a Ranking Factor in Google

Posted: November 16th, 2009, 2:54pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Page load time (speed) is a factor currently in the AdWords quality score. But soon it may be coming to Google's organic ranking algorithm. If you have a really slow site, it may impact how high you rank in Google. That was the main news coming out of PubCon last week, minus the Caffeine launch.

It is currently not in the algorithm, according to Matt, but who knows - maybe they are testing this already. Matt was clear that Google wants the web to be a faster place and Google does control much of what people see on the web. So Google can influence that people find faster web pages, over slower ones.

You can hear Matt talk about this 2 minutes and 52 seconds into this video:

Google also has a tool to test page speed at [code.google.com] - so get ready.

I should add, Google has hundreds of ranking factors. Adding one more, depending on the weight they assign to it, shouldn't shuffle things up much for most sites. Just make sure your site loads fast - it is a good thing to have anyway.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google's FeedBurner Tagging URLs : Duplicate Content Issue

Posted: November 16th, 2009, 2:39pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google AdSense for Feeds blog announced they will be tagging your FeedBurner feeds with Google Analytics parameter tracking. I have been seeing this for several blogs for the past few weeks already. Basically, this means, Google is appending variables to the URL.

For example, if you look at one of our latest posts, the URL is [feeds.seroundtable.com]. If you click it, it takes you to [www.seroundtable.com].

The purpose is to make tracking better in Google Analytics but clearly, this is just messy. Heck, I have been linking to these URLs via the SearchCap for the past couple weeks and now it is going to get a lot worse. I am going to be linking to a URL that is not the parent URL.

This is the topic of concern at Cre8asite Forums. JohnMu from Google came into that thread to offer some SEO advice:

- Move to "#" for these parameters, which will effectively hide them from search engines. There are a few articles on this, eg [esev.com]
- Use the rel=canonical link element: [googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com]

- For Google, use the URL parameter handling tool to tell us to ignore these parameters: [googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com]

In general, we'll try to figure these things out on our own (as will the other search engines), but personally I like to be in control so I'd probably try something like that.

Or you can turn off the tracking, the Google blog explains how but here is that info:

If you're not using Google Analytics, or for some other reason don't want these parameters in the requests coming to your website, you can turn off Google Analytics tracking on the "Configure Stats" page on the Analyze tab at http://feedburner.google.com.

Got all of that. You should take action, as I should as well.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Is Google Caffeine At 216.239.59.103 Data Center?

Posted: November 16th, 2009, 2:28pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

As we all know, Google Caffeine is launching on a single data center until after the holidays so that online retailers don't get a nasty present from Google.

As I promised then, I would let you know what data center the results went or go live on, when I hear. There are some discussions and chatter at WebmasterWorld that one data center may have Caffeine results. Google has not confirmed it, nor do all webmasters believe these are Caffeine like results.

The data center is 216.239.59.103 and you should give it a try yourself. Matt said that even if they do give out an IP address, it is possible that non-Caffeine results will show on that data center for some people. So maybe this is Caffeine and some don't see it? I am not sure - I am pretty sure Matt can confirm this IP as the data center or not - after he gets back from Las Vegas.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update #1: Some are saying this data center has moved to 66.102.7.18.

Update #2: Google's Matt Cutts replied to me on Twitter saying, "@rustybrick I don't think that IP points to Caffeine."

Google Updates Keyword Tool in Webmaster Tools: Updates Daily & Shows More Detail

Posted: November 12th, 2009, 2:55pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced they have updated the keyword tool and data in Google Webmaster Tools. The new additions include:

Data updated daily
How often is the keyword found
Displas top URLs that contain the keyword

Specifically, the new significance column "compares the frequency of a keyword to the frequency of the most popular keyword on your site." Google adds, "when you click on a keyword to view more details, you will get a list of up to 10 URLs which contain that keyword." Why is this important, well, if someone does hack into your site, you can easily see if unrelated keywords are showing up and on which pages. Plus, it is just a good tool to see how Google understands your web site.

Here are pictures of the report for this site:

Most importantly, the Google Webmaster Team's Halloween costume not only rocked, but coordinated.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help, DigitalPoint Forums and Cre8asite Forums.

Google Rich Snippets Coming To Smaller Sites?

Posted: November 12th, 2009, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back in May, Google launched rich snippets that enabled webmasters to markup their HTML with richer data for Google to display. For example, you can often see results from Yelp and other sites like it for reviews that display reviews in the Google results. Here is a picture:

In fact, most webmasters said they will markup their HTML to take part of this richer snippet experience. Then in September, Google added a rich snippet testing tool because although many marked up their HTML, they never knew if it was actually working because Google rarely displayed the richer snippets for smaller sites.

Now, I am hearing via a WebmasterWorld thread that some smaller webmasters are now noticing rich snippets being displayed for their sites. I tried a few sites myself and was not able to see it myself, maybe he is hitting a different Google data center. I do hope that rich snippets do make its way down to more sites so that the playing field is evened up a bit.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Caffeine Index Goes Live Right Before Holiday Shopping Season

Posted: November 10th, 2009, 2:36pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has actually released a major Google index update before the holiday season. Yes, this is the Google Caffeine index, which has been in a Sandbox (testing environment) since August, is now being rolled out. If you visit the Caffeine URL at www2.sandbox.google.com, you are taken to a thank you page that reads:

We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox.
Based on the success we've seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.

Yes, this is being rolled out slowly, data center by data center. Some of you may already see it, while most of you probably don't yet. The big question is when will this be fully rolled out? Some have been saying they have been seeing Caffeine in the live index already. I am not too sure.

Why in the world would Google do this right before the holiday season? Did Google forget how the Florida update had hurt online retailers right in the most important time of their shopping season? It was devastating to many small webmasters. I assume Google is confident this will have a small impact on businesses and they are confident it won't shuffle things up too much.

Update: Matt Cutts of Google just promised it won't be rolled out until after the holiday season.

I believe Google's goal with Sandbox was more about infrastructure over the quality of those results. Yes, Google wanted to index deeper and faster and smarter, but the ranking of those results, I believe, they wanted to keep stable from the current index. I hope that makes sense to the readers here, i.e. indexing is different than ranking. But indexing does have an impact on what Google ranks, obviously.

The Google Caffeine Sandbox was shut down about a few hours ago. There is early discussion beginning at the various forums. No official blog post from Google, Matt Cutts or anything, except for that Thank You page.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help, DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Fake Google Matt Cutts Ban List Referrers?

Posted: November 9th, 2009, 2:56pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

What appears to be a newbie, posted a thread at Google Webmaster Help asking why his site is not ranking yet. He also asked if he had something to do with the URL https://internal.google.com/spamteam/users/cutts/matt/ban_list/ showing up in his log files.

Got that?

https://internal.google.com/spamteam/users/cutts/matt/ban_list/

It appears to look like Matt Cutts' personal ban list at Google. But is it really?

(1) His site is indexed in Google.

(2) Why in the world would Google show those types of referrers in people's log files, especially those sites that are banned.

(3) The IP addresses noted by the webmaster did not seem to be from Google.

(4) Googler, JohnMu, said it is not Matt's ban list. JohnMu went on record, and I trust him, saying:

I can assure you that the URL in the title of the thread is not a Google URL -- where did you get it from?

Do you think the URL is real?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google To Treat .UA Domains as Root Domains Soon

Posted: November 6th, 2009, 2:56pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread reports that because .UA domains are currently not considered "root domains" by Google, the change of address tool doesn't work for them.

I am not sure if Google did not consider them root domains or didn't allow the change of address tool to work with those domains. But Google said, whatever the issue is, it will be fixed soon.

Jonathan Simon from Google replied to the thread confirming the issue:

I've alerted the team to this issue. .UA domains should soon be supported by the Change of Address tool.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Publishers: Google News To Require A New Sitemaps File

Posted: November 5th, 2009, 8:39pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Big news for publishers in the Google News index. Inbal from Google announced in a Google News Help thread that in six months, Google will stop supporting the old News Sitemaps format and require you to switch over to the new format.

Inbal said:

Although we will support your current Google News Sitemap during the transition period of six months, you should re-submit it under the new format as soon as possible. For more details on how to submit your Sitemap using the new format (including how to add new tags to each entry in your Sitemap, to provide more information about individual articles), please visit the Sitemaps section of our Help Center.

Once the transition period is over, we will no longer accept News Sitemaps created using the old format and any old News Sitemaps in your Webmaster Tools account will be rejected.

We encourage you to make these changes as soon as possible in order to avoid interrupting your content's inclusion in Google News. To get started, please visit the FAQ.

The new format looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns:n="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>http://www.example.org/business/article55.html</loc>
    <n:news>
      <n:publication>
        <n:name>The Example Times</n:name>
        <n:language>en</n:language>
      </n:publication>
      <n:access>subscription</n:access>
      <n:genres>pressrelease, blog</n:genres>
      <n:publication_date>2008-12-23</n:publication_date>
      <n:title>Companies A, B in Merger Talks</n:title>
      <n:keywords>business, merger, acquisition, A, B</n:keywords>
      <n:stock_tickers>NASDAQ:A, NASDAQ:B</n:stock_tickers>
    </n:news>
  </url>
</urlset>

For more details on this new sitemap format over here.

Again, you have six months to make this change, but the sooner you do it, the better. ALso, there is a learning benefit to the new sitemap file. Any questions, join the forum.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Update: The Google News blog just added more information about this important update.

Preemptive Google Reconsideration Requests

Posted: November 3rd, 2009, 3:23pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has a webmaster who noticed his site was spammed and he is anticipating his site to be penalized by Google, and the other search engines.

He asked if he should start early and submit a reconsideration request with Google. A reconsideration request would notify Google of the hack and spam and let them know about it as soon as possible.

So far, all the feedback is that he should not wait until he is actually penalized to submit the reconsideration request. Yes, I know - he was not penalized yet but the belief is that he will be. And if he is not, what is the worst that can happen? This is assuming he does not have real spam on his site.

So he has to clean up the hack and the spam and then submit a reconsideration request.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google News Sitemaps Rejection Bug

Posted: November 3rd, 2009, 2:16pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

If your publication is included in Google News and you tried to submit a Sitemap file on Friday, you may have noticed it was rejected. Several publishers have been complaining about this in a few Google News Help threads.

The issue is that some publications are finding out they are no longer included in Google News. They are instructed to submit a Sitemap file, but when they do, they are told the Sitemap file is no good. The thing is, they never really changed their Sitemap file so they don't know what the issue is.

Inbal from the Google News team explained:

We've recently noticed that all news sitemaps which were submitted since Friday were rejected in Webmaster Tools. Our engineers were able to fix this bug and we've just resumed crawling the news sitemaps again. We apologize for the inconvenience in resubmitting your news sitemaps and appreciate your support while we work to improve Google News.

There is no estimated time for a fix, but you should be aware this is a larger issue that Google is addressing.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Blocking Google Sitelinks Can Take Two Weeks Or More

Posted: October 29th, 2009, 2:56pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread informs us that Google can take about two weeks to remove a blocked Sitelink from showing up in the search results.

Google's JohnMu said:

A change like this can take two weeks or a bit longer, depending on the site and on other factors. I would certainly give it a bit more time :-). Please let us know if you don't see it disappear by next week or so, but from what I can tell it looks fairly normal and nothing appears to be stuck at the moment.

You can block Sitelinks within Google Webmaster Tools by clicking on the "block" button on the right of each Sitelink:

There is also a detailed help document on how to manage Sitelinks within Webmaster Tools.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google News Finance Optimization

Posted: October 28th, 2009, 3:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Five months ago, I wrote a piece named Want Your Google News To Show Up in Google Finance? NASDAQ:GOOG which basically said, put the stock ticker in the title of your article and you're golden for showing up in Google Finance. That is, assuming you are already in Google News.

Well, we now have a new tip from Google themselves on how to optimize your content for Google Finance. Inbal from the Google News team said to markup your HTML or XML with the following tags.

<url>
<loc>[mynewssite.com]</loc>

<news:news>
<news:publication_date>2008-10-31T03:30:00Z</news:publication_date>
<news:title>Companies A, B In Merger Talks</news:title>
<news:keywords>business, mergers, acquisitions</news:keywords>

<news:content_types>Subscription</news:content_types>
<news:stock_tickers>NASDAQ:A, NASDAQ:B</news:stock_tickers>
</news:news>
</url>

Adding these elements, along with the title change, should dramatically help you show up in Google Finance for that specific company.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Google Base/Merchant Feeds Temporary Processing Error

Posted: October 28th, 2009, 2:57pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Those trying to submit their product feeds to Google Base or Merchant Center may be running into errors. Ronald from the Google Merchant Center team has confirmed a bug that Google's engineers are working on fixing.

A thread at Google Merchant Help has confirmation, where a Googler said:

We're currently experiencing an issue with data feed processing. If the data feed status shows as "Internal error, feed not fully processed" without any error message, please resubmit your data feed. Our engineers are working to resolve this issue.
We appreciate your patience!

There is currently not estimated time of a fix but it is good to know that Google is aware of the issue.

Forum discussion at Google Merchant Help.

Google Maps to Fix One Web Box Result Bug

Posted: October 28th, 2009, 2:45pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

For at least a month now, there have been complaints in a Google Maps Help thread that Google is showing, in some cases, a single map result, when it should be showing seven map results.

For example, a search on orlando dodge shows a single map result:

As you can see, it shows a place named Orlando Dodge, but not all the Dodge dealerships in Orlando, Florida. Adding on FL to the query does indeed show multiple listings, including Orlando Dodge.

A Googler from the maps team said yesterday that a fix will be out soon. He said:

Thanks everyone for continuing to post examples of this issue. Hoping to resolve this shortly. Will keep you all posted.

To submit more examples or discussion, join the Google Maps Help thread.

Google To Update Webmaster Tools API Verification Tag

Posted: October 28th, 2009, 2:38pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Not sure how important this is, but it is one of those minor changes that I particularly enjoy covering. The Google Webmaster Tools API lets you verify and reverify sites directly in the API. The thing is, they have changed the meta tag name for the verification process and the API has yet to be updated.

For example:

Old Meta Name:

<meta name="verify-v1" content="0wrupKGUMvPxWPChV4qaKdewvwXnZQ9AJmg/mAc7An0=" />

New Meta Name:

<meta name="google-site-verification" content="rlnJZRMNYtwGmLlQYpDhSNnxz41TLLd-3xZSaEIbagw" />

Dennis G. from the Google Webmaster team, who is specifically involved with verification (I believe) said:

We will update the API to return the new meta tag name and content sometime (relatively) soon, but sites that are already verified with the current "verify-v1" tags will not be unverified. Only new verification attempts will need to switch to the new tag.

So I suspect, if you are trying to verify a new site using the API, it won't work just yet.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Now Treats 410 Status Code As "More Permanent" Than 404 Status Code

Posted: October 27th, 2009, 3:37pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Historically, Google treated the 404 (page not found) and 410 (gone) server header page status codes as the same. Both meant, the page no longer exists.

Well, that has all changed now. Google is now treating the 410 as "more permanent" than the 404. Yes, this is a minor change but it is likely an important change for webmasters to note.

JohnMu of Google said in a Google Webmaster Help thread:

I followed up on the 404 vs 410 thing with the team here. As mentioned by some others here & elsewhere, we have generally been treating them the same in the past.
However, after looking at how webmasters use them in practice we are now treating the 410 HTTP result code as a bit "more permanent" than a 404. So if you're absolutely sure that a page no longer exists and will never exist again, using a 410 would likely be a good thing. I don't think it's worth rewriting a server to change from 404 to 410, but if you're looking at that part of your code anyway, you might as well choose the "permanent" result code if you can be absolutely sure that the URL will not be used again. If you can't be sure of that (for whatever reason), then I would recommend sticking to the 404 HTTP result code.

In the worst case, the 410 will be treated the same as a 404; in the best case it'll be a bit quicker & stickier :-).

So if you never ever will have a page return on a specific URL, then 410 it. But if you never will have a page return on a specific URL, then 404 it.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Answers Questions On Cleaning Malware Hacks

Posted: October 27th, 2009, 3:26pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Like I said yesterday, it seems like a greater number of sites are being hacked and injected with malware and/or spam. Heck, I just reported this morning that Green Party was hacked into and removed from the Google index.

Google recently posted a blog post named Best Practices for Verifying and Cleaning up a Compromised Site offering three tips.

Verify Your Site with Google Webmaster Tools
If Your Site Has Been Compromised, Perform a Comprehensive Cleanup
If You Switch Hosting Providers, Disable Access to the Old Version of Your Site

Of course, the blog post goes into more detail on each of these steps. What is interesting is that I never heard of the last point before, but it is an excellent step. You want to keep the old site live as possible on the old server, but you definitely want to secure the site as best as possible.

There is a thread on this topic at Google Webmaster Help, unfortunately he kept it closed to questions, so no one can ask questions about that post in that thread.

Google Removes Green Party Web Site From Index Due To Hack

Posted: October 27th, 2009, 2:53pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

On Sunday, if you searched in Google for [Green Party] you would not find the official Green Party of United States web site, which is at gp.com. Even if you searched for gp.org, Google would not show you the site.

One person complained about the issue at Google Web Search Help forums and a few days later, a Googler came in and told us why.

In short, the site was hacked and included harmful malware that could infect searchers computers. Google removes sites that include malware from their index, until the site is fixed. In addition, if sites are injected with links to unrelated site, with the sole intent of link spamming Google, Google will also remove the site from their index. That is what Google did in this case, and now the site is back in the index.

Googler, Jaime said:

The gp.org website was removed from Google's results because it has been hacked (if you look at the source code for http://gp.org/, about halfway down you'll see hundreds of spammy hidden links to websites selling several drugs such as Viagra and Fluoxetine).
We sent an email to the gp.org webmaster a week ago, on Monday the 19th, and they were also notified via the webmaster tools console (http://google.com/webmasters). Anyone in contact with the owners of this site, please give them this information and, as danielroofer pointed out, let them know they can visit the Webmaster Help Forum if they have additional questions.

In the meantime, we've already reinstated this site into our index, but it may take up to 24 hours for it to start showing everywhere.

Today, it seems like the spam and hack has been removed from GP.org and the site is now back in the Google index.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Google Webmaster Tools Showing Sub-Sitelinks

Posted: October 26th, 2009, 2:33pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I know Google has been showing many variations of sitelinks in the search results for a while now. I also know, Google began showing Sitelinks for specific sub domains and sub directories for about a year now. But I have personally never seen them shown in the Google Webmaster Tools area, to be managed.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread has a screen shot of one webmaster noticing the ability to manage the Sitelinks within Google Webmaster Tools. I am sure this is not a brand new feature, but like I said, I have never personally seen such a configuration in Webmaster Tools.

Here is a picture:

I assume when you click on the link, it then takes you to the available sitelinks for those pages and then lets you block them ones you dislike.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Search Engine Friendly Tracking With Hash Tags in URL

Posted: October 21st, 2009, 4:14pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has new discussion around using the hash tag, in the URL, instead of dynamic parameters such as questionmarks and the like for special tracking purposes. Typically, tracking URLs for ads and campaigns lead to URLs with questionmarks, ampersands and other dynamic variables, which can be seen as unique URLs to search engines. But when you use a hash or pound sign in the URL, search engines see anything beyond the hash mark as nothing. So there is no real duplicate content issue with using hashes when compared to other dynamic URL variables.

I wanted to share one place I noticed does this. Search Engine Land seems to do this on their logo (and likely other places). Click on the logo and it adds a #selogo to the end of the URL.

This way the URL http://searchengineland.com/#selogo is seen as http://searchengineland.com/ to the search engines. If they tracked those clicks as http://searchengineland.com/?selogo, then that would technically be a unique URL and page to search engines. Of course, you can use parameter handling in Google Webmaster Tools to patch this up, but why bother?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Fetch As Googlebot Might Have Issues With Some Non-ASCII Characters

Posted: October 21st, 2009, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has reports that the fetch as Googlebot feature might display weird characters for some pages that return non-ASCII characters.

Specifically, if the pages are not encoded in UTF-8 and use these non-ASCII characters, the tool might show weird characters. This is a confirmed known issue with the tool, and has no impact and your real crawling and ranking in Google.

Google said:

Using the Google Webmaster Tools Labs feature "Fetch as Googlebot" may show incorrect characters for pages not encoded in UTF-8 that use non-ASCII characters. This is only a display issue in Webmaster Tools and does not reflect how Googlebot actually crawls and indexes content on your pages (which you can verify by viewing the cached page or by searching for keywords within your content). This does not affect your site's crawling, indexing or ranking in our search results.

There is currently no estimated time for when this will be resolved, I assume it is not a huge priority.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Now Indenting Two Results In Search Results

Posted: October 20th, 2009, 8:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Since we cover almost every little change that Google makes, why not cover this. I have been hearing reports both at WebmasterWorld and via email from Tom and on Twitter that Google is showing now a main listing with two (not one or five) indented results.

Here is one picture of what I mean:

Normally, Google will show a maximum of one indented results. More recently, Google was showing a single indented result with a plus box to five more.

I believe this double indented result is fairly new and more and more people will begin to see this.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and thanks to Tom and David.

Google Search Suggestions Smarter? Abbreviations Working?

Posted: October 16th, 2009, 3:51pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Let me start off by saying I rarely use Google's search suggestions, so I am going by hearsay in the forums (which I mostly do anyway). A WebmasterWorld thread is of the general consensus that Google's search suggestions are getting smarter and figuring out abbreviations.

For example, if you type in glgle, Google thinks you mean Google:

Same with aho and other forums of "fat fingered" typos.

WebmasterWorld admin, Tedster said:

I noticed something like this just today when I missed typing two internal letters in a company name. Yes, very fat fingered typing on my part, but Google's suggestions stuck out at me as something I'd never noticed before.

So maybe this is new, again, I have no idea. If it is, it is something SEOs and SEMs should be on the look out for.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo Dropping Controversial Paid Inclusion Program, Finally

Posted: October 16th, 2009, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

It is true, Yahoo is dropping paid inclusion by years end, as I reported at Search Engine Land. Yahoo issued a statement, I'll cut out the part where they say they are committed to search and show you the relevant part:

Yahoo! will exit Search Submit at the end of 2009. Yahoo! is providing those advertisers affected by the decision a sufficient lead time to assist in the transition. In addition, Yahoo! has recently announced a series of important enhancements to its Search advertising business and will work closely with many Search Submit advertisers to provide them with search solutions that will benefit their businesses.

There has always been confusion over the paid inclusion program at Yahoo. In fact, it changed names a few times. There were reports that banned sites were able to be included in Yahoo via this program. Like I said at Search Engine Land, accepting money to be included in a free/unbiased search engine, just seems wrong.

I for one think this is a good move, although I know many SEOs who love this program.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo's Senior Director of Search Got It Wrong, Yahoo Uses Meta Keywords Still

Posted: October 16th, 2009, 3:18pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Last week, I reported that Yahoo dropped the meta keywords tag and stopped using it completely. Remember, I told you that I wasn't convinced when I heard that and I asked the Senior Director of Search at Yahoo if he was sure? Well, he said he was, but in reality, he was mistaken.

Danny and others have confirmed that Yahoo is still using the meta keywords tag when ranking. People have set up test sites that show this to be the case. Danny received an official statement from Yahoo on how they use this meta keywords tag, which they do use:

What changed with Yahoo’s ranking algorithms is that while we still index the meta keyword tag, the ranking importance given to meta keyword tags receives the lowest ranking signal in our system.
Words that appear in any other part of documents, including the body, title, description, anchor text etc., will take priority in ranking the document – the re-occurrence of these words in the meta keyword tag will not help in boosting the signal for these words. Therefore, keyword stuffing in the keyword tag will not help a page’s recall or ranking, it will actually have less effect than introducing those same words in the body of the document, or any other section.

However, when no other ranking signal is present, unique words that only appear in the meta keyword tag section of documents can still be used to recall these documents.

I am not sure why I didn't originally believe it. It was not like I had proof at the time. In any event, we are all human and we make mistakes. Search representatives are often seen as the single authority on SEO related questions, but in reality, they cannot know everything and are human, like you and me.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Google Removes PageRank Data From Webmaster Tools

Posted: October 15th, 2009, 4:27pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020960.html'; tweetmeme_service = 'bit.ly';Google has removed the PageRank section in the crawl statistics in Google Webmaster Tools. This has gone mostly unnoticed, with the release of the labs feature, until now. A Google Webmaster Help thread reports the PageRank values shown in Webmaster Tools has now been completely removed. I have verified this and it is true.

Googler, Susan Moskwa explained why in the thread:

We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it. :-)

Interesting... So you tell people not to focus on it and you find it silly that you show it in Webmaster Tools, but you still show it in Google's Toolbar? I mean, how many people have the Google Toolbar installed compared to those who use Google Webmaster Tools? I assume a fraction of those use Google Webmaster Tools.

Back in 2007, Google wanted feedback on removing PageRank from the Toolbar. I felt it was a good idea but the idea died out. Google cannot remove PageRank from the Toolbar, it is too much of their branding. No matter how much Matt Cutts and the Google search quality and webmaster trends team want it removed, I cannot see Google's executives allowing it.

Removing it from Webmaster Tools does make a statement to webmasters, but as long as they keep it in the Google Toolbar, it makes a stronger statement to searchers.

Here is how the PR stats looked like in Webmaster Tools:

Shouldn't Google drop it from both places, the Toolbar and Webmaster Tools? Having it public anywhere, defeats the purpose in my opinion.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Get Out Of Google Jail For $50, Web Site Captures Mug Shots

Posted: October 15th, 2009, 4:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A web site named ClarksburgLeak.com makes their money documenting inmates who have their mug shots taken at the local police station there and posting it on their web site. The way they make their money is a bit controversial, to say the least.

If you go to jail in Clarksburg, ClarksburgLeak.com will find out, post your name, along with your picture, height, weight, date of birth and the felony type on their web site. Then Google will come along, index it and rank your mug shot pretty well in the Google search results. ClarksburgLeak.com takes a nominal fee of $49.95 plus tax to remove your listing from their web site.

A woman named Lily was really upset about this 'ransom' fee and complained in a Google Webmaster Help thread. The issue is, Google really can't and won't do anything about removing the listing. Google clearly has guidelines around removing this type of content and I assume this web site owner knows that.

Google's JohnMu said "what that site is doing is not nice at all and I would personally not pay for this kind of "removal service". In my opinion, it's unfortunate and it makes me sad that some sites will resort to this kind of scheme to try to make money." But John added that this person can use other means to push down the results (yes, online reputation management). John said:

Instead of fighting with things like that I would take the time to be proactive and to build your own presence on the web. Do you have a MySpace page? perhaps a blog? a Twitter account? a Flickr account? All of these sites can help you create pages about yourself, pages that are much more relevant than ... those other ones. In the end, the energy that you put into work on pages for yourself will continue working for you, while energy that you put into fighting things like the site that you mention will at best result in "nothing". So instead of just posting here, make something fun & useful that can be shown in the search results for your name!

In the long run, Lily paid the $50 fee to have her name removed from the web site and she no longer comes up in a Google search for her name. I think most people would pay the fee, but is this ethical?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Duplicate Server Ports Showing In Google? Don't Use Remove URL Tool

Posted: October 14th, 2009, 4:06pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has one webmaster who noticed Google indexed his site with the server port in the URL structure. So instead of Google ranking the http://www.domain.com/ it ranks the site, and every page within the site as http://www.domain.com:1234

This webmaster asked if he/she can use the Google URL removal tool to remove these duplicate pages. The only current answer for that is, NO - you cannot. At least, if you do, both http://www.domain.com:1234 and http://www.domain.com will both be removed.

Susan Moskwa from Google replied to the webmaster, explaining:

Are you talking about using the URL removal tool to remove example.com:1234? If so, you shouldn't do that. The URL removal tool removes all versions of a site or URL (www, non-www, http, https, etc.), not just the one you explicitly submit. It should not be used for "canonicalization" -- fixing the problem of having multiple URLs serving the same content.

If you've fixed the problem--especially if you're now redirecting to the correct URL--the issue should resolve itself over time. We also did a recent blog post that you may find helpful.

In general, though, yes it is possible to verify sites with different ports in Webmaster Tools.

So don't use this tool to remove extra ports listed in the URL, to remove a www or non-www version or an https version.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Fetch As Googlebot Shows Only 100Kb But Real Googlebot Gets More

Posted: October 14th, 2009, 3:33pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google added the fetch as Googlebot feature the other day and now people are really beginning to explore it. One topic I have seen come up was why is the Fetch as Googlebot feature only showing up to 100Kb of the page it is fetching? Does that mean Googlebot only crawls up to a 100Kb of a specific page?

The quick answer is no, Googlebot does index more than a 100Kb, but the fetch feature only shows up to a 100Kb.

Historically, Googlebot at one point only indexed up to 100Kb. In fact, some time in 2006, the Google cache showed over 100kb of the page, which put the 100Kb maximum page size limitation to rest.

Google does indeed index pages larger than a 100Kb, especially in the days of higher bandwidth. But in terms of the Fetch as Googlebot feature, for speed purposes, it only grabs 100 Kb for this tool.

JohnMu of Google said in a Google Webmaster Help thread:

As far as I know, this is a limitation of the Fetch as Googlebot feature, so I believe more or less the only difference between a real Googlebot and this feature. The main problem is that arbitrary file sizes would bog down the Webmaster Tools user interface so we had to draw a line somewhere.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Labs For Webmaster Tools Launches: Fetch as Googlebot & Malware Details

Posted: October 13th, 2009, 3:45pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced the launch of a new "Labs" section in Google Webmaster Tools. Labs is for Google to launch features that might not be fully tested and have bugs, but at the same time give webmasters these features sooner to test and play with. The first two labs releases were "Fetch as Googlebot" and "Malware Details." I'll show you both below:

Fetch as Googlebot allows you to see what Googlebot, Google's spider, sees for a specific page on your domain. Here is a picture of the tool:

You type in the page name or leave it blank for the home page and hit "Fetch." After a few seconds, you can refresh the page and see the word "success" (hopefully). Click on "Success" to see the output of what Googlebot sees. Here is a snippet of what Googlebot sees for this site's home page:

A Google Webmaster Help thread reports a bug with this tool. To reproduce it, 1. Run a test then 2. View result then 3. Use the Site Picker to change site then 4. Fetch As Googlebot tries to display the path fetched in (1) on domain picked in (3) and gives "The details of this request are not available."

Another Google Webmaster Help thread has some feedback for Google on the Fetch tool. Here are some of those suggestions:

- Highlight ignored page elements
- Highlight issue elements found on page. e.g.
- Poor mark-up
- invalid doctype
- Invalid links
- not followed links
- Un-indexed page areas
- Page Improvement recommendations
- Heat map of content indexing so that a webmaster can see areas of the content which are going to have higher index priority than others.

On the "Malware Details" feature, the Google Online Security blog has more details and pictures. Thankfully, I do not have a malware issue on my site, so I don't have anything to take screen shots of, but here are screen shots from the blog:

These are all useful features and I am sure the majority of webmasters are happy to get labs features with bugs, in exchange for getting earlier releases of Webmaster Tools features.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help, DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Will Google's Penalties Hurt or Help Google Remain Relevant?

Posted: October 12th, 2009, 3:25pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

One of the key topics I have heard being discussed in the speaker room last week at the SMX East conference was that the Google results were not good. It rarely came up in the sessions, except for Greg Boser on the Crystal Ball panel, but it came up often in the speaker room and in side conversations.

Looking at the Google results, for standard queries, simply did not satisfy many SEOs and SEMs. Obviously, some were upset with queries they monitor and want to rank for, but many showed queries that they have no direct business relationship with. Looking at some of those results myself, showed me they were right. Also, Danny wrote about Reviewing Some Bad Google Search Results With Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, just last week.

A recent WebmasterWorld thread has one webmaster complaining his site no longer ranks well in Google. Let me quote you what he said:

We used to have position 8 in the Google serps. A couple of months ago we dropped to something like position 15, then 21 and yesterday 41. A lot of websites without widgets in front of us. How did they get there Google? Not relevant at all!

Okay, so he is clearly upset. But as Danny Sullivan explained to me last week, who would know better about a specific queries relevancy than a site that has quality content about that specific niche?

This webmaster asked, "Will Google lose the battle because of their penalty policy?" Personally, I think not any time soon or even in the foreseeable future. But I figured I do a poll and ask you guys:

Will Google's Penalty Algo Ultimately Penalize Google?(survey software)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Showing Only 7 of 10 Local Results Now

Posted: October 12th, 2009, 3:18pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The local SEMs are buzzing about how Google dropped three listings from the local space in the Google search results. Now, instead of showing the "ten pack" of ten local search results pulled from Google Maps on the Google web search results, Google is now showing the "seven pack." Yes, instead of A through J, we are getting A through G results.

Here is what I see now for a local result for the query [web design]:

Here is what I saw a few months ago:

We have threads on the topic at Google Maps Help, Cre8asite Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Google Fixes Webmaster Tools Verification Issue With Google Sites

Posted: October 9th, 2009, 4:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last week Google updated their verification process for Webmaster Tools. A known issue was that it broke the ability for Google Sites to verify in Webmaster Tools. Yesterday, Google resolved the issue and now Google Sites can be verified without an issue.

An updated Google Webmaster Help thread there are a couple webmasters who have confirmed it is now working.

I personally thought it would take longer than a week to fix, but I was wrong and glad I am wrong about this one.

Forum discussion continued at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Turns Off Parameter Handling For Some Sites?

Posted: October 9th, 2009, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About three weeks ago, Google added parameter handling to Google Webmaster Tools. It basically gave webmasters another tool to help communicate to Google any duplicate content or URL issues.

I spotted two threads from the same webmaster, one at HighRankings Forum and the other at Google Webmaster Help where one webmaster is not allowed to use this feature.

When he goes to the parameter handling page, he gets this message:

Parameters for this site can not be adjusted at this time.

He believes it might have to do with his site being fully in HTTPS and/or not being fully crawled yet. I think it might have to do with the HTTPS thing, which is weird.

Google has not yet replied to the thread, but I do expect a response soon.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum and Google Webmaster Help.

Trailing Slashes: Root Domain Same Page But File Names Can Be Different Pages

Posted: October 9th, 2009, 3:43pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has confirmation from Google on an old topic in SEO, the trailing slash. Here is the quick answer:

seroundtable.com is the same as seroundtable.com/
seroundtable.com/page is not the same as seroundtable.com/page/

I believe the last time we touched on URL normalization was back in 2004. In fact, in 2005, we spotted Google appending double slashes to URLs in their search results.

So there you have it. The root, slash or no slash are the same. However, file names are different when you add or remove a slash. Keep that in mind when you create pages.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

HTML Sitemap vs. XML Sitemap: Google Says HTML Comes First

Posted: October 9th, 2009, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In one of Matt Cutts' videos on SEO questions, he answers a question about if you should build an HTML or XML Sitemap. An HTML sitemap is an old school landing page for users to find all (or most) of your pages on your web site via single page. In many cases, for large sites, a site would require many HTML sitemaps to make this useful, but for smaller sites (see RustyBrick's sitemap), it makes sense to put everything on a single web page. An XML sitemap can also be multiple files, but they are not visible to a user, only a search engine spider.

When Matt from Google was asked if you had a choice, which one would you pick, he picked an HTML Sitemap because both users and spiders can chew on it. I am not sure if most SEOs would make the same selection, but this person didn't ask an SEO, he asked Matt.

Here is Matt's video:

As Matt said, once you make an HTML sitemap, making an XML version is extremely easy. So, my advice, do both, if possible.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Soon To Allow Cross Domain Canonical Tag: This Is Big

Posted: October 6th, 2009, 2:54pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Yesterday, I reported at Search Engine Land that Google is going to allow cross domain canonical tag. This means, if you have two sites (probably verified under the same webmaster tools account), you will be able to tell Google, all links pointing to domain A should point to domain B.

Clearly, this is a feature that is really something many webmasters and site owners have wanted for a while. At the same time, some webmasters are scared that this can be hacked into and you can lose your whole domain. The bottom line, Google will make sure to make this secure as possible, before releasing it.

Currently, the canonical tag is only to be used within the same domain. So this is a major change to the tag.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums and DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Webmaster Tools Verification Download Error

Posted: October 6th, 2009, 2:50pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has confirmed reports of a bug with Google Webmaster Tools. The bug is someone technical, where you try to download the verification file via a URL that Google provides. That URL, which seems to be google.com/webmasters/verification/verification-file-dl?hl=en, is returning a 500 internal error.

Dennis G. from the Google webmaster team confirmed the bug, saying:

Looks like you found a legitimate bug. I believe we have fixed it now. Please try again, and sorry for the inconvenience.

I personally see the 500 response code, but honestly, I am not exactly sure how he triggered this URL and if I have to trigger it from a specific page to work or not.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Updates Webmaster Tools Verification Process: Google Sites Verification Breaks

Posted: October 2nd, 2009, 3:25pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google announced that they have updated the verification process for Google Webmaster Tools. The main changes include:

(1) META Tag verification is no longer tied to the email address on file, i.e. you can change your email and it won't de-verify your site.

(2) The HTML file verification process required that you set up your 404 pages properly by returning a proper 404 server status code. The issue was, many webmasters don't do this and come into the forums complaining they cannot verify. So Google gave up and decided to just allow the verification without requiring a proper 404 status code being returned on non-existing pages. Personally, I feel they should have kept it - it helps webmasters configure their site properly in the long run. But this will reduce a headache for Google in the support forums.

(3) The screens and look of the HTML verification process was updated also. Here is the new look:

The issue is, it broke many of the systems that had automatic verification in place. Google confirmed that Google Sites verification process is currently not working. But others are also reporting issues with verifying other sites. Overall, these issues will be addressed and people will be happy again.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Names My "Deep Sitelinks" as "Forum Sitelinks"

Posted: October 1st, 2009, 3:44pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last night, the official Google Blog announced that they are now showing Forum Sitelinks. This is a special form of Sitelinks, which I previously named deep(er) Sitelinks. Here is a picture:

It is incredibly useful with blogs, forums and any site that covers a very nice topic, over and over again. This allows Google to show what they think is the best result for the query at the top and then show an additional four results from that site that also makes sense. Plus Google is able to show the date and number of posts in that thread.

Why didn't I call them Forum Sitelinks? Well, it doesn't only apply to forums, it also applies to blogs and similar sites link that.

In any event, it is a nice search feature.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Sandbox: Does/Did it Exist? Poll Results

Posted: September 30th, 2009, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back in February I ran a poll asking if the Google Sandbox still exists and if so, is it US based only? I don't think I ever published those results, so I apologize.

A new Search Engine Watch Forums thread has new discussion around the topic. To be honest, the Google Sandbox, as it once was, is rarely discussed in forums anymore. As I said in the previous post, the Google Sandbox goes back to April 2004. We first spotted it when I wrote New Sites = Poor Results in Google, then it became known as the Sandbox effect and had controversial definitions. Matt Cutts confirmed the sandbox existed, somewhat, in his Coffee Talk with Brett Tabke. But since then, we really did not discuss it much.

There are some well-known and respected SEOs that still believe in it and many that don't. Which is why we ran the poll. Okay, so here are the poll results:

Question: Google Sandbox: US Based or Worldwide?

:: Worldwide said 46 respondents or 49%
:: It No Longer Exists said 17 respondents or 18%
:: US Only said 13 respondents or 14%
:: It Never Existed said 11 respondents or 12%
:: Other answer... said 6 respondents or 6%

If you go by the forum discussion as a measure of if this did or currently exists, that answer is simple. It once did exist and no longer exists, based on forum chatter.

There is a nice post from a member at Search Engine Watch Forums, where he offers practical experience.

Last year we launched a new website and againt mine and our webmasters advice, our owner went on a full scale link building frenzy which included using a Submission company to submit to hundreds of directories and do hundreds of article submissions. Well, it took that site about 9-10 months to start ranking for its primary terms and now about 4 months after being released from the sandbox it is doing well. However, to contrast that, last month we launched a brand new website. This time we convinced him to take it slow and easy and utilize the link partners we have to focus on adding quality links slowly. Well a little over a month later we are on the first page for many of the terms we have optimized for. SO I definitely believe in quality over quantity when starting a new site and trying to avoid the sandbox.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Google September 2009 Image Search Update Turns Out Bad?

Posted: September 29th, 2009, 4:43pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that Google Image Search has done an update to their index. One of the members that seems to always be on top of these images updates, zeus, has said that this update is worse off from the one in February.

He said:

Hmm it looks like they are now ruin the good update for 3-4 month ago, now to many images again gets filtered and a lot of images are lost with "moderate search off".

There are many complaints about the new filter in this update at WebmasterWorld. There are also a few sporadic threads at Google Webmaster Help on the topic.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Hot Trends Now in Google Search Results

Posted: September 29th, 2009, 4:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In May 2007, Google released Google Hot Trends and I was a major fan. Google has now made this tool more visible to the public by inserting it into the Google search results, when applicable.

For example, a search for Bill Winters who recently made news by leaving quitting JP Morgan, you will see Google Hot Trends show up in the search results. Here is a picture:

The goal is for Google to show this hot trends box in the search results for any trending topics. Danny Sullivan has a nice write up on this named Take That, Twitter: Google Hot Trends Integrated Into Google Search.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Also Ignores Geo-Meta Tags, But Bing Lives By Them

Posted: September 29th, 2009, 4:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread once again confirms that Google ignores the geo-meta tags. Those tags somewhat look like this and use to serve the purpose of telling search engines where the site is based:

<meta name="geo.placename" content="United States" />
<meta name="geo.position" content="x;x" />
<meta name="geo.region" content="usa" />
<meta name="ICBM" content="x,x" />

Google ignores them, and has for a really long time. JohnMu from Google confirmed this most recently in the thread:

We generally ignore geo-meta tags like that because we've found that they're generally incorrect (copy & pasted from a template, etc).

But we had confirmation of this when wrote that Bing relies on these geo-meta tags to determine a site's location. And time and time again, there are webmasters who find there site targeted to the wrong country because of that template issue. In that post, Google's Matt Cutts said the same thing:

Historically, meta tags for language and country have been less reliable than inferring the language or country directly. For example, lots of webmaster also just copy/paste from a friend's template without checking the meta tag values. The unreliability of the meta tags is why Google tends not to use them or give them less weight.

So three webmaster points here:

(1) Google ignore the geo-meta tag
(2) Bing currently uses the geo-meta tag
(3) Be careful when you copy templates or use pre-existing templates

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Fragments (Pound Signs #) In URLs Are Not Duplicate URLs

Posted: September 25th, 2009, 3:58pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread asked if he should include fragments (i.e. the # signs found in some URLs) in the new parameter handling feature in Google Webmaster Tools. Again, parameter handling in Google Webmaster Tools gives you a way to tell Google to ignore certain URL parameters, to help them with removing duplicate URLs (duplicate content).

The thing with URL fragments, they are not seen as duplicate because Google simply strips out the stuff after the pound sign anyway. In fact, many sites are using fragments to do custom tracking, in order not to have a problem with the search engine indexing or people linking to URLs that might be considered duplicate, such as question marks in the URL.

Googler, JohnMu confirmed this, which is obvious to most our readers, but here is what John said:

We generally ignore the "fragments" (as in http://domain.com/path#fragment) when crawling, indexing and ranking since this is generally just something that is handled on the client side. There are some cases where we're experimenting with showing them in the snippet (as in Colin's example), to help users to find parts of a page quicker, so if you have large pages, that might be something to consider. You do not need to (& cannot) mention these fragments in Webmaster Tools.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Where Did Google Subscribed Go? Is It Dead?

Posted: September 24th, 2009, 4:33pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Update: I was wrong, it was not a Google issue. For some reason, I had to resubmit my subscribed links XML feed to Google. I did that and now it is working again. So if you haven't yet, make sure to subscribe here and then search for link building or other typical SEO keywords.

In May 2006, Google introduced Google Subscribed Links via the Google Coop. It was confusing, but once we implemented it here, it became clearer to people how it worked. I loved it and had tons of people (thousands) sign up to see my subscribed links in the Google search results. In fact, I expanded it in April 2008. But now, it appears to be missing from the search results.

In the past, if you searched for any of the keywords that I told Google to trigger to show my pages and you were subscribed to my links, you would get those links in the Google search results. For example, if you subscribed and searched for link building, you would have seen this in the search results:

The box under seobook.com is the special subscribed links. Now, it is missing, gone, from the search results, even though, I am technically still subscribed. Where did it go? I posted this question at Google Webmaster Help and hope to get some response.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Linking To Affiliates? Better Nofollow Those Links or Google Will Penalize You

Posted: September 24th, 2009, 3:47pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has one webmaster who runs a home construction resource complaining that his rankings tanked. After some back and forth, Googler, JohnMu came in and said:

I browsed your site's reviews a bit and most of the links are either affiliate links or links to the companies without nofollow. This doesn't seem to match your reply regarding the use of nofollow. Perhaps it would be good to double-check and submit a reconsideration request should you find something that could be improved.

Yes, this webmaster dared to write a review or an article and decided to link to related products within the article, via a straight link, to the affiliate. Google likely automatically found the links, felt the site was abusing their paid link policy and slapped them with a penalty for it.

So, if you have affiliate links that you have not nofollowed, you better nofollow them. If you don't, well, then you join the ranks of sites link the one in the thread or like this site. Yes - before you all comment that we don't nofollow our paid links, I admit it, we don't. I am one of the few bloggers who decided that this blog's sponsors are not just "advertisers" but also extremely related to the site's content and can be useful to ALL of our readers. Hence, I decided to take a hit on this site's PageRank and ranking - to stand tall. Don't get me wrong, I believe this was a smart move by Google, and I totally feel they have every right to do this. Doesn't mean I don't have a choice to take a hit in the Google rankings for it.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Yes, Google Is Showing Deeper Sitelinks In Different Formats

Posted: September 24th, 2009, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I have been getting emails, Twitter messages and seeing threads that more and more people are seeing this newish kind of Sitelink. It isn't brand new, it has been around for some time now, but it is 100% showing up more often in the Google results. You can probably trigger it yourself for many types of queries, but I know this one is working for me. Search for [google sitelinks forums] and you will notice these newish Sitelinks formats coming up, not once, but twice. Here are screen captures:

If you scroll down, you also see:

As you can see, they offer more links from the same site with added data (such as date of post and number of posts, if a forum thread). This is a mix bread of Sitelinks and content attributes in the search results.

So this format is coming up more and more often, as opposed to standard Sitelinks. I find these types of Sitelinks to be deeper, so I am calling them "Deep Sitelinks."

Google has been experimenting tremendously with Sitelinks. From snippet Sitelinks to anchor based Sitelinks, to various layouts for the standard Sitelinks - we see Google is busy in this area.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Says, Referrer Spam Does Not Hurt Your Google Rankings

Posted: September 23rd, 2009, 4:28pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back in the old days, referrer spam was a way to get quick rankings by spamming other site's referrer logs. Wikipedia explains it pretty well:

Referrer spam is a kind of spamdexing (spamming aimed at search engines). The technique involves making repeated web site requests using a fake referrer url that points to the site the spammer wishes to advertise. Sites that publicize their access logs, including referrer statistics, will then end up linking to the spammer's site, which will in turn be indexed by the search engines as they crawl the access logs.

This benefits the spammer because of the free link, and also gives the spammer's site improved search engine placement due to link-counting algorithms that search engines use.

This was an issue ages ago, in Internet years at least. These days, you rarely hear about them and for good reason - it doesn't work like it use to.

JohnMu, a Google representative, said in a Google Webmaster Help thread that it generally does not hurt your rankings. He said that after someone complained their Google rankings dropped due to someone referrer spamming him. John said:

I can pretty much assure you that those referrers are not negatively affecting your collection of sites. If you are seeing fluctuations, it's almost certainly due to other issues.

John said repeatedly in this thread that this type of spam 'generally' cannot hurt a web site from ranking well in Google.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

News Flash: Google Doesn't Use Meta Keywords Tag

Posted: September 22nd, 2009, 3:32pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google made historic news yesterday by declaring they do not use the meta keywords tag. Okay, I am being incredibly sarcastic. Google hasn't used the meta keywords tag for an incredibly long time and any "SEO" should know that. So why did Google blog about this, on the record? At least two reasons, (1) people continue to sue over it by claiming copyright infringement and people confuse the meta keywords with the meta description, which Google does recommend to use.

So there are official posts from Matt Cutts, the Google Blog and Search Engine Land trying to erase any confusion from people who are new to this space.

If you want to know which meta tags Google does pay attention to, see this FAQ. Plus, Googler's JohnMu tweeted that Google also does "not adhere to the "revisit-after" meta tag," if you wanted to know.

Finally, here is a video if you don't want to read any of this:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Google's Related Command Now More Accurate?

Posted: September 18th, 2009, 12:22pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread suggests that Google is getting better at either determining or showing that they know which sites are related to others in the related command. The related command is triggered when you click on the "similar" link in the search results, here is a picture:

When you click that link, it basically triggers an advanced query for related sites. The query is [related:www.seroundtable.com. And if you look, the results are much more on target then in the past. Here are sites Google suggests are related to this one:

searchengineblog.com
searchengineland.com
searchenginewatch.com
searchenginejournal.com
seobook.com
highrankings.com
mattcutts.com
seomoz.org

And there are more and most of them I would consider to be related to this site. In the past, the related command was somewhat of a joke, now it seems pretty accurate.

WebmasterWorld administrator agreed saying:

Totally agree - it's been a long time coming, but related sites are now much more related in topic, rather than some spastic collection of loosely interlinked sites in an odd cluster that does not give a user any value.

Good to see this improvement from Google.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo Site Explorer Adds Top Queries Report

Posted: September 17th, 2009, 4:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

I was looking at Yahoo Site Explorer when I was reviewing the dynamic URL tool earlier and noticed a new beta link available to sites that are validated or authenticated in Site Explorer. The new tool is named "Top Queries" and it basically shows you the top ten searches you come up for a specific day, week or month. It shows the number of views and clicks you received for those top queries. In addition, it shows you your top URLs as well.

Here is my top queries report for the day:

Here is my top URL report for the day:

In this case, Yahoo is playing catch up to Google Webmaster Tools.

I am pretty sure this is new, but I can be wrong. A Yahoo Site Explorer suggestion thread notes that the feature was not available at least 11 months ago. And I have not seen any reports of this feature being available in any blog, including the Yahoo Search Blog.

Forum discussion at Yahoo Site Explorer Forums.

Google Adds Parameter Handling To Webmaster Tools, Plays Catchup to Yahoo Site Explorer

Posted: September 17th, 2009, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

If you login to Google Webmaster Tools, click on site configuration, then on settings, you will see a new option for "parameter handling." Here is a screen capture:

This basically allows you to tell Google which parameters in the URL they should ignore. This comes in handy for tracking parameters added to the URL, or duplicate content caused by printer friendly URLs and many other cases.

If you want to learn more about how this stuff works, see the Google help document or read Search Engine Land article. Also, Brain was the first to spot this.

I posted a thread on this topic at Google Webmaster Help where a Googler, Jonathan Simon added, "One small correction should be noted in regards to the Search Engine Land blog post where it says it's okay to mark parameters that control sort order as ignorable. That's only true if the sorted results all fit on a single page. Otherwise you could unintentionally be excluding some data."

Yahoo Site Explorer has had this feature for a while now. Yahoo calls it Dynamic URLs and the screen looks like this:

You can learn more about Yahoo's dynamic URL feature over here.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

Google Says Pages That Validate Do Not Get Ranking Boost

Posted: September 17th, 2009, 3:40pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The question of having valid HTML and would it help your rankings in Google or other search engines is not new. Most SEOs believed that it made no impact on your rankings, unless Googlebot has serious issues crawling your site.

In a recent YouTube video, Google's Matt Cutts explained why Google.com does not validate (historically has not) and also added that Google doesn't "give any sort of boost to web pages that validate." He explained because "the vast majority of pages on the web don't validate," including Google.com.

Here is the video:

For those in the SEO community and know Edward Lewis, aka pageoneresults, you will find it funny that he posted that thread at WebmasterWorld.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Showing Weird Title for Wikipedia Article

Posted: September 17th, 2009, 3:23pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Sometimes I like to point out weird anomalies in the Google search results. A search for [lufthansa fleet] returns a Wikipedia listing to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa. The issue is, the way Google lists out the snippet and title is all weird:

Why does it show it like that? What does wxloop mm5aq_stata_pm25gt65 2008112700///1 mean? Why no snippet?

JohnMu from Google said it isn't visible everyone, but it is just one of those strange anomalies. He said:

Thanks for bringing this up! I've passed it on to a team here to review. As far as I can tell, this is just a strange fluctuation that's not visible everywhere.

I bet an SEO can figure the issue out pretty quickly.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google, How Are "Business Web Design" & "Semi Repair" Related Keywords?

Posted: September 16th, 2009, 3:35pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Let's file this under weird or unexpected search results from Google. A search for business website design] returns one of those middle of the page Google refinements. The weird part is what Google returns as a refinement for that search. Google returns the keyword, [semi repair]. What does semi repair have to do with business website design?

Here is a picture of the page:

Why is this the case? No one really knows, but Googler JohnMu did comment in a joking fashion saying:

As I mentioned, these suggestions are generated automatically. I wonder what that tells us ... hmm :-) Someone should be out there making DIY truck repair sites!

Maybe, just maybe.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

How Google Treats Affiliates In Web Search?

Posted: September 16th, 2009, 3:28pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is a featured WebmasterWorld thread on the topic of how Google treats affiliate links and if there are ways to hide your affiliate links from Google.

There is discussion that Google will lower your rank of a web page, if it has an affiliate link on that page. I honestly do not know if that is a true statement. The typical issue with affiliate links, is not the link, but the fact that Google wants to show the best single unique result in the search listings and not the same ten results from ten different web sites. Affiliates typically sell the same product and often have the same content on their site, with various changes to the template and content. Google wants the searcher to get one of those sites and not all of them.

So I really do not think an affiliate link is the signal Google uses to "demote" a page in the search results. It is likely more about how unique that page is.

But let's say Google does look for affiliate links. The thread discusses how you can possibly hide that link from Google, so that you don't suffer any loss for having it.

Some suggest using JavaScript, but Google now crawls JavaScript. Some suggest using a special directory for the link and then robots.txt that directory out and also nofollow the link. Some even go as far as suggesting cloaking the link out for GoogleBot and showing it to everyone else.

Whatever route you go, be careful with all these methods. And think hard, how unique is your page from the 300 other affiliates selling the same product or service?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Poll: How Secure Are Your Search Engine Positions?

Posted: September 15th, 2009, 3:38pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

There is an excellent thread at WebmasterWorld on the topic of search engine position security. In short, the SEO is asking others, how secure do you feel that your rankings won't change all that much? How secure do you feel in your site's success in Google? How secure do you feel that Google won't change things up so drastically that your site won't be impacted?

Why should you feel nervous? Some of the points in the thread include the fact that Google is showing "universal search" results, such as videos, local, news, images and so on in the main web results. Also, Google is constantly changing up their filters and now working on releasing a new infrastructure. Plus, you need to constantly maintain your site, in some industries, to remain at the top.

How confident are you? Take the poll:

Do You Feel Your Search Rankings Are Secure?(polls)

Overall, there is some excellent SEO advice in the thread, outside of the question in this post. But please have your SEO buddies that this anonymous poll.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

SEO Show Offs: Poll Results

Posted: September 14th, 2009, 3:59pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A few weeks ago, we ran a poll asking if you should flaunt your search engine rankings? We have about 150 responses in now, so I thought I share with you how SEOs like to show off their success.

Question: Should You Show Off Your Success With Search Rankings?

:: Depends On Business said 50 respondents or 34%
:: Yes, But Privately said 48 respondents or 32%
:: Never said 33 respondents or 22%
:: Yes, Publicly said 18 respondents or 12%

Pretty nice level of disagreement between the SEO industry, don't you think?

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Google Base Feeds Can Now Include YouTube Video Demos for Product Search

Posted: September 10th, 2009, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google Base Blog announced that Google Base data feeds now support a new YouTube attribute that allows you to define if the product has a video demo on YouTube.

The example given is a product search for Nikon d90. If you scroll down, you will see videos from YouTube:

To add this to your product data feeds, you need to add the YouTube attribute:

The YouTube video ID for product review videos. Video IDs are case sensitive and can be located following the v= in the YouTube video URL.
Format:
Text.
Tab-delimited example:
sDDvpDNbEXo
XML example:
<g:youtube>sDDvpDNbEXo</g:youtube>

Google does not promise that even if you do add this attribute to your data feeds that the videos will show, but it can't hurt.

This feature has been on many folks waiting list for a while now.

Forum discussion at Google Base Help.

Stop Spiders From Crawling Your Site on Shabbat, Including GoogleBot

Posted: September 9th, 2009, 3:57pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has an interesting discussion around blocking your site from coming up for both visitors and search engine crawlers on Shabbat (the Jewish Saturday). This is not a new topic, we discussed using cloaking for religious Shabbat purposes in the past.

In short, some observant Jews do not want their site to be accessible on Shabbat, which is sundown Friday night, to nightfall Saturday night. The issue on the SEO front is if you turn off your site, then what happens to the search engine crawlers? Do they get 404 pages and drop your site from the search index?

Phil Payne posted an answer to how one can handle this, which Googler JohnMu said was a good answer. Phil said:

Yes - a 503 is the correct server response for "We're closed". If you substitute a normal HTML page saying "We're closed" and serve a 200 it's very likely to get indexed by Google.

If you give the Googlebot a 503, it will just go away and come back later without indexing what you give it.

For humans, you can serve a custom 503 page that explains the situation. Are there no other Orthodox sites you can ask, to see how they do it?

Now, Friday night here, is not the same as Friday night by you. So detecting the location of a visitor is key here. There are services like Saturday Guard that do this for you, but I am not sure how they handle search bots.

Technically, the issue, as far as I understand it (I am not a Rabbi, but I am an observant Jew) is that they do not want to earn money on Shabbat or Jewish holidays. Some hold that since the money doesn't transfer from the merchant account to the bank that day, then there is no money being earned technically that day. But some do not hold that way or some want to be extra careful. If it is a matter of money, then just turn off the "add to cart" and shopping cart features for the site.

If they do not want any activity on their site by potential customers, then I guess a 503 is a good answer. But are search engine bots customers? No. I suspect, most Rabbis would be okay with spiders or automated crawlers using the site on Shabbat. The issue then is, are you allowed to serve up a 503 page to a visitor and not to a crawler - that might be against Google's terms of service and fall within the bad cloaking policies.

If the issue is about the server actually working on Shabbat. Then a 503 cannot really be served up at all, because you would technically need to power down the server and without a server to send the 503 response code - then you got nothing.

This is a complex issue that I personally never had to deal with on sites that we have built. But it would be interesting to see what to do in the case of turning off a web server. There isn't much Google can do here.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Webmaster Tools Keywords Report Showing Blank Lines?

Posted: September 9th, 2009, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A webmaster reported in a Google Webmaster Help thread that in his Google Webmaster Tools Keyword report, he noticed that Google is displaying a blank line as one of his more popular keywords used within the site.

The blank line is [_______________] and he has no idea why it shows up not just once, but twice. The first one is in the second most popular keyword used on the site and the second one is the eleventh most popular keyword used on the site. If you think about it, the underline or line is weird, but even if it technically was a keyword, wouldn't it be the same keyword (i.e. only show up once in the keyword list)?

In any event, the webmaster posted a screen shot in the thread - because honestly, I thought he was on crack or something. Here it is:

Why is this showing up? No idea! In fact, if you search for the line using a site command, nothing comes up.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Longer Domain Registration Does Not Increase Google Search Engine Rankings

Posted: September 9th, 2009, 3:14pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

It seems that Google has finally gone on the record that longer domain name registration has no impact on your search engine rankings, at least not at Google. A Google Webmaster Help thread has a post from Googler, JohnMu, who said outright that it doesn't make sense for Google to use this as a ranking metric.

Let me quote John:

A bunch of TLDs do not publish expiration dates -- how could we compare domains with expiration dates to domains without that information? It seems that would be pretty hard, and likely not worth the trouble. Even when we do have that data, what would it tell us when comparing sites that are otherwise equivalent? A year (the minimum duration, as far as I know) is pretty long in internet-time :-).

I think that is pretty convincing that Google doesn't use the domain expire date as a metric.

What is funny is that we discussed this topic a few times in the past. Each time, we never really came to a conclusion. But it didn't stop domain registrars from using this as a marketing tactic.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

75% of SEOs Feel Google Loves Keywords in the URL

Posted: September 8th, 2009, 3:50pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About ten days ago, we asked our readers "Right Now, How Much is Google Loving Keywords in URL?" We have about a 185 responses in and I wanted to share the results. Overall, about 75% of the responses said that Google does love those keywords in the URL.

Let me give you the break down:

Question: Right Now, How Much is Google Loving Keywords in URL?

:: Lots Of Love said 97 respondents or 52%
:: Completely Loves Them said 41 respondents or 22%
:: No Change In Past Year said 36 respondents or 19%
:: Doesn't Hate Them said 6 respondents or 3%
:: Other answer... said 3 respondents or 2%
:: Hates Them said 2 respondents or 1%

The other responses were:

Yes but only for TLD's like com and net

don't know

loves in domain

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

UK & Ireland Geo Targeting in Google Need Unique Content

Posted: September 8th, 2009, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Often, when you want to create a localized version of your site, you can create a duplicate site on a ccTLD (country level top level domain). For example, if I wanted to geotarget this site to UK users, I would just place it on seroundtable.co.uk and maybe localize some of the English words, such as colour, favour, etc.

It doesn't always work this way, some languages require complete rewrites due to either being a different character type or the way people speak is completely different.

JohnMu from Google chimed in about a site that was being both targeted under different ccTLDs to both UK and Irish markets. In the Google Webmaster Help thread, John explained that when it comes to the UK and Ireland, often the sites that appeal to UK users also appeal to Irish users.

He made a few points:

(1) Google's searchers do not want the same content from two different sites in the same search results.
(2) Google finds UK and Irish sites to be very related. John explained, "There are many Irish sites that are equally important for the UK (and of course vice-versa). Those are sites that we might choose to show in the UK search results, perhaps even above or in place of similar "UK" sites."
(3) John said, using Google Webmaster Tools geotargeting setting may "help a bit in this regard, but it will take a bit of time to take affect and it's not guaranteed that it will always choose the right version (domain) of your site given that the external factors could be significantly different."
(4) John added that you should make the "two sites are different enough that they can stand on their own." Otherwise, combine the sites under one domain and they can rank well in both the UK and Irish Google versions.

I am a bit interested in knowing that since many US sites are showing in Google UK results these days, does the same now apply here?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Sitemaps Bug? "Sitemap appears to be an HTML page"

Posted: September 8th, 2009, 3:13pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread reports that when using Google Sites and submitting a Sitemap file to Webmaster Tools, you may receive an error. The error some people are seeing is:

Your Sitemap appears to be an HTML page. Please use a supported sitemap format instead.

The issue is, the Sitemap files are auto generated by Google Sites. The help document explains:

Once you have verified your site with Google Webmaster tools, Google Sites will auto-generate a sitemap xml file. Your sitemap will be generated at:

http://sites.google.com/a/(your domain)/(site name)/system/feeds/sitemap for Google Apps.
http://sites.google.com/site/(site name)/system/feeds/sitemap for sites under sites.google.com/site

Once these Sitemaps have been created, you can submit them to Google using Webmaster Tools.

So why is a Sitemap file that is auto-generated by Google seen as an HTML by Google?

Googler, JohnMu said that in this case, it appears to be some sort of bug. He said he would alert the Google Sites team about the issue. JohnMu said:

You can ignore that error message -- this is your homepage's URL just written in a slightly different way (without the trailing "/"). I'll pass a note on to the Google Sites team about this, but it's not affecting the processing of your Sitemap file so you don't have to worry about this :-).

Even though Google is telling this webmaster that the Sitemap file is bad, Google is actually eating (indexing) the contents of the file with no problem.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Yahoo Search September 2009 Update Official

Posted: September 4th, 2009, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Last night, the Yahoo Search blog warned us of a search index update that is currently taking place. Dan Rampton from Yahoo said, "We're rolling out a web index update over the next few days. During this process, you may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index."

Originally I thought it may have been a delayed confirmation of the unconfirmed August Yahoo Search shuffle but maybe not.

A WebmasterWorld thread has one webmaster reporting seeing a new change in his rankings. I tried looking at some of the stats on this site, but due to being included in Google and Yahoo News, the stats I have are a bit skewed. So I personally have not seen significant changes in how this site ranks in Yahoo, maybe slight changes on some of my other sites.

Did you notice an update?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Google's Matt Cutts On Using Different Interfaces For Mobile Users

Posted: September 4th, 2009, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The topic of cloaking or IP deliver or useragent delivery is always a very touchy topic in the SEO industry. I am not going to get into the history, but in short, webmasters can use various methods to show GoogleBot one piece of content and the user a different piece of content. Now, there is a gray area in that space. For example, hiding certain links or content from GoogleBot, while showing it to searchers, at the same time, showing the primary content to GoogleBot. That is why this is a touchy topic, Google wants to take a hard stance against cloaking and forms of it, but at the same time, there are very valid reasons for it.

In a recent video by Matt Cutts he discusses why showing a mobile version of a web site is 100% okay by Google. In short, as long as you show GoogleBot the same site normal web browsers see, then you are okay. Having a mobile version or print version of your site is fine, just don't show it to GoogleBot. Here is the quick video:

A week or two ago, I go through, in detail, how I implemented this for my corporate site. You can read about it over here.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Crawls Robots.txt Files Daily

Posted: September 3rd, 2009, 3:42pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

JohnMu from Google posted in a Google Webmaster Help thread that Google typically crawls a site's robots.txt file on a daily basis. This is the first time (at least that I can remember) I have seen a Googler make a statement on the crawl frequency of robots.txt files.

JohnMu said:

We usually only check the robots.txt file once a day for most sites, so I assume you were just still seeing the version that we fetched yesterday.

I have not validated this with my sites log files, but that is not the point. The point is a Googler said, on a general level, how often Googlebot will refetch a site's robots.txt file.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google News Publishers SEO Tips by Google

Posted: September 2nd, 2009, 4:13pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

On occasion I share SEO tips on optimizing for Google News search results. Yesterday, Google's Maile Ohye posted a blog entry at the Google Webmaster Central blog on how to optimize for Google News results in both Google News and Google Web Universal Search. The video is definitely worth watching if you are a Google News publisher or an SEO for sites included in Google News.

Here is the video:

I personally love the advice on getting images to show in Google News. She really expanded on that more than what I have seen in the past.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google News Help.

Google Adds Rich Snippet Testing Tool

Posted: September 1st, 2009, 3:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In May, Google announced the availability of adding rich snippets to the Google search results through microformats and RDFa aided code. The two major complaints were not being about to:

(1) Know if you will be able to see the rich snippets in the Google web search results.
(2) How they will look prior to them showing up in the Google web search results.

We still don't have the answer to knowing if they will show up for a specific site, without Googling it. But number two, being able to preview them, is now available with a new tool found in Google Webmaster Tools named the "Rich Snippets Testing Tool."

The tool can be accessed at google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets and you can plug in any URL (not just your verified sites) to see how the page looks with rich snippets on a Google listing.

For example, here is a preview of my LinkedIn profile:

The neat part is not just the preview, but it actually extracts all the microformats and RDFa data and shows it to you below the preview. I have a full screen capture at Flickr with this.

Extremely happy that Google added this tool. It seems like they have not announced it yet, and it is currently under beta. Hat tip to Beussery for spotting this first.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Former Googlers Spamming Site Competitors To Beat Them In Google Search Results?

Posted: August 31st, 2009, 3:28pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has one 'lurker' reporting that an ex-Googler is using spam tactics to both threaten and intentionally hurt his site. By hurt his site, the ex-Googler is allegedly using hacking and injection techniques to push the site out of the Google search results, thus boosting the ranking for his (the alleged ex-Googler) in the Google search results.

This is a bit hard to believe, but who knows - anything is possible. Let me quote the webmaster from the thread, because he makes it sound like he has been around the block and there is nothing he can do.

Around May I discovered another competitors site recent appearance that looked very similar to mine, in fact even the sentences on my homepage were copied directly to his. Then by reading the press release for the company I found out it was started by a high up google employee who quit his job with google to form the company. Shorty after contacting the owner politely introducing myself, I received a threat letter back through email. I don't know if I can publish the email on this site so I will hesitate for now. Basically the owner said he was going to crush me with his skills he had received from google. He then proceeded to tell me if I want traffic on my site that I should buy links. Being a avid reader of the google webmaster forums and faq's I know this is not a good thing to do.
So at the end of all of this my page rank dropped from a two to a zero. And now my site has started showing up on malicious porn sites on the internet and in bad forums, and some seem to be in the form of hidden links that appear to be bought by someone else.

It just seems so hard to believe that anyone, let alone, someone who was employed by Google, would go to these measures. Yes, I know, people do take extreme measures, especially in this area, but a former Googler? The thing is, anyone can pretend to be anyone else on the Internet - emails, names and so on, can be spoofed. So this may be someone using a name in order to threaten and scare this webmaster out of the competition. This wouldn't be the first time Google had impersonators on the webmaster side of the coin.

Hard to know for sure, based on the information I do and do not have.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

New Set of Google Penalties & New Siteslinks

Posted: August 28th, 2009, 3:48pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A continuously updated WebmasterWorld thread has discussion about penalties, new sitelinks and more. WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, summed up what he is seeing in this thread and others.

There are two main things going on:

(1) Sites that have been ranking very well for years and years have noticed a major decline in rankings. Tedster said maybe "it's a new batch of the OOP (formerly called -950)." This might be related to the not real Google August 2009 update.

(2) Sitelinks have been changing. We are seeing anchored Sitelinks, many Sitelinks not in the top position, one line Sitelinks, four Sitelinks and even the standard eight Sitelinks. Tedster said, "It seems like the algo is getting more fine-tuned and in some cases at least is picking up more on popular internal pages that are not on the site's main menu."

That is a quick update on the state of the Google search index.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Results Are In: Is SEOMoz's Ranking Factors Accurate? Mostly, Yes

Posted: August 28th, 2009, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Two days ago, I ran a poll asking our readers how accurate do they find the SEOMoz ranking factors survey. We have over a 160 responses in less than two days, so I thought I would post the results now. Overall, SEOs and webmasters find the survey to be accurate on some level.

Here is the break down:

Question: How Accurate Is the SEOMoz Search Ranking Survey?

:: Very Accurate said 72 respondents or 43%
:: Somewhat Accurate said 63 respondents or 38%
:: Not Very Accurate said 13 respondents or 8%
:: Completely Worthless said 8 respondents or 5%
:: Other answer... said 6 respondents or 4%
:: The Absolute Truth said 4 respondents or 2%

So there you have it! Have what? I am not sure. :)

Forum discussion continued at Sphinn and SEOMoz.

.ME Domain Names Can Now Be Geo Targetted In Google Webmaster Tools

Posted: August 28th, 2009, 3:23pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Two threads at Google Webmaster Help report that .ME ccTLDs (domain names) can now be geo targeted in Google Webmaster Tools.

Typically, Google doesn't allow you to geo-target a ccTLD (country specific top level domain). Google assumes that if you register a country specific TLD, you want to rank well in that country. They made an exception for a few ccTLDs including .TV domains a while back, but the .ME domains were not included in that exception.

That has changed as of August 17th. In fact, this blog has a screen shot proving it. But there are other various reports of this actually working. .ME is a natural ccTLD for this exception.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Should You Flaunt Your Search Engine Rankings?

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 4:02pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion on the topic of promoting the fact that you rank number one in a search engine for an important keyword. Does it make sense, in some cases or any case, to promote the fact that you are the top result in Google, Yahoo or Bing?

Clearly, if you are an SEO company and you need to show your results to prospects, it would be wise to show off your success. But do you plaster the specific search terms you rank well for on your web page for all to see?

If you are a web site that ranks number one for blue widgets, do you flaunt the fact on your web site? Or do you keep it under the radar? I would assume your competitors already know, so does it hurt? Can it help if you promote that fact to your potential customers?

As you can see, there are many variables mentioned here and many I have not mentioned.

What do you think? Is it wise to show off your success or are you asking for a beat down? Take our poll:

Should You Show Off Your Success With Search Rankings?(polls)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Loving Keywords in URLs Now?

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 3:34pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has new discussion around how important it is to have keywords in the URL. This is a very old SEO topic, but new chatter in the industry is saying how keywords in the URLs actually make more of an impact in your rankings in Google today, more than it has in a long time.

Now, keywords in the URL can mean two things (well, more than two, but we will discuss only two) or both of these two things. There is the domain name, i.e. domain.com and there is the filename, i.e. domain.com/filename.html. There is always a benefit to getting a short keyword specific domain name, because people link to you by your name (i.e. people link to my web development shop as RustyBrick and not Web Development because the name is RustyBrick). But the actual words in the URL, just looking at the URL component and not the links you get, how much does that impact your rankings at Google?

Many are of the opinion that Google is really looking more at the keywords in the URL. In fact, Matt Cutts surprised me when he mentioned that they do help in his WordCamp presentation. And now Tedster, the WebmasterWorld administrator, said:

Certainly keyword-in-url seems to be dialed up rather high right now as a ranking factor.

Do you agree? Take my anonymous poll:

Right Now, How Much is Google Loving Keywords in URL?(polls)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

What's Going On With Google UK's Search Results?

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 3:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is an excellent guest article at Search Engine Land named The Curious Case Of Google's Bizarre UK Search Results. In this write up, Bas van den Beld explains some of the recent history with what is going on in the Google UK results and shows specific examples of why he is upset with the results.

Let me catch you up, because it actually goes a bit further back than what Bas explained. In April of this year, folks at WebmasterWorld noticed that the Google UK geo targeting algorithm might be a bit off. Maybe this was an early sign or test from Google, because those signals went quiet until June, when the Twitterverse went nuts about the UK Google search results. In fact, in July, Google tested removing the pages from UK radio button, which upset a lot of people.

This was such a big deal that Matt Cutts created a video about it:

In short, Matt explains that Google UK is now showing a lot more US sites (i.e. dot COMs) in the UK results. In the past, Google typically showed more .co.uk results, but now Google is "getting better" at showing relevant .com results He added that this change, Google will "likely not revert," so we might be stuck with it.

In any event, many UK SEOs are not happy about this and they have expressed this on Matt's video, via Twitter, forums and in blog posts.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

SEO & Print URLs

Posted: August 25th, 2009, 4:08pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Many sites feature a way to print a page of your site in a printer friendly view, by removing many of the ads, removing a lot of the navigation and so on. The issue with this, in some cases, is that webmasters creating a new URL with the same content, causing a duplicate content issue on the SEO front.

In the past, the solution was to call these printer friendly URLs in a non-search engine friendly manner, i.e. through JavaScript. But now that many search engines can find URLs within JavaScript, you can run into an issue with this method.

The best solution is to use a printer friendly CSS template. This will ensure that the URL is the same, no matter what view is given to the user or search engine. If you cannot create a CSS template for printer friendly versions of the page, then the next best thing to do is exclude those printer friendly URLs (i.e. the duplicate URLs) with a robots.txt file.

One person asked in a Google Webmaster Help thread, can they use the newish rel=canonical link element to redirect search engines to the main URL, so they pass the link equity? Googler, JohnMu, said you shouldn't. He said, "I don't think using the rel=canonical link element would be that valid here, since the two pages do look pretty differently (they're not really interchangeable canonicals)."

Let me show you a real life example of what we did on RustyBrick.com, my real business (outside of this blogging stuff, which is just a hobby for me).

In the past, we had a print URL for each page of the site, generated through JavaScript. It worked well in the past, the search engines ignored that JavaScript and it was rarely found in the Google or other search indexes. Now, you can clearly see Google indexed both URLs:

On Thursday, we launched a redesign for the RustyBrick site, a redesign and technology upgrade nine-years in the making. Part of that was to fix this issue.

Created a print CSS template
301 redirected the ?print_page=1 to the parent URLs

In addition to that, we created a neat mobile template, which uses the useragent to change the CSS (not the URL) when you access the site on most mobile devices. And our print pages are also using the same URL and look pretty good.

Here are pictures of the same URL on a desktop web browser, on an iPhone and as a print friendly page:

Desktop Version:

Mobile Version:

Print Version:

There are some things we still need to clean up with this design and our templates, but for the most part, I am happy with the look, feel and search engine friendliness of the new site.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Oh, and to comment on the new design, go to my blog post at the RustyBrick Blog and comment there.

Yahoo Search August 2009 Update

Posted: August 24th, 2009, 2:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

There are signals from the forums and via Twitter of a possible Yahoo update. Yes, Google seems to be updating as well, but so is Yahoo.

A WebmasterWorld thread, started on Friday afternoon, shows some SEOs and webmasters discussing changes to the Yahoo search results. The last possible Yahoo Search update was in June 2009.

Vanessa Fox, former Googler and now Search Engine Land's Contributing Editor tweeted that on her sites, "Yahoo Slurp has super slowed down its crawl."

Are you seeing changes in your rankings or in the crawl speed of Yahoo Slurp on your site?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Now Reporting SSL Certificate Errors

Posted: August 24th, 2009, 2:12pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

It appears that some webmasters are now receiving warnings from Google Webmaster Tools about SSL certificate issues. A Google Webmaster Help thread has a couple people reporting receiving the warnings over the weekend.

Here is a copy of the SSL warning from Google:

Googlebot noticed your site host name, https://www.banknorwegian.no:443/, does not match your SSL certificate Subject Name August 20, 2009
Dear Webmaster,

The host name of your site, https://www.banknorwegian.no:443/, does not match any of the "Subject Names" in your SSL certificate, which were:

* NotVerified

This will cause many web browsers to block users from accessing your site, or to display a security warning message when your site is accessed.

To correct this problem, please get a new SSL certificate by a Certificate Authority (CA) with a "Subject Name" or "Subject Alternative DNS Names" that matches your host name.

Thanks,

The Google Web Crawling Team

I am not sure if this warning is new, I have never seen this reported before. Now many more webmasters are noticing it, because there may be a bug in how Google detects such errors. Google's JohnMu said:

Generally speaking, we've added these messages to inform webmasters of issues with regards to their SSL certificates. This is just an informational message, it does not affect your site's crawling, indexing or ranking.

It seems that some of you may be seeing this message despite having a valid SSL certificate. We're looking into this issue and will let you know more as soon as we can. In the mean time, if you're certain that your certificate is ok, then you can safely ignore this message.

So two take aways:

(1) SSL certificate warnings from Google does not generally impact your site's well being in the Google search results.

(2) There may be an issue with Google's SSL certificate reporting feature.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Can A/B Testing Cause An SEO Problem?

Posted: August 21st, 2009, 3:33pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A/B testing is the process of setting up two or more styles for a page, for the same piece of content. For example, let's say you had a page where you sold blue widgets and you wanted to try using a blue button versus a red button to buy the widget. What you can do is A/B test the two types of buttons against each other.

How would you accomplish this? Well, you can send 50% of your traffic to example.com/widget.html?button=red and the other 50% to example.com/widget.html?button=blue and see which page converts better. But that can lead to duplicate content, i.e. the same URL, example.com/widget.html with three URLs for the same content. Or would it? Google and some search engines are smart enough to pick up on this. There are other ways to test this using JavaScript (potential cloaking issue?) or CSS or use Google Website Optimizer.

How would you handle it? That is the question asked in a WebmasterWorld thread. Honestly, I am not sure what the "best" method to handle this is. So please join the thread or comment here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

86% Of SEOs Say They Can Rank #1 In Both Google.com & Regional Googles

Posted: August 20th, 2009, 3:46pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A couple weeks ago, I asked our readers how feasible it was to rank in the number one spot in Google.com and at the same time rank #1 in a regional flavored Google search space. We have just about a hundred responses, so I wanted to share the results with you.

In short, 86% of the respondents said it was possible. 46% said yes, it is doable, 40% said it depends on the keyword, 11% said it was not possible and the rest didn't really answer the question. Here is the visual breakdown:

Question: Can You Rank #1 In Regional Google & Google.com?

:: Yes said 45 respondents or 46%
:: Depends On Keyword said 39 respondents or 40%
:: No said 11 respondents or 11%
:: Other answer... said 2 respondents or 2%

Forum discussion continued at HighRankings Forums.

Video: Google's Matt Cutts Presentation at WordCamp

Posted: August 20th, 2009, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A DigitalPoint Forums thread links to Matt's slides from WordCamp. The slides can be found on Google Docs, but I say, skip those and watch the video below of Matt's presentation.

The one thing I learned from it was that it makes sense to have keywords in your URL and if you want to rank well for alternatives to the title of your page, put that keyword in the URL. Matt's example was for a blog post with the word "Change" in the title, but he wanted to also rank for "changing," so he put that word in the URL and it does work, he said.

In any event, the presentation is extremely fun to watch. Matt has really become an excellent speaker over the years.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Excellent Site Review Panel by Matt Cutts & Other Googlers

Posted: August 18th, 2009, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A couple months back, Google ran an I/O conference. What many people don't know is that Matt Cutts and the search quality team video recorded a session with site reviews and posted it for everyone to see. The video is over an hour long, but it is well worth listening to and in some parts, watching.

Here it is: I would suggest just hitting play and listening to it and flipping back to it when you need to see something:

This video can likely teach most people about SEO in an hour. For more advanced SEOs, Matt did make a comment about using the nofollow attribute for login pages. Watch the video at about 31 minutes and 40 seconds in and listen to it. Matt said:

The only time I use the nofollow on internal links, is maybe a login page.

Now, I doubt this is something Matt wants people to misunderstand, so maybe Matt will comment on this statement? ;-) Why is this statement a big deal? Well, recently, Matt said that the nofollow would waste PageRank flow if used, which got people thinking that blogs are doomed and got people to reconsider using the nofollow.

Forum discussion about that comment at WebmasterWorld.

How To Get Into Google News Alerts? Make Top Ten

Posted: August 12th, 2009, 3:22pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google News publisher asked in a Google News Help thread why his publication rarely comes up in the Google News alerts for specific queries he subscribed to. Inbal from Google explained how alerts get sent and how you need to rank in Google News to be included.

Inbal said:

In order to be included in Google News Alerts, an article must be included in Google News and appear in the top ten results of Google News for specific search terms.

Clearly, the first part of the answer is obvious. To be in Google News Alerts, you must first be indexed by Google News. The second part is less obvious for many publishers, but for SEO's it likely makes a lot of sense. You must be in the top ten results at the time the alert is triggered (both RSS and Email) for you to show up in Google News Alerts. I believe the frequency of your alerts makes a difference, because the Google News rankings often change throughout the day.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Google PageRank Distribution Data Not Available For Many in Webmaster Tools

Posted: August 11th, 2009, 3:34pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Many webmasters and SEOs are reporting seeing an issue with the PageRank distribution report in Google Webmaster Tools. If you login and click on crawl stats, and then scroll to the bottom, you may or may not see data. I personally do not see any data for this site. In fact, for me it reads:

No data available. Please check back soon.

JohnMu from Google confirmed the issue in a Google Webmaster Help thread saying:

Some Webmaster Tools users have reported missing PageRank distribution data for their websites. We are working on resolving this issue. This data is informational and does not affect your site's crawling, indexing or ranking.
Thanks for your patience!

Just another reason not to be freaked out and too concerned with the data shown in Google Webmaster Tools.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Explains Why It Is So Hard To Source Original Image Owner

Posted: August 3rd, 2009, 3:50pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Image search has its challenges, but yet, it is a powerful beast on its own. For as long as there has been image search, the issues of the search engine showing the original image, as opposed to those who hotlink to those images, has been a huge issue. Why? Well, Googler, JohnMu, put a lot of time into a response on why this is the case. So I figured I share the reason, directly from the horses mouth (as they say).

JohnMu said in a Google Webmaster Help thread:

As Becky mentioned, hotlinking and ranking in Image Search is a complicated problem :). One of the reasons for this is - apart from the fact that many sites host their images elsewhere - that sometimes a different page is more relevant than your page for the keywords the person was searching for. For example, if someone searches for "beach photo" and your awesome vacation sunset picture happens to match, but your own page does not mention "beach photo" (or otherwise does not appear to be relevant for "beach photo") it's possible that we'll link to some other site that does mention "beach photo" together with your image.
This can be particularly problematic for gallery scripts, eg when your own site uses "DSC_02102.JPG" as the title and as the only unique text on the landing page. It might be a great picture of a laughing penguin jumping over a striped cow on the first of August, but we wouldn't be able to tell from your page alone. If however, that same image were linked in a forum where people were talking about these kinds of things, that image - together with the forum page - suddenly becomes relevant for some keywords.

So.. if you see that your own images are not ranking with content from your site, I'd recommend taking that as a challenge and working to make sure that your own pages are as relevant as they can be, with your images.

It is hard for me to add more to this explanation. It is an issue, that is for sure and publishers often don't help. I mean, I often host my images in Flickr and then embed them here. I likely should begin hosting them here, because it would give this site more traffic, plus it would show up more often in Google News. But Flickr bears the bandwidth costs and it is just so easy, plus Flickr does send nice traffic.

Here is additional details on Google Image search that might help.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

New Google Sitemaps Error: "Duplicate URL" Warning

Posted: August 3rd, 2009, 3:28pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is a brand new Google Webmaster Tools error for Sitemaps files. The new error or warning is named "Duplicate URL" and has been springing up for many webmasters recently.

The full error reads:

This URL is a duplicate of another URL in the sitemap. Please remove it and resubmit.

The first reports of such an error being received by webmasters was on June 29th, Wednesday. The error basically tells the webmaster that they have the same URL (a duplicate) listed in the Sitemap file and they should probably remove it. In some cases, Google is wrong about what is duplicate and what is not. For example, if domain.com/page/ is technically a different page from domain.com/page/index.html, Google will still consider that a duplicate listing.

JohnMu from Google explains in detail:

This is a new warning message we added to inform you of this issue. This does not mean that we treat your Sitemap file in any way differently, it's just for your information (and this information wasn't shown to users before). In general, it makes little sense to submit duplicate URLs in a Sitemap file, which is why this message was added.
There is one item which may lead to confusion here though - Google's Sitemaps processing generally simplifies URLs in ways that make sense on a whole. This includes removing "/index.html" from the URL if that's the last part. In general, that makes sense, since you want to show users the relevant part of the URL (and since most servers will automatically check "index.html" when the root page is requested).

However, there are some cases where "/index.html" is a relevant part of the URL and can't be removed. In these cases, we'll generally discover those URLs through our normal web-crawl. At the moment, it's possible that our Sitemaps processing will show these warnings in those cases - but since this does not signal any change in the processing of your Sitemaps files, you can safely ignore these warnings.

In short: these warnings are new, but the processing of your Sitemaps files has not changed.

We have lots of forum threads, all from Google Webmaster Help.

Google Site Reconsideration Form Not Working For Many

Posted: August 3rd, 2009, 3:12pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread reports that several webmasters trying to use the reconsideration form are experiencing significant difficulties.

As the user types in the box, explaining why their site should be reincluded in the Google index, the web page freezes and they get booted out. The issue seems to date back to July 26th, last Wednesday.

The issue was confirmed by Googler, Susan Moskwa on 7/28, saying, "thanks for letting us know, folks--we're looking into the issue." Then on Friday, Googler, Jonathan Simon chimed in saying, "We're still looking into this issue. In the mean time have you tried the potential workarounds that danielroofer suggests above?"

The form works fine for me, so maybe try deleting your cookies to see if that fixes things. If not, hopefully Google will figure it out.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Webmaster Tools API Bugs

Posted: July 31st, 2009, 4:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About a year ago, Google introduced the new Google Webmaster Tools API. This API allow developers to communicate with Google Webmaster Tools (GWT), without actually accessing the front end, so they can code reports, verify sites and so on, without touching the actual GWT interface.

Over the past month or so, there have been several complaints about the API not working properly. Here is a Google Webmaster Help thread with one complaint, and here are a few more.

The issue has finally be discovered and confirmed. If you try to use the PUT and DELETE request methods in the Webmaster Tools GData API, you will get a "400 Bad Request" response returned. Again, Google has confirmed the issue and hopes to get it fixed "early next week."

Jonathan Simon said in the thread:

Good news...we've tracked down the API issue and should have an fix in place early next week. Thanks for your help in getting this resolved!

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Certified SEOs = Top Contributors / Bionic Posters?

Posted: July 24th, 2009, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

One person posted a rant in the Google Webmaster Help forums about the "Top Contributors / Bionic Posters" in that forum. In short, Top Contributors / Bionic Posters are given the title by Googlers, who believe that these people are smart enough, experienced enough, skilled enough and helpful enough to be giving answered at Googler levels. But this person felt the Top Contributors / Bionic Posters were not helpful.

The interesting part of this thread is that Googler, JohnMu, does the right thing and backs up the Top Contributors / Bionic Posters with a really nice post. The post, kind of leads me to see that Google may (maybe stretching it here) consider the Top Contributors / Bionic Posters as "certified Google SEOs," if there is such a thing. Google does have certified AdWords professionals, Ad Manager pros, Google Apps, etc, but not Google SEOs, simply because it is something that would be considered very controversial on many levels. But in a sense, these Top Contributors / Bionic Posters are Google Certified SEOs.

Read John's post:

This is one of the reasons we mark a few people as Top Contributor / Bionic Poster. It's not because of their own website(s). Some websites rank high for no particular reasons and some websites are filled with information that is made up -- I wouldn't trust people online just because of a website that they give you :).
Top Contributors / Bionic Posters are people who do more than just work on a single website. They help thousands of users here with their problems. They see issues here weekly which the average webmaster does not ever see. Because of that, they're frequently very quick in finding a diagnosis and frequently the diagnosis is spookily correct (not always, I don't think that's really possible). They might be a little too direct at times, but when you have so many people lined up asking for help I don't think it makes sense to be anything else than direct. Sometimes things can get heated, they're only people after all :), but overall they help an awesome amount of users.

Keep in mind that you can't become a Top Contributor / Bionic Poster by just posting a lot of stuff here. It's not based only on the quantity but to a large part on the quality of the feedback given. When we find that someone is doing an exceptional job here, we may decide to reach out to them and ask them to become a Top Contributor / Bionic Poster. We don't do that based on a single reply, we do that by looking at 100s and often 1000s of replies to webmasters with all kinds of problems.

If this message is not a clear indication that Google vouches for the Top Contributors / Bionic Posters, then I don't know what is. I don't blame JohnMu for backing up the Top Contributor / Bionic Posters, but it also leads John and Google to basically certifying them as certified SEOs, which can get hairy.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

StreamRotator Blamed For Google Penalizing Porn Industry?

Posted: July 23rd, 2009, 3:53pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About a month ago, we reported that Google slapped the porn industry with a Google penalty of some sort. Soon after we reported the issue, Google seemed to have reversed the penalty on that industry. But we all thought it wasn't industry specific, but rather the software used by many of the webmasters in that industry.

There seems to be a new batch of issues in that adult/porn industry now. StreamRotator by StreamScripts.com seems to be the cause of the next penalty. In fact, a representative from the company came into the Google Webmaster Help thread and said:

I represent StreamRotator Content Management Script (http://streamscripts.com). Lately we’ve been receiving numerous complaints from our users that the sites powered by our script have disappeared from Google’s SERPs. The worst thing about that is that the users can’t even find their own sites for “domain.com” kinds of searches.
It has also been reported that sites running other scripts (not only StreamRotator) have suffered from similar penalties too; however some of them have gradually found their way back to Google SERPs. This has not been the case with StreamRotator driven sites. There are roughly 10 thousand users of our script and this problem influences a massive number of people.

I kindly ask You to suggest me the ways to help the owners of the sites that use our script. We do not have an idea what caused such penalties and I would be really thankful for any information You could provide me with.

I wonder if Google will address the issue or is StreamRotator is doing something against Google's terms of service. Time will tell, but the saga with the porn industry and Google continues.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

96% Say Clients Need To Be Involved In the SEO Process

Posted: July 22nd, 2009, 4:32pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Last week, we asked you if you felt client involvement is necessary for a successful SEO campaign. The obvious answer to me, was yes, it was. But not everyone agrees, most do, but not everyone.

96% said some level of client involvement is necessary for a successful SEO campaign. Only 3% said, it is not necessary. This is out of over a 160 responsiveness. Let me break out the poll results for you:

Question: Is Client Involvement Necessary for SEO Success?

:: Yes said 138 respondents or 84%
:: Maybe Just a Little said 19 respondents or 12%
:: No said 5 respondents or 3%
:: Other... said 2 respondents or 1%

The other responses, really are not valid here. In any event, no surprise here in this poll.

Forum discussion continued at HighRanking Forums and Sphinn.

Google: Location Specific Queries Now Requiring More Location Specific Links?

Posted: July 22nd, 2009, 4:03pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I have been tracking the WebmasterWorld thread on the July Google changes and a lot of people are now discussing how Google is treating location specific queries differently.

By that I mean, the consensus in the thread is that there was a ranking adjustment for location specific queries. For example, searchers for real estate or travel specific searches that are highly dependent on location specific search criteria.

The feeling is that Google is now weighing links from localized sites higher than random links. Tedster, the WebmasterWorld administrator, explains this well in post number 3956975:

One market where I "think" I'm seeing this "semantic theme" backlink phenomenon is the travel SERPs - those with [very specific location] in the query phrase. Sites with backlinks predominantly from other [very specific location] pages are now doing better than those that have more of a scattershot collection of backlinks. This is a change from just a few weeks ago, when backlink quantity seemed to rule all on its own.
One thing I'm becoming quite convinced of (and this has been a growing impression) is it's time to stop trying to control anchor text in backlinks. Instead, just attract backlinks from good, on-theme, pages and let the anchor text be naturally randomized as the webmaster chooses - external anchor text should naturally include a high occurrence of [domain name] or [business name].

Of course, many SEOs have been aiming for links like this for a while and Google continuously tries to make links mean more, in terms of determining relevancy.

Have you noticed this?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Adds Some Features

Posted: July 22nd, 2009, 3:54pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google Webmaster Tools recently added some features to the toolkit. Those include the ability to quick search for sites in your profile, block sitelinks for subpages, review page removal requests made by others and fading out the unverified sites on the home page of the tool.

The two most significant changes are the sitelinks addition and removal request addition.

You can now block sitelinks for subpages, here is a picture:

This feature is something they needed to add since displaying inner/deeper page sitelinks back in November 2008.

Also, Google is now displaying third-party requests for page removals. So you can see which pages people want Google to remove from your site and either agree or disagree with that request. Here is a picture:

It would be nice to know who made the request, but I doubt Google would show that.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Formula To Determine How Competitive One Can Go in SEO

Posted: July 20th, 2009, 4:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Jill Whalen started a fabulous thread at HighRankings Forums asking if there is any formula or calculation being used to figure out how competitive she or any SEO can go with a specific client. Jill explained that when it comes to having a Fortune 500 customer rank well for very competitive keywords on their PageRank 8 domain, it is a no brainer. But when it comes to brand new web sites, for new clients, how competitive should an SEO company go with their keyword ranking goals?

Typically she determines this based on "gut feeling" she said:

I typically have no problem doing this mostly by intuition. I'm sure somewhere in my brain I'm calculating a number of different factors as to where to start/stop on the AIT numbers, but it's at a gut level.
Does anyone have a more scientific formula they use to do something similar? I don't need it for myself, but I'm putting together a teaching presentation on choosing keywords, and there's no real way to explain how to use your gut instincts!

The thread now has several members listing out variables that can be used in such a formula. Those variables can include PageRank, allintitle numbers, paid listings, and so much more. It clearly needs to be measured against the power of the current site wanting to rank for those keywords and what the competition is out there. It would be nice to see someone attempt such a calculation tool.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forums.

Google Picking Titles Incorrectly?

Posted: July 20th, 2009, 3:31pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last week, we asked if Google was picking titles from Google Maps? It turned out to not be the case. In fact, there has been a surprising number of people complaining about the titles Google is showing for a specific page in the search results.

A newer thread at Google Webmaster Help brings up a new case where a search for http://www.animationarena.com/best-animation-schools.html returned a title that read "Schools that teach Flash - Best Animation Schools" as opposed to just "Best Animation Schools." It seems to be fixed for me now, but JohnMu of Google did chime in.

John said:

There are certain situations where we'd replace a title in search results (as is happening here), for example if we find that the same title is used on a number of pages or if the title is otherwise not that good (eg "Home"). It looks like in this case we chose a weird title -- I've passed it on to the team so that they can take a look and adjust things if possible.

Now, John replied with a similar message to several other threads or blog posts. Google must have done something recently which caused many titles to be overwritten by what Google thinks would be a more appropriate title.

Let's explore what John said a bit more. A different title may be used in the Google search results if:

(1) "The same title is used on a number of pages," a duplicate content title adjustment?

(2) "The title is otherwise not that good (eg "Home")", which we knew for a while now.

The first one is most interesting to me and I personally have never seen Google admit before.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Poll: Is Client Involvement Necessary for SEO Success?

Posted: July 17th, 2009, 3:44pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Jill Whalen posted an article at Search Engine Land that caused a stir in the SEO community. The name of the article is Is Most Of SEO Just A Boondoggle? (not sure if it was named something before). It is short, so it is worth a quick scan, but if you don't have time, it basically discusses how some (many) SEO companies sell SEO services which don't change a thing on your site. She lists which ones she feels are a waste.

Although I agree on the overall point of the article, there are some details I would disagree with. In any event, the big question I have for you, the ones that SEO sell, is how important is client involvement in a successful site? I am personally a strong believer that the client needs to bring to the table more than just money to make his site a success. But I am not sure all would agree with that.

So take the anonymous poll and let me know your thoughts:

Is Client Involvement Necessary for SEO Success?(polling)

Forum discussion at HighRanking Forums and Sphinn.

Google Pulling Titles From Google Maps Now?

Posted: July 16th, 2009, 4:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Title tags in the search results are very important, they drive clicks, which drives sales. It now appears that Google is pulling the title for some listings from Google Maps and not from the title tag in the page's source code.

A Google Webmaster Help thread reports this issue with a search for blinds or even their title tag, "Shop for Blinds, Window Blinds, Shutters, Plantation Shutters, Window Shades" returns the title tag, Blinds.com.

Why is this happening? No one really knew in the thread, it was a mystery. But I subscribe to Mike Blumenthals blog where he noticed that Google is overriding the title tags for some sites with the business name listed in Google Maps. The thing is, in Mike's case, that site has an ODP listing and the ODP listing's title is being used in Google. If the site were to use a NOODP tag, I think, in this case, the title would revert back. Blinds.com doesn't have an ODP listing, so maybe Google is pulling the title from Google Maps?

If you look at the Google Maps listing for Blinds.com, you will notice the business name is Blinds.com:

The title tag in the source code, again is "Shop for Blinds, Window Blinds, Shutters, Plantation Shutters, Window Shades."

Why would Google replace the titles of the search listings with Google Maps? They do this sometimes with the ODP title, but people complained and Google supported the NOODP tag to stop Google from using that title over your title tag. So now we will need a NOgMAP tag?

I hope this is some weird bug.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Update: It looks like in this case, Google used something just because the robots.txt file prevented Google from reading the site at some point. JohnMu of Google just replied to the thread saying:

It looks like this URL was briefly disallowed via your robots.txt file. In a case like that, we might choose a different title (if we can't access the original URL), as we did here. In general, once the robots.txt is back to normal, this usually settles down over time, no worries :)

So I assume the title came from anchor text links.

Google Gives Blessing To Image Replacement Techniques

Posted: July 16th, 2009, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is only so much CSS can accomplish with making headlines pretty. If you want to give your headlines a pretty font that not all computers support, then you need to go with graphics. But as an SEO, you don't want to lose out on search engines reading those headlines. Yes, search engines cannot always read graphics, even if you use alt text.

This is not a new issue, it is a common issue that many sites struggle with. A work around is to use image replacement techniques with CSS. Either you use CSS to swap out the text for an image replacement alternative or you can use an sIFR replacement technique, if you want the content to be dynamic.

Either way, as long as the content matches the content in the graphic, then you should be fine, according to Googler, JohnMu. John said in a Google Webmaster Help thread:

If you are using image replacement techniques and replacing the text with an image that is equivalent (with the exact same text in approximately the same visibility) then that is generally fine. This provides a nice user experience and still lets those who cannot access the images (eg crawlers or vision-impaired users) use your website normally.

Now this does not give you the okay to stuff keywords in that section. It has to match and it should be relevant to the page. Use your best judgement when using these techniques. In fact, I hope to use the sIFR technique on the new RustyBrick site, when it launches in 4 years from now. ;-)

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Recommends Not Looking at Site Command Results

Posted: July 15th, 2009, 3:04pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The site command (site:www.domain.com) is often used to determine the health of a web site in a search engine. The thing is, Google's site command is far from accurate and too many SEOs look at it too closely. We discussed this before and I just want to cover it again.

Googler, JohnMu, said in a Google Webmaster Help thread:

Focusing on the site:-query rough approximations will not lead to useful results.

Did he just say that the site command results are not useful? Are you surprised? I'm not. Like I said, we said this before.

For example, a site:www.seroundtable.com command returns for me over 17,000 pages. When I look at Google Webmaster Tools, I see indexed URLs at 9,921. So who do I believe?

We discussed the site command dozens of times here over the course of about 6 years. It is interesting to see how this has changed over the years.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Classifies Any Site With an RSS Feed as a Blog?

Posted: July 7th, 2009, 3:43pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around how Google seems to consider any web site that contains an RSS feed, as a blog. In fact, several webmasters are complaining that their web sites are showing in the Google Universal Results, under the label of, "blog posts about," when their site is simply not a blog.

What seems to be happening is that Google may be considering any site that has an RSS feed as a blog. Many sites have RSS feeds these days, including Apple.com that has autodiscovery set up to their hot news headlines feed and even my site, RustyBrick.com that has our autodiscovery set up to our news section (which I really need to update).

It does appear that Google may classify www.rustybrick.com as a blog by listing our results in blog search, but it does not list apple.com in blog search. It does list many sites with RSS feeds, no matter if they are a blog or not, in blog search.

So does Google have a problem misclassifying blogs based on the RSS feed availability? Should webmasters be upset if their sites are included in Google Blog Search? Can it hurt?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Don't Let Google Index Your CPanel Login Page

Posted: July 7th, 2009, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google loves indexing content, any content it can get their hands on. In fact, it isn't just Google, it is any search engine. But there is some content you probably don't want Google to index, and those are pages that reveal how to login to your server and make changes.

Just take a look at the number of CPanel login pages Google has indexed. Yahoo has some and so does Bing. No, the search engine is not to blame, it is the hosting company for not blocking the search engine from indexing those pages.

A "top contributor" at the Google Webmaster Help Forum is venting about the issue. He said:

I don't have control over that web page, it's as provided by the makers of Cpanel (and that is adminstered by my own hoster admins). It responds with a 200, while it uses javascript redirection to send one to the login page itself. There is no robots meta tag on it. I cannot modify it. Stupid. I have a mind to contact Cpanel and ask them to add a robots noindex meta tag and whatever else. But that may not happen any time really soon.

What can you do? Bug your host.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help Forum.

Offering SEO Before The Site Is Developed

Posted: July 2nd, 2009, 4:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A HighRankings Forum thread has discussion around a topic I can relate with. My company, RustyBrick, builds out custom web software and sites, including iPhone apps. I often get new customers coming to me with their request to build them a web site. They are clueless about SEO and honestly, don't have the time or care to learn about it.

So we build the site for them, whatever it might be (e-commerce, CMS, social networking, etc), to the best of our ability. It is incredibly search engine friendly, with all the nice link structure, proper coding, dynamic 301s, 404s, XML sitemaps, and so on. So they got themselves a nice search engine friendly web site without knowing it.

My company does not do the content development, we just build the code and the design and make a working site structure. So when it comes time for the client to build out unique, useful and superior content, in most cases, they do not. They either don't understand the value, are too lazy or too dumb.

Some get the whole SEO thing right away, but many do not. Many will come to me later and ask about ways to get traffic. I will then explain to them the whole SEO bit. If I see the client doesn't get it, I'd recommend they seek out an SEO company.

You see, for companies like mine that build sites up from scratch, it is not easy to explain the value in SEO, before the site has potential to get traffic. But for SEO companies to show value in a site that sits without traffic, it is a tad easier.

HighRanking moderator BBCoach said the same thing that I did. Do you find the same issue with new site builds and clients?

Forum discussion at HighRanking Forums.

Google Reverses Adult/Porn Site Penalties

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 3:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

On Monday we reported that Google spanked the adult porn industry by penalizing many of the sites. There were many theories as to why those sites were penalized. It wasn't all the adult sites that were penalized but a nice percentage were.

Sometime last night, Google seemed to have reversed the penalty. An updated Google Webmaster Help thread reports two of the adult webmasters saying their sites are back to normal in the Google index. One said:

My rankings are back, right where they were. So are some of the other sites I know were penalized.

What exactly caused the temporary penalty is not yet known. It might have been a misclassification of something all those sites are using. Hard to know exactly without a Googler coming in and letting us know.

One adult webmaster wants to know why this happened. Why did he lose his rankings and revenue for several days due to this Google glitch? He asked:

Yes same here all search engine traffic has returned, so whats your take on this everyone? Was it just part of a google dance? Did google make a mistake? I mean we obviously we're penalised to begin with since we all moved to page 4-5 of the search results. And now we've all come back when many people changed nothing on their sites cause they thought it would make matters worse? It's a mystery isn't it?

I am not sure if all these adult sites have been restored in Google yet or if it was just a handful, but it seems like many are coming back.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Example Of Google Penalty Email Over Hidden Text

Posted: July 1st, 2009, 2:57pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A DigitalPoint Forum thread has a copy of a email sent to a webmaster for violating Google's webmaster guidelines. The email specifically shows the webmaster which guidelines they are breaking, in this case, hiding text.

Here is a copy of the email:

Dear site owner or webmaster of somewifi.com,
While we were indexing your webpages, we detected that some of your pages were using techniques that are outside our quality guidelines, which can be found here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769&hl=en.

This appears to be because your site has been modified by a third party.

Typically, the offending party gains access to an insecure directory that has open permissions. Many times, they will upload files or modify existing ones, which then show up as spam in our index.

The following is some example hidden text we found at http://somewifi.com/:

songs Power Of Quest download songs Thomas Newman buy mp3 Tied and Tickled Trio new mp3 AFI top mp3 Alex Lifeson dowland ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra) instrumental Dark oscillators mp3 songs Distance music download Euskefeurat music download F.J.Haydn download Fair to Midland

In order to preserve the quality of our search engine, pages from somewifi.com are scheduled to be removed temporarily from our search results for at least 30 days.

We would prefer to keep your pages in Google's index. If you wish to be reconsidered, please correct or remove all pages (may not be limited to the examples provided) that are outside our quality guidelines. One potential remedy is to contact your web host technical support for assistance. For more information about security for webmasters, see http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-sites-been-hacked-now-what.html. When such changes have been made, please visit https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/reconsideration?hl=en to learn more and submit your site for reconsideration.

Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team

Google specifically emailed this webmaster because they thought it was done by a third party, i.e. a hack. Google wrote in the email, "this appears to be because your site has been modified by a third party." Google then informed the webmaster that in order to protect the safety of the Google searcher, they have removed the infected website temporarily.

It is nice to see specific examples of this in real life, so I thought it would be nice to share with you all.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Search Spanks The Adult Porn Industry?

Posted: June 29th, 2009, 3:57pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I rarely cover how Google is treating the adult online industry. But I have noticed a thread at Google Webmaster Help forums that is pretty heated on the topic of Google penalizing hundreds of adult and pornographic web sites over the past week or so. Supposedly, there are many adult webmaster forums discussing this now.

Google doesn't typically penalize adult sites for being pornographic. Of course, those sites are labelled in Google as being pornographic and only show up for certain queries. But they are not typically penalized for being pornographic. So why are these adult sites all of a sudden being penalized in the masses?

There is suspicion that thumbnail software named Smart Thumbs is the culprit. I honestly, never heard of the software and I have no idea how it works, coding wise. But the pattern these webmasters are noticing is that all these penalized adult sites use the same adult focused image thumbnail software named Smart Thumbs. The thing is, some are saying that even sites not running Smart Thumbs are being penalized, so maybe that is not the commonality between them all.

If you are in the adult webmaster business, then you likely want to see this thread, which has links to other threads as well. Do be warned that many of the discussion and hyperlinks in the thread link to pornographic content. You can read the discussion without clicking the links and possibly learn something for your own industry.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Update: Google has reversed the adult penalty on most of these sites, just a few days later.

Why Google May Shorten Your Long URL in the SERPs

Posted: June 26th, 2009, 4:09pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A week ago we showed that Google is truncating URLs in some cases. To my surprise, Jaime from the Google Web Search team picked up the story and decided to explain why Google does shorten URLs. He decided to post the details in a Google Web Search Help thread and added a comment at the original blog post.

First, here is a picture of Google shortening a URL, so you know what I mean:

So how and why does Google do this in some cases? Jaime from Google explains:

When it comes to a page's URL, there are basically two competing goals we're trying to balance:
(1) providing enough info to help you make an informed decision on which result to click
(2) presenting results in a easily readable and scannable format

Here's where the balancing act comes in: to accomplish goal #2, we'll sometimes omit parts of a URL (replacing them with ellipses) when we determine that those parts aren't critical to representing the page, and when doing so makes the search results page more readable. Not wanting to miss on goal #1, however, we won't leave out the page's host or domain, since we think it's important to know which website you're navigating to when you choose a result to click.

Of course, the rational is logical but it is nice to hear it from the 'horses mouth.'

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Want Your Google News To Show Up in Google Finance? NASDAQ:GOOG

Posted: June 26th, 2009, 3:59pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google News is an extremely powerful way to drive traffic to your site, if it is worthy to be included in Google News. Google Finance is another avenue to drive traffic to your site, but how do you get Google to list your articles in the news or blog area of Google Finance?

A Google News Help thread discusses just that. In fact, Inbal from the Google News team explained how to be included. She said that you need to include the full ticker name, prefixed by the name of its stock exchange. So in Google's case, you need to include (NASDAQ:GOOG) in the article. I think it might also help to include that ticker in the title, but we can test it out on this article and see how well it does in the NASDAQ:GOOG listing in Google Finance.

Inbal said:

A comma-separated list of stock tickers of the companies, mutual funds, or other financial entities that are the main subject of the article. Each ticker must be prefixed by the name of its stock exchange, and must match its entry in Google Finance; for example, "NASDAQ:AMAT" (but not "NASD:AMAT"), or "BOM:500325" (but not "BOM:RIL").

Clearly, you don't want to abuse this and be removed from Google News and/or Google Finance. If you want more advice in Google News inclusion see that article, keep in mind, the rules may have changed. They also have a publisher FAQ and described how they rank articles.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Update: Several minutes after posting this story, I checked Google Finance for the GOOG ticker and guess what I saw?

Clearly, if you write a lot about business related topics that impact stock price, make sure to use this tip when your article is relevant to that company.

Google Webmaster Central Wants Your Ideas

Posted: June 25th, 2009, 4:11pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

This is your chance to give the Webmaster Central team your ideas and have the SEO community vote on them. The more votes your ideas get, the more likely the Google team will work on them.

The Google Blog post links us to the Product Ideas for Webmaster Central Google Moderator section. There you can submit new ideas or vote on existing ideas. Currently there are 72 people have submitted 55 ideas and cast 609 votes, which is pretty low - so get in there and get voting.

The top ideas currently are:

"In [Links to your site] I would like to see an additional summary view that just shows the domains that are linking to my website rather than individual pages. This will help me to easily see when word of my website has spread somewhere new."

"Make webmaster tools part of Google Apps so that I can give people in my company access to our webmaster tools. Right now, we have to setup each person individually using a consumer google account."

"Provide a "history" of crawling errors: how a domain and its errors are developing over the last weeks / months (less 404 etc.). It would be very useful, especially if the site structure and paths have changed."

Again, submit your Product Ideas for Webmaster Central.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google's Change of Address Feature Currently Doesn't Work on Subdomains

Posted: June 23rd, 2009, 3:48pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A couple weeks ago, Google made me and many SEOs very happy by adding a verified change of address feature that allows you to tell Google you are moving domains.

Today, I learned from a Google Webmaster Help thread that this does not work on subdomains. This might not seem like a major issue, but if you take Google's advice when moving domains, you likely want to move your site or domain in pieces.

So if you do separate your site out by subdomain, moving pieces of your site by subdomain makes sense. This way you can slowly move your site and make sure Google and other search engines pick up on your changes.

Not having a way to move a subdomain of a site can then be an issue. In addition, if you sell off a subdomain of your property to a different site, a move of domain, in this case, also makes sense.

JohnMu of Google appreciated the feedback and said he would "pass this on to the team."

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

SEOmoz Releases Their "SEO Best Practices"

Posted: June 23rd, 2009, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

SEOmoz has released their best practices guide on SEO. This time, they used actual data to back up the best practices and have changed some of their previous best practices based on the data.

The post goes over the follow SEO elements:

Title Tag Format
The Usefulness of H1 Tags
The Usefulness of Nofollow
The Usefulness of the Canonical Tag
The Use of Alt text with Images
The Use of the Meta Keywords tag
The Use of Parameter Driven URLs
The Usefulness of Footer Links
The Use of Javascript and Flash on Websites
The Use of 301 Redirects
Blocking pages from Search Engines
Google Search Wiki's Affect on Rankings
The Affect of Negative Links from "Bad Link Neighborhoods"
The Importance of Traffic on Rankings

I tend to agree with most of what is laid out in the guide. But like all SEO guides, there is always room for debate.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forums and Sphinn.

Google Sitemaps Pending Status "Normal"

Posted: June 22nd, 2009, 3:25pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are many threads across the web with webmasters concerned that their sitemaps file is in "pending" status in Google Webmaster Tools. One such thread is at Google Webmaster Help where a few webmasters are complaining about the issue.

Google issued an announcement about the "pending" Sitemaps status. Google said it is normal;

Most sites that submit Sitemap files are regularly seeing a "pending" status in Webmaster Tools for their Sitemap files. This is normal and to be expected. It shows that we are planning on fetching your Sitemap file again and that we will update the statistics as soon as we have done so. This is not a cause for alarm. Thank you for using Google Webmaster Tools and submitting Sitemaps.

That is one reason why the Sitemap file might be in "pending" status, but there are others. JohnMu explained there is a "Sitemaps processing pipeline" that has a priority queue based on Google's available resources at the time. Things that can slow the crawl of a Sitemaps file include "servers with slow response times" or "sites that do not meet our [Google] Webmaster Guidelines."

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google News "Article Too Long" Webmaster Tools Errors

Posted: June 19th, 2009, 2:20pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We have covered Google Webmaster tools errors with News sites in the past. But this is the first time I am seeing reports of Webmaster Tools errors specific to News sites that read "Article too long" as the error. "Article too short" errors are common for News errors, but "too long?" Well, that is new to me.

I spotted two threads at Google News Help Forums with complaints from various publishers.

Google News representative, Inbal, said:

Yes, I see many "Articles too long error" messages for your site indeed :( We'll look into the weirdness in Webmaster tools. Meanwhile, we've updated your site's information in our system. We should begin to crawl more articles with videos embedded between the headline and the summary from your site within a few weeks.

Thing is, it seems like they need to conduct a manual fix for each site with this error. So if you are seeing these errors for your publication, make sure to submit a thread at the forum.

Forum discussion at Google News Help Forums.

Evidence of Page Level Google Penalties?

Posted: June 18th, 2009, 2:41pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Richard at SEO Gadget showed how Google seemed to have penalized specific pages of his site from ranking in the Google index. The penalty seemed to be fair, in that there were nasty comments that slipped through his comment spam filter.

The drop in traffic can be seen by the keyword phrases that page ranked well for. He noticed a ~70% drop in traffic for that phrase, which in his case resulted in a 15% drop in his Google traffic and a 5% drop in overall traffic.

What I find extra fun is that a Google Search Quality Analyst, @filiber, tweeted:

Google Page level penalty for comment spam – rankings and traffic drop http://bit.ly/JNAly (via @AndyBeard)
Of course that is not admission to this as a fact, but it wouldn't be too hard to believe that bad comments caused such a decline.

Now, I don't think this would be considered a keyword-specific penalty, which most SEOs believe in, but rather a specific page being penalized.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Google News Hit By Spammers

Posted: June 18th, 2009, 2:31am CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google News is the life blood for many people who try to stay on top of news. It is also fairly hard to be included in the Google News index. So when Google News gets infected with spam, people take notice.

We have a WebmasterWorld thread with complaints and ShoeMoney posted specific details with the Google News spam.

Here is the reaction from the person who posted at WebmasterWorld:

Recently I noticed spammy news in a lot of google results. In fact, a google news article now takes the #1 position for a VERY popular search term..when you click it, the page redirects to an affiliates landing page. I thought this was just a quirk until I noticed spammy news in more search results and then I read a blog where they are also complaining about the recent surplus in spammy google news results.
Boy this is just getting bad. Whatever kind of update this is seems to be doing more harm than good. For all the work that google has done to prevent spam in their index, this is a real shame. I really hope google knows what its doing as I am just about fed up because I clicked on one of those google news results and it redirected me to somewhere and I now have a virus on my computer that hijacks all my search results. It forwards all my search results to affiliate programs. Thanks google.

If the spam sticks, rest assured people will stop using Google News.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Will You Implement Yahoo's Common Tag?

Posted: June 17th, 2009, 2:06pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Several days ago Yahoo announced support for something called the common tag. In short, it basically gives developers a way to tag their content in a more unified way.

Vanessa Fox has the most detailed explanation of how this all works. In fact, Yahoo's post on the topic is almost unusable.

So please go skim her article and then come back here and let me know if you plan on giving this common tag a try. Personally, I doubt I will.

Here is the poll:

Will You Use Yahoo's Common Tag?(survey)

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Google Webmaster Tools Link Reports Change

Posted: June 16th, 2009, 5:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread reports the small but yet significant changes made to how Google displays and aggregates the URLs listed in the external link reports within Google Webmaster Tools.

The main changes include:

Link counts are reduced by a nice percentage
Ordering of the URLs are now different
301 redirected URLs no longer seem to appear in this list

Google confirmed that they handle 301s differently. JohnMu explained:

Redirects are a normal part of the web, but for Webmaster Tools we've currently opted to show only the links that are actually verifiable by visiting the pages directly. It would be nice to show "everything", but at some point we have to draw the line and make sure that the average user can still use it :-).

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Quickly Fixes Webmaster Tools Issues

Posted: June 12th, 2009, 3:19pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Yesterday we reported about the new Google Webmaster Tools, with the new change of address feature and a few other new things with it. We also informed you that there were several bugs in the new interface and features.

It appears that those bugs are now resolved. The original Google Webmaster Help thread seems to have confirmation that the change of address feature is now working. Plus there is an announcement post that says that the issues with the Webmaster Tools iGoogle Gadgets, Sitemaps submissions and Change of Address features are all resolved.

Here are some of the many threads with the issues:

New Webmaster Tools Interface - External Links Missing!, Google Webmaster Help
Change of Address feature seems to be broken, Google Webmaster Help
New Webmaster Tools - says site not verified when submitting a new sitemap, Google Webmaster Help

Google Finally Adds Domain Change Tool & Launches New Webmaster Tools Design

Posted: June 11th, 2009, 3:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back in early 2006, we called for a Google Certified Domain Change solution to allow webmasters to communicate to Google when we move domains. Moving domains is one of the biggest concerns SEOs and webmasters have for when it comes to losing rankings in Google.

This tool, named the change of address feature allows you to verify two domains in Google Webmaster Tools and then tell Google that one verified domain is moving to another verified domain.

There is complete documentation on how this works at this Google document. Plus, you should 100% read the moving your site guidelines before making such a move. Here is a picture of the change address form.

One issue is that the change of address feature seems like it is currently not working. Scott Clark posted in Google Webmaster Help that when he tries the feature, it returns an error that reads, "Hm. Something isn't right. We're checking into it now." Googlers said they are looking into the issue and hopefully it will be resolved shortly.

In addition to the change of address feature, Google also launched the new Google Webmaster Tools design, which they have been testing for just about a month. Plus, Google added a neat feature to be emailed when a message is sent in the Google Webmaster Tools message box.

Forum discussion at:

Change of Address feature seems to be broken, Google Webmaster Help
Google Adds Change of Address To Notify Google Of Domain Change, Sphinn
Google Webmaster Tools Has New Look!, DigitalPoint Forums
NEW - Change of Address in Google Webmaster Tools, WebmasterWorld
You Can Now Officially Tell Google When You Change Domains!, HighRankings Forums

Update: The issues with the new webmaster tools and change of address feature have now been resolved.

Google Now Notifying Webmasters After Reconsideration Request Review via Email

Posted: June 10th, 2009, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I have excellent news for the SEO world today. It seems like Google has finally pushed through a change with the reconsideration request process that SEOs and webmasters have been asking for since the reconsideration request began.

Now, if you submit a reconsideration request, Google may email you a few days later with a notification that they have actually reviewed your site. The review email reads:

Subject: We've processed your reconsideration request for [mywebsite.com]
We received a request from a site owner to reconsider how we index the following site: [mywebsite.com].

We've now reviewed your site. When we review a site, we check to see if it's in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines. If we don't find any problems, we'll reconsider our indexing of your site. If your site still doesn't appear in our search results, check our Help Center for steps you can take.

Googler, Sagar, confirmed this to be the case. Sagar said that this is a recent addition to the Google Webmaster reconsideration request process. He added:

If your site starts showing up in the index after you get the confirmation message, your request was approved. However, if you are still having issues there is a good chance you are still in violation of our guidelines.

So now, if you submit a reconsideration request, you can know a bit later if your site is still in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines or not. This is a most welcomed addition.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Malware A Growing Issue: Yes, Major Impact on SEO

Posted: June 5th, 2009, 3:12pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google Security Blog reported that malware is a growing issue. A Google study showed that a single malware source has infected over 60,000 hosts. The chart below shows the number of infected sites over time from the top ten malware sites.

Why is this a SEO issue? Well, it might not hurt your rankings but it will 100% hurt your traffic from Google and traffic in general. Google labels malware sites with a big warning on the Google search results. It looks like this:

Trust me, you don't want malware on your site and you don't want that malware warning.

For our past articles on malware, see here and you can learn how to remove the malware and remove the Google label.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Are Blogs Doomed With NoFollow PageRank Sculpting Issue?

Posted: June 4th, 2009, 4:48pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Yesterday we covered the news that SEOs are wasting PageRank by using the nofollow to sculpt their PageRank. In short, if you had 10 links on a page, and nofollowed 5 of them, the 5 that are followed only get half credit.

So what is the issue with blogs, forum and other user generated content sites? As mentioned in the WebmasterWorld, blogs and other sites that automatically add the nofollow attribute to user generated links, technically should suffer from the way Google handles nofollowed links. Let me explain.

Let's say this blog post has 5 links, 15 comments and then the remaining 20 navigational links in the blog's design. So we have a total of 40 links on a single page, 15 of them are nofollowed since links in the comments automatically get nofollowed. That means 37.5% of the links are wasted, which hurts (well, doesnt help as much) not only the sites I link out to, but also hurts the internal linkage structure of my site.

Why? Well, the links are not worth what they should be, cause of the user generated comments that get nofollowed.

See the issue?

Join the conversation at WebmasterWorld.

Mixing NoIndex & Rel=Canonical Tag In One Page

Posted: June 4th, 2009, 3:50pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

An interesting Google Webmaster Help thread discusses the old and new way of handling duplicate content. In the old days, you either 301 redirected page A to page B, when there was duplicate content. But if that wasn't possible, you instructed the search engine not to index the duplicate page, by adding a noindex tag to the duplicate page. Some people had this automated through their CMS.

With the addition of the new rel=canonical link attribute, things have changed. The new attribute is basically a 301 redirect, without doing a real redirect. It tells the search engine, page B is a duplicate to page A. At the same time, this is hidden from the normal user of your site.

The Google Webmaster Help thread asked, can you use both, the noindex and rel=canonical tag on the same page?

Googler, JohnMu answers the question from Google's perspective:

This is definitely an interesting question :-). Before the rel=canonical link element was announced, using noindex robots meta tags was one way that webmasters were directing us towards canonicals, so this is certainly something we know and understand. However, with the coming of the rel=canonical link element, the optimal way of specifying a canonical is (apart from using a 301 redirect to the preferred URL) is to only use the rel=canonical link element.
One reason for this is that we sometimes find a non-canonical URL first. If this URL has a noindex robots meta tag, we might decide not to index anything until we crawl and index the canonical URL. Without the noindex robots meta tag (with the rel=canonical link element) we can start by indexing that URL and show it to users in search results. As soon as we crawl the canonical URL, we can change to the canonical URL instead. It's also much safer because you don't have to worry about serving different versions of the content depending on the exact URL :-).

Bottom line, don't do it, try to either not have duplicate content, or use a 301 redirect or use the rel=canonical. You can now stay away from using the noindex tag for these purposes.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

NoFollow To Cause Revolt: Wasted PageRank via Sculpting & JavaScript Links Require NoFollow

Posted: June 3rd, 2009, 3:55pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last night at SMX Advanced Matt Cutts of Google reportedly dropped a bombshell on the SEO community when he said that using the nofollow to PageRank sculpt might not work like you (SEOs) thought. Danny Sullivan explained it well:

If you have $10 in authority to spend on those ten links, and you block 5 of them, the other 5 aren’t going to get $2 each. They’re still getting $1. It’s just that the other $5 you thought you were saving is now going to waste.

In Danny's simplistic example, if you have a PageRank of 10 (I know it doesn't work this way) and you link out to ten pages, each page would get PR1. Now, if you nofollow 5 of those links, then the 5 normal links should get PR2s each. This is not the case, instead they get PR1s and the other PR5 is wasted.

But what really annoys me is that Matt left this out of a video he published days before the conference. Matt in his videos, answered a question about PageRank sculpting. He completely left out these details in that video. Why? I am not sure, but watch the video:

Why leave it out there Matt? Was it reserved for SMX? If so, why not wait on that topic and publish the video with the full explanation later?

In any event, Danny goes on to explain that Google now crawls and indexes links within JavaScript’s “onClick” events. Using JavaScript for links you don't want Google to find, for example, text ads, was a great solution. Now, it Google indexes those links, and that means, you need to slap on the nofollow attribute on those links or possibly be penalized in the future.

As you can imagine, both the nofollow sculpting topic of wasted PageRank and the fact that JavaScript links may now need nofollows added to them, are pretty major. Stuff like this can cause a revolt in the SEO world.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Here is the live blog coverage of the news:

Duplicate Content Solutions & The Canonical Tag - SMX Advanced Coverage 2009, SEO Gadget
Duplicate Content Solutions & The Canonical Tag, outspokenmedia.com
Beyond the Usual Link Building, outspokenmedia.com
Beyond the usual linkbuilding - SMX Advanced 2009, SEO Gadget
Live from SMX Advanced: Beyond the Usual Link Building, Search Marketing Sage
Nofollow Makes News at SMX Advanced, BruceClay.com
You&A With Matt Cutts, outspokenmedia.com

Yahoo Search June 2009 Update?

Posted: June 1st, 2009, 4:09pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

BillyS, a senior member at WebmasterWorld posted that he thinks Yahoo Search might be updating now. BillyS is known for watching Yahoo Search pretty closely, but in this case, no one has come in to back his observation.

BillyS said:

Anyone else seeing some pretty big shifts on Yahoo? We normally get around 12% of our traffic from Y!, but today that value is closer to 18%.
I don't expect that value to stick, but I'm expecting some settling over the next several days.

I personally checked some of my traffic from Yahoo on this and some other sites and they don't seem to have jumped up or down that much. But I do not track Yahoo as closely as other SEOs.

Yahoo Japan recently updated, which may be a sign that Yahoo US will be updating any time. But no official word from the Yahoo Search Blog yet.

The last observed but not confirmed Yahoo update was towards the end of March 2009.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: This is now official, Yahoo posted about this "weather report" at the Yahoo Search Blog on June 2nd.

See a 302 Google Hijack In Action

Posted: June 1st, 2009, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back before March 2005 Google page hijacking was a serious issue. It took Google some time to tackle the issue and it was less of an issue towards the end of April. But then it sprung up again in June 2007. Since then, I have not heard much about 302 or proxy hijacking in Google.

A new Google Webmaster Help thread has a new example of one webmaster being 302 hijacked. What makes this thread interesting is the conversation around helping both the webmaster and Google isolate the issue.

Googler, JohnMu, confirmed the issue, saying:

Thanks for posting about this issue. The team is busy on a solution to this issue, but it might be a few days before it is visible in all data-centers. Hang tight -- it'll hopefully be changed soon!

After about 24 hours or so, the issue was fixed by Google. I guess if this ever happens to you, you should probably head to the Google forums.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

80% Of SEOs Said They Can Beat Wikipedia In Google

Posted: May 29th, 2009, 2:22pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

We asked our readers a few weeks ago if they can beat Wikipedia in the Google results? The answer is yes, most SEOs believe they can beat Wikipedia's listings in the Google results.

81% of SEOs feel they can beat the Wikipedia number one listings, if they need to. 74% said they can do it with some work, while 7% said it would be easy to do so. Let me share the break down of results:

Question: Can You Beat a #1 Wikipedia Google Listing?
:: Yes, But With Work said 117 respondents or 74%
:: No, Too Hard said 23 respondents or 14%
:: Yes, Easily said 11 respondents or 7%
:: No, Not Possible said 5 respondents or 3%
:: Other answer... said 3 respondents or 2%

That is a total of 159 responses to the poll.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

This story was pre-written and scheduled to go live on May 29th.

Should You Fear Changing Your Best SEO Performing Web Page?

Posted: May 28th, 2009, 2:55pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Cre8asite Forum thread has discussion around the topic of updating a web page that does really well in the search engines. The member asked, would you dare change your best producing web page?

The reason the SEO wants to change things is to get this page off the static environment and move it over to the updated content management system they have been using. The issue with their CMS is that it appears they will have to change the URL and the way the page renders a bit. Honestly, that upsets me, the part about changing the URL. Why can't they get a CMS that allows them to define the URL directly in the CMS?

In any event, it is a scary thing to start messing around with your best performing web page. But if this is something you have to do, down the road. You should likely do it sooner then later. It obviously depends on the type of content this page is about. Is there a slow season? If so, move it then.

Google typically will move all the link weight from page A to page B when a 301 is in place. Try not to change the content for the worse and try to keep all what you did well with that page on the new page.

Would you dare change your best performing page?

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forum.

Google Fixes Webmaster Tools Remove URL & Notification Subscriptions

Posted: May 28th, 2009, 2:40pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Yesterday, Google made two quick announcements about bug fixes with Google Webmaster Tools.

The first item was that the URL Removal tool was not working. A Google Webmasters Help thread has confirmation from Susan Moskwa, a Googler, that this was indeed the case. Susan even tweeted that her "inbox is full of email about URL removal requests," implying there was an issue. Susan confirmed that the issue is now resolved and removal requests should now be working.

The second item is that in the new Google Webmaster Tools UI, Google had to disable the option to subscribe to notifications. Google has updated us via Google Webmasters Help that they have re-enabled this feature and you can now subscribe to notifications in the new user interface.

Forum discussion at two different Google Webmasters Help Threads.

Does Google Rank Pages Higher on Specific Days of the Week?

Posted: May 27th, 2009, 3:16pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

An interesting WebmasterWorld thread has a theory that for some sites, Google may give that site higher ranking based on what day of the week it is.

The SEO has been tracking the traffic from Google to the site for months. He noticed that every Tuesday showed the highest level of referrals from Google, but every Saturday showed the least traffic from Google. Over the past five weeks, he also has been tracking how many pages Google shows were indexed from the site using the site command (which he and we all know is not 100% accurate). The pattern remained the same, more pages were indexed on Tuesdays, the days he saw the most traffic from Google. Whereas, on Saturdays, less pages were indexed and less traffic was seen from Google.

WebmasterWorld, administrator, tedster, said "ranking changes based on day of the week definitely occur - they even get mentioned in some of Google's patents."

After a few more days, the thread creator noted that everything changed this week, after months of tracking. He said:

Final update, just when I thought I had sufficient data to start tracking related considerations for effect Google changed gears on me, Today's traffic should have been trending downwards until Friday (though up from last Wednesday) but instead the site enjoyed a record up day... breaking a long running trend.
I suppose nothing ever stays still long enough to fully evaluate online, ah well.

Coincidence or truth to this phenomenon?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Most Webmasters Will Use Google's New Rich Snippet Markups

Posted: May 25th, 2009, 4:31pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A couple weeks ago, we reported on Google's new rich snippet markups and asked our audience if they will use it on their web sites. With 90 responses in, I wanted to share the results of the poll.

53% of webmasters said they would use the rich snippets, while only 14% said they would not use it. 29% said they may or may not use it. Here is the breakdown:

Question: Will You Use Google's New "Rich Snippets" Markups?

:: Yes said 48 respondents or 53%
:: Maybe said 26 respondents or 29%
:: No said 13 respondents or 14%

Personally, I am trying it out on a few sites and if it takes on, I will continue to add this markup, where it makes sense, to other sites.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld, Sphinn and DigitalPoint Forums.

Why Google Doesn't Index @ Signs

Posted: May 25th, 2009, 3:59pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google's Matt Cutts explained in a video why Google does not currently index @ signs. It stems from not wanting to index email addresses, he said. But now with the popularity of Twitter, Matt would not be surprised if Google changes how they handle indexing of @ signs.

Here is the video:

I find these little tidbits interesting.

Forum discussion at YouTube.

Yahoo Search Japan Update: US Update Soon?

Posted: May 22nd, 2009, 3:42pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

The Yahoo Search Japan blog announced they are updating their index now. Perhaps this is a sign that Yahoo in the US will update soon as well. I am pretty sure that both indexes are mostly separate for the most part, I am not sure if it works the same way at Google, but I think it does at Yahoo.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a single post about the update. One person who tracks Yahoo Search Japan said "we're experiencing big move on SERP."

The translated announcement reads:

Yahoo! In search, Yahoo! Inc. UEBUSACHIENJIN has developed the "Yahoo! Search Technology (YST)" has upgraded the search algorithm.
Recently we reported Index Update, unlike a significant upgrade and will affect the behavior of search engine algorithms.

The last US Yahoo Search update we reported was a while ago in March 2009.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Wants To Know If They Helped You Get Better Rankings

Posted: May 20th, 2009, 4:13pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google Webmaster Tools and Webmaster Central are tools I cannot believe SEOs ever lived without. Early on, many experienced SEOs were skeptical about the tools, but many of us have learned that the tools and advice are here to help us with our web sites.

Adam Lasnik, who I rarely hear from in the forums anymore, started a thread at Google Webmasters Help discussion area asking Webmasters to give Google case studies on if the Google Webmaster Central team has helped them or not. Adam said:

Did your website once scare away both users and Googlebot but -- after you put in some hard work and used the resources of Google Webmaster Central -- later turn into a success story?
Whether it was intelligence you gleaned from Webmaster Tools, insights you got from friendly Webmaster Help Bionic Posters, or wisdom you soaked up from our blog or Help Center, we'd love to know! So please take just a moment to brag to us and to your fellow webmasters, sharing your ugly-duckling-to-swan web site story.

I promise to share your positive vibes with all relevant Googlers (which will make their day!), and you might serve as an inspiration to your fellow webmasters, too! :-)

So, if you want to share your success, which you think is due in part of Google Webmaster Central, do join the thread at add your thoughts.

Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.

Do I Have a Google Penalty?

Posted: May 19th, 2009, 9:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

You wake up one morning, check out your site statistics and learn your traffic has plummeted. You then dig deeper to see the source of the traffic drop is from Google sending less traffic for your main keywords. Most SEO companies have gone through the experience of having at least one site penalized. The question is how does an SEO company first confirm a site penalty and then remove the site penalty.

We will discuss a thread at WebmasterWorld that has SEOs offering advice on this topic.

One of the sure fire ways to determine if a site was penalized by Google is if the site no longer ranks for it's own domain name. So if your site's domain name is rustybrick.com and you type in rustybrick into Google and you don't come up in the first page, then you got pretty good evidence that you have been penalized.

Also, since you have statistics on which keywords you ranked well for. If most of those keywords are now ranking in the 5th plus page, then that is often a sign of a penalty.

Senior member, johnnie, suggested that you first see if it is a malware issue. To do so, either go to Google Webmaster Tools and login (make sure your site is verified) and it should tell you in the messages. If not, then go to google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=mysite.com and replace "mysite.com" with your domain.

But I prefer Google Webmaster Tools cause they may show you other issues with your site. It doesn't always show you if your site has been penalized, but it is a good start.

Here is a good checklist of items to review to make sure you fix your penalized site. We also wrote about how long sites are penalized in Google. In fact, we have lots of good articles about a Google penalty in our archives.

Forum discussion WebmasterWorld.

Google Updates Backlink Data in New Webmaster Tools

Posted: May 18th, 2009, 8:38pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

On Thursday we reported that the backlink data was out of sync in the redesigned webmaster tools. Well, over the weekend, that was fixed.

Googler, Jonathan Simon said in a Google Webmasters Help thread that it is now up to date. Jonathan said:

Check out your site's backlinks data in the new version of Webmaster Tools. We've just finished the process of loading the most recent backlinks data so you should now be able to see all your site's backlinks.
The backlinks data between the new and old versions of Webmaster Tools may not match 100% but the new version's data should be more comprehensive for most sites.

Some people are still having issues, so if you are one of those, join the thread and Jonathan or Sagar can help you.

Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.

Google Fixed "Data Not Available" Webmaster Tools Bug

Posted: May 13th, 2009, 4:22pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

For the past few days, dozens of threads have been popping up in the Google Webmasters Help discussion forum about how Google Webmaster Tools was showing "Data is not available at this time" for some sites.

After many complaints, Google posted it as a known issue at 5am and then at 11am, they said it should be fixed by tomorrow (which is today).

I don't see any new complaints and no, I won't link to the 10 or so threads discussing the issue. Instead, I will link to just one.

Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.

Will You Use Google's New "Rich Snippets" Markups?

Posted: May 13th, 2009, 4:06pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Part of the Google Searchology event announcements from yesterday, Google announced a new way to enhance the search results. This way is called rich snippets and it gives webmasters a way to communicate richer data to Google, so they can display a richer search for the searcher. Yahoo has been doing this with Search Monkey for a months now, on some level. But Google is Google and this is much bigger.

Google will look for markups in your HTML in the format of either microformats and RDFa and use those markups to determine more structured data about that page's content. There is a lot of technical detail available at Google and it can be used on content for reviews, people, products and businesses and organizations.

There are some pros and cons to this feature on the SEO front and searcher front. Pros are that you can add more flavor to your listing and get more visibility. Cons include that richer data might mean less clicks or that competitors can more easily scrape your content. The lists goes on and you can read the pros and cons discussion at WebmasterWorld. That being said, I think I will personally use this new rich snippet feature on this site eventually and for clients as well. Will you?

Take our poll on if you will use this new feature:

0(ning polls)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Sphinn and DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Webmaster Tools Tests New Design

Posted: May 13th, 2009, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The last time Google Webmaster Tools was redesigned was back in September 2007. It has been a while since the interface was updated. That doesn't mean features weren't added over time, they were, but within the same old interface.

Google announced they have refreshed things for "spring time." You can see the detailed what's new page to find out all the changes or you can watch this video below:

It seems like most people are taking a liking to the new look. We have threads at Google Webmasters Help, WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums discussing the new design.

Do you like the new design, take our poll:

Do You Like the New Google Webmaster Tools Design?(web poll)

Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help, WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Poll: Can You Beat a #1 Wikipedia Google Ranking?

Posted: May 11th, 2009, 3:11pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We have written about Wikipedia's dominance of the Google search results plenty of times. A new thread at WebmasterWorld asks if it is possible to beat a number one Wikipedia ranking at Google.

I wanted to poll our audience to see what you think. Can you beat Wikipedia? Let us know:

Can You Beat a #1 Wikipedia Google Listing?(myspace polls)

I do like at least one post in the thread:

Yes, it's possible to rank higher than Wikipedia for some terms, but I'm not sure that it matters. Not every searcher is looking for a Wikipedia article. The searcher who searches on "widget pastry" while looking for a widget-pastry recipe or a widget-pastry shop is likely to either (a) skip down past the Wikipedia result on the SERP or (b) hit the browser's back button and try the next result if he has clicked through to a Wikipedia article on the history, etymology, and regional variations of widget pastries.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Matt Cutts Uses His Blog To Mess With Google Search

Posted: May 8th, 2009, 3:32pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In August 2005, Matt Cutts, the head of search quality at Google, launched his blog at [www.mattcutts.com]. Notice, if you click on that URL, you are redirected to [www.dullest.com]. Why? Well, Matt explained that he was to switch things around, with a new name, new design, etc.

But the main thing, he is using a 302 redirect, which is a temporary redirect. When moving domains, Google almost always recommends using a permanent redirect, 301 redirect. But since Matt said this is a possible temporary change, he is using a 302.

But why?

If you read through the comments, you might notice Danny Sullivan's comment where he said "Why do I suspect some ultra-secret Google we get 302s right test is going on." Matt Cutts replied soon after saying:

Danny, my site makes the perfect guinea pig. I laughed when Greg Boser got everyone to link to mattcutts.com instead of http://www.mattcutts.com. He was trying to mess me up and cause duplicate content hijinks, but little did he know that I was the guinea pig for the www/non-www setting in the webmaster console.

Nice to have Google experiment on their own stuff when changing or investigating issues.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Oops, My Domain Expired & Google Delisted My Site

Posted: May 5th, 2009, 3:05pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has a documented case of one webmaster forgetting to renew his domain name after a day or so. Then after the domain name expired, he renewed the domain and got things back up after maybe two days.

The issue was, he also noticed that his domain name was no longer showing up in the Google search results. He said:

I accidentally let one domain of mine expire and renewed it after it showed an "expired domain" message for a day or so. A few days later the site is gone from Google with no traffic at all from this SE. Even when searching for the url my website is nowhere to be found.

WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, told the webmaster that in many cases your domain will be lost in Google until you renew it. It might take a few days for the domain to reappear in Google. Tedster was right, a few days later, the webmaster came back in to let us know his site was indexed and ranking again.

Thanks Ted, the site is back indeed with the same traffic it had:-)

Please don't forget to renew your domain name. The couple day loss in traffic might not be the end of the world, but leaving your domain name open for others to grab and use, can be extremely painful.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Googler Drops Organic Search For Paid Search

Posted: May 5th, 2009, 2:37pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Reid, a very helpful and respected Google Webmaster Trends Analysts in the Google Search Quality team has announced in a Google Webmasters Help thread that he is moving to the paid search division at Google. Let me quote you his words:

I wanted to let you know that I've made the decision to move into a new role within Google, in the realm of paid search, which means I will no longer be monitoring the forum in an official capacity. I'm sad to be leaving, but know that there's plenty of webmasters, Bionic Posters, and Googlers in the forum to keep the conversation going. I've particularly enjoyed seeing countless webmasters jump in to help out one another, whether it be in regards to how their site is ranking or a gentle (or not so gentle!) reminder to check out the posting guidelines. You've been our most vocal and truthful critics, which has helped us understand how we can make Google and Webmaster Tools better. And in the past few months, it has been a pleasure seeing BbDeath, Beussery, Chibcha and Luzie skyrocket into Bionic Posters. So, I'll miss you all! I hope to occasionally pop-in from time to time when I get a chance. Thank you again! :)

I personally have never heard of a Googler in the Search Quality team moving from organic search to paid search. To me, it seems a bit of a conflict of interest for someone with as much knowledge as someone in the search quality team to be on the paid side. But honestly, I do not know what part of the paid side he is joining? Will it be customer support or more on the side of paid search quality? There may be a ton of synergies between proving quality organic results and quality paid results.

In any event, Reid will be deeply missed in the Webmaster help forums.

Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.

SEO Tip: NoIndex Or 503 Site Coming Soon Pages

Posted: May 1st, 2009, 3:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Google Webmasters Help thread has a webmaster upset that he lost his rankings in Google. He switched web hosting companies and days later, his Google rankings plummeted. On typical server move, you should not really lose rankings, if done right. But this person lost his/her rankings.

Google's JohnMu chimed in on the thread, saying:

It looks like your site might have shown a generic server start page for a while (a "This is the default ... server page. (...)" page). When this happens over a few crawls, it can confuse Googlebot enough to cause problems with the indexing of your pages. At the moment it appears that this is no longer happening, so I imagine it'll just resolve itself automatically over time.

Good news, the rankings should come back. But I noticed an interesting tweet from @JohnMu saying:

Tip of the day: If you have a generic "your site will be hosted here soon" page, use "noindex" or 503 result code, thanks!

Clearly that is related to this post. This is a good tip for anyone who is moving or setting up a site. I would completely avoid showing a generic message on the server, if possible, but if you can't, the advice above makes sense.

If you want to see a live site with one of these starter pages, see [commgrad.uky.edu].

Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.

Is Google's Geo Targeting Off In Web Search?

Posted: April 28th, 2009, 3:27pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Over the past day or two, I have been hearing reports from webmasters and SEOs that Google's geo targeting technology has changed in a big way over in their international or localized search engines. I have one, possibly, two threads to point you over to with more details.

A Google Web Search Help thread has reports that over the weekend, the landscape for ranking of generic keywords in Google UK has drastically changed. Searches such as web hosting, mortgage, insurance, student loans and so on are no longer as specific to UK web sites and are now showing more US based sites.

I am told by an anonymous reader that for financial terms, such as mortgages, you would never see US based results in the top ten at Google UK. Clearly that makes logical sense, why would a UK searcher, who is looking for a UK mortgage, want to find information from US mortgage companies? They wouldn't. Of course, Wikipedia type pages were the exception. I am now being told that more and more US based sites are showing for these specific UK-type queries when searching Google UK in the UK.

When I questioned if this was new, after showing that filtering them by selecting "show pages from UK" the SEO said:

For me that shows that Google knows they aren't UK sites - but is still none the less choosing to display them on queries which should really have a UK focus (UK finance products)
There have been some US based sites in searches like this before (occassionaly one might see Wikipedia) - but for so many to pop in overnight is most unusual.

The WebmasterWorld thread that is tracking Google changes in April has a post from Tedster that relates to these findings. Tedster, WebmasterWorld's administrator, said:

I'm also getting a whiff of something that's hard to document - more search terms getting the geo-targeting treatment, and the gotargeting may not be all that appropriate. When it comes to ecommerce, I don't really care where the vendor is as long as they are in the country. I don't want to see the more local vendors getting a boost and the quality vendors a couple hundred miles away tanking. For services, just maybe - but for hard goods, no.
Today I was checking something for a client in another city. They were concerned about falling to position #8 - but for me they were at position #67 or so.

This seems to be somewhat related to what is reported in the Google Web Search Help thread but not exactly.

Is Google's geo targeting technology off a bit or is Google changing how they handle certain queries in the UK?

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Google On Expired Domains & Domain Name Transfers

Posted: April 21st, 2009, 4:17pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

For over three years now, I and others (including Danny) have been trying to get information from Google on how they handle passing link value from domain names, specifically in cases of expired domains and domain name transfer of ownership.

In April 2006, I wrote Changing Domain Name Ownership Whois Information & Google Search Ranking Impact. Then Tamar wrote a nice piece summing up the history around this topic about a year ago. Then more recently, Matt Cutts of Google commented on expired domains and if you should 301 them, he said:

Hey Michael! If you buy typos, I'd 301 them to your main site. Even things that you win in UDRP arbitration can be 301'ed. For example, if someone bought porngoogle.com and Google won it in UDRP, it would make sense to 301 it to your main domain.
What I *wouldn't* recommend is try to register unrelated expired domains in an attempt to get those pre-existing links to count toward your domain. I would also avoid registering-and-301'ing typos of competitors' domains or other completely unrelated domains.

That all being said, Danny Sullivan has more details from Matt of Google on this topic. Danny wrote Do Links From Expired Domains Count With Google?. In that piece, Matt Cutts told Danny:

There are some domain transfers ( e.g. genuine purchases of companies) where it can make perfect sense for links to transfer. But at the same time it wouldn’t make sense to transfer the links from an expired or effectively expired domain, for example. Google (and probably all search engines) tries to handle links appropriately for domain transfers.

The sort of stuff our systems would be designed to detect would be things like someone trying to buy expired domains or buying domains just for links.

Danny then analyzed these comments and wrote some scenarios on what types of domains would pass value and which would not. We still don't have Google saying in case X, Google will do B and in case Y, Google will do C. I am not sure if we will ever get there.

But domain name change of ownership happens often enough and communicating to Google what really is happening with that domain, via Google Webmaster Tools, makes sense to me.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Google Confirms One Line Sitelinks (Aka Classic Sitelinks)

Posted: April 20th, 2009, 4:09pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has confirmed last week that they are officially bring "one-line sitelinks" to the Google search results.

In early March rumors of these Sitelinks were spotted first in the UK region. Then the tests of the classic sitelinks continued and we saw them in the US. On April 15th, the day before Google announced it, it seemed to be available to everyone and there were some great insight posts on how they work.

Well, now they are here to stay, after just under two months of testing.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Sitemaps Last Download Date, Should We Care?

Posted: April 20th, 2009, 3:31pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmasters Help thread has a webmaster worried that Google has not downloaded his XML Sitemap file in about five days. I went to check the status of my sitemap file in Google Webmaster Tools and Google has not downloaded the Sitemap file for this site in five days as well.

So I decided to panic and shut down my web site. Just kidding. I checked to see if one of my more recent articles is indexed in Google and it was. An article I wrote Friday, April 17th is indexed. So is an article I wrote minutes ago, and so will this article, within minutes.

A Sitemap file is great but it does not mean Google has not indexed your content. The Sitemap file is one way that Google may find your content, but Google typically finds your content other ways, and typically Google may find your content faster without the Sitemap file. Meaning, Google will typically find new content on your site through their normal crawl process, faster then they would when compared to the Sitemap file. That doesn't mean that the Sitemap file doesn't help, I believe it does help.

In summary, don't worry about the reporting in Google Webmaster Tools. We know it is often buggy. If your rankings drop, traffic from Google dies and your Google Webmaster Tools console shows scary signs, then you know you have issues. Otherwise, make sure to use all the tools at your disposal before worrying all that much about a delay in reporting from Google.

Forum discussion Google Webmasters Help.

Most SEOs Believe Google Has Keyword Specific Penalty

Posted: April 16th, 2009, 2:22pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About two weeks ago, we polled our audience asking if they thought Google had a keyword specific penalty. By the I meant, does Google penalize a site from ranking well for a specific keyword phrase, while allowing the site to rank well for other keyword phrases. There are now well over a hundred-sixty responses, with the majority, seven-eight percent, saying Google does have such a filter.

I went as far to break down the poll by asking if you do believe in such a filter, is the filter or penalty algorithmic or manual. Meaning, does Google give these keyword penalties by hand or is there an algorithm that does this automatically?

86 of the respondents or 53% said it is done algorithmically, while 41 of the respondents or 25% said it was done manually. Only 35 respondents or 22% said there was no keyword specific penalty. I wonder how Matt Cutts voted. :)

Forum discussion continued at HighRankings Forum.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 16th.

Factors That Search Engines May Use to Rank Your Web Pages

Posted: April 15th, 2009, 2:19pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

SEOMoz created the first and second comprehensive search ranking factors document. We now have a new one, a shorter one, from HuoMah.com.

Dave lists out dozens and dozens of factors and adds commentary around them. Here are some of them, without the commentary:

PageRank (or relative nodal link valuation)
Link text (internal and external)
Link relevance (global and page)
Also see Temporal, Personalized PageRank and Phrase factors.
Page TITLE tag
Meta-description tag
Document inception/age data
Link velocity
Link age
Viral/Current news (QDF)
Time of year (niche trends)
Content update rate
Domain history
Inbound links (global)
Outbound links
Named entities (products, brand, author)
Contact information (also important for geographic signals)
Location of client device
Location of webpage hosting
Contact / location information
Inbound/outbound link geo-factors
Linguistic indicators (language and nuances)
Heading (H1-5)
Bold
Italic
Lists
Font attributes (size, color)
Related phrase ratios
Categorization of content (clusters)
Occurrences (probabilistic)
Duplication dampening (filters)
Personalization (phrase based)
Link analysis (inbound)
Global site relevance
Term proximity (for multi-term queries)
Image tagging (in content segment/related terms)
Search History
Web history (pages/sites we visit)
Query revision (and analysis)
Search intent (informational, navigational)
Explicit data (favourites, reader,wiki)
Interaction with advertising
Surfing frequency/ time of day
Personalized PageRank (yahoo and google)
SERP and document interactions
Duplicate issues (structural/content)
Link devaluations (segmentation, link text, recips)
Poor architecture/coding
Reviewer penalties
Redundant meta-data (such as meta-descriptions)
Canonical / URL issues
Server reliability (can be de-indexed)
Phrase based detection
Cloaking
Boilerplate
Domain history
Query analysis
Network proxy detection
Link based (link spam and excessive recips)
Client type (browser, mobile)
Toolbars and browser (Google Suggest, web history)
Application focus (email, instant messenger, RSS etc..)

Exhausting list, but it is nice to have an updated version in one place.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 15th.

Are One Line Sitelinks Here To Stay: A Deeper Look

Posted: April 15th, 2009, 2:12pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has been testing showing classic (one line) Sitelinks in the search results for a while now. The one line Sitelinks are interesting in that they seem to differ some from the Sitelinks we are typically accustomed to.

Melanie Phung posted very interesting observations of these Sitelinks. Let me bullet point the key points, but feel free to check out the post for more details.

One Line Sitelinks Can:

Show for non-branded terms
Can show multiple times on a single search results page
Can show up at the bottom of the search results page
The Sitelinks can differ based on query
One line Sitelinks can be displayed with typical 8 Sitelinks
Show for sub folders
Can show for sub domains

Those are just some of the insights this post showed. Some of these insights also apply to the 8 Sitelinks version. I do wonder if Google has a name for these. I.e. Does Google call them Sitelinks? Will these replace the Sitelinks we know?

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 15th.

How Google Treats Affiliates in the Web Search Results

Posted: April 14th, 2009, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A detailed Google Webmasters Help thread has discussion around how Google perceives affiliates and how they need to go above and beyond to warrant ranking well in the Google search results.

Googler, JohnMu, answers one affiliate, as to why he is not ranking as high as he would have liked:

I believe one of the issues that you might want to work on is to make sure that your site provides unique and compelling content to the web. It's important for us that the site not only contains "rewritten" descriptions and articles, but that it actually provides something more than just "different words" for the same content. In other words, given the choice between your site and the company providing the products, what could your site offer to make Google want to show your site instead?

John then links this webmaster over to a Google document on Affiliate programs for webmasters. The document explains how you can make your site stand out from the other affiliates:

Affiliate program content should form only a small part of the content of your site.
When selecting an affiliate program, choose a product category appropriate for your intended audience. The more targeted the affiliate program is to your site's content, the more value it will add and the more likely you will be to rank better in Google's search results and make money from the program. For example, a well-maintained site about hiking in the Alps could consider an affiliate partnership with a supplier who sells hiking books rather than office supplies.
Use your website to build community among your users. This will help build a loyal readership, and can also create a source of information on the subject you are writing about. For example, discussion forums, user reviews, and blogs all offer unique content and provide value to users.
Keep your content updated and relevant. Fresh, on-topic information increases the likelihood that your content will be crawled by Googlebot and clicked on by users.

Does this mean you must do this to rank your affiliate site well? Not necessarily but for the long term, it might be best to follow these strategies.

Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.

Video SEO: Host Internally or on YouTube?

Posted: April 14th, 2009, 3:11pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A HighRankings Forum thread asks if one should host videos on their own server or host them on YouTube.

I do a lot of videos here in my Search Buzz Video Recaps, which are weekly digests of what we covered here over the course of the week, so I have some experience with this topic.

Let me start off by saying that Google and most search engines have a very tough time understanding the content within the video. Yes, they are testing out speech recognition and other factors, but right now, these search engines don't rank videos based on the words spoken in a video. They determine the relevancy of the video based on meta data, content around the video, links to the video, the video title and so on.

That being the case, duplicate content is not really much of an issue in videos then it is with standard content on the web. Why do I say this? I publish our videos both on YouTube and on my own server because I am not currently worried about duplicate content in the video search space.

YouTube videos simply rank incredibly well. I also want my videos hosted internally so that I can publish an iTunes feed and gain subscribers not only to YouTube but also to my video feed, which can be subscribed to on your favorite RSS reader or via iTunes or other video/podcast readers.

If you had to make a decision on where to host your videos, I would tell you to host them both on YouTube and on an internal server (I use Amazon S3).

Here is my process for syndicating my videos:

Upload video to YouTube and write descriptive title and description, plus link to my blog via YouTube
Upload video to S3
Create blog post, embed both YouTube video and a link to the raw video on S3.
Create video XML feed file for iTunes and other podcast readers, which includes the YouTube video in description, but also S3 download URL for readers
I make sure the XML file contains description, title, S3 URL, YouTube embed, link to blog post and other meta data

You can see my latest video on April 3rd, you can subscribe directly on iTunes or via your favorite RSS reader on watch it on YouTube or on my blog. Yes, I give a bunch of options and they all work well.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

April 2009 Google Webmaster Report

Posted: April 14th, 2009, 3:03pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Every month we report on a monthly WebmasterWorld thread that discusses the current state of the Google web search index. This month, the WebmasterWorld thread has very little to report. If you want to see last month's report click here.

Instead, I thought I highlight the most important posts here over the past couple weeks, in relation to Google's web search changes.

Those are some of the more important Google related updates over the course of the past few weeks.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Blog Search Updates Link Query Algorithm

Posted: April 14th, 2009, 2:57pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A few weeks ago, we reported that Google released a major blog search update. That update fixed the issue with Google Blog Search finding content in the blogroll and thus showing irrelevant search results. It directly impacted the "blogroll detector" aspect of the algorithm.

Today I learned via a Google Groups thread that Google has finally updated the link operator aspect of that algorithm in Blog Search. That means, if you come up in the blogroll as a link, you won't be shown in a link operator on Blog Search every time that blog writes a new blog post.

Jeremy Hylton explains:

We deployed our latest improvements for blogroll detection late last week. The change affects link: queries. We now drop most or all of the links that occur in the blogroll or in other parts of the page that are just boilerplate. I'm sure there are lingering problems, but our internal metrics suggest that its a big increase in quality for link: queries. We've got a few more improvements in the works, but I think this recent change fixed the biggest part of the problem.
As always, please send me specific examples where things have gone wrong. We'll do our best to fix them.

The link command and blogroll issue with Google Blog Search has been an issue since November 2008 and I hope this update resolves it. Honestly, over the past day or so, it does seem to have been removing many (what I call) false positives in the search results.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Case Study Shows Pushed SEO Works Better Than Natural Site Development

Posted: April 13th, 2009, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A very helpful WebmasterWorld thread shares insights from a long time SEO who decided to pin two sites, competing in the same industry, with each other. He took two different strategies for each site. One site was pushed using old school SEO tactics, including doorway pages, paid and reciprocal links, content development and so on. The other site was to build a site with no paid links, unique content, no doorway pages, but add videos, blogs, rss feeds, Twitter integration and so on.

Let's call the first site the "SEO'ed Site" and the second site the "Quality Site." Guess which one is earning money and getting quality Google traffic? You got it, the "SEO'ed Site."

The member said:

Site 1 (AKA "SEO'ed Site"): after just 3 months it was skyrocketing past some pretty hefty competition with traffic increasing well each month. The site was making £10,000+ a month for the last six months we had it and just sold for a rather nice figure.
Site 2 (AKA "Quality Site"): has struggled to rank anywhere, even for it's own name, and traffic has been stagnant since the outset - it made a loss for the first 8 months and made just under £3000 in it's best month which was last month.

So what is a webmaster to do? Of course, this is just one single case study. To see exactly what tactics were used on each site, see the WebmasterWorld thread.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Still Showing Different Results Based on Query Case

Posted: April 13th, 2009, 3:23pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google continues to say that Google searches are "always case insensitive. Searching for [ new york times ] is the same as searching for [ New York Times ]." But since February 2008, we have been reporting cases where Google is case sensitive in terms of the search results they return. In fact, we reported it in February 2008, May 2008 and October 2008. So I am not surprised to see more threads about this topic spring up now at Search Engine Watch Forums.

In this example, the query is [seo services] in different cases. The three cases that return slightly different results include seo services, SEO Services and SEO services. As I 'tab' between the results, I see rank shifts and results that are missing on one, but on another.

For example, [SEO Services] shows webuildpages.com in the 10th position, while seo services doesn't show webuildpages.com in that position, but rather, seomoz.org. There are several examples in this single search query of differences. I have posted screen captures of these results at Flickr. The screen shots are from searches I took within seconds of each other for these queries.

Does case matter in search or is something else in play here?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Does Google Look At Keywords In Long Titles?

Posted: April 10th, 2009, 2:47pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google typically cuts down the display of the title tag in the search results to no more than 65 characters. A WebmasterWorld thread asks does that mean Google won't look beyond the 65th character to determine what that page is about? Or if they do look beyond that 65th character, does Google deem the value of the words after the 65th character as less valuable?

The title tag is arguably the most important on page SEO component of a single page. Most, if not all, SEOs suggest that if you want to rank for a specific keyword phrase, you must have that keyword phrase in the page's title tag.

In addition, almost all search engines display your page's title tag in the search results, as the blue, clickable link to your page. It is vital to make sure the link is "clickable," meaning that people are encouraged to click it, by making it read well and appear nice.

Finally, the title tag is also displayed in the browser's title bar, tabs, and as bookmarks or favorites. So having them formatted nicely, is key in that respect. Let alone all the different social networking sites that use the title tag of the page as the default title of your article.

When formatting your title, I take the approach of making it short enough to be attractive in the Google search results. But you also want to make sure it has your keyword phrase in it. Will Google rank you for a keyword phrase that goes beyond that cut off? Most SEOs say yes, Google will rank you for keyword phrases found after the 65th character.

Long time WebmasterWorld member, pageonresults said:

There really is no hard rule when it comes to longer titles. I've seen titles with up to 20+ words perform just fine. tedster has mentioned that he has seen pages with longer titles perform for keyword searches where the words were towards the end of the long titles.

Senior member, wheel, said:

I care more about clickability than I do rankings when it comes to title and particularly description. I want my 'advertisement' to really pop out.

An older Google Groups thread has Googler, Reid saying:

Also making sure the most difference in the title is starting on the left ensures it will show up as a distinct button when the window is minimized or the tab is at the back of the browser window. Furthermore this also helps Googlebot in determining how unique that is.
I mentioned length of the description meta tag in terms of words because this is the typical measurement. But yes, 2 lines for a total of about 160 characters or so. As for teh title, it depends on the browse but about 70 characters are safe.

In short, there are no fixed number of words/characters that are allowed for a meta description.

A Googler did say have the most important keywords to the front of the title tag.

Let's not forget that Google recently confirmed showing longer snippets for the description part of the search listings. Would this translate to longer titles and clickable links? Who knows - it would not surprise me to see this.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 10th.

Google's Ranking My Images But From A Stolen Image Source

Posted: April 10th, 2009, 2:25pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion started from a webmaster of a five year old e-commerce site, which had seen a drop in their Google Image search traffic, only to notice that their images are still in the Google results, but Google is using a different source to display the images. What that means is that Google thinks the other source is the true source of the images, while in fact, that source has stolen the images from the true owner.

Clearly, this webmaster is upset that this third party is getting credit for the images, and profiting from them. What can he do? Here are recommendations from both the thread and my own ideas:

I would post a thread at Google Webmaster Help and call out @SusanMoskwa to look at it.
File a DMCA with Google
File a DMCA with the site's hosting company.
Email or call the person who took your images
Call a lawyer

There are more ideas in the WebmasterWorld.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 10th.

Do SEOs Need To Know Coding To Be SEOs?

Posted: April 10th, 2009, 2:15pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A heated Sphinn thread started some controversy in the SEO industry over who is an SEO and who is not an SEO.

In short, Edward Lewis wrote a piece named HTML 4 SEO Best Practices for HTML Authoring. The article goes through many HTML attributes that can come in handy when coding your pages. The article is a very useful resource to hold on to and bookmark, if you need to look up the various elements. So where is the controversy?

Well, when the thread was submitted to Sphinn, Harith titled it "You're not an SEO if you don't know these by heart!" That is where the controversy came in.

Well known SEO, Jill Whalen, said:

Guess I'm not an SEO then because I don't see how most of those have anything to do with SEO.
Now if you're a developer, then yeah--good stuff.

Do you really need to know all these HTML elements to be considered an SEO? I know many people who consider themselves SEO, but know very limited HTML and coding. Of course, it helps a lot to be fully skilled in HTML, and other web languages, but is it necessary?

Here is a poll, do you need coding skills to be considered an SEO?

Do You Need Coding Skills to be an SEO?
( polls)

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 10th.

SEO Doesn't Have To Look Bad

Posted: April 9th, 2009, 2:18pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

There is a big misconception out there that to make a site rank well in search engines, you need to make your site look ugly. SEO (search engine optimization) does not have to look ugly. Yes, having a lot of text and hyperlinking your content, where it makes sense, is important SEO factors, but it doesn't have to look ugly.

A Google Webmasters Help thread has a webmaster who said that the SEO process is "killing the look" of his site. It doesn't have to. You can use CSS, graphics and other elements to make your site look pretty and still rank well. As long as you make sure to place enough text on the page and format it properly, it still have look great.

If anyone tells you, especially your designer, that the suggested SEO changes will look ugly, so don't do it. They are wrong. The designer should be able to be creative enough to come up with a way to get the SEO requirements in the new design and still make it look professional and pretty. It is done every day and it is done successfully and professionally.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 9th.

Reminder: Reverify Google Webmaster Tools Site Owners

Posted: April 9th, 2009, 1:55pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back in April 2007, Google gave webmasters a new easy way to remove content in Google, through Google Webmaster Tools. It is a great feature to quickly remove your content in Google, but it is an extremely powerful tool. If the wrong people gain access to your webmaster tools account, either by getting your username and password or by hacking into your site and validating your site on their webmaster tools account - you can be in bad shape.

Not only can they remove your site from Google, which is incredibly bad, they can also gain competitive knowledge on your site. Google Webmaster Tools provides detailed linkage data, detailed keyword data and much much more on your site. So if a competitor or evil person gains access, they cannot only do major damage, but also take all your sensitive data.

Besides for changing your Google Account password every now and then, you should also reverify your site owners in webmaster tools. To do so, login to Google Webmaster Tools, click on Tools and then click on Manage site verification. Then when the page comes up and if you see other verification files, you may want to click on the "Reverify all site owners" button, if a verification file doesn't look right. This feature should remove all access to webmaster tools and require re verification. If, indeed, someone uploaded a verification file, you will want to look into a security breach on your server.

A recent Google Webmasters Help thread has a site owner that seems to have had his site removed by some evil doer. In short, Google confirmed that someone with verificaiton access has removed his site via the Google Webmaster Tools feature. This is not the first time this has happened, we reported a similar case in early February. Don't let this happen to you.

Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 9th.

Poll Result: How Long Does It Take To Rank Well?

Posted: April 9th, 2009, 1:46pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A week ago, we polled our audience asking How Long Should It Take To Rank Well in Google?

With over two-hundred responses, I thought it would be a good time to share the results with you all.

How Long Does it Take To Rank Well in Google Results:

:: 3 - 6 Months said 83 respondents or 35%
:: 6 - 9 Months said 46 respondents or 19%
:: 2 Months said 28 respondents or 12%
:: A Year Plus said 24 respondents or 10%
:: Weeks said 22 respondents or 9%
:: A Year said 13 respondents or 5%
:: A Month said 13 respondents or 5%
:: Other answer... said 10 respondents or 4%

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 9th.

See Google "Classic" Sitelinks In Action (One Line Sitelinks)

Posted: April 2nd, 2009, 3:15pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About a month ago, we reported Google was testing classic Sitelinks, i.e. one line Sitelinks. Well, now it seems like we can reproduce the single line Sitelinks.

A Google Webmasters Help thread shows how two different queries return different types of Sitelinks for the same site.

A search for cashforgold returns the standard Sitelinks:

A search for cash4gold returns the classic Sitelinks:

Both are the same site, but showing only half the number of Sitelinks shown on the current Sitelinks format. Plus, the Sitelinks are shown on a single line, as opposed to four lines in two columns.

I wonder if Google will be going back to the classic user interface for Sitelinks?

Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.

Update: Dennis Dornon commented pointing to a blog post that shows for a search on internet marketing blog on Google returns classic Sitelinks with numbers. Here is a screen capture:

The thing is, Sitelinks are normally made up anchor text of the links and the numbers might just reflect that and nothing more.

Multiple Robots.txt Files for Single Domain

Posted: April 1st, 2009, 3:13pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A HighRankings Forum thread asks why do some people use more than a single robots.txt file to control and instruct search spiders how to crawl and access their content. That is a good question. Typically, the spiders will only listen to the robots.txt file found in the root level. So technically, if you place a robots.txt on a subdomain, the search engine will likely ignore it. I do not believe the same applies to subdomains, where subdomains have their own root levels.

HighRankings administrator, Randy, said:

robots.txt anywhere but the Root level will be ignored by the spiders. In fact it would surprise me if it's ever even queried. robots.txt is not like .htaccess where you can control things on a per directory level.
The only way a subdirectory robots.txt might be valid is the rare case where someone has a domain name parked on a subdirectory of another domain. Or possibly if the subdirectory is really a subdomain, though that one too is questionable in my mind and isn't something I've tested to see if spiders look for a robots.txt for each subdomain.

I love what Ron Carnell added:

FWIW, I almost always back up a file before modifying it. My ex-wife always said I had trust issues? At any rate, I probably have a few copies of robots.txt laying around on more than a few sites. I don't worry about it because, as you pointed out, the only one that counts is in the root.

I believe Google often uses individual sitemaps per subdomain, to control their content.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Yahoo Search Update: March 2009

Posted: March 30th, 2009, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

It has been about a month since the February Yahoo Search update and we are now seeing reports of a new update.

Threads at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums have a lot of discussion around the changes at Yahoo. Like usual, Yahoo has not yet posted a "weather report", but I bet they will today or tomorrow.

There are some pretty heavy fluctuations in the Yahoo Search results and some are still update with how Yahoo is handling redirects. Outside of that, I hope you all have benefited from this update.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Do Search Engines Read The Anchor Text of NoFollowed Links?

Posted: March 27th, 2009, 7:08am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A HighRankings Forum thread asks an interesting question. If I add links to my web page and nofollow them, does Google still read the anchor text of the link and use that in part of how they determine what my page is contextual about.

For example, if I link to Search Engine Land as follows; <a href="http://searchengineland.com/" rel="nofollow">Search News</a> would Google or any other main search engine, take the words "search news" and place that text as being relevant to what this page is about? We know Google won't pass the link value of that link to Search Engine Land, but do we know if Google ignores that text completely?

Has anyone done any tests on this yet? If not, anyone want to try?

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Can META Keyword Tags Confuse Google?

Posted: March 26th, 2009, 11:22am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We all know that Google ignores the META keywords tag on pages, or at least that is what we believe and what we are told. This does not mean Google ignores other meta tags, such as the meta description, but they do ignore the keywords meta tag.

A recent Google Webmaster Help thread has some confusing information from JohnMu, a Googler.

John said:

One problem I see when looking at your site's meta tags at the moment is that they're all included in your "keywords" meta tag - they're not separate meta tags.
That said, I think you can safely remove all of these meta tags. Google doesn't need them and they can be confusing the way you have them now.

If you look at the thread, we can see that the keywords used in the meta keywords is a bit overboard, to say the least. However, if Google completely ignores the tag, why would it "be confusing." Is it confusing for GoogleBot? Is it confusing for other search engines that might use it? Is it confusing the the searcher who doesn't view the source code of the page?

You see why I am struggling with this post? I know we can't always sit there and analyze the words of Googlers. But sometimes we do and we scratch our heads.

I will ping JohnMu and ask him to comment and clarify. I am sure I am just looking into this a bit too much.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Update: So I John commented and I decided to take a closer look at the site he commented about. What I found was the meta tags coded as HTML entities, which really is incredibly weird and likely does not work for Google or any bot. Here is a picture of the code, where I highlighted the core issue, as I understand it:

So John's comment does make more sense now.

Proof Google Treats Underscores & Hyphens Differently?

Posted: March 23rd, 2009, 1:10pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Over a year ago, almost two years ago, there were rumors that Google would treat underscores in the URL the same way they treat hyphens in the URL, as word separators. Matt Cutts squashed the rumor back then, suggesting that Google was not treating them the same.

Historically, underscores (i.e. domain.com/file_name.html) was treated as a single word (i.e. filename) and hyphens (i.e. domain.com/file-name.html) was treated as two words (i.e. file name).

A new WebmasterWorld thread asks more questions on that. Senior member, internetheaven, noticed, and I quote:

I have a URl: www.example.com/folder/file_name.htm
and if you search for:

allinurl: file site:example.com

or

allinurl: name site:example.com

you get 0 results. Whereas if you search for:

allinurl: file_name site:example.com

the page shows up in the results fine.

I thought underscores were the same as hyphens these days?

Well, they are not the same these days, and that might be proof. Technically, I do see results that do match on sites I tested for these types of queries. What I mean is that Google will still highlight and display results for a keyword that is in part of the underscored URL. I am not sure why it did not show up for this member. Maybe it is something happening at Google.com and since I am currently in Israel, I am getting a different data set.

Receptional, WebmasterWorld moderator, explained:

In certain cases, Google may figure out that underscore is being used as a word separator (similar to the process for conjoined words). But an underscore is not a word separator - treating it as such would at a minimum cause a lot of developers to be frustrated when using Google, as many function names etc. use underscores.
Underscores and hyphens have never been treated the same - if you want a guaranteed word separator in a URL, always use a hyphen.

For now, until we hear from Matt on a change in underscores and hyphens, Google treats them differently.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Using Multiple Header Tags for SEO

Posted: March 20th, 2009, 2:19pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is an old WebmasterWorld thread on the topic of how many header tags (i.e. H1, H2) you should have on a page and how you should use it. The thread was revived yesterday when Matt Cutts of Google answered a question on that topic on video. Here is the video:

So there you have it. Don't wrap all your content in the H1 tag. You can use it multiple times on a page but use it for page heading above paragraphs of content. Don't over do it.

WebmasterWorld's Tedster disagreed a bit with Matt, he said:

Even though Matt say s it's "OK" to use more than one, I'm still a big fan of using only one H1 element. If it seems like two are really required, I almost always make that content into two pages. Or if the content is too thin to support two pages resonably, I'll figure out a single over-arching headline that can be the H1 to support multiple H2 tags.
I find that approach also "packages" the semantic signals more effectively. That's kind of the way I understand websites, pages, and even code. They are all ways of "packaging" data and information, and we are all packagers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

404 Pages Should Not Return 200 Status Codes

Posted: March 20th, 2009, 2:09pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

There are way too many sites out there that have their "Page Not Found" web pages return a 200 header status code, instead of a 404 code or a 301. The issue with showing a 200 code to spiders or others is that it means that your page that no longer exists, technically does exist. If you return a 404, it technically means the page does not exist. If you return a 301, then you say that page has been moved.

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the topic of serving up a 200 status code on these not found pages. Tedster, WebmasterWorld administration, said "over time, can destroy your site's rankings. You are essentially telling Google to index the same content for an infinite number of URLs."

I'll be honest, some of our coders here set up the "Not Found" pages are 200. I then get upset and we fix it. I got really upset on Tuesday, where I made our senior developer write a script to go through all our web sites (hundreds of them) and check to see if any 404 pages returned a status code other than a 404 or 301. We found about four sites that did and we fixed all of them.

Writing a scrip that goes through your sites on a scheduled basis and checks for this type of issue might be a good idea, if you have many sites to manage. Server configurations change over time, you make changes to sites, and you add new sites. People are human and they forget to do a thing or two, here and there. So stop being human (kidding) and set up a program that checks this stuff automatically.

Why? Well, it can come back to bite you later.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Confirms "Typically" Treating / & /index.html The Same

Posted: March 18th, 2009, 3:02pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In a Google Webmaster Help thread, Googler, JohnMu, might be stating the obvious, but it is always good hearing it from someone who is in the know.

JohnMu, answered a question about links, but in his answer, he confirmed that even with or without sever header responses (301s, 404s, etc.) Google will typically treat the home page of a site, i.e. /, the same if it were / or /index.html and likely index.php or any other extension.

John said:

Given that generally URLs like "/" and "/index.html" are the same, we tend to treat them the same (unless there's a good reason not to do so -- say when there is unique content on them).

Clearly, if the pages look different and have different content, Google will notice and likely treat them differently. It is still good practice to 301 redirect the canonical URLs to a single URL, but most webmasters have no clue about these issues and Google has to be smart enough to figure these issues out themselves. In most cases, they are.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Has a 500 Sitemaps File Limit Per Account

Posted: March 17th, 2009, 3:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread asks if there is a limit on the number of Sitemap files you can have under a single Google account.

Currently, there is no documentation on the limit but there is a 500 limit per Webmaster Tools account.

Google's, JohnMu said, "As it is, the current limit is 500 Sitemap files per account." But John added a way to get around this limit. John said:

You can get around this limit by including your Sitemap files in Sitemap Index files (with 500 websites/account, you could use a single Sitemap Index file per site to cover all of them), by submitting Sitemap files via HTTP ping or by submitting them via robots.txt files. If you decide to use Sitemap Index files, you should still be able to drill down to the individual Sitemap files through Webmaster Tools, so that you can get feedback on them separately.

John added that he "wouldn't be surprised if that particular limit were raised in the future."

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Fesses Up To AJAX Search Results Test

Posted: March 16th, 2009, 2:35pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A month and a half ago, Google began testing Google AJAX search results, which caused a major uproar amongst webmasters who were unable to track referrer information in their analytics package. Google released a statement that they test things all the time and didn't say more. Soon after, AJAX search results went away and we forgot about it.

Then Brett Tabke asked Google's Matt Cutts at PubCon last week about this test. Lisa Barone has the live blog coverage of that question, where Matt answered:

That was really funny. The team there only thinks about speed. They want to get the results back to users as quick as humanly possible. JavaScript makes the search results a lot faster. Suppose you do a search for flowers, as you’re typing flowers, they can do a query from the back end and fold search results right into the page. You’re still in Google.com and they can pull in the results automatically. It doesn’t give you the referrer. He says the team didn’t think about the referrer aspect. So they stopped. They’ve paused it until they can find out how to keep the referrers.

Right, and that is what most of us assumed. So Brett followed up by asking Matt, "why didn't they just come out and say that?" Matt replied, "that's nice feedback and he would let them know".

Some actually think Google is starting the AJAX test again. SEO Smackdown reports again, seeing it. He said that to get around the referrer problem, Google is passing variables in the click through URL that Google Analytics understands, but other analytical programs do not. Of course this is not the solution and he says so. I also see the URL parameters in my searches, but I am not getting the AJAX search results.

Google is a big company. Google Analytics was upset that the Google search UI team did this. Google's search UI team had no idea of the implications of their change.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.

Google Search Sending Weird Spikes in Traffic?

Posted: March 11th, 2009, 2:27pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has several different webmasters reporting seeing huge spikes in Google referrals recently and then those spikes dropping down.

The first post was on February 28th, but the spikes continue to happen on random days for several webmasters. Here is the first post:

I have a Amazon site using AWS to display product pages. I have about 500,000 pages indexed on Google and generally see about 200-400 uniques a day. Yesteday, 2/27/09 I had over 1400 uniques. Today, Saturday it seems to be back to the same old numbers. I am looking forward to Monday to see if things pop back up.

Old time member, robzilla, found something similar:

I saw my Google referrals double on one site last Monday. It hasn't exactly continued at that rate throughout the week, but there was still a noticeable increase overall. I can't seem to be able to pin this down to one particular keyword or -phrase, or even a few. Instead, overall keyword performance seems to have increased. That Monday would have been the new record if it hadn't been for a big spike in StumbleUpon traffic on Friday.

It is hard to say if this is regarding a Google change or a change in the site or just a weird bleep. But it is interesting to see a nice set of diverse webmasters notice this and discuss it over the course of two weeks at WebmasterWorld.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Postpones Blog Search Ranking Update

Posted: March 10th, 2009, 2:53pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Two weeks ago, we reported that Google Blog Search To Test New Link Command Features Next Week. Well, it has now been postponed a bit.

An updated Google Groups thread has Googler, Jeremy Hylton saying this has to be pushed off by a couple weeks. He said:

Unfortunately, we ran into some delays with these experiments and had to push back the schedule a couple of weeks.

I know many folks were eager to see the changes this or last week, but it seems like we may have to wait until the end of this month or early April.

In short, the changes were going to impact how Google Blog Search returns matches for blog posts for queries. Google is a bit too inclusive right now on what they return as keyword matches on blog posts. Google Blog Search is working on fine tuning their "blogroll detectors" and other detectors to make the results more relevant.

Forum discussion continued at Google Groups.

URL Case in SEO Matters

Posted: March 9th, 2009, 2:10pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Sometimes we forget or forget to look after basic SEO topics. The other day, I caught one of my programmers allowing both capitalized URLs and lowercase URLs result in having the same destination page. Let's take Twitter as an example, since it was brought up in a Google Webmaster Help thread.

Twitter allows both capitalized and lowercase URLs return the same page. For example, both [twitter.com] and [twitter.com] return the same exact page, content and information. But Google considers http://twitter.com/google and http://twitter.com/Google to be different pages, in many cases.

Now, Google isn't that dumb, just do a search for [www.google.com] (the capitalized version) and Google will know you really want the lowercase version:

But you don't want to make Google figure this stuff out. What you should do, is make sure there is only one version, preferably the lowercase version in my opinion. If someone does go to a capitalized version, 301 that page to the lower case URL.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Study: Fear Still Exists Over Google's Supplemental Index

Posted: March 4th, 2009, 2:48pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A month and a half ago, we polled our audience, trying to gauge how concerned SEOs are with Google's 'hidden' supplemental index. The results are now in, we have 80 responses and I wanted to share them with you.

Here is the breakdown of responses to the question "Are You Concerned Over Google's Supplemental Index?"

:: Somewhat Concerned said 32 respondents or 40%
:: Very Concerned said 24 respondents or 30%
:: Not Concerned said 24 respondents or 30%

As you can see, 70% of SEOs are still concerned, on some level, with Google's supplemental index. Whereas, only 30% are not concerned at all. I suspect the results would have been much different if Google didn't drop the supplemental tag from the search results.

Forum discussion continued at HighRankings Forum.

Google Starts Emailing Webmasters Regarding Web Site Issues Again

Posted: March 3rd, 2009, 2:41pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back in September 2005, Google began emailing webmasters about violations to the Google webmaster guidelines. Then in March 2006, Google started stepping up those notifications. Webmasters were loving Google reaching out to them with issues, so they can address them quickly.

But then the spammers and hackers got involved. In May 2007, we reported that fake Google emails were being sent to webmasters, scaring them. These emails repeatedly went out and Google had to do something.

In July 2007, Google stopped sending email notifications and created a message center in Webmaster Tools to securely notify webmasters of issues. The only problem is that these webmasters had to have a Google Webmasters Tools account and verify their sites, to see these notifications. But I guess it was better then the issue with having fake emails go out.

However, Google seemed to have continued to send out malware notifications via email, before and after Google introduced the Webmasters Tools notification. However, it did not happen as often.

I believe, but I am not 100%, Matt Cutts of Google asked in one of the panels at SMX West, just a month or two ago, if we want emails again. Most people said yes. But validating the email came from Google is hard.

Today, I see a WebmasterWorld thread that notes someone received an email from Google, notifying his site was hacked and thus delisted from Google until the hack is removed. The email says that he should login to Webmaster Tools, validate his site and confirm these details. Then remove the hack and clean up the site, and then submit a reconsideration request. In addition, the email gave specific details on how his site was hacked and what mess the hack left on his site.

So it appears that Google may be emailing webmasters again, to notify them of hacks and other issues that Google may find quicker then some webmasters.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Not Ranking? Change Your Name Says French Town Mayor

Posted: March 2nd, 2009, 2:04pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

French town of Eu to change name because of Google searches from the Telegraph is getting a lot of attention. In short, a town named Eu is considering changing their name, because they feel they have a hard time ranking for their name in Google, due to it being "eu" and thus feel they are losing out on tourism.

Let me quote you part of the article:

Marie-Françoise Gaouyer, the local mayor, now has two options - to pay internet giants like Yahoo and Google thousands to put the town at the top of all "Eu" searches, or change the town's name.
"The second option appears the most sensible," said Mrs Gaouyer, adding: "As far as the internet is concerned, we have to bring ourselves up to date." Mrs Gaouyer's favoured option is Ville d'Eu (Town of Eu), with other possibilities including Eu-le-Château and Eu-en-Normandie.

The mayor, who believes tourism revenues are down by as much as a third because of the town's current name, now wants all of the alternatives put to the local population of some 8,000 in a referendum.

As Vanessa Fox points out, the town does rank number one in Google.FR for eu. Why? As Vanessa explains, their web site has a .fr extension and is entirely in French, which means it is targeted to French users. A tourist that doesn't speak French won't understand the web site and Google knows that. So Google does rank that site number one for the term "eu" in Google.Fr.

Vanessa said if they made a tourist version of the site in a different language, then maybe it would compete for the term "eu" in Google.com. I am not too sure about that, take a look at the search results for that term. I guess it is possible over time, plus I doubt the paid search results would cost that much.

Is the solution to your ranking issues to change your name or to evolve your web site?

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Yahoo Search Update: February 2009

Posted: February 26th, 2009, 2:34pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

There seems to be a Yahoo Search update taking place now. A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the update. We do not have official confirmation from the Yahoo Search Blog yet, but we didn't have confirmation the last update either.

The first report came in early yesterday morning and since then, many others confirmed seeing an update as well. Let me pull out the key findings from the thread:

Link counts may have dropped
Some are reporting canonical issues
One person reported "different titles and descriptions for singular vs. plural of my main keyword. It's the same URL, so kind of odd."

Why did Yahoo not announce this update? Well, maybe they will today or tomorrow. But the Yahoo Search Japan blog announced it the other day. It translates to:

Yahoo! In search, Yahoo! Inc. UEBUSACHIENJIN has developed the "Yahoo! Search Technology (YST)" has started a full update of the index.
The Index Update?

YST, every day to make a more user-friendly search engine, such as Japan's own and respond to the world stage and improve the work of Akira Osamu develop new features and functions. To reflect the results of this search engine, built-in indexer will update the entire index.
Position changes are expected to be improved with the results of this search. The full completion of the update takes a few days.

Yahoo! Search Project

The last update was a small hiccup on February 9th but a larger update was on or around January 19th.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Blog Search To Test New Link Command Features Next Week

Posted: February 26th, 2009, 2:28pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Since November 2008, Google Blog search's link command has been scanning too much information, including blogrolls. Since then, Google vowed to fix the blogroll issue with the link command back in early December. At the end of December, Google said they fixed the issue but there was still more work to be done. That was indeed true, because there are still many complaints over Google Blog Search's matching skills.

Googler, Jeremy Hylton, has said that Google is going to be releasing a "user visible experiments early next month," which is next week, to better target Google Blog Search's issue with "blogroll detectors" and the link command.

You can find Jeremy's post in a Google Groups thread, I will quote it here:

This is just a brief status report. We've been continuing to experiment with blogroll detectors. We're going to do some user- visible experiments early next month, probably starting with link: queries. I'll follow up here when the experiments are running.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google Webmaster Tools Link Report Bugs Still An Issue

Posted: February 25th, 2009, 2:27pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A week ago today, we reported that some webmasters noticed the link reports in Google Webmaster Tools was not being updated or was not allowing for download.

On the 19th, Google said in a Google Webmaster Help forum thread that they fixed the issue for some sites. Then on the 23rd, they said they fixed it for all sites:

Ok everyone....thanks for responding here. It looks like there was a hiccup over the weekend with this fix getting completely rolled out to everyone.
With some extra legwork this morning the fix should be in place for all. Is anyone still seeing this issue?

But the issue has not been resolved for many. We have many messages both in that same Google Webmaster Help thread and a WebmasterWorld thread that this bug is still an issue today, the 25th.

So I guess Google will keep plugging away at the issue and hopefully resolve it soon.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

Decrypting Google's "According To" Search Results

Posted: February 24th, 2009, 2:34pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In August 2005 was the first time I saw "According To" Google results show up in the search results. Since then, they show up for very specific queries.

I spotted an interesting thread, where a webmaster asked why is his client showing up in the Google "according to" results. The thread is at Google Webmaster Help forums, and the webmaster showed that his client ranks for the search query octopus top speed. Here is a screen capture:

The webmaster asked a valid question, i.e. how did this happen? He said:

I am interested to know how this data is sourced and how we can improve the A-Z-Animals.com website so this happens for all the animals listed on the site (over 350 animals are listed with comprehensive fact lists) as the client has worked extremely hard to source reliable information for the site which will be extremely valuable to users of Google search. Or is it simply a case of given time Google will source other information from the site assuming another source isn't being used?

Autocrat, a top contributor in the forum says he really doesn't know exactly how Google shows or complies these, but he offers his two cents:

Your client does realise what a recommendation and acknowledgment that is, right?
Chances are that it''s automated/algorythmic.

Its probably done over time and based on various factors - possibly things like time, references, quotes, links to the information etc.

The only advice I can offer is for your client to keep on doing what they clearly excel at!

This may be similar to how Google Definitions works, but I would just be guessing.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Misinterpreting SEO Advice

Posted: February 23rd, 2009, 2:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

The SEO industry is a conflicted industry to work in, in many respects. Much of the public still thinks this is a form black magic, some feel the industry is packed with scam artists and some just totally don't get it. Let's not forget the conflict of the struggle between the search engine and the search engine optimizers. Oh, then black hat versus white hat. It makes for a very conflicted industry.

The last thing we need is misinterpreting SEO advice. But it happens more often in conflicted and new industries, then it would happen in other industries.

A HighRanking Forums thread reminded me of just one minor example of misinterpreting SEO advice. Let me quote you the frustration one SEO felt about his boss's recent SEO discovery:

My boss went upstate to meet with a partner and their SEO "expert" advised him that Google sets aside the 2, 3 and 6 spot in their Top 10 listings to video. Yes folks, it's a miracle. Someone has in their infinite wisdom broken the Google algorithm and found this wonderful tidbit of information. When I tried to argue the validity of this decree, my boss assured me that the "expert" proved it to him.

Now, with Google Universal Search, there were times where specific spots seemed to be set aside for video. But not for all queries and not all the time. Even nowadays, it seems like the specific spots that appeared to be set aside to video, in some queries, are no longer the same spots. A video can now show up in the 1st result or the 5th result or the 4th result or any of the top ten results.

So what happened here? I suspect the "boss" misinterpreted this "SEO experts" advice as to use videos. I personally recommend videos for SEO purposes to many people. It can do very well in the Google results and you can get your message out to a whole group of people through the video. In fact, I did a piece at Search Engine Land named Want To Rank Tops In Google? Do YouTube Videos, Stupid! The summary:

The Forrester Blog published a small but interesting study on how you can improve your chances, by 50 times, of showing up at the top of the Google search results. Their tip? Utilize Google’s Universal Search by creating videos.

But it is not that simple, you need to look beyond those numbers and use wisdom and experience to know when to use which strategies.

Forum discussion at HighRanking Forums.

Optimize WordPress page loading time with PHP Speedy and WP Super Cache

Posted: February 16th, 2009, 1:29am CET by varunkrish

Tags: php WordPress Optimization cache performance

if ($options['save_name']=='cssstylesheet') $source = preg_replace("!<head([^>]+)?>!is","$0 \n".$newfile."\n",$source); else $source = str_replace('</body>', $newfile.'</body>', $source) ;

Webmasters Skeptical But Loving New Canonical Search Engine Tag

Posted: February 13th, 2009, 3:25pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Yesterday, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft announced together a new way to handle internal duplicate content issues with a new "canonical" header tag. Vanessa Fox does an excellent job explaining what it is all about in her piece at Search Engine Land.

So for all duplicate pages, you insert this tag in the header elements of those pages, specifying the main URL. The tag looks like this:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/true-url.html" />

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have detailed explanations of how they work.

Three main things:

(1) This works only internally, not across domains.
(2) Treat this like you would a 301 redirect, so be careful
(3) Search engines consider this a "hint" and do not have to abide by it (just yet)

Outside of that, there is good recaps on this at Techmeme.

We have a ton of Q&A on this from our live coverage of the Ask the Search Engines panel from SMX West. I am sure your questions are answered in that panel or in the discussions below.

This tag can be confusing, because it is new. But after webmasters begin to understand where, if and how to use it, they are more likely to love it.

JohnMu said in a forum post:

Here are some examples where this could be used: - Web-shops (mutliple URLs depending on how you got to a page) - Sites that work with Session-IDs within the URL - Ad-tracking URLs (eg using AdWords + Analytics) - Affiliate tracking URLs - News sites with multiple URLs per article - Forums with multiple URLs per thread/page (eg "&highlight=", etc)

Plus, Yoast already posted plugins to support this for Wordpress, Magento and Drupal.

Forum discussion Google Webmaster Help, Cre8asite Forums, WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.

Google Slaps Google Japan With PageRank Penalty, Webmasters Cheerfully Surprised

Posted: February 12th, 2009, 3:10pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last night at Search Engine Land I reported that Google Penalizes Google Japan For Buying Links. In short, the Google Japan team took on a marketing initiative to of paying bloggers for reviews, that turned out to be paid links, which they did not know was against Google's guidelines. In turn, Google's search quality team slapped Google Japan with a PageRank penalty, from a PR9 to a PR5.

Matt Cutts of Google twittered the event and you can see the surprise in the FriendFeed comments.

Danny came back into my post and added some history to the discussion, which is valuable if this is new to you.

There is a lot of discussion around this news at the forums, including DigitalPoint Forums, WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.

Many don't understand why Google would penalize themselves. But some suspect it is a PR stunt (public relations). Others think it is just Google manning up to their own policies and doing what is right.

It will be interesting to see how long the penalty lasts. If it was an ordinary site, they could submit a reconsideration request and Google can restore the PR fairly quickly. Would Google make their own sister site wait even longer to appease the public? Or will Google treat this like any other site?

There are many implications to this and this is not the first time Google penalized themselves. They did so with when they found themselves cloaking content.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.

SEO Targeting Different Countries? Use Different Domains

Posted: February 11th, 2009, 3:28pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A common but difficult question was asked at HighRanking Forums about the issue of targeting different countries.

My advice for when it comes to targeting different countries is almost always to have two different sites on TLDs (top level domains) that match that country. So if you want to target the US and the UK, have one US site on the .com and one UK site on the co.uk and make sure your content is localized for that market. It might help to also host each site in that region, plus it is always good to set the geographic target for the UK site in Google Webmaster Tools (I would leave the US version untargeted in webmaster tools).

High Rankings administrator, Randy, adds:

When you're using a .com domain name you're not really targeting the US market. You're targeting the entire world. It's one of those double-edged swords we Murcans get/have to deal with. In that .com is a Worldwide competition. Not a US one.
The good edge of the sword being that since pretty much all US based sites use .com (as opposed to the almost never used .us) you end up with decent worldwide rankings if you get good rankings you can see from your PC from a US location. The bad edge of the sword being that if you can't compete in a worldwide market, you're basically screwed. Then the only thing left to you is your very, very localized market.

Forum discussion at HighRanking Forums.

SEOs Lose Rankings Due to New "Did You Mean" Feature

Posted: February 4th, 2009, 3:05pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last week, we reported that Google made the new "Did You Mean" feature a standard. Meaning, Google's search spelling suggestions are now acting in this new manner.

The issue is, many are complaining that they are getting killed by this. Some have e-commerce sites and this is resulting in Google dropping their position by at least two placements, due to showing the new "Did you mean" feature.

One example is brought by a webmaster in the Google Webmaster Help forum, who says a search for ecotrimmer returns this "did you mean" feature and pushes his site down to a much lower position, resulting in a huge sales slump for this business owner.

See how low this site is now on the Google search results in this screen capture:

As you can imagine, this is not the only webmaster impacted by this change.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

In Past Two Years, What Has Changed Most With SEO?

Posted: February 3rd, 2009, 2:41pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A HighRankings Forum thread has a very interesting topic just getting started. The thread creator asks, "What Has Changed In Seo In Last 2 Years?"

This is a great question. People think that SEO tactics are always changing. You need to constantly tweak your site to get the most out of your SEO success. While others believe the same SEO principles have remained the same for the past five years.

Yes, you always need quality content with solid internal site navigation, with title tags, clean HTML, good external links and so on. But in the past two years, what has changed the most?

Off the top of my head, I would say the following aspects of SEO changed the most in the past two years. I am sure I am forgetting some aspects, but I'll do my best:

What makes for a quality link
Duplicate content detection and filters
Google understanding dynamic content
Trusting a site and the content on that site
PageRank's importance in the algorithm
Social media's role in trust building and link acquisition
Google's transparency
Black hat tactics constantly change

Those are just some of the ideas that came to mind when writing this post. I am sure I can think up more ideas and flesh out the ideas I listed above, but that is not for this site. Please feel free to add your two cents in the comments below or in the forum thread. Maybe, I'll circle back on this topic and run a poll when I get a solid list of attributes and tactics.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Should You Be Charged For Verifying Your Site With Google or Search Engines?

Posted: February 3rd, 2009, 2:27pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread asks if he is being ripped off because his hosting company wants to charge him to help him verify his site with Google Webmaster Tools.

So you know, all it takes to verify a site with Google Webmaster Tools is to either upload a blank html file or add a meta tag to your site.

Is it criminal for a hosting or design company to charge for this?

I don't think so. It is like paying someone to install a new door lock or paint a room or add a new page to your web site. We can all try to do this ourselves but some either don't have the time or know-how to make it happen.

In this case, it seems like the host charges only a few dollars per month and this host doesn't allow any file to be uploaded. So the webmaster cannot technically upload the file. But then, I guess, you get what you pay for.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

How Does Google News Rank Stories

Posted: January 29th, 2009, 9:45am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

For Google News publishers, getting high placement in Google News can be great. Most publishers would love to see prime time placement of their stories on the main Google News home page, but many settle for ranking well in Google News for news searchers.

One such publisher asked how can he help his articles see higher placement for news searches. The question was asked in a Google News Help thread and was answered by Google representative, Inabl.

Inbal linked this publisher to an article that discusses how ranking works at Google News, but added:

We work continuously to improve this grouping technology; your feedback can help us identify areas that need work. Please let us know if you have any suggestions for improvement.

The article isolated three areas for their Google News ranking algorithm. They include:

Freshness of content
Diversity of content
Rich textual content which would help users searching for information to find your articles

Plus you need to factor in standard search engine friendly design and basic SEO principles.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Google's Knol About Webmaster Tools Verification

Posted: January 27th, 2009, 9:14am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Googlers, John Mueller and Susan Moskwa put together a very comprehensive Knol page on Google Webmaster Tools verification.

So if you are new to Google Webmaster Tools and you are about to verify your site with Google Webmaster Tools.

You can already see several revisions to this knol page, including one waiting in moderation by Cristina Wood.

Who cares? Well, besides for this being very comprehensive, you might want to investigate it for your own stuff. Matt Cutts of Google wrote Four Things You Need To Know About Knol, where one point was:

My personal conception of Knol is that when you want to write a quick article or put some information on the web, Knol is a great place to do it.

That being said, Knol launched in July of last year and is still trying to gain traction on Wikipedia and the likes.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Creates Traffic Based Sitemaps Generator

Posted: January 14th, 2009, 2:47pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google Webmaster Central blog announced the release of a new Google Sitemaps generator available at code.google.com/p/googlesitemapgenerator.

The new tool works differently then other sitemaps tools. The tool "finds new and modified URLs based on your webserver's traffic, its log files, or the files found on the server," said Google. Plus the tool will send pings to Google Blog Search for all new or modified URLs in the XML file.

It is pretty neat to use site traffic as a method of determining which pages to include in your Sitemap file.

Google's JohnMu said in a Google Webmaster Help thread that it runs on both Microsoft IIS and Linux Apache servers and:

While it's not for everyone (you need to have administrative access to the server for one), I think it's pretty cool :-).

Forum discusison at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Webmaster Tools Missing Change Site Verification Method?

Posted: January 14th, 2009, 2:41pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread reports that Google Webmaster Tools seems to be missing the feature to change the method you would like to verify you site with. Now, I personally don't remember what should or should not be on this screen, but reportedly, there should be a way to tell Google that you want to switch from the html file verification method to the meta tag verification method, or visa versa.

Here is a screen capture of what I currently see for one of my sites:

A top contributor at the group said, "There was an option there in Manage Site Verification not too long ago. Now it is not there. There must have been a page code update and a new one is pending?" So, I suspect he is right.

Hopefully the feature will come back shortly.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Does Google Penalize Site Wide Webmaster Tools Accounts?

Posted: January 12th, 2009, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is a webmaster at DigitalPoint Forums who is convinced that Google has penalized all his sites that were verified in his Google Webmaster Tools account.

This webmaster claimed his sites are clean and he complies with Google's terms of service. But they were all penalized soon after adding them to the same Google Webmaster Tools account. I find this all hard to believe.

It is possible that they were linking together in a weird fashion, but I am not sure - since I don't know the site's URLs. It is possible they were violating the terms of service. It is possible he accidently excluded the pages in his robots.txt. It is possible he had server issues. It is possible he spammed the heck out of his pages. I don't know.

But it is common sense, if you are doing anything borderline with Google. Please don't tie those sites to others via Webmaster Tools. Even more so, why are you verifying a site that is borderline spam with Google in the first place? To me, that seems like you are testing Google, teasing them to ban you. If that is what you like, then go for it.

Do you think Google does site wide webmaster tools account penalties? I guess this is an obvious question. Google sees spam, a human looks at it, it notices the site is verified in webmaster tools, then looks at all the other sites by the same account holder and sees the same type of spam on those sites. The Googler clicks the big red blinking button and bam - goodbye sites.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Who's To Blame For Faster Indexing? Google Sitemaps or FeedBurner

Posted: January 9th, 2009, 2:36pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

An SEOMoz post charts the positive impact having a Sitemap file can have on the speed of Google and Yahoo crawling and indexing your web pages.

The report seems pretty impressive and I myself feel that Sitemaps are important to have, for more sites. In fact, I recently added a Sitemap for this site, although, I really don't think it will help much with indexing this site any faster due to us being in Google News.

That being said, the Sphinn thread around this post has some quality discussion. I want to isolate one post from "IncrediBILL" who asks the question, is the Sitemap to credit for these sites getting indexed faster or is it FeedBurner?

Google acquired FeedBurner and FeedBurner is incredibly fast at picking up new content, specifically from WordPress blogs, which is what the study was done on. That being said, the report would have not shown an increase in speed to crawl if Sitemaps did not have anything to do with it. FeedBurner was a factor before the Sitemaps files were in place and they were a factor after the Sitemaps files were in place. So the only thing that really changed with this site (outside of Google changing variables, which they do often) is the Sitemaps addition.

So who would you credit for the faster indexing? Google's Sitemap protocol or FeedBurner? I'll poll it up:

Try not to use the "other" response. Yes, I know, I know.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Report: Yahoo Site Explorer Updated Link Values

Posted: January 9th, 2009, 2:25pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that folks are noticing that Yahoo Site Explorer has updated the link counts for the tool.

I do not typically track these numbers, but many do. So if you do, definitely take a look and see if you are doing any better.

Here is a screen capture of our most recent Yahoo Site Explorer link count:

The 250,000 value shows all links to seroundtable.com, excluding internal links, but to the entire domain. In contrast to Google Webmaster Tools, which only reports 175,408 links for this domain.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

SEOs Finally Looking at Page Segments (Blocks)

Posted: January 9th, 2009, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

David Harry has an excellent write up on the SEO implications of page segmentation. In short, the piece goes over how search engines can, and probably do, look at each web page and segment the page into components. For example, they can pull out the navigation, footer, ad blocks, and so on from the main body copy.

This concept is far from new, it goes way back and we even covered it back in mid-2004 with Block (Passage) Level Link Analysis by MSN. It just makes sense, why treat the ads on the page the same way one would treat the body content. That is the purpose behind Text Link Ads new product inLinks.

In any event, there is some good overall discussion around the topic at Sphinn. Fantomaster said:

This is developing into an extremely important aspect of state-of-the-art SEO that cannot be ignored with impunity. While it's anybody's guess (still) how much of this technology has already been implemented by the search engines, you can easily bet the farm that it'll happen rather sooner than later.

In any event, if this is a new concept to you, you may want to read up on it. If some search engines are not deploying this yet, then they likely will soon. It just makes logical sense.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Case Study: Transferring Google PageRank With Redirects

Posted: January 6th, 2009, 2:23pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

An older WebmasterWorld thread has been updated to share the time frame it took this webmaster to transfer his Google PageRank scores from old URLs to new URLs.

In summary, he set up a new URL structure (possibly a new domain, but that is not so clear). He redirected his old URLs to the new URLs. He then noticed his PageRank was gone, completely. So he got nervous. The folks in the thread suggested he relax and wait it out and ultimately, it worked out.

Here is the timeline:

October 2nd - Site migration and 301's implemented
October 10th - Week or so later lost all PR on new URLs (all to PR N/A)
October 30th - Month later, PR N/A now changed to PR0
December 29th - 3 months after 301 redirects back to original URL PR

So from start to finish, it seems like it took three months for the toolbar PageRank to transfer over.

How does this help any of you? Well, it really doesn't, outside of having something to point a client of your to. What I mean by that is that although the Toolbar PageRank didn't appear in the new URLs for three months, it likely had PageRank internally but not yet visible in the toolbar. I am sure the traffic from Google took less than three months to get to where it was.

In addition, these numbers will vary from site to site, depending on many factors. Those factors include, but are not limited to, size of the site, when the move was made, number of redirects, how popular the site was originally, if you use Sitemap files, and many more factors.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Case Study: Transferring Google PageRank With Redirects

Posted: January 6th, 2009, 2:23pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

An older WebmasterWorld thread has been updated to share the time frame it took this webmaster to transfer his Google PageRank scores from old URLs to new URLs.

Here is the timeline:

October 2nd - Site migration and 301's implemented
October 10th - Week or so later lost all PR on new URLs (all to PR N/A)
October 30th - Month later, PR N/A now changed to PR0
December 29th - 3 months after 301 redirects back to original URL PR

So from start to finish, it seems like it took three months for the toolbar PageRank to transfer over.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Newbie Thread of Week: Alphabetized META Tags

Posted: January 5th, 2009, 2:33pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Sometimes I seriously wonder where some of these SEO theories come from. One that caught my eye this week was found in a Google Webmaster Help thread, asking if it can hurt your SEO efforts if you do not alphabetize your META tags.

The thread creator wrote:

Can anyone tell me if it hurts indexing sites that the meta tags have been alphabetized?
But my editor tends to alphabetize them.

This webmaster asked a valid question. Since his web editor went through the trouble of making the tags in alphabetical order, should he do the same manually? The answer is no, it doesn't help in any way.

ZydoSEO replied to the thread, in which a Googler confirmed, saying:

The meta tags can appear in any order as long as they are contained inside the <head> element. It is not a problem to alphabetize them from Google's perspective... Only possibly from your perspective since time could probably be better spent doing something other than alphabetizing HTML elements.

In any event, I thought it would be fun to share this with many of the readers here.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Newbie Thread of Week: Alphabetized META Tags

Posted: January 5th, 2009, 2:33pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

The thread creator wrote:

Can anyone tell me if it hurts indexing sites that the meta tags have been alphabetized?
But my editor tends to alphabetize them.

ZydoSEO replied to the thread, in which a Googler confirmed, saying:

The meta tags can appear in any order as long as they are contained inside the <head> element. It is not a problem to alphabetize them from Google's perspective... Only possibly from your perspective since time could probably be better spent doing something other than alphabetizing HTML elements.

In any event, I thought it would be fun to share this with many of the readers here.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google & Date Formats : US vs UK Date Formats

Posted: January 5th, 2009, 2:01pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help points out that Google handles most date formats in US format. So if a site has a date in the format of 04/06/2007, Google will read that as April 6, 2007, but in UK format, it might be known as June 4, 2007.

Here is a screen capture of one such result:

And here is the date on the actual page:

You can see more details on this at Google Webmaster Help, where Googler, JohnMu said he will pass this information on to the right people.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help,.

Google & Date Formats : US vs UK Date Formats

Posted: January 5th, 2009, 2:01pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Here is a screen capture of one such result:

And here is the date on the actual page:

You can see more details on this at Google Webmaster Help, where Googler, JohnMu said he will pass this information on to the right people.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help,.

Google Warns About Social Media "Schemes" in SEO Guide

Posted: January 5th, 2009, 1:52pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Remember a few months back when Google published their internal SEO guide? Well, Michael Gray asked if Social Media links is an easy way to SEO death row.

Michael pointed out that on page twenty of the guide, under the "Good practices for promoting your website" section Google writes you should avoid:

involving your site in schemes where your content is artificially promoted to the top of these services

Michael feels we will soon see a tool in Webmaster Central named "How to report social media spam."

Of course, social media and SEO go very well together. But like anything that works well with SEO, it does get abused. The question is, is Michael right here? Do we have something to worry about?

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Google Warns About Social Media "Schemes" in SEO Guide

Posted: January 5th, 2009, 1:52pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Remember a few months back when Google published their internal SEO guide? Well, Michael Gray asked if Social Media links is an easy way to SEO death row.

Michael pointed out that on page twenty of the guide, under the "Good practices for promoting your website" section Google writes you should avoid:

involving your site in schemes where your content is artificially promoted to the top of these services

Michael feels we will soon see a tool in Webmaster Central named "How to report social media spam."

Of course, social media and SEO go very well together. But like anything that works well with SEO, it does get abused. The question is, is Michael right here? Do we have something to worry about?

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Tough SEO: SEO For Sites You Don't Manage & Leftover SEO

Posted: December 31st, 2008, 3:29pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

If you're about to take on a prospective SEO client and they start taking the initiative on their search engine optimization (in ways you hadn't even thought of), should you proceed with the client -- especially if you're going to disagree with them (since their initial implementation was probably a measure to cut costs and keep their spend down?)

Probably not. But before you lose the client, make sure to educate them. Show them why you are doing something. Eventually, both you and the client may have a good relationship as goals and objectives are clearly defined.

What about an SEO client whose site is not accessible for you to actually perform the SEO? The other option may be link building, but on-page SEO is still very important. If you can't do that, try creating "microsites" that you actually can SEO.

What would you do?

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forums and Cre8asite Forums.

Very Valuable Parked Domain: WWW.YOURDOMAIN.COM

Posted: December 26th, 2008, 1:43pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

I found a DigitalPoint Forums thread that was pretty funny. In short, they mentioned how www.yourdomain.com has a PageRank score of seven. It is true, the parked domain, www.yourdomain.com does have a PageRank score of seven.

Web Page URL:

http://www.yourdomain.com

The Page Rank:

7/10

It is a very valuable domain, not just for its toolbar PageRank. I mean, everyone uses it as an example of talking about where to place your domain. Can the owner better monetize it? I am not a domainer, so I don't know.

But it is funny to see domains with little on them be worth so much, possibly accidently?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Says, Bounce Rates For Search Rankings "Spammable" & "Noisy"

Posted: December 24th, 2008, 4:41pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We recently covered a comment from Googler JohnMu on if click data is used in Google for ranking purposes. Of course, John gave the typical Google response.

But now we have a comment from Matt Cutts of Google at a Sphinn thread, where it appears that Matt has completely denied the rumors that Google may be using click data (aka bounce rate) to rank web pages.

Matt said:

Without reading the article, I'll just say that bounce rates would be not only spammable but noisy. A search industry person recently sent me some questions about how bounce rate is done at Google and I was like "Dude, I have no idea about any things like bounce rate. Why don't you talk to this nice Google Analytics evangelist who knows about things like bounce rate?" I just don't even run into people talking about this in my day-to-day life.

So this seems to me that Google seems not to take into account people clicking from Google's search results to a web page and then clicking on the back button. This is the strongest statement on the topic I have seen from a Googler to this date.

I also recommend checking out HuoMah.com and see his analysis about all of this.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Google Blog Search Fixes Link Issue But Asks For Additional Help

Posted: December 22nd, 2008, 1:50pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In early November, I reported an issue with Google Blog Search scanning blogrolls, which was then confirmed later on. The confirmation told us that Google would fix the issue, where Google Blog Search would continue to index and use more than just what RSS feed, but would try to exclude blogrolls and navigational elements of the blog.

The issue was, if you conducted a link command in blog search, such as link:www.seroundtable.com (which I do all the time to find new posts commenting on posts I write here), Google Blog Search started to show blog posts not mentioning your posts. Why? Cause many blogs out there have this blog on their blogroll and Google considered that post to have a link within their post, but all it was, was a link in the Blogroll.

Since then, Google Blog Search has really made big improvements in this area. I have witnessed it first hand. But it is not perfect and Google knows that. Google is asking for examples of issues with the link command in Blog Search in the Google Groups area. So if you see issues, go to Google Groups and let Google know.

What has Google changed specifically? Jeremy Hylton of Google Blogsearch said:

The basic approach is to analyze each blog to look for text and markup that is common to all of the posts. Usually, these comment elements include the blogroll, any navigational elements, and other parts of the page that aren't part of the post. This approach works well for a lot of blogs, but we're continuing to improve the algorithm. The search results should ignore matches that only come from these common elements. The indexing change to implement it is deployed almost everywhere now.

How is that for transparency?

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Share Your Funny SEO Mistakes

Posted: December 18th, 2008, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

I found a fun but serious SEO mistake in a Google Webmaster Help thread that I wanted to share with you all. But I felt it would be fun, if you had the time, to share at least one of your funny, but deadly, SEO mistakes - that you have seen first hand, in the comment section below.

The mistake documented in the thread was that someone was not sure why his Webmaster Tools account was showing the status of "network unreachable" for many of his URLs. JohnMu from Google looked into the issue to explain that although you and I (ordinary users) can see those URLs, for some reason, GoogleBot was being shown a 500 error page. The way John was able to reproduce that was by simply changing his browser's useragent to the same useragent GoogleBot uses, "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)". Then he surfed to the page to be presented with the 500 error.

This is a deadly but sad mistake. Normally people will go out of their way to serve up better optimized pages for GoogleBot. But to serve up error pages to GoogleBot, while serving up your beautiful content only to your users - well, that is kinda anti-SEO. This webmaster's issue had to do with a problem with ASP.net's URL rewriting system he was using and how he set it up.

Your turn, share a quick story below of a funny SEO mistake you have seen.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

How to: Deoptimize Your Website

Posted: December 15th, 2008, 3:56pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

If you had no regard for your website and wanted it to be penalized or not ranked well, what would you do to make that happen? A WebmasterWorld thread discusses the potential issues that may relate to penalties, and I've turned that discussion into a "what kind of tactics can get your site penalized?" (or "how do I deoptimize my website?")

You can cause problems by considering the following:

1. Have high and unnatural keyword densities
2. Overuse of meta tags
3. Repetitive use of keywords in navigation and linking
4. Removal of non-site external links from within a site (or by adding nofollow to all external links)
5. Having too many reciprocal links

But this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. What could you add to this list?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

What is Google's Approach Toward Subdomains?

Posted: December 15th, 2008, 3:18pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Last year, we wrote about how Google is to perceive subdomains. Matt Cutts wrote back then that in some circumstances, subdomains will be treated like subfolders. He goes into more detail on his blog. In the post, he explains that sometimes people have performed long tail searches and gotten too many results from a single domain and its subdomains and Google has made it more difficult for that to occur.

The issue was relatively silent for a year, but now people are starting to ask questions. On a WebmasterWorld thread, tedster says that "A legitimate subdomain today often gets treated as something of a hybrid between a totally different domain and a part of the main domain."

On the other hand, there's a DigitalPoint Forums thread that disputes the weak relationship:

I've actually learned first hand that Google started treating subdomains as directories (happened months ago). I had some websites on subdomains where the main domain had 0 links. The websites were doing well until one day when they fell drastically. I then started to build links to the main domain and within 2 months the subdomains were also stronger than ever. The stronger the domain is - the stronger the subdomain is.

That said, there's confusion yet again.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Stop GoogleBot From Indexing You At Busy Times

Posted: December 12th, 2008, 2:25pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has a member upset that Google is crawling his site during times when his server is overloaded. Is there a way to tell GoogleBot to stay away during these times?

JohnMu of Google said, yes there is. John explains that you can use a 503 status code to tell GoogleBot to come back later. The thing is, you would need to just server this status code to spiders and not your visitors - and that might get a bit sticky. Let me quote John:

One thing you can do is to encourage Googlebot (and other crawlers) to not visit your site at busy times by returning a 503 HTTP result code. This tells us that you currently can't serve the content, but that we should come back at some later time. The difficulty would be to recognize search engine crawlers and to only serve this result code when the server is actually under load - but it might be worth following up on if your server resources are limited.

John in the past recommended using the 503 during site downtime and site maintenance, so that Google doesn't think your site went bye-bye. The 503 will simply tell the spider to check back later and that your site is fine, but only temporarily not available.

Now, automating this at specific times or during specific CPU utilization patterns might be fun for coders. You can set up logic to say, serve GoogleBot or other spiders a 503 status code when it is between the hours of X and Y or when the server's CPU load is above Z. The only issue is, would this be considered a form of cloaking or not showing the search spider what the visitor sees? A bit of a gray area.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Bans Itself For A Few Minutes?

Posted: December 12th, 2008, 1:57pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last night I was noticing Twitters and some blog posts, as well as a DigitalPoint Forums thread that asked why did Google ban themselves. In short, a search for [google], [analytics], [adwords], [adsense], [google adwords], and so on, did not return the main Google.com result. So a search for [adwords] would not return http://adwords.google.com/ like it normally would.

Matt Cutts of Google even Twittered that he saw the issue and then soon after it was fixed, magically. ClickZ has captured images of the issue, I tried last night, and I did not see it myself but it did happen.

I have emailed Matt to try to learn what happened, if I find out, Ill update this post.

In any event, this is not the first time Google has been perceived to ban themselves. We covered a time in March 2005 and then again in July 2004.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: Here is a statement from Google:

Unfortunately, for a short period of time yesterday, we experienced an issue where our search engine wasn't returning some pages hosted on google.com in users' search results. We've since fixed this problem, and users can now find all Google-specific sites they are searching for. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Does Changing Domain Registrar Info (Private Whois) Impact Google Rankings?

Posted: December 8th, 2008, 2:14pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The topic of does domain registration impact your search engine rankings is nothing new. We have covered this topic here at least a handful of times, especially since Google became a registrar. But a new WebmasterWorld thread has several case studies from SEOs on the topic.

It all started when senior WebmasterWorld member, SEOPTI, said that he forgot to use private whois information when renewing his domain. His domain name went under the real information and then soon after he said, Google devalued his incoming links by 80% or more.

As you might imagine, many are skeptical. Another senior member, wyweb, said:

I removed privacy protection from 6 or 7 domains last summer, all with 5 and 6 PR. There has been absolutely no change in either PR or traffic levels.

Senior member, CainIV, said something similar:

Personally, some of my domains are protected and some are not. I did not notice a ranking change when switching to privacy, however, none have ever reverted.

Forum administrator, Tedster, said:

I have a client who changed the legal ownership of the domain (and business) twice within the past year. No changes in the SERPs followed on either time.
Other clients in the past have purchased other online businesses, changed the domain's Whois to reflect that, and also seen no ranking changes. Based on that, I'm thinking this is not an open-and-shut case of Whois changes influencing ranking.

Seems like this isn't as clear cut as we would like. Google might or might not reset the domain based on probably several variables.

Past articles on domain registration and SEO:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Meta Tag Verification Currently Broken

Posted: December 8th, 2008, 1:53pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

JohnMu at Google has posted a thread announcement at Google Webmaster Help discussions stating there is an issue with some folks who might be trying to verify their sites with Google Webmaster Tools. Specifically, if you are trying to use the meta-tag verification method, you may currently be unable to verify your site with webmaster tools.

Dozens of reports came into the forum on Friday. So John posted an official thread and wrote:

It seems that some users have run into issues regarding meta tag verification of new sites in Webmaster Tools. We're looking into the issue and hope to have a solution as soon as possible. In the meantime, you might want to try file-based verification to see if it works better on your site.
Thanks for your patience, I'll post back when I know more!

There has currently not been an update that confirms things are working again.

Hopefully, you are not impacted.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Updates Webmaster Tools & Crawl Rate Controls

Posted: December 5th, 2008, 2:33pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has made two changes to Webmaster Tools. The first is they consolidated your settings into a single page for a site and the second is they are now giving more control over your crawl rate.

There is a new "Settings" link on the left hand side of a site profile in webmaster tools. That settings section gives you the ability to manage a site's geographic target, preferred domain, enhanced image search preference and your crawl rate control. Note, some of these settings expire after 90-days. Here is a picture:

The second enhancement is the ability to allow Google to decide how to fast or slow crawl your site, or to give you those options. The screen capture pretty much explains it:

This is one of those settings that set back after 90-days. So keep checking it if you make a change.

There are some webmasters who are not allowed to change the setting. They are told Google has set their rate and they cannot do anything about it. There is discussion about this notification at Google Webmaster Help and DigitalPoint Forums. But why can't they change it? One suspects the site is hosted at Blogger or a free hosting site, but JohnMu of Google wrote:

You usually won't have to fiddle with those settings, which is why they aren't available to all sites. We usually work out how much we can (and want to) crawl automatically. I would generally only change these settings if we're crawling your site too hard (and slowing down your server).

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Webmaster Help Finds A New Home

Posted: December 5th, 2008, 2:20pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

It is now official! Google Webmaster Helps Groups has officially closed yesterday and they have opened up a new discussions area at Google Webmaster Help.

Susan from Google explained that the archives at the old group "will remain read-only, but no new posts will be accepted."

So go to the new introduction thread and say hello to the new group! Currently, the following Googler's are signed up:

Vanessa Fox posted the history of Google Webmaster help at Search Engine Land.

I will do my best to continue tracking these discussions, but there are some additional difficulties being worked out. Those details can be found in this thread if you are interested. Until then, I will do my best to bring you the best threads from this group!

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Does The Alt Tag Improve Search Engine Rankings?

Posted: December 4th, 2008, 2:18pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We know Google recommends using alternative text for your images. But does that mean your rankings will improve in the search engines if you use the ALT attribute?

That is the question at WebmasterWorld. Forget about what is "best practices" or what is nice to do, but does it actually improve rankings? The thread is not sure. We do have moderator, Robert Charlton, speak up and say:

I've seen some boosts from the alt text for a linked image, probably not as much as the boost for a text link would provide, but it's been noticeable on some phrases. I've not seen any boost from alt text in unlinked images, which doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Another senior member said:

The relative value of alt text for ranking has always been very little, but the spammy use of this has also been discouraged. I always try to fit in a 1-2-word alt text descriptor for real pictures but an empty value for spacer images.

So what do you think? Does ALT attributes directly increase your search rankings? Take the poll:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Why Shouldn't SEOs Obsess Over the Site Command

Posted: November 26th, 2008, 2:10pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Many SEOs use the site command to see how healthy their site is in a particular search engine. So you plug in site:www.mydomain.com in a search engine and the search engine will return the number of pages they have indexed for that domain. If you know you have a hundred pages and the search engine indexed 90% of those pages, then you are pretty well off.

But the problem is, the site command is not often all that reliable. We had recent reports that Google is dropping pages and we had recent reports that Microsoft Live Search is dropping pages as well. Most SEOs determine a drop in pages indexed by the number of results returned by the engine for a site command.

But is this a valid way of really determining how many pages a search engine indexed of your site? From what I am hearing from search engine representatives at both Google and Microsoft, the answer is no. A webmaster should not depend on the number returned by a site command as a reliable indicator of the number of pages a search engine has indexed of their site.

Googler, JohnMu, wrote in a recent Google Groups thread three reasons why SEOs and Webmasters should not depend on this number:

The previous approximation was incorrect, the current one is closer to the actual number of URLs that we have indexed or would show to users
The previous approximation was close and the current one is worse than before (this can happen)
A change in our algorithms (we make a lot of changes that will impact crawling, indexing and ranking -- for some sites perhaps more than for others)

At the same time, Microsoft's Jeremiah Andrick told me that it "is problematic to use the "site:" operator to determine how many pages for a site are included in the Live Search index. The “Site:” operator generates an estimate of the pages in the index. These numbers can vary wildly depending on when you execute the query."

That being said, how can you get an accurate number of pages indexed by a search engine for your site?

I know Google's Webmaster Tools has in their Sitemaps section a place to show you the number of pages submitted in your Sitemap compared to how many URLs actually indexed. So, this might be a better indicator, but I am nervous about this number, because way too often I hear of reporting glitches in Webmaster Tools.

Another option is to track each and every keyword phrase your pages rank for. Then see by keyword, not by site command, if those pages rank. This can be time consuming, but there are ways to automate this.

Overall, using the site command might not be the best way to determine how healthy your site is in a particular search engine. I know many SEOs use this as a factor, but maybe it is time we think again about this?

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google Webmaster Tools Bug In "Top Search Queries"

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 2:19pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Many Google Webmaster Tools users are complaining about not being able to see their "Top Search Queries" report for a week's worth of time. If you go to Google Webmaster Tools, then go to Statistics, and then click on Top Search Queries, you will see an error that reads, "Data is not available at this time." Here is a screen capture:

Do note that Google is aware of this issue and hopes to have it resolved in a few days. Googler, JohnMu, "stickied" a Google Groups thread and said:

We're aware of this problem and working on resolving it.
I was hoping it would have been resolved for everyone already, but it looks like it might be a few more days until the data is available for all sites.

Thanks for your patience!

So just give it a bit more time.

Forum discussion at Google Groups and WebmasterWorld.

Google Does Accept MRSS Formatted Video Sitemaps

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 2:03pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Since we have concluded video is important for your overall search efforts, I figured I follow up about a recent thread I spotted at Google Groups about the question on if Google supports MRSS as a format for Video Sitemaps.

The quick answer is yes, but it is not so clear from their documentation. MRSS, which is Media RSS, is one of the two formats Google seems to accept. I submitted an MRSS feed as a test and it did realize and label the feed as MRSS, but my feed did have some errors.

Googler, JohnMu, explained in the thread:

Yes, we do support mRSS for video Sitemaps. It's not explicitly mentioned, which may cause some confusion (we'll fix that :-) - thanks for bringing it up).
What you can do is the following: Just submit your mRSS file as a normal Video Sitemap in Webmaster Tools. Once we start processing it, you should see the mRSS information in the Sitemaps information page in Webmaster Tools to confirm that we're processing it correctly.

So if you have a video sitemap in MRSS format that you already publish, it might be worth trying to submit that to Google as well.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google Webmaster Tools for iPhone

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 3:50pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread asks if Google has made Google Webmaster Tools iPhone friendly? In other words, did Google make a version of Google Webmaster Tools optimized to render well on an iPhone? The answer is, kind of - yes.

You can go to Google Webmaster Tools, click on Tools and then Gadgets and add the iGoogle gadgets to your iGoogle front page. Once you add that, those reports should be available in an iPhone friendly format on igoogle.com.

I tested it out and here are some screen captures:

(1) Crawl error reports:

(2) External link report and some of the Sitelinks data:

Clicking on any of the hyper links takes you into Google Webmaster Tools, but the interface is not optimized for an iPhone.

This leaves open a great opportunity for someone to build an Apple iPhone App, using Google Webmaster Tool's API, so you can interact with the data with greater flexibility on your iPhone.

We hope to make this site more iPhone friendly in the near future. But we are hand picking some pages on our RustyBrick site, specifically rustybrick.com/iphone to have an iPhone optimized version. Right now, we redirect users with an iPhone user agent to a special version of the page, but honestly, I want to use a style sheet and leave the URL the same.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Do You Need Video Content to Compete in Google Today?

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 2:28pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are only so many results on a search page. You do a search at Google, you typically get about ten results. Those results are either web pages, videos, news results, blog posts, images and so on. Video results seem to be the most growing result vertical on the page. That being said, the question coming up at WebmasterWorld is, do we need videos to compete in the future of Google's search results?

Excellent question. Personally, I think the answer is yes. I think currently, the best place to put videos are on YouTube. Clearly, YouTube videos will not drive direct traffic to your site, but you can add links from the video description to your pages and you can embed branding overlays in the videos to hopefully direct traffic to your site. Why YouTube if the direct traffic doesn't land on your site? Simply because those YouTube video rank better than videos hosted on your site or on other third party video sharing sites.

The bottom line is that videos are growing and that just means more and more videos will be finding their way into the search results. If a video takes up one of the ten results, then that is one less result for a web page. So don't you think you should try to get your video to show up in those results?

Amit had a timely post today, showing video results, extreme mode. Just take a look over there and see how shocking those results are.

As Tedster said in his post at WebmasterWorld:

So many people find reading difficult - especially online but even otherwise - that I'm pretty sure we'll see a push to more video results in the near future. As long as the end users click and watch, it will keep increasing.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

My Pages Are Dropping Out of Google: What Do I Do?

Posted: November 17th, 2008, 1:58pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Over the course of the past few months, I have hearing buzz from the forums and from people in the SEO industry that Google is dropping pages out of their index. How do these people know? Well, when they do a site:www.domain.com command, i.e. in my case, site:www.seroundtable.com, Google is showing less results then they have a few months ago. Personally, I do not track these things, so I am not sure. In fact, the last time I documented that number seems to be in June, when I had 7,990 results, today this domain has 14,000 results.

But that doesn't stop the fact that many many webmasters and SEOs are noticing a huge decline in the number of pages indexed by Google for their site. Or at least, the site command is returning less and less results over time for a site command. Is it a reporting thing or is it really Google dropping pages out of the index due to quality or other issues?

There is a new but largish WebmasterWorld thread with several webmasters complaining about this happening on their sites. Even moderators are noticing it and trying to reverse the results. What actions are they trying?

The most obvious is to get more links to your inner pages
The next thing I would do is control what Google removes by 301ing or noindexing pages that are not critical to your success
Some are trying using the nofollow to, again, control what Google removes.

Overall, in my humble opinion, Google is getting picker about what content to show and what not to show. I believe it is a hybrid effect of both link popularity and duplicate content filter in play, in these cases.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Now Showing Sitelinks for Some Sub-Directories

Posted: November 17th, 2008, 1:36pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

As Googler, Matt Cutts Twittered, he now has Sitelinks under his domain for a search on [matt cutts]. Why did it take Matt over two years to get Sitelinks for his domain when it is such an authoritative source?

The answer might be that his content was on a sub-directory. Yes, right now, there is no substantial content on www.mattcutts.com, all or most the content is on www.mattcutts.com/blog/. And it seems like Google is now giving sub directories Sitelink love.

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the topic, noting that Matt Cutts is not the only query returning a sub directory listed with Google Sitelinks. I'll just guess a few right now and show you that others work, such as:

* iPhone:

* Apple:

* MacBook Pro:

What does this show to us? That you can have different Sitelinks for different queries, if your site is authoritative enough. Google told us this fact in the past, but we were all skeptical, including myself, that this is possible. I guess I have yet to see Sitelinks for the same URL change based on query but it can change for different URLs on the same root domain.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

How Google Wants You To Use Alt Tags & Title Tags on Images

Posted: November 17th, 2008, 1:24pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread has discussion around how to properly use the alt attribute and title attribute for your web page images. Of course, Google recommends that you make sure to make them as useful for the end users. So use them as per W3C recommendations but let's hear from Google on what they expect.

JohnMu from Google explained how to use both the alt and title attribute:

alt attribute should be used to describe the image. So if you have an image of a big blue pineapple chair you should use the alt tag that best describes it, which is alt="big blue pineapple chair."
title attribute should be used when the image is a hyperlink to a specific page. The title attribute should contain information about what will happen when you click on the image. For example, if the image will get larger, it should read something like, title="View a larger version of the big blue pineapple chair image."

I'll quote John from Google now:

As the Googlebot does not see the images directly, we generally concentrate on the information provided in the "alt" attribute. Feel free to supplement the "alt" attribute with "title" and other attributes if they provide value to your users!
So for example, if you have an image of a puppy (these seem popular at the moment :-)) playing with a ball, you could use something like "My puppy Betsy playing with a bowling ball" as the alt-attribute for the image. If you also have a link around the image, pointing a large version of the same photo, you could use "View this image in high-resolution" as the title attribute for the link.

There is a Google blog post on using alt attributes as well.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Is it Worthwhile to Buy a High PageRank Domain and 301ing it?

Posted: November 14th, 2008, 3:13pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

What happens if you want some good link juice to your domain? You may engage in the practice of buying a site and 301ing it to your old domain. In yesterday's PubCon session, we even talked about buying sites for maximum exposure and minimum risk. But the question is really: will you get juice by doing this?

At a High Rankings Forum post, member Randy claims that Googlers say that the "trust" of the site gets reset upon a domain transfer and that you won't get the PR value. At the same time, how is Google to know that you have bought a domain for this purpose? That said, Randy says it's 50/50.

If you have experience in this area, the comments area of this post is waiting for your insights.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

Ditched GoogleBot But Now Want To Make Friends Again?

Posted: November 14th, 2008, 1:07pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I found an interesting tidbit while reading a somewhat detailed thread at Google Groups. The scenario is as follows. You have blocked Googlebot from accessing your site for a 6 month period or so. Then you want to welcome Googlebot back into your site by removing the disallow from your robots.txt file. Will Googlebot bite? If so, how long will it take?

Yea, you ditched Googlebot and now you realize what a good friend Googlebot can be for you. So now you want to become friends with little old Googlebot again. Truth be told, the longer you ditched Googlebot, possibly the longer Googlebot will accept your renewed friendship. Just like real friends. Well, not really.

It is just a matter of how many times Google will recheck your robots.txt file. If you blocked Googlebot in your robots.txt recently, then I would expect Googlebot to check the robots.txt more often. If it is six month or longer, than likely less frequently. It just makes sense from an efficiency standpoint on both Google's side and for your server.

Susan Moskwa of Google has a great analogy in the thread, so let me quote her:

I sometimes use a telephone metaphor to explain this--imagine you called someone and their answering machine said "I can't come to the phone right now, please don't call me." If you called back an hour later and got the same message, and then called back the next day and got the same message, and then called back the next week and got the same message, you'd probably call less and less frequently, assuming the response would be the same, right?
The same is true of Googlebot; if your site consistently sends the message "Don't crawl me," we may wait longer and longer between the times when we attempt to crawl it again.

So what can you do to encourage Googlebot to come back quicker? Send it flowers and chocolate. Just kidding! But you do want to entice Googlebot to come back. How so? Submit a Sitemap file to Google, get more links, get buzz out about your site, write more content and so on. As Susan said, "once it starts being 'active' in the online ecosystem, it'll naturally end up in search results and start ranking accordingly."

I had fun with this post because it is pretty late now, been up really long with little sleep. In fact, I feel like I am going to fall asleep while typing this. In any event, hope you enjoyed this little tidbit, it will be posted in the AM.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google Webmaster Tools "Link From" Report Bug

Posted: November 6th, 2008, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Last month, Google added "crawl source" errors reporting to Google Webmaster Tools. Webmasters were happy with this tool, it gave them actionable items to work on.

But now, it seems a bug is preventing the tool from showing the crawl source errors. Now, when you click on "diagnostics" and then on "web crawl," and then click on the data within the "link from" column, you will see an error pop up that reads "Our system is currently busy. Please try again in a few minutes." Here is a picture:

A Google Groups thread has confirmed the issue and a Google representative, Susan, said:

Thanks for letting us know; we're looking into it. (FWIW, I'm seeing this in my account too.) :-)

I suspect this bug will be fixed fairly soon.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

After a Google Penalty, How Long Does It Take To Get Rankings Back?

Posted: November 6th, 2008, 2:06pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I'll start by saying that this is not a case study. There is a WebmasterWorld thread that asks, how long does it take to re-obtain the old rankings one had, prior to receiving a Google penalty, and then Google reincluding the site after a reinclusion request.

We already saw that a reinclusion request can take anywhere from a few days to a few years, based on our poll. But after you finally see your site is reincluded or that the penalty is removed, how long will it take for your site to regain the rankings it had for those competitive keywords?

The quick answer is, "it depends." It depends on the penalty, it depends on what you removed to get out of the penalty, it depends on what you changed on your site.

If you removed a ton of links and those links were the reason you ranked number one for "seo company" (inside joke) then, I assume when you come out of the penalty, you won't be on the first page for seo company anymore. Why? Cause most of those links that got you that top ranking in the first place, hurt you and you no longer have them to help you.

There is one member who offers a bold statement, that I will quote here, but won't confirm. And I quote:

(1) If your site has been tanked for the first time: -- your site will get back with the same ranking if you play Sherlock Holmes for a few months in order to find out what happened.
(2) If your site has been tanked for the second time:
-- your site will come back with about 20%-30% of traffic it had before if you again play Sherlock Holmes for a few months in order to find out what happened. I don't know if it can recover completely again.

(3) If your site tanks a third time:
-- close down the domain and get a new one.

Again, it depends on tons of factors.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Learn Search Engine Optimization by Doing, Not by Reading

Posted: November 4th, 2008, 3:33pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Lisa Barone writes a great piece at the We Build Pages blog about how you'll become a good SEO by actually doing SEO, not by reading SEO strategy on all those blogs you subscribe to.

It's simply not good enough to know. You need to test, retest, and verify your changes. Blogging is only part of it, but it's not the whole picture.

I know way too many people who have read a book on SEO and subscribe to blogs and say they are competent SEOs. I even know someone who makes this claim as an "SEO Consultant and Expert" and the individual doesn't even have a title tag on their page. Please.

Lisa is right. It's time you look at individuals who are in the regular practice of applying SEO skills on a regular basis than to have those who simply write upon it to be the SEOs you hire. How many journalists who write a well-researched and informed article about zoology would you actually consider zoologists?

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Tell Google Your Images Are Not Adult Natured

Posted: November 4th, 2008, 2:19pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We have been covering the topic of your images getting stuck in Google's image filter for a while now. But what if you followed our suggestions and still, you are stuck in the SafeSearch filter. What do you do?

Well, it seems like a Googler is actively reporting this specific issues to the image search team. The thread, I would submit my issues to, is at Google Groups.

Googler, Susan Moskwa, seems to have sent a handful of reports directly from the thread to someone at the image search team to investigate. So, if you are having issues and you have not had success with any of our tips, then try asking for help.

Here are some related posts:

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

CSF (ConfigServer Security and Firewall) May Be Blocking GoogleBot

Posted: November 3rd, 2008, 1:39pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A webmaster at Google Groups may have uncovered an issue with a specific firewall program named CSF (ConfigServer Security and Firewall). In short, this webmaster found that his host used this firewall and it was blocking GoogleBot from accessing his web pages.

If you are noticing that GoogleBot cannot access your site, check to see your firewall. If any of the GoogleBot IPs are listed in the "Firewall Deny IP's" area, then remove them asap. The webmaster documented some of those current IP ranges (note, they may change):

216.239.32.0/19 # Googlebot
64.233.160.0/19 # Googlebot
72.14.192.0/18 # Googlebot
209.85.128.0/17 # Googlebot
66.102.0.0/20 # Googlebot
74.125.0.0/16 # Googlebot
66.249.64.0/19 #Googlebot

Make sure to verify those IPs are GoogleBot before preceding yourself.

Then add the range of Googlebot IP addresses to bot the FIREWALL ALLOW IP'S and the LFD IGNORE IP'S in the firewall setup.

It is important that you regularly check Google Webmaster Tools and/or your log files for accessibility issues. You can be missing traffic and not even know about it.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Your Successful SEO Campaign Starts with a Blueprint

Posted: October 29th, 2008, 4:10pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

The Online Marketing for Marketers blog has a goo blueprint that you should adhere to if you're looking for a successful search engine optimization campaign. Your blueprint should include:

* Defined goals
* Keyword and competitive research
* A content outline
* Evaluation of technical issues
* Offsite marketing

Then, you need to lay out the action plan. Who in the team is responsible for what?

Would you add or remove anything from this blueprint?

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Google Can Process More Than a 100 Links Per Page

Posted: October 29th, 2008, 1:51pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There has always been this myth that Google and other search engines cannot crawl or process more than 100 links on a single web page or document. That truth is that Google and other search engines can and do crawl over 100 links per page.

Yes, the Google Webmaster Guidelines page says keep it under 100 links per page. But the reason behind Google adding that as a guideline is for usability purposes. Typically, a web page with over a 100 links can be extremely cumbersome for your users. So if you keep the number of navigational options to a bear minimum, your user will appreciate it.

Now we have a Googler even telling us the truth on this matter. In a Google Groups thread, Googler, JohnMu, clearly stats Google can handle 100 or more links per page. He said:

Just for the record, we can process more than 100 links per page :-). We do however recommend the limit of 100 because it generally makes sense for users (and search engines).

This probably comes to no surprise to most SEOs and webmasters, but it is good to have this from the horses mouth (so to speak).

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Hosting Adult Images? Use Directories So Google Doesn't Filter You

Posted: October 27th, 2008, 4:25pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

In May, we talked about getting your images out of Google's SafeSearch filter. That is, Google may deem your images somewhat "questionable" (maybe lewd and lascivious) and won't list your images within the standard (SafeSearch-enabled) image search results.

We've been posed with the opposite question in Google Groups. One guy has a few questionable images but doesn't want all of his images being blacklisted just because of a few instances of questionable adult images. JohnMu suggests that if you have some images that are naughty and others that are nice, you could put the naughty ones in a separate directory or even allocate a separate subdomain to the other images. However, he also notes that it may be problematic to have adult-oriented images on the same domain as "safe" images. My guess is that this means that Google could still have a problem with it.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Google Sitemaps Bug To Be Fixed Soon?

Posted: October 27th, 2008, 1:21pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The other day we reported Google Webmaster Tools Showing 0 Pages Indexed For Sitemaps Users. In short, some of those who have submitted a Sitemap file via Google Webmaster Tools were having issues with those Sitemaps.

Many saw their Sitemap files remain in the "pending" status, while others noticed the index count of their Sitemaps stats were reporting 0 pages indexed. Now, none of these reporting glitches have a direct impact on the Google search results, but nevertheless they can cause webmasters to worry.

Google is aware of the issue and opened an official thread at Google Groups where Googler, JohnMu said:

As some of you have noticed, things are still a bit slow over on the Sitemaps side of things, especially regarding new Sitemap file submissions and the indexed URL count shown in Webmaster Tools.
Rest assured that the team has been busy working on these issues. We're hoping that things should be back to normal within a few days or so. As I have more information, I'll post here to keep you updated.

Keep in mind that we'll still continue to crawl and index your websites normally, so you shouldn't see any change in the way your site is indexed and ranking in our search results.

One webmaster at WebmasterWorld noticed some improvements. He said:

I've seen some change... a few sitemaps that were *pending* are now showing normal, but others have not updated. A mixed bag.

Hopefully things will clear up soon.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Google Groups (official) and Google Groups 2.

Recent Google PageRank Discussions & Observations

Posted: October 23rd, 2008, 5:24pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Michael Gray explains why PageRank sculpting is important. He explains that Google has downplayed the use of PR sculpting but it seems that it's working pretty well for some people. Using an analogy with two very different cars (one, an old shoddy car; two, an expensive powerhorse) he says:

The links on your website are touch points between your website and Google’s crawling and indexing spiders. Much like cars not all websites are the same, not all websites have the “horsepower” to take advantage of tactics like nofollow and pagerank sculpting. The key is figuring out if you are closer to the Ford Gremlin or the Ferarri Enzo and adjusting your strategy accordingly.

Indeed, many forum members agree that PR sculpting is beneficial especially for small sites where you can drive the link juice to the proper pages.

In a second thread, PageRank is dissected by Ann Smarty at Search Engine Journal. Ann summarizes a WebmasterWorld discussion about the Graybar and how the PageRank toolbar, if gray, can mean two things: either the site is broken (not SEO'd) or the site is penalized. She also discusses some myths and truths regarding the gray bar. Some items of note include the fact that the gray bar is not equivalent to PR0, it actually doesn't mean the site is deindexed/penalized, it can indicate improper behavior, PR can change with no impact on performance, and more.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn (PR sculpting) and Sphinn (PR myths).

Google Explaining Customized & Personalized Results

Posted: October 17th, 2008, 1:23pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around Google now telling you how the search results were either customized based on your previous searches or personalized based on your web history. This is not all that new, relative to search, Danny wrote about it at the end of July.

Let me just catch you up quickly. Search for pizza st louis and then search again for just pizza and you still should get customized results for St Louis. Here is a screen capture:

Yes, it says, "Customized based on recent search activity. More details." When you click on the "more details" link you are taken to an explanation page:

Google has several types of pages like this, explaining how the results were customized or personalized based on your location, previous searches or web history.

In fact, Bryan Horling, Software Engineer, Personalized Search was on the Personalized & Customized Search at the SMX East conference, where Danny and him went back and forth on those features. So for a detailed explanation on this stuff, check out that session coverage.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Drops Home Page Crawl Date From Webmaster Tools

Posted: October 17th, 2008, 1:04pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

If you login to Google Webmaster Tools you may notice that something is missing. Google has removed the date from the Home page crawl field from the site overview page. The field was grouped in the "Home Page Crawl" section.

Here is a before shot:

And now:

Why was it removed? Google's JohnMu was asked this in a Google Groups thread, where he responded that the date was "frequently incorrect and not really that useful."

John is just being honest and I commend that. Just less than a month ago, we gave Google a hard time about Google Webmaster Tools Slower In Reporting Than Google Cache, specifically calling out that date. John and Google agreed, John explained:

It's generally more useful to look at it on a page- by-page basis, which you can do best either in the Google Cache or by checking your server's logs. Usually there's not much need to check the exact date a page was crawled - it's more important to see that we're continually crawling and indexing the site in general.

So the field is gone - at least for now.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

How Google Handles Flash: The Tried & Tested Version

Posted: October 16th, 2008, 3:03pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Beu has done an outstanding job testing how Google truly handles Flash indexing and crawling. To take you back, Google began indexing Flash in July 2008 and then we had a follow up post on it in late August.

Let me summarize Beu's four findings:

(1) Google has an issue associating text content within a Flash document with the correct parent URL or as a single entity.

(2) Flash documents does receive PageRank "independent of their own parent URLs."

(3) Google does not index URLs "containing #anchors (fragment identifiers) in Flash per W3C Guidelines."

(4) Google does not translate Flash content into different languages.

I would recommend you see his Flash SEO Tips for 2009 as well.

Based on Beu's tests, he has asked Google a fairly sophisticated question at Google Groups. I'll quote the question:

Can anyone confirm that Googlebot "sees" text content provided via PE (progressive enhancement) since support for simple JavaScript like SWFObject was introduced? If so, what causes Flash files to be indexed in many cases and not the parent URL where content provided via PE resides? Is there anything webmasters can do to request which version (Flash or (X)HTML) is indexed in SERPs, for example like www or non-www in webmaster tools?

That would be a nice addition but personally, I don't think it will be coming any time soon.

Forum discussion at Sphinn and Google Groups.

Things You Should Expect from an SEO

Posted: October 15th, 2008, 3:48pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Stoney DeGeyter has written an insightful piece on Search Engine Guide on what you should expect from your SEO consultant. Obviously, depending on your goals, this may differ, but the ideas are the same. He explains that traffic is something to look at, but that's not what the client should only seek. Conversions are obviously important, and so are rankings, but that's not how to prove the effectiveness of the campaign. At the end of the day, ROI is really the most substantial measurement of this kind of engagement.

Stoney mentions that communication is key to make sure that expectations are set and followed throughout the duration of the contract.

Indeed, this article is pretty informative and should help you review the precautions before starting your new SEO campaign.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

This post was pre-written and scheduled for publication on October 15th.

How To Optimize for Something New and Unknown

Posted: October 14th, 2008, 9:02pm CEST by cre8pc

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

When faced with marketing a brand new product or idea, how do you optimize for keywords that nobody is searching for yet? Can you find other ways to present the product, such as focus on value proposition? Would social media help here?

SEO For the Unknown explores this interesting topic at Cre8asiteforums.

Where Did the Phrase "Search Engine Optimization" Come From?

Posted: October 14th, 2008, 3:01pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

In August of 2006, Rohit Bhargava coined the term SMO for social media optimization. Now search engine optimization has been around a little longer than that, but where did it come from? According to Bob Heyman, in a guest post on Search Engine Land, he did.

Bob explains that it was 1995 when the name came to mind. Once upon a time, a rock band created a website with a URL that couldn't be recalled without pulling it up in the SERPs. Unfortunately for the rock band, however, the official web page for the band was on page 4 of the SERPs. Bob explains that after that call, he resolved to make search engine rankings a priority, and thus, "search engine optimization" was born.

So why, then, is Jason Gambert claiming that he coined the phrase SEO in 2007? Give it up, Jason.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

This post was pre-written and scheduled for publication on October 14th.

Google Reinclusion Request Approval Times

Posted: October 14th, 2008, 3:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The other day, I held a poll asking SEOs how long it typically took for their sites to be reincluded into the Google index after submitting a reconsideration request. We have complied 72 responses and I thought I share the results.

As I thought, the responses are really all over the place. Let me break them down for you.

Google Reinclusion Took Me...
:: More Than Three Months said 18 respondents or 25%
:: 1 Week To 3 Weeks said 12 respondents or 17%
:: A Month said 12 respondents or 17%
:: A Few Days said 11 respondents or 15%
:: A Week said 6 respondents or 8%
:: Three Months said 6 respondents or 8%
:: Other... said 4 respondents or 6%
:: Two Months said 3 respondents or 4%

Other responses were from "never" to "8 months" to "still waiting."

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

This post was written on October 13th and scheduled to go live on October 14th.

Google Sitemap Pending Alert Temporary Issue

Posted: October 9th, 2008, 2:18pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Hopefully by the time you read this post, the issue will be resolved. However, yesterday afternoon, a Google representative, JohnMu said there is currently a display issue in the Google Webmaster Tools.

A Google Groups thread reports several webmasters who have submitted their Sitemap files days ago, but the Sitemaps file status is still in the status of "pending." Typically, a sitemap file should be accepted within 24 hours.

JohnMu of Google said:

This is currently a known issue, the team here is working on resolving it as quickly as possible. Generally speaking, it's normal for some sites to take a while before the "pending" status disappears. At the moment however, it looks like this is taking a bit longer than usual.

If the "pending" status for your site has been showing for a while now, I wouldn't worry too much about it for now. It's not something on your site, or anything that you need to resolve on your end.

I'll update this thread once it gets resolved. Thanks for your patience!

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

This post was written on October 8th at 1:30pm (EST) and scheduled to go live on October 9th.

Which Google Penalties Require a Reinclusion Request?

Posted: October 6th, 2008, 2:29pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread asks a very good question. Which penalties require a reinclusion request in Google?

Yes, this is a tough question to answer. But it would be great to come up with a list of items that might require and no require a reinclusion request.

WebmasterWorld administration, tedster, really sums up the issue with this question.

(1) Not all "penalties" are really penalties. In fact, a nice percentage of posts that say, "I have been penalized," are really not penalized.

(2) Some penalties are manual, while some are automated. Manual penalties probably require a reinclusion request, while automated ones do not necessarily require one but likely can be expedited by one.

Now, outside of that, coming up with a list of how to spam search engines and then describe which penalties are automatically applied and which are manual, can be daunting. In addition, making assumptions on which webmaster guidelines violations are worse than others, may also be a hard thing to do.

In any event, the discussion around this topic, I thought, would have been larger.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

How to Diagnose Your Site With Google Webmaster Tools

Posted: October 2nd, 2008, 5:15pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google Webmaster Central Blog talks about how you can use Google Webmaster Tools to learn about problems with your site. In the post, JohnMu (yes, that John) explains the variety of issues you can run into when you have an IIS server and are returning the wrong status codes. He also says that you can find out if there are broken links by reviewing the "Web crawl" area of Webmaster Tools and explains that some of these issues are not easily spotted.

John looks into other issues as well, including redirection issues, server unreachable errors, and even if your web site has been hacked. He explains that Google Webmaster Tools can give you more information about this and other common errors.

Want to know more? Check out the post and discuss it over at Sphinn.

Will Using Google Analytics Hurt My Search Engine Rankings?

Posted: September 30th, 2008, 4:05pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

In another one of those "I heard it from someone else" rumors circulating throughout the Internet, a High Rankings Forum member claims that he read an article that said that using Google Analytics on his site can hurt his search result rankings. The author's example was "do you really want Google to know that your visitors have stayed on your site for only 15 seconds?"

All forum members don't believe that Google Analytics is any indicator of search result placement (and I'd love for the Google Analytics article author to actually validate his own theory rather than spit out information that drives real search optimizers batty).

Sometimes people can search for something and find it on the first page within seconds and not need to hang around. Just because someone visits a web page for less than 15 seconds doesn't mean they aren't finding what they're looking for.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forums.

This post was prewritten and was scheduled for publication on September 30th.

Search Engine Optimization Improves with Site Size -- Or Does It?

Posted: September 30th, 2008, 3:54pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

On one Crea8site Forums thread, Barry Welford asks if size is a factor in SEO success. It seems from the results that bigger sites (1000+ pages, according to him) have biggest (45%) success. Smaller sites could still be improved upon, according to 27% of the respondents, and 18% actually find success with a sub-1000 page site.

In the meantime, with such few respondents (I should have mentioned that only 11 people have responded), you can't gather that much from the poll, and forum sentiment echoes that thought.

Regardless, EGOL has some interesting feedback, and I will follow that with my own experience:

I think that the measure of success is not really in how big the site is but instead with who is running the site. I have a 5000 page site that is doing great and a five page site that is doing great.

Recently, Technorati released its state of the blogosphere 2008 and Muhammad Saleem noted that high quality is still king. I'm in agreement here. My "small" (~280 pages) blog is doing darn well.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

This post was written earlier and was scheduled for September 30th.

Google on Tag Clouds in Search Results

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 3:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Andy Beard started a Google Groups thread asking why Google seems to be handling tagged pages (tag cloud results) in a "fairly random fashion." Andy goes through examples of how Google sometimes indexes these pages, sometimes shows a cache page, sometimes ranks them well and sometimes not.

Google's JohnMu has a fairly long response on the topic. In short, John said he does not believe that Google treats tag pages any different than any other page on the Internet. Let me quote John:

I'm not aware that we're treating this kind of page any different than other pages. A tag page can be a good resource for users, at the same time it can also be that it would make sense to send the users to an article directly instead of having them take the "detour" through a tag page (I imagine it depends on the actual query). In most cases, I would assume that these tag pages are more of value to us in helping us to find the content that is linked from them. If a new article comes up and is listed there, we'll want to go grab that article as fast as we can.

But tag pages can be problematic in many cases because:

They don't often have very much unique content from your other pages
Some tags may be very close to others, where the only difference may be punctuation or capitalization
In a sense, they are a form of search results - kind of

We went through this dilemma when adding our tag cloud about a year ago. Honestly, I find my tag cloud here incredibly useful and relevant for my search experience - so I am glad I allowed it to be indexed.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Some Insights into Image Optimization for Search

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 5:30pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Earlier this month, Bill Slawski wrote about how search engines use images to rank web pages. He explains that search engines often look at text, alt tags, and similar contextual elements to rank images. He also refers to a Microsoft patent that uses image scores to aid in rankings. This system considers the contents of an image (whether it has a person, is a photograph or not, etc.) with its position on a page and then its site level features (which may distinguish between navigational images versus one-time-only images).

On Cre8asite Forums, iamlost wonders if there are other elements that will impact the rankings. For example, do page layouts impact these rankings? Do CSS or HTML resizing of image dimensions impact the scores?

I suppose these could have open-ended questions at this time. However, yannis has responded with some good image optimization techniques.

He says that you should enclose your images in divs (defined by a photo class).
Image titles should be in h3s or larger.
Images that you want search engines to know about should be 35-40% of the page size and should be on the top of the page.
The image name is still important.
Captions should be added to images.
Never forget those ALT tags (but TITLE tags are not as important).
You don't need LONGDESC.
You can refer to the image from somewhere in your content to boost its relevance.
EXIF information from images may be important in the future but it is not being used now.
Search engines are getting smarter at figuring out what is in images (face recognition, for example).
Use aesthetically pleasing images.

There's a pretty valuable ongoing discussion over at Cre8asite Forums with more member follow-up, so check it out.

Is it Time for Another SEO Break?

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 5:09pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Last year, Matt McGee wrote the 2007 version of 21 reasons why you need a break from SEO. This year, Matt shares 21 more reasons why you may need to take your SEO break. Reasons include:

* searching for social media avatar photographers (instead of wedding photographers)
* having your spouse keep track of your conference schedule (and adding SEX to the calendar!)
* communicating with your spouse via blogs
* finding marketing potential for Google's new virtual world
* syncing Matt Cutts's vacation schedule with your own personal calendar

...and more. Matt's list always gives a good laugh, so read it before you finish swallowing that coffee.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Google Webmaster Tools Generating False HTTP Errors

Posted: September 17th, 2008, 3:08pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google Webmaster Tools seems to be generating a lot of fake errors. About a month ago they fixed the false 404 errors and now this month, they are reporting false HTTP errors. Here is a screen capture of the overview report from my Webmaster Tools login area for this site:

There are a dozen or so reports on this issue at Google Groups with others complaining about this issue. It worries webmasters to see this issue. For me, I just brushed it off, but I can see how it can really worry e-commerce sites and publishers.

JohnMu of Google has confirmed the issue, calling it just a reporting glitch that will be fixed shortly. He said:

This appears to be an issue in the reporting side of things in Webmaster Tools. As far as I know, the "General HTTP errors" should be gone soon :-). Thanks for bringing it to our attention, you guys are the greatest!!

True, the feedback in the groups is an invaluable tool for Google to improve and fix issues.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google Still Loves Blogs, Says Matt Cutts

Posted: September 17th, 2008, 3:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

David Naylor asked if Google is starting to hate blogs, based on his blog having indexing issues. He gave several forms of evidence to support the issues Google is having when indexing his blog.

Well, blog owners and writers, do not worry, Matt said that Google still loves blogs. In a Sphinn thread, Matt said:

We still like blogs, I promise.

The issue with Dave's blog seems to be just that, an issue. Matt commented at Dave's blog saying:

I mentioned this post to the crawl/indexing team, so they may check it out–thanks for mentioning this.

So I assume things will get better for Dave's blog soon.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Optimize Your Google Videos with a Transcript

Posted: September 16th, 2008, 4:14pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Have you created a video recently? Did it have a video transcript? The Google Video Help document actually suggests one; in fact, you should also code it appropriately like so:

HH: Hours starting at 00
MM: Minutes starting at 00
SS: Seconds starting at 00
mmm: Milliseconds starting at 000

But is it helping the user? In response to the Cre8asite Forums post by Barry Welford, iamlost says that this time coding is beneficial for Google's data-mining process but not so much for a general user. In a way, I'm compelled to agree. I'm the kind of person who would rather read a transcript, but in the format that Google suggests, it's not as user friendly as I'd prefer.

Li Evans says, however, that transcripts have really helped her -- they've produced "amazing results." There are a few open ended questions directed at her about how she applied video, so check out Cre8asite Forums for the continued discussion.

It's Time to Use SEO Terms Correctly (or Maybe to Learn SEO and Stop Claiming You Do!)

Posted: September 15th, 2008, 4:49pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

There's a big problem in the SEO industry and that's the fact that people are not using SEO terms correctly. Jill Whalen has written a great post on Search Engine Land to this effect -- she says that due to there being no industry definitions, lack of knowledge (or laziness), and "old wives tales" (where people misinterpret something happening due to something else), SEO terms are not really understood at all times. She closes her great wirteup with a powerful statement: "After all, if the very people who make up our industry can't get it right, how will others?"

Would you disagree that this is a problem? Most Sphinners think that Jill is spot on the money. Here's a great response to the article from SEOAly:

Part of this problem comes from a combination of ignorance and being cheap on the part of site owners and designers opting for SEO consultation, rather than hiring an SEO to do the work. Some aspects of SEO can't be dumbed down into a bullet point list of tasks for those who will actually be making the changes. Hence the common reference to ALT tags, headers, title META tags, etc. - they don't understand enough about the concept of SEO as a whole to know what the terms actually refer to.

Aly also makes a rational follow-up "argument" that I personally identify with -- a lot. A lot of people, she says, claim that they know SEO when they don't. Those who know SEO don't usually say "hey, I know SEO!" There are a lot of charlatans out there.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

How Detailed Are Your Monthly SEO Billing Reports?

Posted: September 15th, 2008, 4:28pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

You're an SEO. You are tweaking client pages and billing your clients at the end of the month. Is there a standard industry practice of what you should actually put on your client bills, such as work completed?

There is no "industry practice" from what many of us have heard. However, in the event of any work completed, this is something you need to judge for yourself. If it's a small invoiced amount, typically, you don't need to do a breakdown of work completed. If it's a lot larger, however, you may want to tell your client exactly what work was performed.

Torka makes a good statement regarding acceptable billing practices that work for you and the client. Your results may vary:

I think the goal should be to achieve balance so the client feels comfortable they're getting what they pay for, and you aren't overly burdened with recordkeeping and reporting requirements.

If in doubt, discuss with your client.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

Google: Duplicate Content Penalty Does Not Exist

Posted: September 15th, 2008, 2:59pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Friday, Google posted a blog post named Demystifying the "duplicate content penalty". The blog post basically describes what many of us have been saying for a long time. Google does not typically penalize for duplicate content, but duplicate content can cause issues for certain pages to rank well. Non-malicious duplicate content is when you have pages that are very similar to each other, like filtered down search results or product option pages. If Google detects duplicate content they:

When we detect duplicate content, such as through variations caused by URL parameters, we group the duplicate URLs into one cluster.
We select what we think is the "best" URL to represent the cluster in search results.
We then consolidate properties of the URLs in the cluster, such as link popularity, to the representative URL.

So Google is determining for you, what is the "best" URL for a search query. If your pages get clustered together, it may cause an issue for the true "best" URL to come forth. Also, Google will consolidate the link popularity of those URLs but may miss some and then that can hurt a bit.

Some SEOs are arguing about the definition of a Google penalty in the threads, but I won't get into that.

Forum discussion at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.

Is Google Crawling & Indexing All of My Pages?

Posted: September 11th, 2008, 4:23pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Michael Gray has composed a post that helps SEOs find out which pages of their site haven't been crawled, which becomes increasingly more important due to Google's removal of the supplemental index. He explains that you should put a timestamp on every single page, after which you wait about 2 months. At that point, you can perform a search for the article plus the date and you should get your results.

Michael then explains how you can optimize those pages to have them become crawled and provides other informative insights as well.

Is it worth the hassle? It depends on how important this is to you. The goal should be to integrate code into the page so that you don't have to manually add timestamps to every single page. Still, if it is important to you and you want to know (but don't have the resources available to code it in the footer), it may be worth the effort to do it.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Google Sitemaps Priority Is Site Specific, Not Sitemap Specific

Posted: September 11th, 2008, 2:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We discussed the value of adding a Sitemap file in Google in the past. And we also discussed the various data you can send to Google about each of URLs.

In a Google Groups thread, a webmaster created multiple Sitemap files for a single web site, broken out by category. He set the priority details for each URL based on the priority being relative to the whole website and not relative to the individual Sitemap file. But when he checked the analysis tools, he noticed that Google was warning him that that all pages are the same priority.

JohnMu of Google explained that this is an known issue for some people who submit multiple Sitemap files. John said, just ignore those errors, because Google will see the priority on the site level and not on the Sitemap level.

Technically, the priority value is relative to the website -- however, our analysis tools compare it on a Sitemap level. This can lead to situations like yours. Generally speaking, I wouldn't worry about these warnings in that case.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google Answers: Why Are My Images Missing From Google?

Posted: September 10th, 2008, 3:10pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We have been talking about the sensitivity of Google Image Search for a while now and the topic has made it to the popular picks discussion in Google Groups.

Googler, Evan, posted a Google Groups thread discussing the various reasons why an image may not be found in Google Image Search.

The first step is to see if your images are indexed at all. So you basically need to go to images.google.com and do an image site search i.e. [site:seroundtable.com].

Then, if your images are in the index, great. If not, then change the SafeSearch Filtering from the current filter to "Do not filter my search results" in the image search preferences. Then do the search again and see if any or more images are found. If your images are now found, then you know your images are classified as not being Safe (or being adult in nature). Yes, Google has been known to be very sensitive in this area.

Evan also adds that Google indexes and ranks images on more than just your alt text and title tags. Google also looks at the "ranking of the parent or linking page," the page linking to the image. Evan also recommends that you "consider how unique and compelling the content is beyond the image itself, with the context and information surrounding it." Finally, he says you must be patient.

Be very, very patient as changes do often take some time, meanwhile continue to provide relevant content for your users and things should eventually work out.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

SEO and SEM Tips for Political Campaigning

Posted: September 10th, 2008, 3:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Elections are at the top of mind in the United States and that means campaigning. Search Marketing is now a proven and important avenue for politicians to work in, to promote their brands, name, campaign and ultimately win the election.

A HighRankings Forums thread has an SEO asking for tips on working with politicians in the search engine optimization and marketing space. Here are some of the tips found within the thread, but I do recommend checking out the discussion.

Target politician's name
Go after misspellings, if it makes sense
Target your competitor(s) name and misspellings
Target popular topics, such as climate change, human rights, gun control, Afghanistan, climate change, and so on
Test first with AdWords
Use press releases, Wikipedia, Blogging, Social Media, offline contacts and more

The ideas go on and on.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forums.

How Do You Do SEO for a Site that is Under Construction?

Posted: September 4th, 2008, 4:48pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Sometimes it's better to do SEO for a site before it's launched. Such is the case for a High Rankings Forum member who is looking to build up his site's presence before it's actually live for the masses. How do you do SEO for a site that is not yet launched, though?

It's not that hard, believe it or not, even though some other forum members suggest that you shouldn't do this until the site is completed.

For one, if you know what your site is about, you can start writing articles on a related subject matter and build links to the content. But make sure these pages have the place in the final site design, because if you do changes on a site that's under construction, it really is doubtful that it will help unless you know exactly what you're trying to accomplish.

You can definitely rank webpages that are under construction, but the value in doing so is lost on me. Even if you work hard and get ranked early on, you will only rank for the content that is on your website, so if the page is not finished and you change that content in the future your rankings will change.

That said, SEO can be done just about any time, but it's generally agreed that the best course of action is to do it after the final site is launched.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forums.

Does Chrome Signal The Removal of Google's PageRank Indicator?

Posted: September 4th, 2008, 2:53pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google's web browser, Chrome, launched two days ago and it was missing one major feature that SEOs took notice of. That feature is the PageRank indicator found in the Google Toolbar. But why is it missing? Is it just a feature that may be coming in the future or was this intentionally left out?

This is the question on the mind of some DigitalPoint Forums members and it has been asked at the blog of Matt Cutts two different times. I have currently not seen a response from Google about why it is not in the Chrome browser.

I know Matt Cutts has stated in the past that he would like to work on Google to remove the PageRank indicator. Matt said back in December 2007:

Personally, I wouldn't mind removing the PageRank in the Google Toolbar or swapping it with some other indicator, but that would be a large undertaking. Maybe that can be a long-term goal for me. :)

We also know Google asked for feedback on the PageRank indicator in the past, and that many SEO wants PageRank to go away. So maybe, just maybe, this is Google's first step to do away with their historical PageRank score?

On a funny note, yesterday, Tamar did a write up named Submit Your Google Chrome Feedback Over Here. So now we have about 40 comments, in less than a day, with Chrome feedback. But the post tells people where to go to place their feedback. Of course, I gave Tamar this title, wondering if people would skip the content of the post and just go by the title.

Anyway, is this the beginning of the end to Google's toolbar PageRank score?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Should SEO Companies Offer Refunds?

Posted: September 3rd, 2008, 4:44pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A High Rankings Forum member who has been working on a yearlong SEO agreement is now facing new management with his client and they're requesting a refund for services (mostly because some project deliverables weren't actually delivered). Should this SEO comply and return the money?

Well, this is a questionable issue. The particular SEO had no written policy, and that needs to be amended. In the future, a written policy (if even to say "No Refunds") is desirable and will avoid these issues. At this point, though, one forum member suggests that some money should be returned. I'm not sure I would be quick to agree that any money should be returned simply because of a management shake-up -- perhaps the money shouldn't have been paid in the first place.

Now it's your turn to answer this and let us know what your thoughts are. The poll is below.

Would you issue a refund? Do you think you would give in given the circumstances of this particular forum member?

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

Yahoo Site Explorer Updates Link Data, Huge Drops Reported

Posted: September 3rd, 2008, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that Yahoo Site Explorer has done a major update to their linkage data reports. Most webmasters are reporting huge drops in the number of links reported today versus the days before.

The linkage drops are reported as high as losing over 5,000 links. Others saw a drop of about 1,000 links and so on.

It is possible it is a temporary reporting glitch, but some are actually speculating that Yahoo is no longer showing links that are not counted, either nofollowed or simply not counted, in the linkage reports anymore. Right now, it is too soon to know for sure. But if anything changes or if more reports come in, I will do a follow up post.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: Just wanted to add that we reported similar issues in March, where my link count then was 271,196 inlinks, but in October I had 216,880 inlinks, and now I have 247,183.

Google Webmaster Tools Mobile Warning: "Document Size Too Large"

Posted: September 2nd, 2008, 3:28pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google Webmaster Tools is full of useful things, including mobile web page errors and warnings. A new warning that was spotted was on the size of your mobile web pages. We have two threads on the topic, one at WebmasterWorld and the other at Google Groups. The threads report the same "Mobile crawl errors":

Document size too large

Google currently has zero documentation on exactly how large is too large for mobile web pages. But WebmasterWorld moderator, jdMorgan figures the threshold stars somewhere at 21kB to 30.3kB being too large.

Phil Payne at the Google Groups thread links to the W3C page size limit section, which says:

PAGE_SIZE_USABLE Machine Test: Measure the total size of the markup for a page; check that it does not exceed 10 kilobytes for the Default Delivery Context.
Human Test: Check that the page is still usable (e.g. not cut in the middle of a sentence, just before the end of a section, and so on).

PAGE_SIZE_LIMIT Machine Test: Measure the total size of markup and images for a page; check that it does not go over the allowed size for the device - 20 kilobytes for the Default Delivery Context.

In short, the maximum page size for mobile pages should not be larger than twenty kilobytes. As Phil explains, this was written in 1996 and should likely be changes with the 3G standard being adopted by many mobile phones, plus the iPhone and soon Google Android phone to allow faster and more fluid mobile browsing.

So where does Google hold? Somewhere between 21 kilobytes and 30.3 kilobytes?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Groups.

Google Does Crawl & Index UTF-8 Encoded URLs

Posted: September 2nd, 2008, 2:56pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread asks if Google can crawl and index UTF-8 encoded URLs. The quick answer is yes, Google can crawl and index these URLs.

Google's JohnMu provided a link to the Google search results as proof, showing Google indexed and displayed the results:

John explains that in some cases Google won't crawl them. He recommends "that you
also use escaped URLs in your links, to make sure that your site is compatible with older browsers that don't understand straight UTF-8 URLs."

John added that he has seen issues with Google when "the URL uses non-ASCII characters but the server is expecting an encoding other than UTF-8."

There are plenty of URL encoding tools you can use to properly link to UTF-8 encoded URLs.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Should I Continue Working with an Ignorant SEO Client?

Posted: September 1st, 2008, 4:34pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A High Rankings Forum member has run into a bit of a rut with one of his clients who was "'brainwashed" by an SEO that editing the meta tags (and repeating keywords) would result in great rankings. The original SEO wants to get his client back, but doesn't know how to best approach this. Is it even worth the hassle?

While this is posed to the High Rankings Forum for member advice, the general consensus is that "only you can make this decision." In other words, it may not be worth the hassle to keep this particular client.

Jill Whalen makes this argument as well:

Clients don't tell you what to do. You tell them what you're going to do.
Otherwise, they don't need to be a client. If they already know what they want, then let them do it. They obviously don't need you since they already know everything.

Would you stay with a client who refuses to acknowledge reason and considers spammy (short term success, if at all) tactics?

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

Search Engine Penalties Are Scary, Says Most SEOs

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 3:08pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Tamar wrote a piece named Do Search Penalties Worry You? I had her add a poll asking SEOs if they are scared of search engine penalties.

The 98 responses are back and it is about split. 56% are afraid of search penalties while 44% are not afraid of search penalties. Personally, I would be afraid of a penalty, even if I was to be hit by collateral damage. I am surprised that more SEOs are not afraid.

Here is the break down:
:: Yes said 55 respondents or 56%
:: No said 43 respondents or 44%

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Negative Keyword Filter for Google Webmaster Tools?

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 2:57pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread is requesting that Google add a negative keyword filter tool for Google Webmaster Tools.

Google AdWords gives advertisers the ability to tell Google, I don't want traffic for these keyword phrases or keywords. At least one webmaster requested that this feature would be useful for him on the organic SEO front.

Typically, most people don't mind getting traffic for any and all keywords, as long as that traffic is free. With AdWords, you don't always want to pay for traffic, especially if that traffic doesn't convert. But in the organic side of things, even if you rank well for a weird and unrelated keyword, it is not necessarily costing you much to be there (outside of bandwidth and server resources). So even if you have a horrible conversion rate, who cares?

I agree with John of Google, "I think that's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure if it would be something that would be feasible." Yes, this is an incredibly interesting idea. Implementing such a feature in Webmaster Tools can get somewhat complicated. Do you do it on a page by page basis or site level or sub domain level?

I assume the added hints provided to Google would be useful. Think about it, potentially a site is related about a specific topic, but is unrelated to an infinite number of topics and keywords. I often do see webmasters question why they rank for a particular keyword phrase, when their sites have nothing to do with that phrase. But they don't mind the traffic. However, providing Google with a negative keyword list might aid Google in understanding your site. Just don't let your competitors gain access to your Webmaster Tools account. :)

Do you think it would be useful? Here is a poll:

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

How Google Handles Flash in 2008, Former Googler Bergy Chimes In

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 2:47pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

In July, we reported that Google is now able to better crawl and index content within Flash files. Since then, time has gone on but most SEOs continue to recommend that you stay away from Flash when building a search engine friendly site.

A new Google Groups thread takes a new look at how Google handles Flash content. In the thread Beu was able to bring back a former Googler, Bergy, to respond to some of these questions.

So if you are interested in getting into the details of how Google may index Flash content, check out the Google Groups thread.

Bergy's general recommendation is still to avoid using Flash when possible:

My advice is the same advice I've given for a good long while: Build your site first in HTML. Style it using CSS. If you must, do simple user interaction in Javascript. If you cannot resist, include multimedia content in Flash. However, remember that each of the standards evolved into their role for a reason, and while other technologies have fallen by the wayside, Flash fills the niche for highly interactive and multi-media experiences on the web. Don't use it for something when there's already a standard whose output can be easily parsed, easily processed, and whose openness makes its processing easier for browsers and searchbots.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

How To Tame GoogleBot

Posted: August 28th, 2008, 3:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread has a detailed discussion around the topic of Google spider, GoogleBot, crawling too much. Sometimes servers can be overwhelmed by all the traffic it gets and automated crawlers, such as GoogleBot, can add a tremendous amount of stress to a server that is already stressing. Most webmasters are not in the position of banning GoogleBot from accessing their sites, so what can you do?

Here are some of the tips from the thread, including tips from Google representatives:

Make sure GoogleBot is really GoogleBot and not some spammer. More on that over here and here.
If you have a large site, limit or instruct GoogleBot on what it can or cannot crawl via the robots.txt file.
Some URLs might be more "expensive" to be crawled than others (i.e. static pages versus large dynamic and graphic rich pages.
Do you have 2 or 3 times the amount of pages indexed by Google, as you have actual product pages on your site? If so, why?
Redirect any temporary URLs or tracking URLs using a 301
Set the Google Crawl Rate, in Webmaster Tools, more on that over here

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Can A Google Penalized Site Get All Of It's Trust Back Quickly?

Posted: August 22nd, 2008, 4:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A question I get quiet often is, my site has been penalized, and I want to know if I will have to start from scratch, to earn Google's trust back? I often say that I doubt you have to start "from scratch," but I am sure you won't be at the level of "trust" you once had with Google, after they have learned that you once did something that was not so good in their eyes.

A Google Groups thread asks that question and Googler, JohnMu, responds. Here is the question:

While waiting to see if a recent Reconsideration Request is accepted, I have been wondering whether or not Google regards any domain that has ever been penalised as less trustworthy than a domain that has not.
Or is it the case that once a penalty has been removed and a site is placed back in the search index, it can compete on a level playing field - as it did before the penalty?

JohnMu of Google said:

If a site cleans up issues so that it complies with our Webmaster Guidelines, then there's generally no reason why we would treat it as something less trustworthy. Cleaning things up is always a good idea :).

I always wonder what this "trust" factor is. Can it visually look like some sort of trust slider? The more trust, the more the slider goes to the right, the less trust, the more it is to the left?

How I see it, if a site is penalized for links, the day before the penalty, Google has your trust at (let's say) a 8.5 of 10. Now, Google flagged many of your links as part of a link scheme and your site and those links fall in trust. Now your site drops to a trust value of 1.5 of 10. Now that you have been penalized, you work on cleaning up your links by getting rid of the bad links. As you do this, Google may say, okay, we now trust your site, so you slide back up to maybe a 5.5 of 10. But those old links, the bad ones, that Google once trusted, are now gone forever. So you won't reach the 8.5 of 10, like you once had.

Now that is how I envision the link side of things. I can be 100% wrong, it is just how I imagine it working.

According to Google's response, it is possible to gain all your trust back. But, for some reason, I don't think it is possible to get it ALL back overnight.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

How Will the SEO Bubble Pop?

Posted: August 15th, 2008, 4:34pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

You can clearly search and find that many people think that SEO is dying a painful death, but do you know exactly how that will happen? Well, Ian Lurie decided to speculate how the SEO bubble will pop and proposes three theories.

In his first theory, bigger agencies will start doing their SEO in-house. In his second, SEO will just not be needed because of cut costs. In the third theory, Ian says that clients are seeking tolerable (not lousy!) results and that the rip-off artists will go away.

Do you agree? At Sphinn, forum members don't feel that Ian's assessment is correct. The need for marketing is much more important now than ever, and talent will always be needed. "Shameless self-promoters," then, will need to be distinguished from real talent.

Additionally, since web sites are not going away anytime soon, most don't foresee the SEO bubble to pop.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Google Fixes Sitemap Pending Issue & Blogger Crawling Issues

Posted: August 14th, 2008, 3:38pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Over the past couple weeks, we reported about two issues:

(1) Did Google Stop Crawling Blogger Blogs on Personalized Domains?
(2) Google Bloggers Having Sitemap File & Continued Crawling Issues?

Google seems to have resolved both issues.

The Google Groups thread has a response specifically about both issues, where JohnMu of Google said:

It looks like this issue should be resolved now. It might take some time for things to catch up across the board, so you might still need to be a bit patient :).

John added a personal note about the first issue:

Sunil, I noticed that we just picked up a blog post from yesterday (I don't know which timezone you're in :-)) from your site, I think that's a good sign! Remember that it will generally take some time for the charts in Webmaster Tools to catch up as well but from what I can see it looks pretty much on-target.

So it appears that what we thought the issue was, might have not been on the webmaster side. It seems like Google fixed the issues on their side and now everyone should be happy going forward, at least for the time being.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

404 or 301 Your Old Pages? Which is Best For SEO?

Posted: August 14th, 2008, 3:08pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

There is a very large discussion at Sphinn around a Search Engine Journal post named How to Get Rid of Multiple Subpages & Not Get Penalized. The discussion is around the topics of using different techniques when removing or redirecting pages.

Which is better to do for SEO? Do you want to 301, redirect a page, or 404, return a not found status, a page?

I can tell you that my company does this fairly frequently. We take different approaches for different sites. I try, try hard, to not think only about SEO and think what would also benefit the user.

Here is my guide:

301 redirect everything you possibly can, when it makes sense. If you have a page about big blue pineapple chairs on the old site and you are moving it to the new site, 100% use a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. However, sometimes it is not that easy.

Sometimes you have a site with hundreds, if not thousands of pages, if not more. Manually redirecting each page is a huge chore. When we can, we set up logic based 301 redirects, to redirect the old URL to the new URL dynamically. That can result in thousands of redirects, but Google should handle those fine over time.

For all the pages that do not match that pattern or logic AND for sites where there is no logic (large, old, non-database driven sites), you want to manually redirect the most important pages. So make sure you have analytics installed on the previous site, way before launching the new site - this way you have the 301 redirects in place, on the most important pages, when you launch.

Then, all other pages, I typically set up a 404 page, returning a valid 404 status code, plus it is set up as a custom 404, so users who land on it, have an avenue to find the right page.

But Rae, at the Sphinn, suggests that sometimes you should think about setting up what is called a "soft" 404 page. Basically, a soft 404 page, is a page that looks like a page not found page, but returns a server status of 200, meaning, the page is valid and active and should not be deleted. The only issue I see with that, is that the URL of the page will be different but the content of the page will be very similar, if not exact, to the other soft 404 pages you set up. Of course, if you are a smart coder, you can look at the Google referrer or the old page's data and serve up contextual relevant product or content on that page, which would make the page's content more unique.

So, like I said, it totally depends on the situation.

I am sure you guys have your own thoughts.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Google Bloggers Having Sitemap File & Continued Crawling Issues?

Posted: August 12th, 2008, 3:32pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There have been reports with Google's Blogger tool and Sitemaps not working well together. A Google Groups thread notes that those submitting a Sitemap file to Google Webmaster Tools, and using Google's Blogger service, are having issues.

Many who have submitted a Sitemap notice their Sitemaps are still pending as of August 1st.

Interestingly enough, we covered a similar topic last week, which seems to be very related. Can it be the Sitemap causing the issue or something else. Why has Google stopped crawling these Blogger or Blogspot blogs?

Googler, JohnMu, replied to the thread saying they are looking into it:

I just wanted to mention that we have been looking into this. As soon as I have more information, I'll let you know. It's great to see you all using Sitemaps!

At this point in time, the Google Groups area for Blogger Help is having issues and I cannot seem to access specific threads to learn more.

Until we know what is up, I really do not know where to answer the question. I promise to keep watching and either update this post or write a new piece on this weird Google/Blogger issue.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Long Title Tags Improve Google Search Rankings?

Posted: August 11th, 2008, 3:32pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the topic of title tags. Now this title tag discussion is not a typical boring thread. In this thread, some webmasters and SEOs have been observing that longer title tags are returning higher rankings in Google, when compared to their counterparts.

The example given by the thread creator, is a generic one. Search for Ie: [blue used widgets] will more likely return a number one result with a title tag that looks like "blue used widget bla bla widget," while a number five result might be "blue used widget."

Of course, there are more factors, many more factors, that come into play in which page ranks better for a search term, then just a title tag. But there is some good discussion around this thread.

Senior member, CainIV, said:

I would agree. I am finding that prominence in the title, as well as a combination of semantics is playing a big role now. Longer titles with closely related themed works are working very well.

Do you think longer titles make an impact?

Forum discussion WebmasterWorld.

Did Google Stop Crawling Blogger Blogs on Personalized Domains?

Posted: August 7th, 2008, 3:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are threads at Google Groups and DigitalPoint Forums with multiple reports of Google not crawling Blogger hosted blogs, that are on custom or private domains (i.e. not on blogspot.com domains). Many have reported that the Googlebot crawling has stopped as of July 30th.

I asked Branko to help me see any pattern to the issue and we found a couple things. Both domains listed in the thread have similar patterns.

(1) They both have a robots.txt file that blocks a Google crawer, Mediapartners-Google. Now, we know that Google uses multiple crawlers to index content and they all work together. Branko theorized that maybe that "reduced frequency due to reducing the number of spiders that visit his site." I agree, that is a possibility.

(2) This is more striking to us, is that if you view the source code of both of the reported blogs, you will notice a widget from a script named SetSystemMarkup. I am not sure what that widget does, but in the widget, it has NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW in it. Maybe Google is misinterpreting that as a META tag? I do see that these blogs are both in the Google index, but maybe this is impacting any recent crawl activity for these sites.

I do not think this is a Blogger or Blogspot.com wide issue.

Forum discussion at Google Groups and DigitalPoint Forums.

Is Yahoo Search More Relevant Now? SEOs Claim "More Like Google"

Posted: August 6th, 2008, 3:20pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Yahoo conducted an update to their search engine over the weekend. We reported on the early discussion around the update and it then became official when the Yahoo Search Blog confirmed the update later in the day.

But since then, I have been hearing and reading discussion that the new Yahoo Search results are more like Google. And since Google tends to be the barometer of what is "relevant" and what is not, maybe Yahoo's search results are becoming more "relevant."

Yahoo Search moderator, travelin cat, at WebmasterWorld said:

We have never ranked in the top 100 results in Yahoo since their split with Google. Starting a couple of days ago, our site started showing up in Yahoo serps. Most of our kw phrases are now on either the first or second page.

Plus, we have a whole new DigitalPoint Forums thread on the topic of the Yahoo results being incredibly similar to Google results. Here is a select comment from that thread:

Did anyone noticed changes in Yahoo!' SERP today. Yahoo is following the same way as Google. Frequent change in Google SERP is kind of common now but it's new for Yahoo!. Yahoo! is changing search results very frequently now.

Not only are the results looking a bit similar, in some cases, the frequency of updates seems to be getting similar and the discussion has grown a bit around this update.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Are The Best SEOs Not Taking on Client Work?

Posted: August 5th, 2008, 3:57pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

There is an excellent paid only WebmasterWorld thread on the topic of why would the best SEOs decide to take on client work, as opposed to building out their own ideas and cashing in on those ideas. The rational is, if they are the best, why not make a living doing your own thing then making someone else rich?

This debate really is valid in most "consulting" practices. But many SEOs get a thrill from helping other companies achieve their goals. In addition, not every SEO has the entrepreneurial spirit to run their own thing. Some do both and have client work as a way to reduce financial risk.

I personally run a web development shop named RustyBrick. Sometimes clients ask me, what is stopping you from taking our idea and doing it yourself? I respond, I am in the business of building web sites and software, not in the business of running other businesses. Of course, I have built out our own software and products but at the same time, most applications and software require a whole new business to operate them. In many cases, one doesn't have the means either financially, physically or emotionally to run a separate business.

There are many reasons why an SEO might do client work. What are some of yours?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld (note, paid access required).

Google Redirects IP Specific Data Center Searches To Google.com

Posted: August 5th, 2008, 3:47pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is a world of SEOs who continually search Google to track how their keyword phrases are ranking. But they do not just search the main Google.com page, they search each and every Google data center by IP address.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that Google is now redirecting some of these searches from the IP address to Google.com. I have confirmed this to be true, by following these steps:

Go to [64.233.161.147]
Enter in search phrase and click Search
Google will redirect you to Google.com, for that search

This does not mean you can't search specific data centers. Now you need to replace www.google.com with the IP address, so in this case, http://64.233.161.147/search?q=search+engine+roundtable.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

How Do You Tell Your Client about the SEO Work You're Doing?

Posted: July 31st, 2008, 5:21pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

How does one who may sell SEO services in the future give away information without giving away too much information (and fearing that the client will run away with the proposed strategies and implement them himself/herself?)

That's a difficult situation and one I think a lot of people find themselves in. They are compelled to sell themselves by proposing a strategy but are afraid it can backfire. However, many clients who solicit the advice of SEO services are doing it because they cannot execute that detailed plan.

noel_x99 makes a great analogy that should make you feel a little bit better about providing that information:

Here's an example: We were recently at an arts festival watching an artist scultping a log with a chainsaw. Suppose that artist were to spend time with me explaining his technique and showing me how to do it - even what he was thinking when he applied his technique. Then suppose he handed me the chainsaw and told me to do it myself. I couldn't do it. Because I would lack the basic understanding of the skills of using a chainsaw. And even though he explained the technique...I couldn't do it. It's a combination art, technical ability, and experience that I don't have with a chainsaw.

That should alleviate those fears you have about giving away ideas (unless the client is well versed in this area of marketing). Most people can hear your suggestions but have no idea about how to execute. In the end, giving out more information does seem to show that you have the expertise and indicates that you're willing to help.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

What are the Most Important Search Engine Optimization Practices?

Posted: July 31st, 2008, 5:04pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Cre8asite Forums forum member asks the community about their biggest pieces of advice as it relates to search engine optimization.

What are those tips?

When you start doing SEO, write down every thing you do and monitor results closely. If you make a change, write that down too -- and continue reviewing.
If you work with clients, you may want to opt in for an NDA so that they don't "reuse any specialist codes you might be using as part of [your] strategy to work that magic."
Content creation is a full time job and SEO "is five minutes at the start and five minutes at the end." Content creation entails keyword research, articles targeting the proper keywords, using appropriate titles, and using keyword-targeted links.
Create accessible sites and follow accessibility guidelines.
Review your analytics and see what works and what doesn't.

These are just a few of the tips offered by the experts on the Crea8site Forums thread; forum discussion continues there.

Can You Be Penalized in Search Engines For Broken Web Links?

Posted: July 24th, 2008, 3:05pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Google Groups thread has discussion around a site that was hacked and because of it, now has many broken (dead) hyper links. The question then came up, would Google penalize a site that had broken links?

The simple answer is no, you generally will not be hurt by broken links. Googler, JohnMu said, "In general those broken links will not negatively affect your site's crawling, indexing and ranking."

But it really depends on many variables. In general, if you have a small number of broken links on your site, it should make no difference in your rankings at Google or any other search engine. However, if your site navigation and linking structure is in complete disarray, then you can expect your site to have major issues ranking well for your content. Does this mean your site will be "penalized?" No, not at all. But it does mean the search engines will have a rough time crawling your site and understanding your content.

Ben covered this topic back in 2005 under the title Do Search Engine Penalize for Dead Links? Yes, it still makes for a good read.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google Sitemaps URLs Have "High Response Time" Message

Posted: July 24th, 2008, 2:50pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google seems to have been adding new alerts or messages sent via the Google Message Center in Webmaster Tools. We saw an alert for high bandwidth access rates and now I am seeing reports of messages warning of "high response times" within your Sitemaps. The message reads:

Subject: "Some URLs in the Sitemap have a high response time."

Description: "Some URLs listed in this Sitemap have a high response time. This may indicate a problem with your server or with the content of the page."

In these reports, Google may tell you the average load time they see on your site. For example, a WebmasterWorld member said he was told he has an "average load time is about 1.1 seconds. The one page the singled out seems to take about 2.0 seconds to load." So, it seems that Google will list out the URLs that load slowly and give you a time associated with the load. I do not have screen shots of this in action.

I did find a confirmation from Googler, JohnMu, at a Google Groups thread from about a month ago. John said,

You might want to check your crawl rate graphs to see if you can spot any periods of high latency. We moved them to the "Statistics" section, under "Crawl stats." If you feel that we're crawling your site too quickly, you could set the crawl rate to "Slower" instead of "Normal."

This some what implies that Google is noticing a slow response time from the site and Google actually recommends, in some cases, that Googlebot might be causing the site to load slow. So he recommends that you slow down your crawl within webmaster tools, the set crawl rate feature.

Google Web Search Page Load Time Factor
It is interesting that this seems to be a fairly recent error message from Google. The interesting part is, I believe, that it was released about the same time Google AdWords released page load time factor into the quality score. Could Google be using the same metrics for this statistic on both Google AdWords and Web Search? Possibly.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google's Cache Database Back On Track?

Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 2:59pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread had reports that Google had all old cache dates for most sites on the web. By old, I mean, the last time Google said they "retrieved" the site was on the 15th or 16th and it was already the 22nd before Google showed new cache dates.

Here is a screen capture of what the cache date looked like on many sites:

Google is known for having fairly frequent cache dates and crawling patterns on most sites, even sites that do not update all that frequently.

Last night, senior member Atomic noticed Google started to update the cache dates with fresher dates. But until then, Webmasters were really worried. One even joked, "maybe they've ran out of room."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

More Inappropriate Images Popping Up in Google Web Search

Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 2:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Conduct a search for educating in Google and you will see an image of a teacher standing over a student holding a small rod, with the student's pants down leaning over a desk. This is not what one would expect to be seen for a search on educating. At least, I would not want to see this for a search like that and I would not want your kids to see it.

Clearly I find this image 'clean' enough to post here in small format

Now this is far from the first time Google placed images that might not be appropriate on the ordinary Google web search results. This is by far not even close to the most inappropriate image I have seen come up. But Google added a report images feature, so I decided to test it out.

When I first spotted this image for this search result, via DigitalPoint Forums, I immediately used the "report image" feature. That was just about three days ago. So when I decided to check the status of this report, I was a bit upset to see the image still there. I was hoping it would be gone after reporting it 3 days ago!

This is the only reason I am blogging it, to document it can take more than 3 days for an image to be pulled. I assume if Google received hundreds of reports then they would act faster. I wonder what that threshold is?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Can a META Description Kill Your Rankings?

Posted: July 18th, 2008, 4:40pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A WebmasterWorld member says that when he changed his meta description, his rankings plummeted on his site.

In the past, US courts found META tags immaterial but Google has recommended it. Tedster points to previous WebmasterWorld coverage that shows that there are "indirect ranking effects from the meta description, including lower clickthrough rates that can cause a decent ranking to fall away if the url doesn't perform." Barry agrees as well.

Is Google using clickthroughs as a ranking method? Forum members are not entirely sure, but one points out that Wikipedia has no meta description -- which may count for something (avoiding that lower CTR, perhaps?)

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Search Engine Optimization: You Don't Know it All

Posted: July 17th, 2008, 4:26pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

I've personally found a number of people who consider that because SEO seems like "optimizing title tags, doing keyword research, and adding a little extra to a website," they can be search engine optimizers too. In the past few weeks, I stumbled across two very problematic websites from so-called "SEOs" who offer nothing but spammy services.

The problem is that they think they're 100% right. And that's a discussion that High Rankings Forums members are talking about right now.

There are so many clueless individuals in this industry. But they're likely not even reading this post or so many other posts like this that are aimed to educate. In the meantime, the issue on High Rankings Forums is that a particular SEO (who doesn't code) gave a developer a specific set of guidelines to build up a website for a client. Only after the website was live did the member realize that the developer stuffed rows of hidden keywords on the bottom of the page. When the forum member approached the developer, he got flustered and said that the page would be doomed without it.

The "know it all" approach is the kind of attitude our industry could do without. Unfortunately, it's very widespread. Further, unfortunately, it's also something that many innocent clients are easily conned with (and it gives the whole term "search engine optimization" that "snake oil" distinction).

Does that mean you shouldn't ever show your ego when you work with your clients? According to forum member qwerty, you do need it -- to educate the client, especially if the client doesn't possess the common sense and can't figure it out

But is this really different from any other industry? You can step into your local electronics store and some salesperson can tell you that your decision to buy that phone is a bad one, because "this one is just so much better." These things happen. It's not specific to our industry.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

More Yahoo Search Changes in July? Oh, Also Google

Posted: July 17th, 2008, 3:27pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Let me take you back a few steps before getting into this update. On June 30th, Yahoo announced an update that did not update any of the search results around that date. Several days later, around July 7th, webmasters began to notice a July Yahoo update. Now, I am seeing early reports of an additional Yahoo update.

The reports come from WebmasterWorld yesterday, saying that in the real estate niche, "80% of the sites" are no longer in the same position they were the day before. They have been replaced by "gov and org or small old sites," said WebmasterWorld member Garya.

Member, supafresh supported Garya's post by saying:

Yahoo changed today in my sector, we moved from the 3rd page to the first page. From my analysis a few days prior I think they tweaked the algorithm on template recognition.

Did you notice a change in Yahoo in the past twenty-four hours?

On the Google front, we continue to see yo-yoing, even today.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The Google Keyword Tool is Useless for SEO, and Here's Why

Posted: July 16th, 2008, 5:10pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Michael VanDeMar wrote an interesting post on his blog about the uselessness of the Google Keyword tool for SEO. He explains that while we reported that the tool is showing keyword numbers, it still isn't helpful. His rationale is that the numbers refer to PPC search behavior only, not overall Google.com search behavior, and then he explains how past research has given him this perception. He writes:

For instance, for [birthday poems] the tool gave a number of 27,100 (which would be an average of 903 searches per day) and bidding on that keyword for 3 days gave me 2,411 impressions (or 803 impressions per day). This is fine and dandy if I am only concerned about getting traffic from AdWords, of course. The thing is, if I rely on this data for my SEO efforts I will at best be most likely wasting my time.

Interesting analysis. Jill Whalen admits that the numbers seem rather high but it now makes sense because they use the content network in their numbers.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Google Continues to Yo-Yo the Search Results

Posted: July 16th, 2008, 2:51pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Part two of the WebmasterWorld thread on the July 2008 Google update discussion is virtually all about how Google is yo-yoing the results. Meaning, one day a site can have top positions for a keyword phrase in Google, the next day it would drop off and then it would come back. This yo-yoing continues to cycle back and forth according to many many webmasters.

WebmasterWorld administrator, tedster, has confirmed the issues himself:

The most perplexing new SERP observations are those that report cycling, sine waves, yo-yo, rollercoaster, or pick your favorite synonym. Sometimes these cycles happen down in the deep results pages after a url has dropped from page 1 - an apparent penalty. And sometimes the cycling appears on page one - from 3 to 10 to 3 to 10, day after day or week after week.
I don't have a site under my auspices that is showing this effect, but I've been asked to look at few that are - and so far, I can say that the phenomenon is real, but am mystified by it. I felt this way when the -950 first appeared back in 2006 or so, and slowly some understanding of that has emerged. Sure hope we can get some understanding about the yo-yo phenomenon, too.

Scanning through the reports myself, all show that this is more than the typical complaints you see from webmasters and SEOs on Google's fluctuations. It seems to be more extreme and more frequent then in the past. Tedster coins it well:

That name we use - organic rankings - is proving to be more and more accurate.

This leads me back to why I purchased Yo-Yos as schwag for the Search Engine Roundtable. I said back in early 2005, "Since the SEO world is filled with such ups and downs, we thought it would be clever to give out yo-yos. Then we added the glowing aspect to the yo-yo to make it "pulse" a bit." That still applies today, but it seems even more so. Heck, if you want a free Yahoo, send me a 6"x9" cushioned envelop with postage and your mailing address on it and I'll send you one. You can mail it to my office, attention Barry Schwartz.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Duplicate Sitemaps Should Not Cause a Problem with Google

Posted: July 16th, 2008, 2:35pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread asks if having two Sitemaps for the same site will cause an issue with Google. In short, Google said no.

Why does this site have two Sitemaps? Well, the only way for multiple Google Accounts to gain access to the Webmaster Tools verified access to a particular site, is for Google to verify both sites with unique verification codes. In each of those verified accounts, the account holder does have access to upload a Sitemap. In addition, one account holder can upload more than one Sitemap.

In any event, Google does not frown upon multiple and duplicate Sitemap submissions. Google said, they can sort it out for you. The main question is, do you want Google to sort it out for you or do you want to sort it out for Google?

Googler, Jonathan Simon, said:

Having separate Sitemaps with similar URLs for each site owner is not a problem. The Sitemaps system will properly handle any duplicate URLs found within the same Sitemap or across multiple Sitemaps.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Huge Drop in Google Traffic? Can't Find The Problem? Check Your Links

Posted: July 15th, 2008, 3:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Recently I have been reading and hearing a lot of webmasters complain about a huge drop in their Google traffic. There are just too many threads to reference, so I thought I reference one valuable post by JohnMu of Google.

John said in response to why a site lost virtually all of their traffic, in a Google Groups thread:

Looking at your site, it might be that one issue could be that links pointing to parts of your site are not valued in the same way that they used to be.

This is a guy who has exhausted looking at coding issues, all on-page SEO issues, crawling issues, indexing issues and so on. Google then came in to tell him, you know all those links you have - well, they may be the cause for your site not being ranked well in the Google search engine.

The question you get from such a response from Google is two fold:

(1) Is this a link penalty? If the webmaster can somehow drop those links, will you see an immediate recovery in rank?

(2) Are the links just devalued? If so, then if the links don't count, should the webmaster just focus on getting better quality links and not worry about those "bad" links?

We know Google has said time and time again that links can't hurt you but most SEO's don't believe it.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Yahoo Site Command Works Without Applying [site:]?

Posted: July 15th, 2008, 2:54pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

I am not sure if this is new but it seems if you search in Yahoo for www.domain.com, Yahoo will return results as if you submitted a site command to Yahoo. For example, a search on www.seroundtable.com returns about 18,800, only from seroundtable.com.

If you conduct a true site command at Yahoo Search, i.e. site:www.seroundtable.com, Yahoo will automatically redirect you to Yahoo Site Explorer. Yahoo actually started redirecting these types of queries to Site Explorer almost exactly two years ago, today.

Has Yahoo decided using a simple www.domain.com syntax should stay on Yahoo Search and not be redirected to Site Explorer? Has Yahoo always returned a site command like result set for www.domain.com searches? I know Google does not return site command like results for a www.domain.com search.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

How Google Tells Us They Rank Results

Posted: July 10th, 2008, 4:27pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

On the Official Google Blog, Amit Singhal wrote about the Google Ranking. Rankings are broken down into three core parts, explains Singhal. First, the best relevant results are provided in what Google calls "no query left behind." Second, Google likes to keep it simple without compromising quality. Finally, Singhal says that there's no manual intervention. The rankings are powered by algorithms that weigh the behavior and linking patterns of people.

The ranking discussion has moved over to WebmasterWorld where one of Singhal's statements stood out at a reader. In response to the "no query left behind" principle," Singhal acknowledges that there may be "less than ideal results for any query" and that Google uses the knowledge of these results for future improvements.

The question that forum members have is "what are less than ideal results?" How does Google know what is and isn't ideal? One forum member speculates that user data may be involved in this. If a user doesn't click on the result at all, that may be an indicator that the result isn't ideal (on the other hand, their curiosity might be piqued and they might click anyway). It's also possible that Google's human evaluators look at the SERP results to find any anomalies.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Do Google Sitelinks Influence Your Search Rankings?

Posted: July 10th, 2008, 2:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google's sitelinks, which we have covered extensively are the little links you see under a search result in Google, typically between 4 and 8 sub-links. Here is a picture of our Sitelinks:

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion about the importance of Sitelinks. Here are the key points:

Sitelinks do not directly influence your search rankings
Sitelinks can be removed but not changed via Webmaster Tools
Sitelinks appear to be constructed based on your site architecture, as Google understands it
Sitelinks can strongly influence your click-through rate on your search result listing
Sitelinks, when removed, can be gone as long as a year or more

Those are some of the key points I pulled from that thread. Getting deeper into the ranking component. Although removing a Sitelink should not impact your search rankings, you need to understand that Google gives you your Sitelinks based on how they understand your site. So if you see a Sitelink that doesn't make sense, then maybe you need to think about your site navigation.

The WebmasterWorld talks in general terms, but this webmaster also posted a thread at Google Groups, which has specifics. In this case, the webmaster had "Fiber Optic Lights" as his Sitelink, but then Google changed it to "Optic Lights." The change happened around June 26th and he noticed a big drop in search traffic for "Fiber Optic Lights" but a spike in traffic for "Optic Lights." This clearly implies that Sitelinks are somewhat important, but yet - you need to understand that the Sitelink represents what Google understands about your site. Removing a Sitelink won't necessarily change the way Google sees your site.

In fact, in the Google Groups, Googler, Jonathan Simon said, "we don't take action on Sitelinks feedback for a specific site." He said that in the context of having a Sitelink changed, but it also may prove to be evidence of the above.

In summary, Sitelinks do not have a direct impact on rankings. They may increase your click-through rate on your search results. They do have a reverse affect, i.e. because Google feels you deserve a sitelink for a particular phrase, Google clearly thinks that page is relevant for that phrase, so you may rank well for that phrase - but that is the chicken before the egg scenario. :)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Groups.

Do Meta Descriptions Help You Rank Higher in Google?

Posted: July 9th, 2008, 3:09pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the META description. There is no doubt that most search engines look and use the META description on some level. Google and Yahoo and Live Search may use it for your search results snippet, the text under your site's listing in the search results (illustrated here). But does that META description actually have an impact on how well your page will rank in Google for a specific keyword phrase?

Most people say no, the META description will have no direct impact on you ranking higher for a keyword phrase. I honestly do not know the actual value in the META description's power to help you rank better.

While there may not be a direct impact in ranking improvements, as g1smd said at the thread, it does "give the appearance of a ranking increase." How so? Well, one thing the meta description will do for you is help ensure you pages don't look like they are all the same page (i.e. supplemental index) when doing a site command search. More on that over here.

Google also recommends using the META description on your pages.

But does it impact your rankings directly? Hard to say.

Google has a whole section in Google Webmaster Tools, under content analysis for "Short meta descriptions." In that section, Google says the "Meta description information can give users a clear idea of your site's content and encourage users to click on your site in the search results pages." Google then links to more information at this page.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Collecting Incorrect URLs In Duplicate Title Tags Section

Posted: July 8th, 2008, 3:02pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting either a somewhat widespread glitch in Google Webmaster Tools or some sites that are having issues. I am personally able to validate the issues, so let me show them to you.

I logged into Google Webmaster Tools, clicked on "Diagnostics" and then on "Content analysis" and then selected the "Duplicate title tags" report. I then clicked on the plus sign on one of those results, specifically a conference coverage session that we covered at least three times under the same title. Here it is:

So, they all show different URLs, i.e. /archives/000161.html‎, ‎/archives/001078.html‎ and ‎/archives/013900.html‎, but when you click on any of them, they all go to the /archives/000161.html‎ version. So, I took a peak behind the HTML in webmaster tools to see, yes, Google is indeed linking every page to the first URL.

<a href='http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000161.html' target='_blank'>‎/archives/000161.html‎</a>
<a href='http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000161.html' target='_blank'>‎/archives/001078.html‎</a>
<a href='http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000161.html' target='_blank'>‎/archives/013900.html‎</a>

But why? Is this a bug or does Google really take the liberty to redirect them as duplicate pages to the first page? No!

A search for Search Term Research & Targeting returns two results at the top from the Search Engine Roundtable. Here is a screen capture:

Notice, the /archives/000161.html‎ version isn't even listed in this version. If I expand the results, to show all results from the Search Engine Roundtable, then it will show a total of four results (not three) and it will include the /archives/000161.html‎ result.

So, it seems like a reporting issue in Google Webmaster Tools and I would not worry that your site has major issues.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Insights Into Yahoo Search From Interview With Priyank Garg

Posted: July 8th, 2008, 2:53pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Eric Enge Interviews Yahoo's Priyank Garg has an extremely detailed and educational interview with Yahoo's director of product management for Yahoo! Search Technology. Priyank Garg is a great guy - I have known him for the past couple years at least and as you can tell from this interview, he was very forthcoming with information.

We have two forums dissecting the interview, one at WebmasterWorld and the other at Cre8asite Forums. I'll isolate the main discussions around this interview in bullet format:

Footer (bottom page links) may not be used for ranking purposes, but will be used for crawling and discovery
Yahoo uses both human and algorithmic approaches to detect spam and fight spam
Some spammy sites will still be included in the index but won't rank well, outside of navigational queries (like searching for the site's name)
Yahoo doesn't automatically discount paid links
Links in quantity are less important these days

Those are just some of the interpretations of the interview. It is worth reading in its entirety.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Cre8asite Forums.

The Impact of Punctuation in Keywords on Google Results

Posted: July 7th, 2008, 4:04pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Receptional Andy at WebmasterWorld has shared a great guide with us about how punctuation impacts search results in Google. For example, key|word is like a boolean operator and tells Google that you're looking to search for either "key" or "word." On the other hand, a word like key~word triggers the Google related: search and gives you both "key" and "word" but also similar search results.

There are a plethora of different results that you can find by using a variety of punctuation in your searches, and it's very interesting to see how Google weighs them all. Andy goes into the different types of keywords, such as key-word, key"word, key*word, and others.

I won't detract from the brilliance of that thread, so head on over to the WebmasteWorld thread for the additional tidbits and the results of Andy's research.

Documenting Your SEO Changes Historically

Posted: July 7th, 2008, 2:47pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

I think it is about time I revisit a post I wrote in 2006 named In SEO, What Changes Should You Track. We have a new thread over at Cre8asite Forums talking about what logs you should keep when making changes to your site, for the purposes of SEO.

Most of you know, I am a strong believer of using an automated method of documentation. By building in a required workflow, you can also build automated tracking systems to document any change made to the web site or link building activities, so that you can report back in time on those changes. Most development environments have something like CVS (Concurrent Versions System), which tracks all file changes automatically. But this is only good for file changes, it does not cover everything. So, if possible, you need to build out your own workflow for documenting what you do on a daily-basis.

Back in our original post, we said you should track the following:

every change to robots.txt (CVS can handle this)
every change to htaccess (or Internet Services Manager in IIS)
site-wide template changes (especially menu changes) (CVS can handle this)
DNS and hosting changes
new outbound links
ad purchases and run-times
Server updates (especially reboots or outages)
Config files
Firewall block list

Based on this new thread, let's expand this list to include:

Google AdSense changes (placement, targeting, etc.)
Track your rankings at various engines

But the thread here really talks about what tools are used to track these changes. While some use the old fashion pencil and paper, many are using spreadsheets, versioning systems, file archiving, and some are even using custom systems - like I described above.

In my opinion, there is nothing better then building out a custom system to aid your employees in doing their job, at the same time, it builds in a certain level of quality assurance. Not only that, it gives you the data you need to theorize why certain changes impacted certain ranking fluctuations. Finally, and probably just as important, it gives your clients (if you offer SEO services) a method of seeing your deliverables.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Back on The First Anchor Text Counting

Posted: July 7th, 2008, 2:45pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I really enjoy threads that get into the details of such small details, which in reality, can have a huge impact on your SEO efforts. The topic is which anchor text counts, the first found on the page, all found on the page or some found on the page. We covered the topic twice in the past:

In short, if you have two identical links found on the same page. The first link uses anchor text A and the second link uses anchor text B, some are of the opinion that only the first link's anchor text (anchor text A) will be used by Google.

Branko, aka the SEO Scientist (who I have great respect for), rebunked the topic, claiming that based on his tests, Google does in fact only use the first anchor text for that link on a page.

His study can be summarized by these illustrations. In short he tested placing a pair of anchor text pointing to the same URL, but using different anchor text, on the same page. An by flipping the position of the anchor texts, it also flipped how Google ranked that page that was being linked to. Here are those illustrations:

So, is this rebunked? :) How about Branko's nofollow theory. I.e slapping on the nofollow seems to have no effect on the above. Is that a time thing as Michael VanDeMar said or not?

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Yahoo Search Begins To Update

Posted: July 7th, 2008, 2:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

When Yahoo Search announced the update on June 30th, it went very unnoticed, as if there was no update. But things have changed over the holiday weekend.

Starting on Friday, July 4th, in the morning, some webmasters began reporting fluctuations in Yahoo. Some are saying that more "anchor text" is making an impact. We do not have much discussion around the specific changes, only that people are actually noticing changes in the search results.

One member at WebmasterWorld said:

I lost 40 percent of my YH traffic two days ago and pages per visit plummeted to 1.2 for the remaining traffic.

If you have seen changes, join the discussion. Typically, with Yahoo Search results changes - things fluctuate and then they go back to a similar state they once were. In other words, we have seen many rollbacks from Yahoo.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Search Engine Optimization Plagiarism Runs Rampant on Blogs

Posted: July 4th, 2008, 4:47pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Jill Whalen (whose birthday is today -- wish her a happy one!) wrote a very logical article at High Rankings about the problem of SEO plagiarism. She explains that numerous not-so-established SEO types are regurgitating a lot of articles online and just switching up a few words, probably so that they can look smart. It's not so much the same as copyright infringement because of the fact that it's not a word-for-word regurgitation; instead, content is made to look original by making a few edits and calling it a day.

Jill ends her post by saying that the people who will succeed at writing articles (in the SEO world, but this is really true for any discipline) are those who can think for themselves and put their own original thoughts into writing. It's not about finding news somewhere else and then saying, "Oh, I can write this too and have my friends vote upon my content on Sphinn," which she alludes to in the article. (A few people have done that in the past.)

Jill is not sure whether to fault the education system for this behavior, but High Rankings Forums member Orpheus Descending actually does feel that this has something to do with lack of education in some areas. She explains that when working with students in a college level, 30% of a class of 70 were caught plagiarizing, and it was because they didn't know better. The internet makes it easier to do but not to think. And most of these people are ignorant.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum and Sphinn.

Google Says Blocking Countries Outside of the US is Against Policies

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 2:40pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread has a webmaster who has been receiving a lot of rogue spider attacks from the Africa region. He wants to go as far as ban the whole continent of Africa. But he is concerned that by doing so, he will also hurt his Google rankings.

It is actually not all that uncommon for network administrators to block specific regions of web traffic. In fact, I believe my office blocks the Asia and Africa regions from entering our network (not this site, but my office network). We pretty much banned that whole region, because we have no reason to allow those regions in (in most cases, but things have come up).

Would blocking the whole Africa hurt this guys search rankings in Google?

Googler, JohnMu, stepped in to say that by blocking an entire region, it would "be considered cloaking" and would be against Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Got that, if you block specific regions of traffic, like everyone outside of the US, that is cloaking and against Google's guidelines.

Do I agree with this policy? In many cases, no. If your site is local in nature and having visitors from outside a specific region doesn't make sense for your bandwidth bill, then it is up to the site owner to make that call. Of course, there may be users outside of a specific region that are your target audience, but in many cases people take the route of percentages and are willing to have some collateral damage.

John does give some excellent advice, advice that is not as easy as blocking a whole region via the Router but good advice in any event. He said, instead you should "add blocks based on the user's activity, not based on his location." Of course, then you need to build algorithms and software that detects certain activities and blocks them based on that activity. More tips on that type of detection here.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

How Can You Determine the Competency of an SEO?

Posted: July 1st, 2008, 4:35pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

The Google Webmaster Central blog announced that they recently rewrote an article about whether Google recommends SEOs. To summarize, the article says that there are benefits, but there are also things you should look out for in an SEO and in your selection of one. For example, when choosing an SEO, you might want to ask some questions:

Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
Do you offer any online marketing services to complement your organic search business?
What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?
What's your experience in my industry?
How long have you been in business?

They also added a piece of advice that WebmasterWorld administrator tedster appreciated:

If you're thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you're considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and Google Groups

Google & Yahoo Begins to Index Some Flash Files (SWF Files)

Posted: July 1st, 2008, 2:57pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

The news that Adobe announced that Google and Yahoo are indexing SWF Flash files has overtaken the front page of Techmeme this morning. It is also the dominate discussion in all the major search forums.

In any event, Google and Yahoo is now able to crawl the textual elements within SWF files, including discovering links within those SWF files. The Google Webmaster Central blog discusses the details but here are the takeaways as I see it:

They will crawl SWF files
Only the textual components will be crawled
FLV files are not crawlable
If your Flash files are generated by JavaScript, you need to be careful because Google might not execute the JavaScript
Google may index the external files your Flash file calls and won't associate them to the Flash files
Google has issues with some languages in Flash files, specifically Hebrew language or Arabic languages

Vanessa Fox at Search Engine Land has a really good write up as well on the news.

Forum discussion at:

Flash to be made visible by search engines., WebmasterWorld
Adobe Help Ses Index Flash, HighRankings Forums
Google Announces Improved Flash indexing, Sphinn
Google Now Crawling and Indexing Flash Content, Sphinn
Google Now Crawling and Indexing Flash Content, Digg
Google's New Flash indexing algorithm, DigitalPoint Forums
Improved Flash Indexing for Google (and Yahoo), WebmasterWorld
New Google Algorithm For Flash, Cre8asite Forums

Yahoo's June Search Update Goes Unnoticed, For Now

Posted: July 1st, 2008, 2:35pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Yahoo has announced yet another Yahoo Search index update. Yahoo notified us that we "may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index." But as of this morning, no SEO has noticed any significant changes with their rankings.

In fact, there isn't much discussion around the Yahoo Search engine at all, right now. We have a WebmasterWorld thread discussing the announcement, but all posts in that thread say no one noticed anything. We also have a Plurk thread where I asked if any one cares about the announcement, and the consensus is, no. No one cares.

The last Yahoo update was about a month ago, where the changes were very subtle to say the least. Yahoo typically conducts monthly search index updates and you can see all our coverage on those in the Yahoo SEO category at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Plurk.

Is Google Crawling Absolute Paths?

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 5:26pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

We've repeatedly recommended Google Webmaster Tools to help you assess problems with your website. It can help you figure out if you're having some problems somewhere and then you can get to the bottom of them. In a specific example, a Cre8asite Forums member is finding that Google is crawling absolute paths, such as http://domain.com/var/www/html/page.php and /home/public_html/admin.html, which shouldn't ever happen. Is it a problem with Google, or is there a structural issue with the site that the webmaster is not aware of?

It's likely that the problem is not Google, in this case. Somewhere, somehow, there's probably a link there that Google found because it was referred to on your site. Use a tool like Xenu Link Sleuth to figure out where it's located, as many forum members recommend.

In this case, it was a broken link -- and no, Google does not crawl the pages as JohnMu mentions:

At any rate, we can't view your servers file-system (at least not if it's configured correctly), so even if we happen to stumble upon a URL like that, your error page should keep us from worrying too much about it (make sure it returns 404).

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Is there a Minimum Number of Pages Required for Decent Organic Rankings?

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 4:55pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

While SEO becomes more and more important, people try to find angles that they can exploit or take advantage of so that they can achieve good rankings. In one specific instance, High Rankings forum post asks if there's a minimum number of pages that need to be targeted to achieve decent rankings.

It's important to note that in general, a site as a whole is collectively not ranked. Each page ranks individually. Therefore, you need as many pages as possible to say what you need to say in a manner that is understandable by your visitors.

Of course, this means doing keyword research and then writing content in such a way that benefits the visitors in as many pages (or as few pages) as possible. There's no set number.

But what about theming? Does Google look at similar pages and throw a site in a single category? It's an ongoing debate, where some people say that Google does this, while others say that they don't.

In general, it's agreed upon by all to perform diligent keyword research and to write from the start with keyword phrases in mind.

Forum discussion continues at .

Some Webmasters Are Banning Yahoo Slurp

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 2:35pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

It seems like some webmasters are becoming fed up with the activity of Yahoo's crawl, Yahoo Slurp, relative to the amount of traffic Yahoo Search is sending the web site. In fact, some webmasters have taken the plunge and banned Yahoo from crawling their sites.

It is funny, because some webmasters were or are afraid to ban Yahoo because they think it might have some sort of impact on their Google results. One such webmaster got over it and decided to ban Yahoo despite his fears.

There is a thread at WebmasterWorld discussing the pros and cons. Some also wonder that will banning Yahoo have a negative impact on the Yahoo SearchScan & McCafee partnership and might have your site marked as harmful? I doubt it.

If you want to block Yahoo Slurp, learn how to at this page.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Moving to a U.S Hosted Server: Will it Impact Country Specific SEO?

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 2:25pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread asks how much of an impact will a site see if it is moved from a Dubai host to a USA based host? The answer is not really all that known.

This webmaster's main concern is that he receives "80% of traffic from UAE and have lots of content and back links related to UAE." He wants to continue to receive higher rankings in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) regions. He is concerned that by moving his site to a host in the US, it will drop his rankings for searches conducted in the United Arab Emirates region.

Senior member, wheel, said that when he moved a site from one country into the US, he said Google has yet to pick up on that change. He said, he had a "heck of a time getting Google to realize it was a US site." Wheel explained that the site still comes up for "country specific searches" in the old region.

The overall recommendation is that the webmaster continue to obtain links from the UAE region. Plus, if possible, specific in Google Webmaster Tools that the site is specific towards that UAE region. But before doing that, Tedster warns, specifying the region in Webmaster Tools may result in you "forfeiting a lot of international traffic."

I'll track this thread and write a new post based on the results seen by this specific webmaster.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Why Did Google Tells Us They May Use Cookies To Prevent Spam?

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 2:11pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Matt Cutts, of Google, posted a blog post at the official Google Blog named Using data to fight webspam. In that post, he describes how the web spam team uses log data, IP addresses, and cookie information to help prevent search spam. The question in the forums is why? Why is Google handing over this information?

Let me quote a snippet from Matt's post:

The IP and cookie information is important for helping us apply this method only to searches that are from legitimate users as opposed to those that were generated by bots and other false searches. For example, if a bot sends the same queries to Google over and over again, those queries should really be discarded before we measure how much spam our users see. All of this--log data, IP addresses, and cookie information--makes your search results cleaner and more relevant.

David Naylor takes issue with that, in that you can also seem to spoof this information. Dave asks why would Google come out with this information?

In addition, a WebmasterWorld thread asks the same thing. WebmasterWorld administrator, tedster asked, "I do wonder why it was published at this particular moment (I'm always looking for that hidden motive these days) but I do appreciate the look behind the scenes that he gives."

We do know that Google promised to be more open about the inner workings of how the search algorithm works, on some level. You have to admit that Google would not give over information that would harm the quality of the search results. I believe, for the most part, all Google is saying here is that they use log data that is available to them to simply see if they are improving in search quality or not. They can analyze various queries, and see if user behavior on those queries have changes for the better or worse over the course of releasing new spam prevention methods. Matt clearly shows how they can use log data to see when a spam injection in Google has started, which helps Google fight back as well.

All in all, I really don't think that Google is telling us something we did not suspect. Google continuously says they are a data driven company. To use log data, IP addresses, and cookie information in an effort to fight spam really doesn't surprise most SEOs. I know there are many questions still, so I leave it open. Why did Google post this information? Why now?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.

Google Sitemaps New Error: "Dynamic Content"

Posted: June 25th, 2008, 2:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Several webmasters are noticing new errors found in their Google Webmaster Tools Sitemaps error diagnostic section. The new error is:

All the URLs in your Sitemap are marked as having dynamic content.

We have threads at WebmasterWorld and Google Groups on the new error.

No one knows exactly what makes this error spring up. We do not have a response from a Googler on this error, at least not yet.

Google Groups member, Phil Payne, has a nice theory:

As an aside - Google thought this scheme up and defined 'always' all by its little self. So - assuming they meant to do it all along - the only meaning of "Because dynamic content is difficult for search engines to crawl and index, this may impact your site's performance in search results" that makes sense is the implication that putting incorrect information in a sitemap might result in some sort of penalty.

So it's becoming more important to make sure that a sitemap truly reflects the site - most of the sitemap generators need a fundamental redesign.

I will keep watching and let you know when Google does respond.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Groups.

Google Prefers Alt Attribute in Images

Posted: June 25th, 2008, 2:40pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

If you had to pick between using an Alt attribute in your images versus a Title attribute in your images, I would go with an Alt attribute. The alt attribute is basically "alternate text" for your image, it is used to describe the image. For example, an image tag for a boat might look like this:

<img src="boat.gif" alt="Big Boat">

In a Google Groups thread, Googler, Reid said that Google "concentrates on the information provided in the alt attribute." He did not say that the title attribute is not used, in fact, he said that the title attribute can "complement" the alt attribute. But Reid does make an effort to say that Google "concentrates" on the alt attribute when it comes to pictures.

In addition, Reid links to Using ALT attributes smartly by Matt Cutts at Google Webmaster Central Blog. Here is Matt's video on the ALT attribute:

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Matt Cutts Talks to USA Today About Google Optimization Techniques

Posted: June 24th, 2008, 4:51pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Yesterday, USA Today published an interview with Google's Matt Cutts about how webmasters can optimize their sites for Google. In the article, Matt provides five tips on improving visibility. They are:

Figure out what people are searching for and put those search phrases on the page.
Ensure that your title tag, at the minimum, is not generic. (The article also mentions meta description tags so that the search will return a descriptive snippet in the SERPs.)
Get other sites to link back to you, because the more authoritative links you have, the more popular you are.
Create a blog and post often so that you have a regular flow of content.
Use free tools available to you. Google's Webmaster Central Tools is one. Google Local is another.

In the article, Matt also advises against keyword stuffing and says that sites like Digg and StumbleUpon can give bloggers the right inspiration to get started with their blog. And Matt adds as a final note that you don't have to advertise to get to the top of the SERPs.

This is definitely a good primer to some basic SEO for those who read USA Today and have no clue about search engine optimization. However, one member notes as a disclaimer that it would have been helpful if the writer of the article mentioned that there's no guarantee that you'll rank on the top after following all of these tactics. It helps, but you still may not be on page 1.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld

Porn Continues to Invade Google Web Search Through Universal Search

Posted: June 24th, 2008, 2:14pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I continue to report porn on Google over here, at Search Engine Land, via email to Googlers, via Twitter and Plurk and so on. But it seems that this is a battle Google is not winning. Why is this such an issue, because if a kid searches on his or her new bathroom, he or she may see this result:

I blocked out parts of the image for obvious reasons. But this is an issue that I see prop up time and time again, since Google began adding images to search results.

But now Google has added a "report images" link, it looks like this:

So I clicked it and was shown this:

I clicked "Confirm" and was offered a thank you:

It is nice to see Google adding that method of reporting offensive images but it might be a bit too late now?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Is Negative SEO Still Possible?

Posted: June 23rd, 2008, 5:51pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Last year, we looked at the impacts, if any, of negative SEO on websites, a discussion which arose from a Forbes article on the saboteurs of search. One year later, we're still discussing the consequences and seeing if negative SEO is still possible. In a WebmasterWorld thread, we learn that there are still ways to sabotage websites and rankings, from hijacking competitor's DNS to doing it to yourself by killing your URL structure. Now, though, there's more with new technologies and new concerns about sabotage, from cloaked sabotage to reputation sabotage. There's also the concern of parasite hosting and embedding hidden links.

As one webmaster says, you need to be the one who protects your site, because Google isn't necessarily reliable in that regard. (After all, Google is tracking billions of pages.) However, not many people know how to protect their own websites.

Tedster recommends that you can look into a variety of these problems by changing the user agent, disabling cookies, turning off meta refreshes, etc.

But how does it happen? As Receptional Andy says:

A lot of SEO sabotage attempts involve trying to trick Google into thinking that a site should be penalised and does not meet guidelines. That can be by directly modifying the site (through legitimate mechanisms to do so, or by finding vulnerabilities and exploiting them) and by modifying or setting up external references to a site.

You may think it won't happen to you, but don't be overly confident. Take a read and follow up with the discussion on WebmasterWorld.

What is Acceptable Hidden Flash Content?

Posted: June 20th, 2008, 4:19pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread requests clear guidelines from Google about acceptable hidden flash content. In some cases, people are very adamant about focusing on dynamic content but don't want to sacrifice indexability. He employed a tactic that displayed content in the Flex application where a mixture of PHP and dynamic deep linking is utilized, but got deindexed as a result. He thinks it's a penalty.

Others suggest that it isn't -- it's a technical limitation because spiders cannot understand everything behind Flash content. The solution is to provide an equivalent spiderable HTML page.

Most disagree that he was penalized -- unless his tactics were spammy or questionable. In fact, Google's Bergy comes in and clarifies.

Using Flash is not in itself a violation of the Webmaster Guidelines, and we do not penalize sites simply for using Flash.

Further, Bergy clarifies the difficulty of Flash versus textual content.

I know that the tendency to build sites around Flash isn't a new trend, and we both understand that Flash is very different from HTML; HTML was designed to describe static text and images, whereas Flash was designed to describe vector-based graphics with interactive multimedia content. However, keyword indexation, the process that lets search engines be so darn fast, only makes sense for textual content.

I think this goes to show that the important thing is that if your site is detailed in Flash, you better have the same amount of detail in HTML content so that the spiders can get to your page -- and index it -- without any problems.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Can Quality Sites Be Google Bowled & Hurt in Google's Search Results?

Posted: June 20th, 2008, 3:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread asks if there is a way to prevent Google Bowling. Google Bowling is known as a method of using links to hurt your competitors. While Google still denies it, most SEOs believe this is possible can this be prevented?

In the thread, Tedster said:

There is one thing that protects a website against Google Bowling - a solid backlink profile of its own. The more your "real" quality backlinks grow, the less anyone else's malicious actions can affect it.

Can you Google Bowl the NY Times or Wall Street Journal out of the index? Can you Google Bowl top notch quality sites out of the index? Of course, "quality sites" are a very subjective thing and that is where things get messy.

But I agree with Tedster, the best way to prevent a Google Bowling attempt is to have a very solid back link profile.

Senior Member, CainIV, added:

A diverse, quality source of backlinks helps protect against this. The more quality backlinks you have over time, the less percentage of new links there will be pointed at you in comparison to existing links. The more trusted the website is, the more 'iffy' inbound links it can absorb.

I think this is why Googlers keep suggesting that SEOs and Webmasters focus on their own site and not worry about competitors.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Can You Remove a Site From a Country Specific Google Search Engine?

Posted: June 20th, 2008, 3:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

An unusual question came up at WebmasterWorld, asking if you can request a site to be completely removed from a country specific Google search engine.

For example, the site owner wants to remove his site from Google Netherlands, because the site has some issues being available to Holland searchers. So the owner of the site wants to remove it from all search results within the Google Holland/Netherlands search engine.

Is that even possible? I don't think so. And WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, also said he doesn't know of a way to do that.

No way that I've ever heard of, Aji. There's no pick-and-choose by country in the current set-up, except for some cases of local country laws that Google handles automatedly. Googlebots all share one crawl-cache these days, too.

I believe in the past, you can block specific country specific crawlers in your robots.txt file. I believe that still works for Yahoo Search, but for Google, they use one generic crawler these days.

Maybe a Googler can chime in here, if it is possible?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Does Not Give Preference to .COM's over .INFO's or Other TLDs

Posted: June 20th, 2008, 2:54pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks if Google "hates" .info or .tv domains? The answer is simply no. This question was brought up at least three times last night in the Google Webmaster Live Chat event, which I documented and not only did Google's Matt Cutts said there is absolutely no difference in a link from a .info versus a link from a .com. In fact, there is a Googler that leaves his home page to a specific .info site, to prove that there are plenty of quality .info sites out there, Matt said.

In addition, we have JohnMu answering that question in the Q&A portion:

shantanu sikdar - 6:03 pm
Q: Hi Googlers, does your algorithm give more importance to a link from a .com as compared to .info?

John Mueller - 6:22 pm

A: Links are links :)

But keep in mind, we did document that Google has been caught downgrading .info TLDs in bulk. Not sure exactly what happened in the case. Plus we discussed the value of .edu domains time and time again.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Recording & Coverage of Google's Second Live Chat Session

Posted: June 20th, 2008, 2:00am CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The second Google webmaster live chat event is now over. I love these things and I wanted to make sure that you all can listen to what took place, just in case you missed it.

The agenda went as follows:

INTRO: A quick hello from some of your favorite Help Group Guides
John Mueller talked about personalized search.
Maile Ohye talked about case sensitivity
Jonathan Simon talked about getting your content out of Google (not in)
A ton of Q&A time.

I recorded the event on my Mac and here is the MP3 file or you can listen with the player below (78 minutes or 71.82MB):

Miss the first Google Webmaster Live Chat event? You can read about it over here.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Here is the full transcript of the Q&A as posted in the WebEx system or you can download the text file and read it that way. In addition, JohnMu added a Google Groups thread for answering the unanswered questions!

Should You Stop Optimizing for Certain Keywords?

Posted: June 19th, 2008, 5:16pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Cre8asite Forums member contends that optimizing for certain keywords isn't desirable any longer. The reason given is that people aren't ever searching for those keywords (even though it looks like a logical search term). He adds that there's no consistency in users' search patterns. The behavior differs from one searcher to another, which is entirely understandable.

If I had 'optimised' the page for MY keywords I may have lost all those visitors and THEIR keywords.

But another forum members suggests that you start optimizing based on the search phrases people use; you might even get better traffic. You need to think of what people are searching for and lengthen your articles so that you capture that desired traffic.

So should you not optimize for the original keyword list? You might want to still consider users who search for "the head and the long tail," as Ammon Johns puts it.

There's really good information here, so have a read at the forum discussion at Cre8asite forums

Matt Cutts Warns Against Lying in a Reconsideration Request

Posted: June 18th, 2008, 4:26pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

A lot of people whose websites get banned from Google eventually take the necessary measures to fix the problems on their site and then request reinclusion. Some, however, do not. They just submit that reinclusion request and assume everything is fixed. Matt Cutts isn't stupid, and you shouldn't think that's a way of getting around being deindexed on Google. In a Twitter message, Matt says that you shouldn't lie in your reconsideration requests. He says it makes him angry. Heck, I'd say that if people lie too many times, they shouldn't be reindexed at all ;)

If you ever get deindexed, you're able to determine how you can be reindexed. At that point, you can file a reinclusion request for your website or for your video.

(Thanks Harith!) :)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Should You Optimize Your Phone Numbers for Search Engines?

Posted: June 18th, 2008, 3:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Sphinn discussion is currently underway about Andrew Shotland's SEO for Phone Numbers blog post. In his blog post, he argues that you should optimize for phone numbers for three reasons:

(1) Displaying a phone number in your title tag might increase your click-through-rate for your search listing. That is if, the searcher is searching for your phone number.

(2) You can take traffic away from the Internet Yellow Pages that list your business's phone number.

(3) Optimize for other business's phone numbers and when they do vanity searches on their phone numbers, they will find you and maybe buy what you have to sell them.

The Sphinn thread lists other reasons why you might want to make sure you are well optimized for your phone numbers. For example, someone forgot your company name, but your phone number is listed on their caller ID. I tried to find companies this way in the past.

But if you place phone numbers in your URL, be careful not to end in a zero.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Will Google Crawl Your Site Without a Robots.txt File? It Depends

Posted: June 18th, 2008, 2:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I found a very interesting tidbit from a Google Groups thread on unreachable robots.txt files.

I always believed that a site does not need a robots.txt file. In fact, this site does not have a robots.txt file and yet we are very well indexed. Proof that you don't need a robots.txt file to allow Google to index your site. Right?

Well, maybe not. Googler, JohnMu, said in the Google Groups thread that if your robots.txt file is unreachable due to timing out or other issues, not including a 404 not found status, Google "tends not to crawl the site at all just to be safe."

You hear that? Google might not crawl your entire site if it cannot reach your robots.txt file properly.

In the case in the thread, the robots.txt file was unreachable due to a complex set of redirects that made Googlebot very dizzy.

John explains later on that "unparsable robots.txt" files are "generally" okay, since Google is getting back some type of server response. When you have an issue is when generally "the URL is just unreachable (perhaps a "security update" that ended up blocking us in general) or situations like this where we give up trying to access the URL (which in a way is unreachable as well)," said John.

So, for those picky Belgium's, just make your robots.txt file unreachable, and there you go. :)

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Eric Enge Interviews Matt Cutts on White Hat Link Building

Posted: June 17th, 2008, 4:32pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

In a very interesting interview, Eric Enge spoke with Matt Cutts on link building. What's good link building? In many cases, Matt thinks that the best links are those that are original research and provide value to readers in the form of a Firefox extension (that's somewhat related to the website). Matt also discourages against too much reciprocal links (but it's natural to have a bit). He also discusses affiliate programs, widget bait, SocialSpark (and says that they're doing a good job), and other link building topics.

It's an informative interview that deserves a full read. While some people believe it's common sense, many people have found that it's entirely valuable.

And original research really does pay off.

That little tidbit alone is one of the best, if not the best, way to get 'white hat' links. Combine it with an aggressive link building campaign to maximize your results, but the 'original research' concept of link building works like crazy.

I've found that the best articles include a lot of original research. It looks like I'm not alone.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.

Google Hosting Second Live Webmaster Chat June 19th

Posted: June 17th, 2008, 2:43pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has announced the details of the second live chat session for webmasters and Googlers. The first live chat session was a huge success, I posted transcripts and so on at our site if you missed it. The next live chat session is taking place this Thursday, June 19th at 5pm (EST).

To join this event, you must go here and on the top left hand side of the page, click on register and fill out the form. After you complete the form, more details will be emailed to you. I will make every effort to participate in the live session as well and we hope to cover it for those who cannot make it.

Here is the agenda:

INTRO: A quick hello from some of your favorite Help Group Guides
PRESO: A presentation on Personalization in Google Search by our own John Mueller.
FAQs: We're calling this "Three for Three," and we'll have three different Googlers tackling three different issues we've seen come up in the Group recently. What will they be? You'll just have to attend the chat to find out!
And lots of Q&A! You'll have a chance to type questions during the entire session, and we'll pick as many as we can to answer in writing and in speaking during the chat.

The last sessions was really worthwhile and I think most SEOs and Webmasters will enjoy the next one.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

SEO is Less About One/Two Word Keywords & More About Longer Tail Keywords

Posted: June 16th, 2008, 2:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

There is an outstanding subscriber (paid access required) WebmasterWorld thread that discusses the topic of short term versus long term phrases. These are the types of threads that make me feel, hey - that $150 subscription pays for itself. Without giving up all the details, let me explain the premise of the thread.

We all know that searchers are getting smarter at searching. Searchers are now much less likely to search for [cars] when looking to lease or buy a new car. Searchers are now much more likely to search for a more specific search, such as [lexus es 350]. The same applies to electronics, instead of [digital cameras], searchers are now being more specific with [canon powershot camera] and so on. Searchers are searching less often on the short phrases, such as one or two work keywords and more often on longer phrases (long tail), such as three, four or five word keywords. The WebmasterWorld thread gives examples of this happening via Google Trends, log files and experience.

If you agree that searchers are searching less often on short tail keywords, then you might agree that SEO, today, is less about those short tail keywords and more about the longer tail keywords.

The thread discusses how many SEOs are noticing less traffic on those short term keyword phrases, then they have in the past. The debate then gets into the niche or industry of your keywords. For some industries where the searcher is less experienced, the short tail keywords still are very high. But for other industries, those short term keywords are experiencing less and less searches. Yes, this has an impact for SEOs and how they optimize sites.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld (paid access required).

SEOmoz Gets Penalized for a URL Ending with .0

Posted: June 13th, 2008, 4:17pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

SEOmoz's Jane Copland spent months on SEOmoz's 2008 Web 2.0 Awards and I know this because I helped judge the winners. After they ranked well once the awards were announced (and even had a PR7), the PageRank went down seemingly overnight and the website disappeared from the Google index. Completely.

After investigating this with Google, it turns out that the problem was that the URL ended with ".0." There's no explicit statement from Google regarding this issue but the reality is (from extensive testing done on their end and verbal confirmation from Google) that that type of URL becomes an instant penalty.

Forums members express bewilderment. Many are confused as to why the PageRank dropped (one forum member suspects that it was done by hand) and it's a bit strange that a 2 year old page dropped out of the index. While I don't know how SEOmoz is handling that (it wasn't specified in the post written by Jane), I think that Google should use its human quality search folks for reinclusion. But hey, that's just me. After all, if the forum member who says that the PR dropped from 7 to 0 is correct in assessing it was done by a human, it should be possible for Google to revert all these penalties. The page is kosher but the URL structure is "bad." It still is a legitimate page and Google should probably figure out how to distinguish this from other pages. (In other words, its robot should crawl the page and actually make the assessment itself.)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and DigitalPoint Forums.

PDF Documents May Impact How Google Defines Your Site's Language

Posted: June 13th, 2008, 3:43pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread shares an interesting insight in how Google may interpret a site's language.

A webmaster asked Google why a site with no pages in Spanish is being interpreted as a Spanish site in Google. The site in question is vsanswers.com, and if you look through all the HTML pages, none of them have any Spanish words. But if you look at some of the PDF files on the site, you will discover Spanish in those documents.

Googler, JohnMu, explained:

Looking at some of the pages indexed for your site, it appears that you have some PDFs in multiple languages.
I assume that some of the Spanish keywords can be found on pages like those. In general, PDFs like that can be a bit problematic as it's nearly impossible to determine the language they're in, which could result in the document ranking for an interesting mixture of keywords. If that's ok with you, then you can certainly leave it -- otherwise you could use your robots.txt file to prevent crawling of these files, making them drop out of the index over time.

It appears to me that the webmaster has removed the PDFs from the Google index and that Google may soon resolve the site's issue.

I do find it interesting that while the whole site is in English, that a few PDF documents with some Spanish in them would cause such an issue? To be honest, JohnMu's response is a little confusing to me. So maybe I am missing something and maybe people can clarify in the comments. John said, "PDFs like that can be a bit problematic as it's nearly impossible to determine the language they're in," if that is the case, how can Google qualify the site as being Spanish, if they have a hard time determining the language in the PDF? Or maybe John means that Google misunderstood the PDFs as being in Spanish, which caused the issue? But if that is the case, i.e. Google has a hard time determining the language in the PDF, then why would Google use PDFs in the case of determining the language of the site - why not just use the HTML pages?

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

What Is Google's Trust Algorithm in Search?

Posted: June 13th, 2008, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Chris Boggs featured a WebmasterWorld thread when I was away. Chris focused on sharing some of the theories behind Google's trust factors. I wanted to possibly highlight this thread one more time and ask for you to chime in.

We all know that Google has various minus X penalties and most of us believe that your ranking can drop based on how Google trusts your site, as a whole. This WebmasterWorld asks that SEOs and Webmaster put their heads together to come up with some theories on what factors Google might use to apply a Minus X penalty to a site.

Factors might include:

Site Age
Age of incoming links
Type of links coming in
Outbound links
PageRank
Site content
And much more...

That list can go on and on. Of course, it is almost impossible to come up with a full list and then even harder to isolate each variable and test the weight that Google applies to each. But why not try and give it a try. We had some SEOs try this in the past, but we need more to give it a try in the future.

So join the discussion at WebmasterWorld.

What's the Cutoff Length for Meta Tags?

Posted: June 12th, 2008, 4:32pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Cre8asite Forums member asks the community about the length of a meta tag (keywords, description). Is there a particular length that you should limit yourself to?

Most search engines ignore it, and a recent lawsuit said that meta tags are immaterial. Still, a few people limit their meta tags to about 60 characters, like forum member EGOL.

Ammon Johns says something interesting regarding the length. His ideal meta tag size: zero. Why? You don't get credit and people steal it.

Seriously, there's a teeny advantage to not including the tag at all (leaner page, less data transfer), and a bigger disadvantage to having the tag in there (competitors mine it - half the keyword discovery tools use the keywords meta of other sites that rank well). Google doesn't give you any credit, not even a consolatory smile, for having the tag.

Kim Krause Berg doesn't use it and Barry Welford says that Yahoo will use meta keyword information for optimizing misspellings (but otherwise completely agrees with Ammon). There's more discussion as well, so hop on over to Cre8asite Forums for more.

Is Onsite SEO Dying Down?

Posted: June 12th, 2008, 4:04pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Marketing Pilgrim recently published a prophecy that onsite SEO is going to die. The writer says that "[a]s the search engines acquire more revenue, their pool of professionals is also drained with best brains" and that new technologies like OCR will eliminate the need to optimize for search engines.

Search Engine Journal posted its own rebuttal that onsite SEO is not going to die. In particular, the respondent says that even if there is OCR technology that can discern text within images and the like, "there’s still got to be content, regardless of development language, for the engines to read, thus, optimizing it in some way will always, always, always be needed."

The Sphinn discussion is in agreement with Search Engine Journal: on-site SEO is here to stay. Small basic changes, for example, can make or break your website in the rankings. Others say that the best SEO happens on the page, not off the page.

And others, like Jill Whalen, think that this is an issue that is beating at a dead horse. The "SEO is dead" argument is not going away.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Many Webmasters Notice Major Traffic Loss From Google

Posted: June 11th, 2008, 3:18pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A weekend WebmasterWorld thread is reporting dozens and dozens of webmasters noticing a major traffic drop due to Google. Some of these webmasters reported traffic declines in the 90% range.

Many of the issues seem to be that Google has dropped hundreds or thousands of pages from these webmaster's sites. But it isn't only large sites.

The five page WebmasterWorld thread has several theories on which sites this may impact. I won't list them all, but if you were impacted, you might want to check out the thread for similarities.

Again, this issue seem to have cropped up over the weekend and many webmasters seem to have been hit. This site did not notice a 90% reduction in traffic from Google, I have not looked at my other sites yet.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Note: Just got back online after two days. I am a bit disoriented from the amount of information we missed. So I hope you cannot see that in our posts, but if you do, please be patient with us for the next few days.

Losing Trust in Google?

Posted: June 10th, 2008, 3:55pm CEST by chrisboggs

Tags: Google Optimization

Of course we would never lose trust in Google. This topic has to do with sites seemingly losing the trust of Google from an algorithmic perspective, and if there is any sort of SEO analysis that could be used to offset the apparent losses.

Whitey over at WebmasterWorld Forums explains:

"Two sites in our network have been behaving strangely recently, and I'm wondering if they signify how Google handles "Trust Rank" where entire sites fall into different minus levels."

He goes on later in the thread to offer a theory:

"Google was much more random in it's application of "penalties" or "trust filters" in the past. A site could go anywhere in the SERP's or indeed not appear. But now it falls [ or rises ] into different levels [ minus penalties ] site wide. And sometimes for keywords from what I can see."

This is an interesting theory and it is very possible that Google could apply more consistent penalties across sites based on a single factor causing the loss of trust. This ties into both the previous "Google Minus X" discussions and the idea that if one negative factor can hurt an entire site, perhaps it is possible for competitors to damage your organic rankings.

Join the discussion and share your experiences at WebmasterWorld Forums.

Google Updates SEO Documentation

Posted: June 10th, 2008, 3:14pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Last week, Matt Cutts told everyone at SMX Advanced that Google has updated its SEO documentation. He blogged about the changes on his own blog. There's new documentation on the robots.txt protocol, how Google accounts for user feedback, issues revolving around IP delivery and cloaking, updates to nofollow, and more. Matt also is quick to note that web pages should be designed primarily for users, because the lack of the word "primarily" used to cause confusion. Finally, Google has defined doorway pages as such:

Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination.

Useful information. Matt goes through the details and you can comment on his post or on the Sphinn discussion for more.

The Six Laws of Ethical SEO

Posted: June 10th, 2008, 3:03pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

My good friend Adam Audette wrote a great post on the 6 principles of ethical SEO. In his article, he explains:

Don't do any harm and engage in aggressive techniques. You don't want to hurt their brand.
Focus on the community and provide valuable information for them.
Fix problems, even if that means to give your clients the cold, hard truth and information they don't want to hear.
Internet marketing requires a combination of smaller disciplines to be powerful. Social media alone won't cut it. Neither will SEO.
Don't only do SEO. Teach it.
We should build scalable solutions so that the client will continue reaping the rewards of our campaigns.

Adam's post is interesting and a great read in itself. The ensuing discussion is also a good read -- it's all about everyone's individual ethics, and Adam has a lot of great points.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

A Googler's Sage Advice on Absolute vs. Relative URLs

Posted: June 10th, 2008, 2:11pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A common question in the SEO space is should I use absolute or relative URLs. Absolute URLs are when you link a URL by using the domain.com portion as well, so linking to my authors page would be a link like http://www.seroundtable.com/authors.php. The relative URL for that authors page would be a link like /authors.php.

As you can imagine, there are pros and cons. JohnMu, a Googler, has an outstanding post in a Google Groups thread with sage advice. It would be a crime if I did not quote the whole post, so here it is:

There are pros and cons to both absolute and relative URLs in links:
Absolute URLs:
+ help keep the links pointing to your content if someone were to copy it (*)
+ help keep the links pointing to your domain name if you cannot select a canonical (can't do 301 redirects)
+ help make sure that you're pointing to the right URL even if you move things around (say for stylesheets or graphics)
- cannot be tested on a staging / testing server (eg locally) (unless you insert the links dynamically)
- makes it hard to move content (unless the links are inserted dynamically)

Relative URLs:
+ make it easy to move content around
+ make it easy to test locally and on a staging server
- are easy to break if linking to content that isn't moved as well (stylesheet, graphics, etc)
- an evil scraper would have less work (*)

There's a middle ground as well, using absolute links without a domain name, eg: Personally, I prefer to use relative URLs + some absolute (without domain name) ones to shared resources. The advantage of being able to test things out 1:1 on a staging server can't compete with the pseudo-protection against scrapers.

The only place I would use absolute URLs would be if the site is hosted somewhere where the webmaster can't do a 301 redirect and may have trouble with duplicates. I've seen this a lot with sites hosted on a free account with the ISP; often it will be hosted as http://isp.com/users/~name/site ..., then perhaps http://domain.com/site... and http://www.domain.com/site... . By using absolute URLs in that situation, any value passed to one of the wrong URLs will automatically pass value to the correct URLs as well.

If you have a really good CMS you may be able to change from one to another and use a staging server without much work. In that case, it probably doesn't matter which one is chosen.

Solid advice!

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

This post was written on June 5th and schedule to go live today.

How to Write Search Engine Friendly Code

Posted: June 9th, 2008, 3:13pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Jonathan Hochman wrote a very good checklist on Search Engine Land about 12 ways to write search engine friendly code. Some of the tips he outlines are:

Don't repeat yourself -- use SSIs and other code snippets instead of being redundant.
Place JavaScript in external files and reuse as needed.
Run your code through a validator to ensure that things are being kept clean.
Keep your site's meta description brief (1-2 sentences)

...and so on. His points are very true for any website designer and Sphinn members are quick to agree. One issue of contention, though, is how to outline the title tags of pages. Jonathan recommends "company name - page name" but another person points out that it may be better to write "page name - subcategory name - category name - company name." It all depends on what you want to accomplish, though.

Jill Whalen mentions in the discussion that it won't help rankings. That, too, may be true, but we all know to design websites for people and not for search engines anyway. :) A happily-coded website is one that gets more links which in turn translates into better rankings.

A very long and useful ongoing discussion continues at Sphinn.

Yahoo Still Trimming Off Trailing Slash, Causing Webmaster Headaches

Posted: June 3rd, 2008, 4:43pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

A new WebmasterWorld thread has complaints that Yahoo removes the trailing slash from the URLs, possibly causing 404 errors on the receiving site.

This is not new, I complained about this issue back in 2004 and it is still an issue for webmasters today.

For example, let's say you have a URL that is www.domain.com/category/. Now, Yahoo will list the URL as www.domain.com/category and strip off the ending trailing slash. On some servers, if a 301 redirect isn't set up from www.domain.com/category to www.domain.com/category/ then the page will resolve to a 404 page.

This has frustrated many webmasters for a long time and now, WebmasterWorld moderator, pageoneresults, asked:

So, can someone explain to me why both Yahoo! and Live strip the trailing forward slashes off the display URIs in the SERPs?

But no one had an explanation. We just have people agreeing with the frustration over how this is handled.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Damage Your Competitors Google Image Rankings With Links

Posted: June 2nd, 2008, 2:50pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

So we see that most SEOs believe a competitor can hurt your search rankings, we also wrote an article on How To Penalize Your Competitor's Site in Google but now we have a new WebmasterWorld thread on image search.

The WebmasterWorld thread discusses a major flaw in Google Image search's SafeSearch solution. As we discussed in the past, many people found themselves being filtered out of Google image search, when their images are not adult in nature. So I offered up some tips on getting your images out of the safesearch filter hell. But does it always work? Not even close.

The WebmasterWorld thread discusses how if you have adult-related sites linking to your images or including your images on their sites, then Google may apply the safesearch filter to your images, even if the image is not adult in nature.

As Tedster explains, "Google Image Search does seem to have a problem dealling with hotlinking, and that means your site suffers." This is an ongoing issue with Google Image search, which doesn't necessarily impact Google searchers directly, but does impact them indirectly. Not only that, SEOs and Webmasters do take notice, when they see their Google Image Search traffic drop and never recover due to a bad hotlink.

Clearly, if hotlinking can hurt your Google Image search rankings, what is to stop your competitors from having adult sites hotlink your images on their sites?

Can Google outline measures Webmasters can take to avoid such a serious issue?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Changes The Definition of a Doorway Page

Posted: June 2nd, 2008, 2:28pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Beu posted a Search Engine Watch Forums thread after noticing that Google has changed the definition they used for what a doorway page is.

On the Google Page, it now reads:

Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination.
Whether deployed across many domains or established within one domain, doorway pages tend to frustrate users, and are in violation of our webmaster guidelines.

The cached version still has the old version:

Doorway pages are pages specifically made for search engines. Doorway pages contain many links - often several hundred - that are of little to no use to the visitor, and do not contain valuable content. HTML sitemaps are a valuable resource for your visitors, but ensure that these pages of links are easy for your visitors to navigate. If you have a number of links to include, consider organizing them into categories or into multiple pages. But in doing so, ensure that they are intended for visitors to navigate the sections of your site, and not simply for search engines.

Key sentences, words and adjectives have been removed and replaced by more generic terms. Google seems to have re-written it to discuss less of the technical nature of the page and more of the desired outcome of such a page.

In any event, all SEOs should know about the change.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums and Sphinn.

Can I Be Penalized if I Have Too Many Links on My Homepage?

Posted: June 2nd, 2008, 2:11pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Google Groups user is afraid that his PageRank was impacted because of too many links on his homepage.

Before you wonder whether there are search engine penalties, think about those links from a usability perspective. Are they helping your visitor or making it difficult for them? PageRank is not the issue here but more about how users are going to benefit. Even if your links are categorized, if there are too many links, it's still a pain to use.

As for this user's issue with PageRank, it doesn't hold weight. Inbound links are the metrics primarily used to weigh PageRank. As Google's Bergy says, don't worry about those green pixels!

Most PageRank changes are not the result of actions of the webmaster; rather, they're typically caused by changes to the quality and number of incoming links that the webmaster has little control over. This is why many folks in the group (myself included) have encouraged other webmasters not to worry about the little green pixels.

So at the end of the day, the issue here is that the links should be beneficial for the visitor. PageRank is not part of this equation.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Search Engine Optimization Should Not Be Forgotten when Building Links

Posted: May 30th, 2008, 4:32pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Journal's Loren Baker reminds us that if we're building links, the basic rules of SEO should not be overlooked or forgotten. Even if you have hundreds of thousands of links, SEO basics are critical to achieve better rankings. Some of these include adding keywords to your copy, avoiding duplicate pages, adding unnecessary code, integrating text in images (and not using alt text), and more.

Link building itself is fine. SEO is still important for search engines, and both should be practiced together.

Most Sphinn members are in agreement about the article, but one points out that some sites may rank very well even if they don't incorporate basic SEO. He believes that it's more important to focus on relevant anchor text instead of unoptimized anchor text.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Google Webmaster Tools Won't Allow You To Delete Sitemaps

Posted: May 30th, 2008, 2:56pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google Webmaster Tools seems to have a new bug which does not allow you to delete or remove your sitemaps file from your profile.

Several reports came from Google Groups starting on May 27th. All have reported that no matter what they do, the delete function does not actually remove the sitemap from the associate site.

The first report said:

I've tried to delete the RSS feed "sitemap" from webmaster tools, but it doesn't seem to go - te page reloads - but both sitemaps are still showing?

Googler, Susan Moskwa, replied saying they are looking into the issue:

Thanks for reporting this issue. Our team is looking into it.
FYI no need to worry, since those extra Sitemaps shouldn't cause you any problems.

On a similar note, a WebmasterWorld thread reports that Google seemed to have merged two of his sitemaps files into the same domain. I.e. He set up profiles for subfolders, so he can manage each subfolder, which Google recommends. Google seemed to have automatically merged those two sitemaps under a single site. Which begs the question, how do you delete part of your site using Webmaster Tools?

Finally, a DigitalPoint Forums thread is reporting a backlink update in the link tool within Google Webmaster Tools. As an FYI, that tool does update every few weeks.

Forum discussion at Google Groups and WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Embedding Related YouTube Videos May Increase Your Ranking in Google?

Posted: May 29th, 2008, 2:40pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Talk about theories! A WebmasterWorld thread has a theory that was posted by senior member, travelin cat, who noticed that his top ranking pages tend to have related YouTube video's embedded on them. The YouTube videos are not his videos, just random videos that seem to be related to his content.

The member who posted this theory seems to not believe his findings himself. He decided to test out his theory by adding YouTube videos to 10 more random pages that previously did not have any good rankings in Google. The results were shocking:

After 15 days, the average Google visit went up just over 200% compared to the previous 15 day period on those 10 pages.

Honestly, I really don't believe it. Can it be some other change that is influencing the results? Could be and of course, I did not test this theory out myself. But it is a very new theory.

So I figured I would slap a video on this post for fun:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Don't Block Your 301 Redirects with a Robots.txt File

Posted: May 27th, 2008, 12:56pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Google Groups thread has a very interesting discussion that is almost complete. The discussion takes you through the life cycle of a 301 redirect. Site owner moved from domain.com to domain.info, on a domain name sale, but wanted to retain his links, so set up a 301 redirect from .com to .info for a certain period of time.

Besides for the thread covering a ton of details that are critical to such a move, I wanted to highlight one point made by Googler, JohnMu. John said that you should not use "the robots.txt to block crawling while you have a 301 redirect enabled for the domain. By blocking crawling, you're effectively blocking the search engines from recognizing the redirect properly."

I wonder how many people do that because I never would have thought people do.

Besides for that, there is some discussion on how long the 301 should be in place before handing over the old domain to someone else. If you 301 the results for 3 weeks and then hand the old domain over to the new owner, if that owner drops the 301, will Google return the old links back to the old domain or keep them at the new domain? Some suggest keeping the 301 live for at least 6 months.

There are many tips in the thread for such a process including collecting as much linkage data you can from the previous domain. You can collect linkage data via Yahoo Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools, your web analytics, your own database scripts and more. This way you can go back to those sites and ask them to update your link to the new domain.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Verification of Google Webmaster Tools Fails At 12:22am?

Posted: May 27th, 2008, 12:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

One constant thread you see at the forums are threads complaining that their sites become automatically unverified in Google Webmaster Tools. So the webmaster needs to go back in and manually click the verify button in Webmaster Tools, to reverify the site.

One webmaster wrote a Google Groups thread discussing a pattern he has seen. This webmaster wrote a script to notify him whenever his verification file is being accessed by Google. This way he knows when Google has tried to re-access his file and if he needs to go back in a verify the sites again.

Over the course of months, he believes he found a pattern where if he verifies his sites at around 12:22am (not sure what time zone), without failure the verification will fail, even if the verification file is there and accessible. His theory is as follows:

Since the file is obviously there and accessible, the only thing may be a slower response time. Even though it responds fully (I get my email), maybe Googlebot Sitemaps finds it a bit slow and flags it as unverified.

Maybe, at that time, Google's webmaster tools servers hiccup and need a nice kick? Or maybe it is nothing. But I found this thread both unique and interesting.

Googler, JohnMu, promised to show it to an engineer. So I hope to see confirmation of some sort, shortly form Google.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google Temporarily Penalizes Blogspot & Info Domains

Posted: May 26th, 2008, 3:37pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Over the weekend, I noticed reports from WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums suggesting that Google dropped .info and blogspot results from its index.

First reports came in at around 9:50am (EST) on May 23rd at both forums. Massive panic actually started where we saw dozens of forum posts with members not understanding how Google can completely wipe off many (not all) .info TLDs and all Blogspot results. Here is one person's reaction:

But banning all .info domains without any apparent reason is greatly surprising.

But most felt this was a pretty large Google bug and they were right.

About five hours later, Webmasters began to see the old results come back to life. At 2:49pm (EST), we got reports from WebmasterWorld that the info TLDs were coming back into the Google results. Then at 4:33pm (EST), we received similar reports from DigitalPoint Forums.

Imagine that, Google delisting most of the .info TLDs and blogspot hosted blogs.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Does Domain Name Registration Length Impact SEO?

Posted: May 23rd, 2008, 4:28pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

The question of domain name registration and its impact on SEO is not a new one. However, every so often, the question comes up. Would it be better to register your domain name for 5 years instead of renewing it for just another year?

In our past coverage, we reported that there are some signals sent by extended domain name registrations, including informing the search engines that your website is not spammy (you're here to stay). Google does weigh in on these signals, apparently (albeit not as much as other factors, obviously).

Domain name registration lengths may also show more about your commitment to your work. If you extend your registration for many years, it shows that you're serious about your business. I'd say that this is stronger than renewing it yearly every single year.

Others disagree that domain name registration lengths have any profound impact on SEO. Instead, the older the domain is (rather than the length of registration), the better it is.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Most SEOs Don't Report Competitors To Google

Posted: May 23rd, 2008, 2:22pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A couple weeks ago I asked if Do You Report Your Competitors as Spam in Google? Well, the results are in and most SEOs said they do not report their competitors to Google as spamming. Of the 159 responses, 111 respondents or 70% said no, they do not report competitors to Google. 45 respondents or 28% said they do report competitors to Google. While three of those votes were for "other" but was actually left blank.

Here is the break down:
:: No said 111 respondents or 70%
:: Yes said 45 respondents or 28%
:: Other said 3 respondents or 2%

I am actually a bit surprised by the results, I would have thought more SEOs would anonymously say that they do report competitors to Google. These results, to me, shows a fairly strong unity amongst the SEO industry.

Forum discussion continued at Sphinn.

Google Is On My Site! Will I Be Penalized Soon?

Posted: May 23rd, 2008, 2:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has some discussion over one member spotting a Google IP address navigating through his site. The IP address originates from the Mountain View location and resolves to Google, so he is convinced a Googler is manually reviewing his site.

Well, it can be a manual review or it can be a Googler interested in your site. Maybe the Googler is using your site like a normal user? Maybe? If you think not, then maybe your site should be manually reviewed?

Heck, Google's people are all over this site all the time. Here are some stats from Google Analytics where I try to isolate Googler's on my site (I am sure it isn't 100% accurate):

Here is a chart showing "network location" for the past 30 days or so. Notice all these Googlers on my site:

Here is a chart showing my visitors from the Mountain View area, the location of Google's headquarters.

So am I being manually reviewed or are Googler's just reading this site? Maybe both. :)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I Rank Too High on Google! Is Something Wrong?

Posted: May 22nd, 2008, 4:56pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Some webmasters will kill for a top ranking. Others will get it when they least expect it. A WebmasterWorld member talks about how he's ranking above Amazon for his brand new site which has already been fully indexed. He wonders if this is a mistake, since he's doing so much better than the bigger competition.

That's a good question. There are a few factors that can influence high rankings. The obvious culprits include domain age (it may be a new site under his ownership, but was it a high-authority site under another's ownership?) and inbound links (if the content is good, you'll get good links, right?).

Then there's the other side of the coin. Perhaps the guy isn't ranking so well after all but his personalized results are showing up. Don't forget; you need to turn off personalized web search in order to see what the world is seeing. To do that, append &pws=0 to your search results like this (or log out of your Google account).

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Google Offers Advice on Automatic Redirection Based on Geolocation & Language

Posted: May 22nd, 2008, 3:09pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread has discussion around how this webmaster should handle redirecting its web visitor to a localized version of their site, based on the IP address information.

Since I recently wrote a comprehensive article at Search Engine Land on How Search Engine Redirect Users To Country-Specific Sites, I thought this post was particularly interesting.

Googler, JohnMu, was first to respond to the webmaster's question. He explained that as a user, he wants the option to either see a localized version or a different version. John said, "I live in the German-speaking part of Switzerland but often browse the web in English. If I go to a search engine and search with English queries for English pages, I do not want to be redirected to a translated version which the website thinks I would like to see." For John, he would think that you should "allow the user to switch [to any version] with a simple link."

On the SEO front, John explains that if you offer these localized version via a different URL (unlike how Microsoft's Live Search works, interesting), then the search engine will pick up the content and then aid the different regions to go to your localized version for you. Let me quote John:

This allows our crawlers to find those pages and - should the user accidentally search for and click on the wrong one - lets the user move to a different language version on demand as well. By allowing our crawlers to crawl the various versions, we'll be better suited to suggest those URLs to users from those regions as well.

Of course there are many advantages to using IP geo-location techniques for your web visitor. But you need to judge the pros and cons of your specific site's goals and decide what works best.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

More Google Floating Four Theories

Posted: May 21st, 2008, 4:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Remember the floating four story I wrote a week or so ago? Basically how a search result would be in the fourth position and then go so a lower position, then come back to four and then go back again to a lower position?

Well, the forum discussion has continued at WebmasterWorld and Tedster, WebmasterWorld's administrator, has posted a theory. I am a big fan of Tedster, so I wanted to share his thoughts with you guys.

Tedster asks, "is size of site a potentially big ranking factor?" "Then other factors would help Google decide which of the smaller sites deserve a shot at position #4 (or wherever they are currently testing.)," he adds.

He shared some of the data he used to suggest this theory:

URLS INDEXED

Position 01 -- 1,570
Position 02 -- 12,100
Position 03 -- 99,800
Position 04 -- 87,000
Position 05 -- 27,700
Position 06 -- 22,100
Position 07 -- 242,000
Position 08 -- 1,630
Position 09 -- 124
Position 10 -- 689
Position 11 -- 125
Position 12 -- 1,040
Position 13 -- 976
Position 14 -- 13,600
Position 15 -- 401
Position 16 -- 1,660
Position 17 -- 10,400
Position 18 -- 1,490
Position 19 -- 3,750
Position 20 -- 686

AVERAGE URLS INDEXED

Average (#01-05) -- 45,634
Average (#05-10) -- 53,309
Average (#11-15) -- 3,228
Average (#16-20) -- 3,597

Many members are supporting his theory, but again, this discussion is what makes SEO a wonderful place.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Still Showing Different Results Base on Case Sensitivity

Posted: May 21st, 2008, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back in February, I wrote a story named Upper Case & Lower Case Searches May Return Different Google Search Results. Since then, the discussion on that topic has died off.

But in the past month or so, more and more people have been talking about how a Google search results will change based on if you use upper case letter or lower case letters. I have received emails, saw blog posts and watched thread after thread pop up about this weird Google behavior.

Google still clearly states that case has no impact on search results. From the horses mouth:

Google searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for george washington, George Washington, and gEoRgE wAsHiNgToN will all return the same results.

But yet we continue to see reports about Google being case sensitive.

So I decide to go back to my trusted search on big blue pineapple chair and compare it to the same search but in word case, i.e. Big Blue Pineapple Chair. Guess, what, even though both on my searches were on the same data center, i.e. 208.67.217.231, the results differed. Here are screen shots of the first page results, at the bottom.

Lower Case Version:

Upper Case Version:

The difference is the cartoonbarry.com vs. extrasformovies.com results - yes I am not signed in, and I am using a search that turns personalized search off.

So, Google, tell us what is up.

New forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Explains The Processes & Thoughts Behind an Update

Posted: May 16th, 2008, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google updates their search algorithms and indexes fairly often. Results change all the time. The goal for Google is to make this transparent for searchers by providing relevant results. But when a change happens, typically the webmaster will notice and may be impacted strongly by the update. So what are the Google processes and thoughts behind an update?

Google's JohnMu has an interesting post at a Google Groups thread in response to a webmaster being upset with a recent change in which results Google is showing for a particular term. In JohnMu's response, he explains why Google makes changes, for how long the changes may appear and so on. Let me explain that we do not learn much about how the changes work technically, but we do learn the thought process behind Google making these changes.

The premise behind all Google algorithm and index updates are to "improve the users' experience on our [Google's] sites." Google's "engineers are constantly working on" that, day in and day out. So Google is often trying "new things and run experiments" to collect data to help Google come up with new ideas on how to "improve" the search experience.

John explains that these "experiments" and "new things" can "run for a day or for many months." The thing is, these experiments "generally evolve over time," so although the experiment may do one thing, it can evolve to do other things (hence the constant Google flux). These changes to the experiments are "mainly based on that data" Google collects as they run tests.

Google is constantly changing their algorithm because "world around us is changing
rapidly, our users' expectations are changing equally," as John explains. John adds that "sometimes," these experiments can "lead to changes which not everyone likes." "Not every site can be listed in all search results, or even in the top 10," John adds.

I personally don't have much to add to this. It all makes logical sense, but I thought it would be good to document and have for later.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google's Malware Review Form Now Working Again

Posted: May 16th, 2008, 3:16pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google's Malware Review form, which was added back in August of last year had some technical issues this week. First reports came via Google Groups at about 1am on May 15th.

Webmasters trying to utilize the form received a "oops, not working" error when they tried to access it. Google partners with StopBadware.org for malware detection and handling. Reportedly, www.stopbadware.org was also having issues at the same time and they were reporting errors that read "500 - Internal Server Error" throughout the day.

Googler, JohnMu, suggested that webmasters can also submit Malware Reviews directly at StopBadware.org at this form, if the Google form does not work.

The Google form is now working, about 24 hours later. I am actually amazed at the number of complaints about the form not working. It seems like the form is used more often then I would have thought. JohnMu said, if you submitted a review, they likely re-submitted it anyway, but double check to be sure. He said:

We went through all the failed requests and submitted them again, but you may want to double-check your sites just to be sure.

Here is a picture of the malware review form:

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Yahoo Site Explorer Mishandling HTTPS Vs. HTTP Protocols?

Posted: May 15th, 2008, 3:15pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting a possible bug with the Yahoo Site Explorer tool.

The webmaster reports that when trying to delete the https URLs of his site from the Yahoo index via Yahoo Site Explorer, it tries to delete the http version as well.

As many SEOs and Webmasters know, having both the https and http version of the same content in the search results can hurt you a bit in terms of link equity. SEOs and Webmasters want to ensure that the links they obtain go specifically to one URL and not two, and since https is a different url then http, search engines may consider them as two different pages with exactly the same content.

So when some webmasters see that Yahoo indexed both pages, they may want to force the removal of one of those pages in Site Explorer. But according to this webmaster, if you try removing https, it will remove the http versions as well.

That brings up an interesting logical observation. If removing an https version, will remove the http version, then maybe Yahoo considers https urls to be the same as http. Maybe https://www.mysite.com/abc.html is the same as http://www.mysite.com/abc.html in the eyes of Yahoo. Maybe all links pointing to the https version are automatically moved over to the http version, in terms of the link popularity component used in Yahoo? Maybe... Or Maybe not?

Maybe, it is a bug in Site Explorer as one member suggests.

I've pointed out to Yahoo that http and https are just different protocols. They suggested that this was a bug in SiteExplorer.

I would think it is a bug and Yahoo doesn't treat https URLs as http.

The quick and easy fix, 301 the https version to http, if possible. But that is not always possible.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Should Google Not Index Robots.txt Files in Search Results?

Posted: May 15th, 2008, 3:02pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

An interesting discussion is taking place at WebmasterWorld on the topic of the robots.txt file. One webmaster did not want his robots.txt file to be indexed by Google, but has no way of delisting in in Google.

The only ways of removing content is Google includes:

Via meta tags
Via robots.txt command
Return a 404 server status
Use the Remove URLs feature in Webmaster Tools
Password protect the page
Some more ideas on how to remove content in Google can be found there.

But if you implement any of those, Google will likely remove your robots.txt, and it won't follow the rules you have implemented in that file. Which can be very upsetting for webmasters. So if you block you block your robots.txt file in your robots.txt file, does Google really see the robots.txt file to block it? (Okay, that was a bit of a joke, but it makes the point).

That brings up the question, should Google list robots.txt files in the search results? In most cases, they do not contain any useful content for searchers. Well, with the exception of Brett Tabke's robots.txt blog, which is a hilarious idea. But outside of that, how is it useful?

As Tedster notes, Google has indexed plenty robots.txt files, should they?

Let me ask you, here is a poll. Should Google display robots.txt files in the search results (even for searches like [inurl:robots.txt filetype.txt])?

There is an "other" option, but try not to use it. :)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Google's JohnMu commented below explaining how to block your robots.txt file from showing up. News to me, this is excellent news:

Hi guys, there are two ways to block your robots.txt from showing up in search results:
- disallow it in your robots.txt (don't worry, we'll still check it); you can then use the Webmaster Tools URL removal tool to have it taken out of the index if it's indexed.

- use the x-robots-tag HTTP header tag with "noindex"

On the other hand, robots.txt URLs generally would not show up in any search results where you have more relevant pages within your site, so this is probably not something you'd want to spend all too much effort on :-).

Can Links From Porn Sites Hurt Your Search Rankings?

Posted: May 14th, 2008, 4:14pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

When you're a webmaster, it's important to check your analytics to ensure that everything there is looking good. You can get a good sense of where your traffic is coming from, be it search traffic or uh, porn site traffic, and you can overall get ideas of where you may be able to improve your website for more visitor consumption.

So when one of our forum regulars checked his statistics, he was a little shocked to see that he's getting more than 3000 visits from a porn site. Is this damaging to his site? Can he get penalized?

Well, the one thing is that he's mentioning that he had 3000 visits, not links. Regardless, if they were links, the only "risk" involved here is that there's a possibility that Google will consider that your site has adult content (even if it doesn't). Of course, if only a small percentage of your inbound links are coming from porn sites, you have a lot less to worry about, but the key here is percentage. There's no exact percentage, here, though. Just keep in mind that if the majority of your links are coming from adult-themed sites, you might trigger an "adult" filter even if your content isn't adult.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Does Google Index Content in "The Cloud" (Amazon S3, etc)

Posted: May 14th, 2008, 2:56pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Cloud computing is becoming more and more popular amongst webmasters and site owners. In short, companies like Amazon, RackSpace, Google and others are offering hosting services where you upload your content (html, images, videos, pdfs, etc.) to a web server, that web server then replicates that content onto other web servers - so if you think about it, your content is not just on one server, with limited resources and bandwidth, but on dozens (or more) of servers with virtually unlimited bandwidth and resources.

Duplicate content issue? Nope. There is only one URL for that content (unless you generate multiple URLs for the same content yourself) but Amazon S3, for example, doesn't create a duplicate content issue.

One webmaster at WebmasterWorld is complaining that Google Image search doesn't seem to be indexing the images he has hosted over at Amazon S3. But honestly, I think it is just a timing issue for him.

If you conduct a site command on site:s3.amazonaws.com, the location of the S3 content, you will find hundreds of thousands of results returned. If you conduct the same site command search at Google Image search, you find many images from S3 included in the Google Image Search index.

So, it does appear Google is indexing content in the cloud. Specifically from Amazon S3. Does something have to happen on the Amazon side for Google to index your content? I personally cannot find any hints to Amazon blocking any content from search engines on the technical docs or the FAQs. So maybe it is just a timing thing?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In 2008, Is The NoArchive Tag a Red Flag in SEO?

Posted: May 14th, 2008, 2:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Before beginning, I know a few of you will be upset I wrote this at all. But I want to show you the history here.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks what is the story with the noarchive META tag and the likelihood that it may hurt your Google rankings or rankings in other search engines. Let me first give you my opinion for the year 2008. I do not think the noarchive tag will hurt you in any way, unless you are spamming the search engines and hiding something from them. If you are not spamming, then you have nothing to worry about and you can use the noarchive tag for good.

So why is there concern over using the tag and having your rankings drop? As the thread shows, historically, we had reports all the way back in 2001, yes seven years ago, that sites that utilized the noarchive tag saw a drop in their Google ranks. WebmasterWorld's founder and owner, Brett Tabke, said back then, and I quote:

We've tested on 12 domains. All 12 domains dropped in rankings the following update after adding noarchive.

But Brett adds that even back then, there was opposition to the theory.

What about in 2008? Like I said above, I think its a non-issue for virtually all webmasters, of course there are exceptions. The new WebmasterWorld thread discusses just that. As you can see by reading the thread, there is still some concern over using the META tag.

WebmasterWorld's administrator, Tedster, first explains that there is nothing wrong with using the tag. Google has never said it will hurt your rankings. But he does add, that if there are "borderline spammy signs" on your pages, "then a noarchive tag can be one more bad sign and possibly contribute to a ranking problem. Matt Cutts [of Google] has mentioned this several times at conferences."

WebmasterWorld moderator, Receptional Andy, adds to Tedster's warning, saying, "Only a small percentage of sites will use noarchive; so, it puts your site in a slightly different group, and one that is more likely to be closely-scrutinised." But I love how moderator, PageOnResults, follows up to that post saying, "What percentage of Internet surfers actually use the Cached link?" Meaning, just like a small percent of sites use the noarchive tag, so to, a small percent of searches use the cache link.

For those curious, that was the basis of the argument behind Does Using a NoFollow Attribute Raise a Red Flag at Google?

Take Aways:
(1) If you are spamming or it may look like you are spamming, be safe and don't use the noarchive META tag.
(2) Otherwise, go for it!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Matt Cutts Discusses Google's Knowledge of Spam

Posted: May 13th, 2008, 5:09pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

At the recent Web 2.0 expo (which I totally wish I went to), Matt Cutts presented on "what Google knows about spam." I actually watched the 9+ minute video (yay me!) and found it informative. Basically, he summarizes a few key points: you should build reputation and trust into your system, you can thwart and frustrate spammers (as they're people), and you should try to make your system hard to infiltrate by spammers.

He even added a slide (so that he wouldn't be "burned in effigy," as he put it), to acknowledge that SEO is not spam and that if you work with whitehat SEOs, they'll be pretty open in terms of what they're doing to optimize your site.

Here's the video, or you can go to Matt's site to watch the video, see the slides, and read the tons of comments he received.

Thanks Matt for the useful presentation. You did a good job. :)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.

Most SEOs Believe Competitors Can Hurt Your Google Rankings

Posted: May 13th, 2008, 2:07pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

About a week ago I ran a poll that asked Can Someone Hurt A Competitors Google Rankings With Links? I ran the poll because there is a lot of debate around this topic. So I figured, why not ask you guys and you guys said that yes, competitors can hurt your Google rankings. Here are the details of the poll.

In short, 70% of the 135 responses said that yes, a competitor can hurt my Google rankings. 19% said, no, competitors cannot and 11% said they have no idea either way.

Here is the break down:
:: Yes said 94 respondents or 70%
:: No said 26 respondents or 19%
:: I Have No Idea said 15 respondents or 11%

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

How Important are Header Tags?

Posted: May 9th, 2008, 4:54pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A High Rankings Forums member wants to know if header tags (H1, H2, H3, H4...) are weighted on search engines.

The answer is probably not, but some people think that there's minimal weight from search engines. The point is that header tags are for user readability versus focusing on search engines. If you wanted to test the theory, you could remove the header tags and instead use CSS to see how it performs.

Additionally, it's important to note that if this is something spammers start using more heavily, chances are search engines will devalue it even more (if header tags are even a metric in the algorithm). That said, do your own testing and come up with some results, but the skepticism is pretty obvious from the post.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

Big Debate: Does Search Engine Optimization Have Long Term Viability?

Posted: May 9th, 2008, 4:46pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

In the middle of the week, my good friend Jeremy Schoemaker, aka Shoemoney, blogged that SEO has no future. He believes that personalized data will be more important, especially from the toolbar, user history, and analytics data. Social voting is becoming more important, and he explains that his sitelinks are the most trafficked pages on his site.

Well, the SEO community did not really want to hear that, so there have been at least three individual posts on Sphinn about it.

Marketing Pilgrim writer Greg Howlett says that search engines are getting too smart and that search engines won't want to reward companies for playing SEO games.

In one rebuttal, Ian Lurie talks about how SEO really does have a future. Smart SEO makes it easier for search engines to crawl your site. It helps create a long term content strategy. It keeps good businesses out of trouble. It ensures the discoverability of content on your site. SEO isn't about looking for loopholes but for keeping search engines happy.

In another response, Michael Gray also says that SEO has a future. SEO will have to clean up the mess of visual elements, especially flash and other technologies that are not search-engine friendly. SEOs have to explain viral marketing, content creation, and more. SEO is here to stay, he says, and there's nothing that anyone can say to stop that.

In a third response, Taylor Pratt says that SEO will exist as long as search engines exist. He says that while search engines are smart, SEOs are smart too and can work alongside search engines.

On one hand, forum members think that this is a great thing to start saying because then there will be less competition as newbie SEOs don't actually participate in SEO. Others say that SEO is not going to die but become more important, especially as big companies start partnering up with SEO firms and consultants for work.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn, Sphinn, Sphinn, and Sphinn. ;)

Does Setting Your Geographic Target In Google Webmaster Tools Work?

Posted: May 9th, 2008, 2:37pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

search_engine981:http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/017091.htmlBack in October of 2007, Google launched Set Geographic Target in Google Webmaster Tools. It basically allowed you to tell Google if your site is based in a certain geographic location. For example, let's say you had a UK site, using a .com domain - Google would often not give the site any preference in the Google UK search results, unless it had a co.uk TLD. The Set Geographic Target option was suppose to give Google more clues about the site and help it rank better in the local that was specified with the tool.

A Google Groups thread leaves me to believe that it might not be the case. Susan Moskwa, an official Google representative said:

Using the tool to target example.com to the UK may have some effect on non-country-restricted searches, but it probably won't be the same as having example.co.uk. Most sites will see results somewhere between the two extremes (no effect, and total equivalence with ccTLDs).

Wait, so are you saying setting your geographic target may or may not have an impact on how your rank in a localized version of Google? Let me bold Susan's response, " Most sites will see results somewhere between the two extremes (no effect, and total equivalence with ccTLDs."

Hmm and I not understanding the response? I am not sure. I have seen dozens of posts complaining that the tool doesn't improve their ranking in the localized Google version. In fact, respected SEO, David Naylor just posted a blog post with the title, Google Webmaster Tools smoke n mirrors. In that post, he expresses his dissatisfaction with the tool and describes how it simply doesn't work for him.

Does it work for you? Please do comment with your feedback, if you have any.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Are Internal Links Weighted the Same as External Links by Google?

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 4:22pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld member notes that when he does a link: query for a specific domain, it shows only internal links and not external links -- but it depends on the size of the domain. This behavior is only observed on very large sites versus smaller ones. How come that's the case? Is there an issue of how this data is being gathered and is there extra weight being placed on these links?

Tedster believes that this isn't the case. He says that internal links pass PR around the site but that the internal linking structure is not weighted as heavily as external links:

Internal links do have anchor text influence, and they do pass PR around the site. But I'd say they are not treated "exactly" same as external links. How exactly their treatment differs is a bit of a Google secret, and it also seems to shift around a bit. For example, I'd say many internal links get a lot less individual weight than a single external backlink would, especially if they are in the page template (menus and footer links.)

On that note, some internal links can be more valuable than external links depending on PageRank, popularity, traffic, and more. Your PR5 homepage internal link will probably be a lot more valuable than a PR0 external link from a link farm. Do you agree?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

How Do You Get Your Images Out Of Google's SafeSearch Filter?

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 3:09pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has serious discussion on obtaining advice and tips on getting your images out of the Google SafeSearch filter. Basically, sometimes Google might label your images as being sexually explicit or not appropriate for the average searcher. If that is done, you shouldn't come up in Google's web search results or in the standard Google image search (unless someone changes their Google preferences).

What we have been noticing is that Google has been a bit more sensitive on image filtering recently. This has impacted a lot of webmasters, where they have noticed a major decline in image search traffic.

So what can you do to ensure your images don't fall within this filter?

I remember hearing, I believe during the Google Webmaster Live Chat session that if you move any images that might appear to be adult related into a different folder, Google will better be able to apply the filter only to those images. Google basically recommended to move pictures that might trigger the filter into a folder like /adult-images/ and have a different folder for /safe-images/.

Outside of that tip, there are some suggestions in the thread that include:

Check your on-page text content and image filenames for potentially adult words, said Tedster.
Check to make sure your outbound links are not pointing to any adult neighborhoods, recommended Tedster.
See if your hosted on the same server as an adult site, Tedster added.
Try using PICS labels, but I personally don't think that will work.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

How Do You Tell Google that You're a UK Site?

Posted: May 7th, 2008, 2:42pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld member says that his .com, which has a UK IP address (and is for the United Kingdom audience), is not being recognized as a UK-specific site even though he updated Google Webmaster Tools and informed Google of the geographic location of the site. He ranks #5 in Google.com but #149 in Google.co.uk. (For reasons like this, I just wish .co.uk was the default domain in Google and that there wasn't a landrush for .com domains out there. I want tamar.com one day, and they're a UK company.) ;)

Why is this ranking occurring? There are a few reasons. While the site is UK centric, the links to the site may be from other foreign countries. The idea, then, is to get more UK links.

One forum members suspects that it may be something else, because in the past, Google has misidentified some UK IP addresses on generic .com TLDs. Furthermore, some UK hosting companies are actually not hosting in the UK.

While some forum members think that WHOIS information is at fault, that's not the case when these domains are protected by WhoisGuard or Domains by Proxy. There must be other factors in play here.

One final suggestion from a forum member comes from checking DMOZ rankings (if applicable) and ticking off the checkbox that says "this is a UK listing." Since Google uses DMOZ for data, this can't hurt at all.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Are Long URLs Spammy?

Posted: May 6th, 2008, 4:31pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

I'm sure you've seen those URLs -- www.domain.com/4-star-hotel-in-barcelona-spain.php. The question is: is this a tactic that we consider spammy?

Not really, according to a High Rankings Forum thread. On the other hand, if it was www.domain.com/4-star-hotel-apartment-penthouse-keyword4-keyword5-keyword6-in-barcelona.php, that may raise some eyebrows. Additionally, if you think about it, unless you change the post slug of a WordPress post, thousands of these long URLs are generated every single day. (Tip: Shorter URLs are easier to remember and rock.)

At Cre8asite Forums, the question regarding dashes in a URL is discussed. Is it better than an underscore? Back on the High Rankings discussion, dashes are the default delimiter, if that gives any indication to a widespread preference, but it really doesn't matter.

But if it comes to the actual domain name, it's a lot easier (for you) to go with one that lacks the dash to make it easier for users to remember. They're less inclined to type the dash and it takes a bit of a learning curve. I found that adjustment necessary with brand new webmaster forum Webmaster Talk.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum and Cre8asite Forum.

The Floating Four At Google: Google's Position Four Seems Funky?

Posted: May 6th, 2008, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has some interesting observations, which I thought would be fun to name the "Floating Four" symptom.

In short, it seems like there are some pages that happen to float into the fourth position at Google's search results and then a couple hours later disappear. This pattern has been repeating itself time and time again.

WebmasterWorld's senior member, internetheaven, first reported this. He isolated his issue from a position 6 listing, floating to a position 4 and then back to 6. But he isn't the only one who noticed this mysterious floating four behavior. Senior member, steveb, also noticed it with rankings in the position 8 or higher, floating into the fourth position. Here is steveb's post:

Over the past week or so, I've seen the #4 spot show at least two pages that have long (years) been undervalued for the term by Google. they float in and out, and then also sometimes rank #8 while other times fall to where they have been for years (the 30s for one, nowhere for the other).

The thread is very new, but maybe we will find others noticing the same thing. If so, either comment here or discuss at WebmasterWorld. Either way, I will keep watching the space for more signs of this "floating four" behavior and keep you updated on any changes.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Improves Semantic Search

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 5:09pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups member notes that Google seems to be able to stem complex plurals as of late and accurate suffixes. For example, if you search for "accredit" or "accrediting," you will see "accreditation" highlighted as well.

Forum members also observe that Google is "capable of ranking on synonyms now" from an example posed by a user who said that Google is highlighting phrases that is are not at all tied to the on-page text.

One forum member says that Google must be pulling this data from a huge depth of information -- probably a very comprehensive dictionary, if you will.

Honestly... I'm not sure if Google uses links anymore to determine relevancy... I think they just build a huge world wide word density cloud and use that to abstract the depth of information for a search term based on the frequency it appears within a community...

JohnMu from Google adds that this may be related somewhat to personalized search results.

The discussion is interesting and definitely is a good read for those interested in semantic search.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

The Importance of a #1 Google Ranking

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 4:13pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Aaron Wall recently wrote a brilliant piece about the value of a #1 Google ranking. In his in-depth article, which is divided into 9 sections, he explains based on research and a variety of forum discussion that even small declines in ranking can break businesses. He goes on to explain the value of these rankings in financial terms, and explains how you can determine the value of your own rankings in 6 steps:

Establishing a baseline keyword value
Review Typical Click Distribution Profiles
Considering factors that modify click distribution
Tapping in the long tail
Improve monetization via scale
Take action

I won't go into the steps in depth as Aaron does an excellent job himself. I recommend that you give his incredibly comprehensive article a read and maybe even a printout :)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Google Basically Admits to Minus 60 Penalty

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 2:58pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Remember when I reported that we saw Google Sitelinks in position 60? I said then that it seems Google is admitting to the minus 60 penalty:

What I do find very interesting is that Googler, JohnMu, tells the webmaster to look at the -60 penalty Google Groups thread. Does he mean to imply that some sites with the -60 penalty, that deserve a number one position, will see Sitelinks in position 60, in these cases?

Well, the thread has been gaining steam since then and Googler, JohnMu, replied in the Google Groups thread once again. His reply was not specifically about the phenomenon of seeing a Sitelink result in the 60th position, which was the topic of the thread. But it was in regards to cleaning up the site from a spam perspective, in order to improve the site's ranking for its own name.

In fact, that webmaster came to our site and commented explaining things were getting better after he has cleaned up some problems on his site.

In short, this discussion seems to imply to me that Google is admitting to the minus 60ish penalty. Which likely comes to no surprise of many SEOs out there, but it is always nice to point to evidence like this. In fact, this is not the first time a Googler replied to a minus X penalty. Google's Matt Cutts replied to a minus 60 thread a couple month back, offering advice on cleaning up the site.

But yet, in a recent poll we conducted, 25-percent of SEOs feel the minus X penalties are not link related. Whereas, 47-percent said they feel they are link related.

Forum discussion continued at Google Groups.

Poll: Can A Competitor Hurt Your Google Rankings with Links?

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 2:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Forums have been buzzing and buzzing about the possibility of a competitor being able to hurt your Google ranking for the past few years now. We have covered this topic time and time again, just see here for some of the many times we covered it. In fact, we even covered a thread that listed how to penalize your competitors in Google.

I thought it would be fun to see if you guys believe it. Do you think it is possible for someone to hurt a competitors by using links as ammunition. I am not talking about hacking into someone's site. I am talking about just using external links, that a webmaster cannot control, as a method of hurting one's Google rankings. Here is the poll:

There is discussion on this topic at WebmasterWorld now. Most feel that, yes, you can hurt someone's ranking in Google with external links.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Part Of Your Site Needs a Google Review? You Need To Verify That Section With Google Separately

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 2:45pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Let's say, you have a subfolder on your domain that gets hacked. The hack causes your subfolder to be penalized by Google, due to the hack. Did you know that in order to issue a request for a review from Google in Webmaster Tools, you will need to individually submit and verify that subfolder to Google Webmaster Tools - even if you have the main domain listed and verified in Webmaster Tools?

A Google Groups thread discusses just that.

Googler, Susan Moskwa, explains:

If only a certain section of your site has been affected by malware (such as the /blog subfolder), you'll need to add that section specifically to your Webmaster Tools account in order to see the malware review notice. A great way to figure out which section(s) have been affected is to do a site: search and see which URLs have the malware label in search results.

Susan went on to agree with webmasters that it would be nice to be able to handle some of these requests at the top level domain, as opposed to having to register additional sub-directories or sub-domains with Google. But, as you can imagine, it makes sense why Google currently requires the individual registration - to handle third part hosting sites like Blogger, and so on. This is what Susan said:

I agree that it would be nice to bubble this up to the top level of the site (so that you can look at the Overview page for example.com and see that there's malware on example.com/blog), and I've passed your feedback along to our team.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Would Your Website Pass a Google Review?

Posted: May 1st, 2008, 4:45pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Aaron Wall wrote a very good piece on whether your website will pass a Google review and says that human reviews can potentially bring your site down. He mentions tactics you should use to avoid such reviews, including building quality content on your site, creating quality signals, and avoiding making drastic changes to your site so that you don't get flagged for review.

The discussion moves to Sphinn where most people think that their websites would not pass a quality review. Furthermore, they are not exactly sure they agree with how Google's reviewers handle sites at times. Since Aaron mentions that Marissa Mayer employs 10,000 reviewers, that's a hefty number (of individuals who likely aren't trained in any way). What's to say that these individuals don't really know what they're doing?

Best, perhaps exclusive content is the way to go. That way, you're not repeating what other people say and you're actually adding value for your visitors.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

GoogleBot Getting Tired? Google's Spider Crawling Less Documents

Posted: May 1st, 2008, 2:42pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread reports from dozens of Webmasters that GoogleBot, Google's web crawler has not been crawling as many documents as they have in the past. Many webmasters are noticing reduction in crawl rates as much as 90-percent, relative to historical numbers.

I am not sure how wide spread the issue is, or if it is an issue at all. It might be just more efficient crawling or it may be something else.

But this can cause a lot of concern for SEOs and webmasters. Here are some quotes on that concern:

Almost had heart attack when I saw the graph drop off to nothing.

Those three days starting 4/22 had me tearing my hair out.

Again, I don't know yet if it was a Google issue or just new behavior that should be expected from GoogleBot. Maybe a Google rep will chime in via the comments. But if you see a slow down in crawling from GoogleBot, I would not worry just yet.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

What are Some Questions to Ask an SEO Firm to Check their Legitimacy?

Posted: April 30th, 2008, 5:05pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

If you were interviewing an SEO firm to see if they're for real, what questions would you ask them? A High Rankings Forum thread touches upon some of the must-know questions, and they're outlined below:

How long they have been doing SEO?
Can you give me three clients that you have had first-page results for?
What are some campaigns you have succeeded with?
Can you illustrate any significant traffic boosts or conversion boosts?
What is your general SEO process?
What is your criteria for choosing keyword phrases?
How is success measured?
What should you expect from us as a client?

And the list goes on and on. What would you add to this for desired results?

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

More Webmasters Report Google Sitelinks, Few Problems Arise

Posted: April 28th, 2008, 4:58pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

WebmasterWorld members are talking about receiving Google Sitelinks, and overall, most forum members who are impacted this way are obviously happy about the expanded link opportunities. Some are a bit afraid that their sitelinks may drop off (as a few members have observed).

Others are noticing that the "algo broke." There's no specific information into how the algorithm broke but some note changes.

I had them a while now but they changed radically about a week ago. Previously, they were showing country specific subdirectories on my static content... now they only show links to country sub forums on my forum. I guess that means the algo thinks my forum has grown and is more important than the static content. Fine by me, I guess.

Moderator jdMorgan notes that Google Webmaster Tools lets you now exclude Sitelinks that you don't want. Simply go to Google Webmaster Tools, click to Links > SiteLinks, select the sitelink that you don't like, and click the "Block" link to the right of it.

Tedster notes the following changes when sitelinks were implemented:

One of my clients had a sitelink that pointed to a very obscurre page - they requested a deletion and it happened with no trouble. But that particular issue highlighted a problem with their entire "mouseover" menu system - the same menu label appeared in three different places! That one little strange sitelink has now generated a major project to re-structure their entire information architecture.
Another client has sitelinks for a single generic keyword. That's a very startling event, since there are 16 million results currently reported, and the keyword triggers many Adwords plus a Google Shopping OneBox at the top of the SERP. In other words, there are serious competitors who must be furious about those sitelinks.

In other words, these are "early bugs," as he notes.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Are Google's Flight Results Paid?

Posted: April 28th, 2008, 2:38pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A search for flight results in the syntax of flight from A to B, i.e. fly jfk to sjc returns a Google OneBox result, that by default, links to Expedia but offers links to other travel search engines including CheapTickets, Hotwire, Orbitz, Priceline and Travelocity.

This is really nothing new, in fact, we wrote about it back in 2006, but a new WebmasterWorld thread is now wondering if Google has a financial agreement with any of these travel search engines, maybe an affiliate agreement?

Besides for Google not labeling the results as paid, nor stringing them through an AdWords URL, it is pretty hard to assume they are paid. The redirect URLs do go through a few parameters that may imply some type of fee structure, as Receptional Andy implies:

GoogleAirTest
googleFlightsLink
fexp [flights experiment?]
PLGOOGLECPC [cost per click?]

Should Google clarify if there is any payment going back and forth here. To me, I think it is an unpaid extension of Google's Travel Information OneBox result.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

What is Google's Stance on Image Replacement Techniques?

Posted: April 25th, 2008, 5:02pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld member asks if there's any penalty for adding H2 text (4 words) for the search engines because his logo is displayed in an image.

The answer seems unclear. Tedster responds that he's asked Google twice about this -- one said that it can get a spam penalty and the other said it was perfectly fine if it was not keyword stuffing and was used only for accessibility.

In other words, we'll need someone from Google to let us know what the real answer is. :)

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

How Google Views Four Ways Of Hiding Content

Posted: April 25th, 2008, 2:53pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I would consider this Google Groups thread a "gem thread," since you don't always see a thread at this level - it is precious. A Googler, Wysz, discussed in detail four methods of hiding content and how Google may interpret each method.

JavaScript-Only Navigation: Wysz explains that this tactic does not fool or confuse search engines, so it likely won't hurt you in your rankings but from an "accessibility perspective," he says it is "not desirable." Wysz then goes on to answer specific questions posed by a webmaster, which you may gain some clues from.

CSS-Enhanced Navigation: Seems like Google and Wysz both love this method. Wysz said, as long as you do not have "intent to deceive search engines," then you should be fine. On the accessibility front, it is a win-win, "since it degrades gracefully as JavaScript and CSS support are removed," Wysz explains. Wysz adds, "Google should be able to follow these links and rank your pages normally."

Hidden Links via Positioning/Color, for Design/Accessibility: Wysz explains that this method can bring you "dangerously close to a grey area." The example he gives is that if you use the word "SkipToContent," which "isn't likely to be interpreted by anyone as an attempt at deception", said Wysz. He then adds, and this is important, "unless the term "SkipToContent" becomes a highly competitive keyword." Wysz does go on record saying, "If implemented in a non-deceptive manner, these aids should not cause a problem." But that leaves it up to Google to decide and intent is not always easy to judge. So, try not to use this method, if possible.

Hidden Links with No Mention of Accessibility or User Value: I think I will just quote Wysz here, cause he said it best. :)

I'm going to assume that these links are only intended for bots to see as attempt to deceive search engines. That's probably not an assumption you want a Googler to make. When making this judgement on your own, just ask yourself this question: "Is all of this text here for the user?" If you want to make Google (and your users) happy, the answer should always be "Yes."

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google Sitelinks in Position 60?

Posted: April 24th, 2008, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Groups thread has discussion about one webmaster that sees Sitelinks for his site in position 60. The search is for vacation realty and in the 60th position. While, I do not see the Sitelinks at that position, the webmaster does and provided a screen shot:

So there is really no doubt that this webmaster is seeing this on his computer. The question is, why aren't any of us? Typically, I wouldn't report something like this, but it is very unusual, so I wanted to draw more eyes to it.

What I do find very interesting is that Googler, JohnMu, tells the webmaster to look at the -60 penalty Google Groups thread. Does he mean to imply that some sites with the -60 penalty, that deserve a number one position, will see Sitelinks in position 60, in these cases?

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Can PageRank Sculpting Get You Penalized in Google?

Posted: April 21st, 2008, 3:08pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks if PageRank sculpting, be it through the nofollow attribute, JavaScript or robots.txt file, can it penalize you in Google? Will Google ever look at that to penalize your site? And so on.

I am 99% sure Matt Cutts of Google said you will not be penalized for using the nofollow attribute to flow your internal PageRank, as you see fit. We have some more conversation on quotes from Matt on that over here.

But will it ever raise a red flag? I would be lying if I said no. I would think it could be used as a measure to see which sites are overly optimized for search engines. Heck, what normal webmaster would nofollow their internal links? Most webmasters have no idea what a nofollow attribute is, let alone use it for internal links.

So to say it will never raise a red flag and possibly lead to Google reviewing your site and then penalizing it for reasons outside of the realm of PR Sculpting, is not possible to say. In my mind, it seems like a natural step for some Googlers to look for, when bored.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Note: This post was written last week and scheduled to go live on April 21st.

Google Offers More Advice On Linking Out

Posted: April 21st, 2008, 2:05pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Googler, JohnMu, has some basic linking advice in a Google Groups thread. In short, John explains that logic behind who you should or should not link to. I'll quote John:

In general, if you can provide relevant links for users of your site, feel free to link to them. That's how the web works :-), even if those links partially come from sites that you also own or work on.
That said, if those links are not relevant to the site, it's generally safe to say that they will not provide any significant value to your users, even if the sites you're linking to happen to be owned, made or run by the same owner. If you own or have made a group of fairly unrelated sites, it might be best to keep them on a portfolio page.

In general, thinking about where and how you would link to these sites will provide a good guideline. Would you want to keep this link visible in your main content? Or would you prefer to keep it in 5pt light-grey on white text on the bottom of your pages?

Did we learn anything new from this? Not most of you, but for our new readers or those searching for "advice on linking out," this article may come in handy.

If you have more questions, join the thread at Google Groups.

Note: This article was written last week and scheduled to be published automatically on Monday, April 21st.

Google Webmaster Tools Delists All Verified Sites?

Posted: April 18th, 2008, 2:20pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There seems to be a major bug in Google Webmaster Tools where Google is telling virtually all webmasters that their sites are not indexed in Google. For example, I am personally getting the following message for all my sites:

Yes, that reads:

No pages from your site are currently included in Google's index. Indexing can take time. You may find it helpful to review our information for webmasters and webmaster guidelines.

Hmm, but this site is indexed in Google:

So, I would not worry, it just seems to be a display issue in Google Webmaster Tools. As you can imagine, there is a lot of forum noise about the issue.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, HighRankings Forum and Google Groups.

Google Offers Advice On Moving from Site A to Site B

Posted: April 17th, 2008, 2:33pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has finally written a formal post at the Google Webmaster Central blog named Best practices when moving your site. It honestly is a nice place to send a client or webmaster when the question comes up. Does it give any of us more information then we already know? Not really, but it is nice to know that what we know and practice is confirmed by Google.

We have covered this topic over and over again, here are some of the articles I found at the Search Engine Roundtable (I am sure there are more than what I listed):

What I really want to see from Google is what we proposed back in 2006, the Google Certified Domain Change, that is something I think should be instituted already.

Anyway, it is nice to see this article from Google. But it is never enough, is it? We would love a tool in Webmaster Tools that aids the process, specifically for moving to a new domain.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

New Wave of Google Sitelinks Given to Sites

Posted: April 16th, 2008, 6:22pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

It looks like Google Sitelinks have had a update, and now mine look a lot better than they were previously.

Here are my new sitelinks:

Whereas before during the March update that added sitelinks to my domain just didn't look as clean:

(Matt, if you had anything to do with this, thanks.) :)

Additionally, new sites are reporting that they now have sitelinks.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Why Don't Big Brands Have Good Search Engine Optimization?

Posted: April 16th, 2008, 4:50pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

The SEM Insights blog discusses four reasons why big brands don't have good SEO. They are:

Requirement: ease of maintenance: Therefore, they may not be using CMSes that are SEO friendly.

Requirement: personalization and tracking: They need quantifiable results, but they don't understand that search results are going to display the most applicable page to a search query and that that every related page probably won't rank in the top 10 for a search.

Requirement: language: Big brands often serve content to different countries under a single TLD. The problem is that when people in different companies search for in-country results, they won't locate the big brand.

Corporate policy and legal issues: The last thing is that it takes forever in big brands to get things done. To put it simply, there's way too much bureaucracy in the corporate world.

At Sphinn, the discussion continues. Forum members believe that sometimes they'll take the easy sale (an ad representative with a solid presentation) and ignore SEO (especially since they have the money to afford PPC).

Another thought is that they're just so used to doing what they're doing that change is difficult. Indeed, the IT department makes things difficult. Their mantra: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Additionally, some copywriting just sucks. Some people just won't use keyword-rich text because they want to sound more professional and that prevails over search friendliness.

What big brands need is a shift in thinking. Unfortunately, they need to kick it off if they're serious about it.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Hosting Company Touting Server Speed As "Intrinsically Linked" To SEO

Posted: April 16th, 2008, 3:00pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A Cre8asite Forums discussion pointed me over to a UK hosting company named UKFast that has a white paper on Server Speed and SEO.

The paper makes the argument that server speed is a critical component to your SEO campaign. Here are some quotes from the white paper:

Website response speed helps search engines to assess the site’s relevance because speed is one of the criteria recognised in a successful site.
If a more powerful, faster server is used, the site loads more quickly and is rewarded by being moved higher in a the search engines’s displayed results.

Server speed is intrinsically linked to search engine optimisation.

If a server operates at a higher speed the business is more likely to be noticed by search engines. This is because Google, which is the world’s favourite search engine, offers rewards for businesses that provide excellent customer service.

Additionally, a fast server means spiders and robots find it easier to trawl a website. This means your website is indexed on a more regular basis and updated more frequently by search engines.

Technically, a really slow server can really hurt your rankings in many search engines. But can a super fast server improve your Google rankings? I don't think so. It might let Googlebot spider more of your pages quicker, but even that seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

You see, what they claim is half-true. If you have a really slow server, it can have a negative impact on your rankings. But having a super fast server, as opposed to a fast server, won't increase your rankings. I.e. A super fast site won't rank higher than a fast site, if all else is equal. At least as far as I know.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

When Talking SEO, Be On The Same Page

Posted: April 15th, 2008, 4:49pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A High Rankings Forum thread is a perfect example of how people can misinterpret SEO terms. In this particular case, because a site has lost its rankings, an individual is looking to build a "link farm."

Well, sort of. A "link farm," he says, is how he builds reciprocal yet relevant links. (A real "link farm" is frowned upon by Google.)

If you ask me, that doesn't sound like a link farm. But there's a problem within this industry that can cause serious penalties (without any idea why) if you're not understanding the proper SEO terms.

My guess is that in this particular member's case, he lost rankings because his boss misinterpreted another SEO tactic yet again. It's very important to understand these terms clearly. If in doubt, ask a forum member for help.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

Google Local Business Center Allows Free Form Categories Now

Posted: April 15th, 2008, 2:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

You can now enter any category that you feel is best for your company in the category section of your Google Local Business Center listing. In the past, you had to select a specific category that was in Google's database. Now, if the business category is not listed in the database, no worries - you can still enter it.

For example, "web software" is not an available Google Business Local category. But I added it below and clicked "next" with no problem.

I discovered this new feature via a Google Maps Guide post at Google Groups, where Google Maps Guide Jen said:

Up until a few weeks ago it was true that we couldn't create new categories.
However, thanks to your many request, and to our Local Business Center team, you can now enter free form categories for your business in your Local Business Center account.

I believe the category you set in the Google Local Business Center is extremely important in ranking well for local specific results in Google Local and Google Web Search, when universal search kicks in.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Make Sure to Return the Right Response Code on 404 Pages

Posted: April 14th, 2008, 5:07pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

WebmasterWorld administrator tedster urges each and every webmaster to ensure that their 404 custom error page actually returns an appropriate 404 error code. He explains that he sees more 200 response codes than ever, lately, because custom 404 pages are often redirected using 302 to a page that then serves a 200 error.

What this means is that eventually all of these "bad" URLs pile up and you have a duplicate content issue on your hands.

The most vulnerable web servers to this type of activity is IIS/Microsoft. Ted explains that custom error messages are set up differently (versus Apache).

He explains what you should do if you use IIS:

For the IIS user, there is one other caution I should mention about 404 handling. If you are using .NET, then there are two levels of error handling: at the IIS level and at the .NET level. It is also common to find that only one of these two levels is set up correctly. So when you're checking your site, try a bad url with a .asp (.aspx) extension, and also try a bad url with a .htm extension.

And yes, Apache may not be as vulnerable, but it still is, especially if it serves JSP pages with Tomcat.

With all that said, everyone should take a moment and check their server headers of their custom 404 page as directed by Tedster.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

User Behavior Influenced By Blended Search Results

Posted: April 14th, 2008, 4:18pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

iProspect has released findings of a blended search results study that shows that user behavior is being impacted by search results. According to the findings, users are more likely to click on the blended results (news story, video, or image) than one of the ~10 actual links themselves. Search Engine Watch provides a summary of the findings and concludes that a lot of companies are still not taking advantage of blended search. However, perhaps you now should.

According to the data provided, 36% of users recall clicking on a news item, 31% recall clicking on an image, 17% recall clicking on video, 25% don't remember what they were doing after they completed the search, and only 19% say they clicked on a "regular" search result. The numbers are substantial and they speak for themselves. Blended search is here to stay and you need to evolve or die out.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Google Now Crawling Content Behind Forms

Posted: April 14th, 2008, 2:50pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

We should have seen this coming, based on the number of reports that Google was submitting GET forms. But often, it is hard to validate those types of reports, due to people spoofing Googlebot and similar tactics. In any event, Google now admits to Crawling through HTML forms. Here are some things to know about this announcement in bullet form:

For select menus, check boxes, and radio buttons on the form, Google will choose from among the values of the HTML.
After gaining access to content pass the form, Google may or may not index that content
You can block Googlebot from crawling your forms by excluding them in your robots.txt file
Googlebot will only attempt to crawl GET forms
Googlebot tries to avoid forms requesting userids, login, passwords, contact information and so on
This should not impact PageRank

Matt Cutts of Google explains how this meets a need of so many webmasters that are clueless to SEO. In fact, from making the web more accessible, this new crawling technique rocks. But for SEOs and webmasters who want to block Google from accessing content, it will require some change on their part. I.e. they will have to restructure some of their sites to block Googlebot from crawling their forms.

The forum reaction is very mixed. We have threads at Sphinn, DigitalPoint Forums, Search Engine Watch Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Pros: Google can crawl places they haven't and index more of your content, which gives you more visibility.
Cons: Pages you do not want indexed, might require you do more work to block them.

The big joke in WebmasterWorld is that Googlebot now has a credit card. For example, if it can submit forms, maybe Googlebot will start messing around with conversions. Obviously, it won't place orders but what about submit a simple form that you consider to be a conversion (i.e. like user agreements or more)? In fact, I found GoogleBot filling out this Google Checkout form to buy itself some WD40 (kidding of course):

But you get the point.

Forum discussion at Sphinn, DigitalPoint Forums, Search Engine Watch Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo Search April 2008 'Tax Day' Update

Posted: April 14th, 2008, 2:08pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

This weekend, we have reports coming from WebmasterWorld of major ranking changes at Yahoo Search. It appears Yahoo has started an algorithm and indexing update at their search engine.

Currently there are no "weather reports" with the status of an update at the Yahoo Search Blog, but based on the conversation at the thread, there appears to be an updating taking place. The last update took place in early March, but in reality, most SEOs and webmasters did not notice any changes. So maybe this is the legit update?

Here is some of the feedback from the thread:

I did some more thorough investigating and these results are really bad....

We lost about 50% of our Y! traffic during the last update and we noticed a nice lift today.

Looks like an update to me. See wiki pages climbing to the top for many results. Why do they even want for each term a wiki to turn up. If I want a wiki explanation or information, I'll go to it myself. I find it a step back for search results.

I suspect Yahoo will have a post on the update soon at their Yahoo Search Blog. Since this is happening on the tax day weekend, why not call it the Yahoo Tax Day update? Heck, maybe some of you can use this update as a deduction for 2008? ;-)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

What Should You Do to Your Content when You Change Domains?

Posted: April 11th, 2008, 4:05pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Are you afraid of changing your domain because you're afraid that you'll lose your rankings? It's a valid concern and one that a Google Groups member is quite worried about. What's the best possible way to handle domain changes without any loss of rankings?

Two Google Webmaster Central staff members, Wysz and JohnMu, explain that the best procedure is to implement a 301 redirect. In May of last year, this question was addressed on the Google Webmaster Central blog.

JohnMu explains that it's best to "redirect incrementally" instead of doing hundreds (or thousands) of redirects at once. His reason is that you should be able to check that it's working properly before continuing.

A word of caution: don't use a 302 (temporary) redirect. What that tells Google is that you're saving the old URL. John explains that this can "confuse the crawlers." Finally, he mentions that he moved a site with about 100,000 pages before he joined Google and noticed no long-term negative effects.

While all of this is helpful, you can't help but wonder if Google Webmaster Tools should give webmasters the ability to specify that they're changing domains so that Google has some awareness before (or during) the process -- and I'm certain that it would alleviate some stress that is impacting these webmasters.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Google Changes Local Ranking Algorithm

Posted: April 11th, 2008, 2:11pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Back about 6 months ago, one of the main factors in ranking well in Google Local and other local engines, like Yahoo, was to have your address as close to the center of the city as possible.

A new Search Engine Watch Forums thread comes out showing that this pattern seems to have changed. Whereas once it was the center of the city that seemed to be one of the most important factors in ranking well for specific sets of local searches, now that may not be the case.

Jazajay, Search Engine Watch Forum moderator, has been watching a few local spots for a long time now and has noticed this new pattern based on his Dad's business:

My dads listing has 1 review in G maps, the bussiness in position A doesn't.
He has his bussiness name in the title, as I suggested to him, the site above does but listings below him do and don't, agian no noticable pattern.
My dad's listing doesn't have the category name in nor does the one above it. Listings below do.
He has submitted to my knowledge to 2 local directories since listing. The competior below and above him has submitted to quiet a few, they are the same listing. Same bussiness that has submitted 2ice.

So I decided to check my local results. I was never number one for web design, 10901 in the local Google results. But now I am:

So what I did was search on 10901 and looked where Google placed the center arrow (green arrow). I then overlaid that arrow on top of the local results for that query, to see which result is the closest to the center of the town (if the center of the city is that arrow, which is my assumption). Take a look:

Based on this, it seems like A, which is me, is not as close as C and B much further than C and the others. So other criteria is now coming into play, possibly ratings, possibly PageRank, possibly other factors.

It has changed, I wasn't always position A for that query and the consensus of the thread suggests Google Local's ranking algorithm has changed.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Is This Strange Google Site Command Behavior?

Posted: April 11th, 2008, 2:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

I don't think this is exactly related to Google mixing up titles and URLs from yesterday (if you have examples, please comment, so Matt can address them at Google). But over at Search Engine Roundtable Forums, PPCBlogger showed us an example of something I found to be a bit out of the norm for Google.

A search in Google for www.quiltersguild.org.uk/index.php?page=56 returns no results:

But when you search for that URL in this syntax, site:www.quiltersguild.org.uk/ 56, it shows the result:

Now, typically, if the page is indexed, it should come up for a search on the URL alone. For example, a search on http://forums.seroundtable.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2 returns a result.

Just seems a bit strange to me.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Google Recommends robots.txt Sitemap Submission During Glitch

Posted: April 10th, 2008, 4:25pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Webmasters at Google Groups are reporting that some verified sites' sitemap URLs are not being accepted by Google Webmaster Tools. The error some webmasters are receiving is: "URL not allowed - This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location."

Susan Moskwa of the Google Webmaster Central team says that this is a problem that exists for those who have numerous domains in their accounts. The alternative way is to specify the Sitemap through robots.txt. She writes:

As you've noticed, our cross-submissions system may experience some problems if you have a large number of sites in your account. For now, I'd recommend submitting your Sitemaps via your robots.txt file, or submitting separate Sitemaps for each subdomain.

The robots.txt sitemap protocol is explained in this Google Webmaster Help document. Simply add the following line to your robots.txt file:

Sitemap: [path to sitemap]

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Google Search Mixing Up URLs & Page Titles?

Posted: April 10th, 2008, 3:35pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are reports from several sources including WebmasterWorld that Google is having a tough time mapping the proper URLs with the associated page titles for those URLs.

One report says that Google is treating searches for portal A on a subdirectory of a governmental site all wrong. So a search for a keyword that would trigger a result from portal A on subdirectory A, would in fact return a result from subdirectory B, with a page title from subdirectory C. I.e. A search that would typically return a page title and URL from domain.com/subdirectoryA/ is returning a URL from domain.com/subdirectoryB/ and a page title from domain.com/subdirectoryC.

Other reports are saying that on some [site:www.domain.com keyword] command searches, Google is returning results from totally different domains, outside of the restricted domain you entered.

I am not sure how wide scale the issue is and I have no hard examples that I can provide, due to WebmasterWorld's guidelines - but there are several reports on this behavior.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

How To Penalize Your Competitor's Site in Google

Posted: April 8th, 2008, 2:56pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Juicy title, isn't it? Well, that is the topic of discussion at a WebmasterWorld. A senior member decided to post some generic, not specific examples, ways to hurt a website's Google rankings. Here are some of the methods you can take:

Inbound links from "bad" places.
Hundreds of links from one IP address.
Duplicate content (a) from competitors scraping your entire site and creating their own from it
Duplicate content (b) from competitors stealing your articles and submitting them to article submission services
301/302 redirect hijacking (after all this time it STILL happens!

Yes, there are many other ways to do this. Can it happen to your site. I am told it can. Can it happen to a site that has years and years of authority? Hard to believe, but people say yes. Can it happen to an Amazon like site or a Wikipedia? I doubt it is achievable.

The member also added that there is a new method to harm a site's ranking in Google, but said he couldn't give those details:

There is a new one that is very quick to work using 301's that I daren't put in here but a black hat "associate" of mine said she's dropped quite a few of her client's competitors within days!

Watching Google's most recent language, they seem to have moved from saying it is impossible for a competitor to hurt your rankings. Here are some past articles on it, but the language seems to be changing from words that symbolize "impossible" to words like "almost not possible," "very unlikely," and so on.

I use to not feel that this was a major issue or an issue most webmasters should have a valid reason to worry about. I am not convinced that this is no longer an issue for webmasters.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Does the Google link: Operator Choose the Ordering by Relevance?

Posted: April 7th, 2008, 4:59pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

If you were ever to perform a link: query on Google, you'd be presented with a lot of links. But are they ordered in any such way that authoritative links are listed before any other links? Nobody knows for sure, but some people have seen some experience to indicate that the link: operator only shows higher quality links. However, they also note that in the past, Google has changed this policy because it was a great way for competition to try to score some "higher quality" links.

Tedster reports that the link: operator is merely a sampling of what really exists out there. Similarly, you're only seeing a sampling of your links when you do a link analysis on Google Webmaster Tools.

Nobody believes that the results are randomized. One forum member reports that the link: operator shows basically the same results every time. There's some order, but it's hard to say exactly what it is.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Google Code Snippets Now Available in Universal Search

Posted: April 7th, 2008, 4:42pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Michael Gray pointed out that Google Code snippets are now part of universal search and I was able to reproduce his findings this morning.

If you notice halfway down the page, you're seeing a whole brand new set of results that are pulled from a file built in C programming language.

I think the best part, though (at least for many SEOs) is that the Wikipedia result is below the fold. ;)

What do you think about this new discovery? If you're a coder, do you find the results valuable or not helpful at all?

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Is a Complete Website Makeover Bad for Search Engine Optimization?

Posted: April 7th, 2008, 4:22pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Some great websites rank but have horrendous code. At Cre8asite Forums, a webmaster has been given the task of redesigning the website and cleaning up the messy code and adding standard SEO elements (robots.txt, sitemap, external CSS, etc.). However, since the website is ranking well (after all, it's being updated fairly frequently and the content is good), is there a risk in taking on such a project? Will a redesign kill the rankings?

Well, it all depends. One Cre8asite member says that if the site structure remains relatively the same, nothing should really change substantially.

But what else? You should take the time to educate the client. After all, the site has been around for over 10 years in this case and it will be extremely important to you (and your client) to learn some SEO basics. As EGOL says, the client knows a lot more about her topic than you, the SEO, does. Teaching her will only reap benefits:

In my opinion the best SEOs help their clients develop into better webmasters. There is more to gain by teaching than keeping secrets.

Indeed, she can gain a lot and your life will be a lot easier if you have someone who is eager and willing to take on your recommendations.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Google Sometimes Not Grouping Results From Same Domain?

Posted: April 7th, 2008, 2:57pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Barry Welford at Cre8asite Forums spotted and screen captured an interesting Google slip up earlier. Typically, if Google displays a search result from the same domain name on a page, it will group that result (i.e. indent the result) under the first result. But Barry Welford spotted a case, which I cannot reproduce, of Google showing a second listing as a stand alone result in the Google search results.

Here is a screen capture from Barry W:

This is far from common Google practices. What it looks like to me, now at least, is the norm:

Was it a temporary bug?

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

What Should You Look for When Hiring In-House SEOs?

Posted: April 4th, 2008, 4:30pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

My BFF Lisa Barone wrote a really great post about what companies should look for when hiring in-house SEO consultants. SEO folks should have some sort of technical skills and a little coding expertise too. They also should have an analytical mindset and be willing to stare at a lot of numbers. Other highly-regarded characteristics include the ability to research well, someone who can think outside the box, someone with a sense of ethics, and an individual who can grow within your organization.

Of course, there are other characteristics. You want someone with a passion for this line of work. If they're not interested, they may not be hanging on for a long time.

You'll also wan someone to be on top of their ballgame. Just like a programming language has updates and you'll have to learn new tips and tricks in order to stay ahead, SEO isn't much different. Things change. Algorithms shift. You'll need to be able to work on new strategies if you encounter something different, and the old tricks may not suffice.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Is it Normal to Plateau When Doing Continuous Link Building?

Posted: April 4th, 2008, 4:02pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

A WebmasterWorld member has been applying regular search engine optimization and link building techniques and is noticing that the traffic hasn't improved as substantially in the latter months of the campaign as it did initially. Is this something normal?

Actually, in many ways, it is. The first few months are typically a lot easier than the later months. Tedster mentions that sometimes it takes links time to reach their full power and cites Google's "Historical and Age Data" patent.

There's no reason to give up, though. It's time to focus your energy on building links from high quality relevant sites. Focus your energy on building good content to attract such links.

Forum members also believe that it may not necessarily be link building that can be holding you back. It could be that your competition is ahead of its game. One suspects that it may even be the work of a human editor. What you can do, though, is take the recommendations and be aggressive in your link building efforts. Then see if you move up.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Google Changes Behavior For Showing Results Queried in Quotations

Posted: April 4th, 2008, 2:55pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google has changed how they handle displaying search results for when you use quotes in the search box and when there are not many or any matches. For example, a search on "super running for life" at Google would normally return no results, since there are no matching documents for that phrase as a phrase.

But now Google shows a link for "See results for: super running for life," without quotes and displays the first three results for that query. Here is a screen capture:

Simple but smart idea. Google Blogoscoped also covered this new Google behavior.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

How to Rank in Google News

Posted: April 3rd, 2008, 4:29pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google News Team recently blogged about the "secrets" of achieving rank in Google News. They dispelled many myths and clarified other facts. Some of the interesting facts include the following:

Having an image next to your article improves your ranking: MYTH
Updating an article after posting it will create problems with Google News: TRUE
Timing the publication of your article improves your article ranking: MYTH
Articles that are just images or video won't be included: TRUE
There's no way to see why my articles weren't included in Google News: MYTH
Publishing a sitemap helps my rankings: MYTH
Redesigning my site may affect my coverage in Google News: TRUE
If I put AdSense on my site, my article rankings will improve: MYTH

Surprised? The post goes into greater detail about every myth and fact so that you can ensure that your news articles get the right coverage.

Over at Search Engine Land, Barry has a few takeaways: Google will be looking at your articles for updates and some images may actually bring you good traffic on Google News.

In 2006, we covered how to get included in Google News. If you fit the minimum criteria, it's about time you apply those tips and these to get the best coverage.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Google Webmaster Tools Can't Verify .ASIA Domain Names

Posted: April 3rd, 2008, 2:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Just when we were getting over the Google Webmaster Tools Verification bug, when the far east is now suffering with a similar bug. If you have a .ASIA domain, Google has confirmed that you will not be able to verify the domain with Google Webmaster Tools. At least not at the moment.

Google is currently working on fixing the issue and hopefully you will be able to verify your .ASIA domain with Google shortly.

Googler, JohnMu said in a Google Groups thread:

The Webmaster Tools team is working on resolving this issue; I'll get back to you as soon as I know more. Thanks for your patience!

The bug was reported on March 31st.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Yahoo! Site Explorer Available for the UK and Ireland

Posted: April 2nd, 2008, 5:27pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Kevin Gibbons blogged about his recent discovery that Yahoo Site Explorer is available for users in the United Kingdom and Ireland. His blog post contains screenshots of the tool, but UK members can access Yahoo! Site Explorer right here.

Is it any different than our regular Yahoo! Site Explorer? Not so much. However, Kevin makes the following observation:

From the searches I've done they seem to be ordering these with UK links towards the top, there's definitely some non-UK links in there as well though.

What are your findings?

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Google Showing Same Result in Positions 20 Through 120

Posted: April 2nd, 2008, 3:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

This is no April Fools joke, Google is really showing the same search result for some queries in special cases. A WebmasterWorld brought it my to attention and then I was given a way to reproduce it by Andreas.

The first thing you need to do is limit your search results to show only one result per page. You can do that by adding &num=1 to the URL string after searching. Even after I tried that, for a search on ipod, I was unable to reproduce the issues on the results 57 and 58 as an example.

So Andreas emailed me an example that works. A search on "deine Tierwelt" in Google.de returns this result for position number 57:

And the same result for 56:

What seems interesting is that the "results of X" line at the top right keeps changing as you change results. Seems like a weird bug that I cannot reproduce in Google.com.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Fixes Verification Bug

Posted: April 1st, 2008, 2:59pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

After about 6 or so days of webmasters not being able to verify their sites in Google Webmaster Tools, Google has finally applied the fix. On March 28th, we reported verification issues with Google Webmaster Tools starting some time before March 27th.

Google was aware of the issue and said there would be a fix soon.

Yesterday afternoon, Googler, JohnMu, updated the Google Groups thread telling us the fix is now complete:

From what I can see it looks like this issue has been resolved. Thank you for your patience!
If you still have problems with regards to verification, please continue to let us know.

So if you are still seeing any issues, please go to Google Groups and update the thread.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Is it Better to Be Ranked #10 or #11?

Posted: March 31st, 2008, 4:55pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

What would you consider a better scenario? Would you rather be below the fold on page one or above the fold on page two of the search results? If so, why?

The answer may depend on your wants and needs. On DigitalPoint Forums, a forum member is saying that he's getting a lot less traffic in the #10 ranking than in the #11th position.

While few don't see a difference between page 1 and page 2, many say that page one is obviously better. It gives you incentive to work towards ranking even higher on page one. And that should be a goal you shouldn't sit on -- it's a consistent work in progress.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

What Belongs in a Search Engine Optimization Strategies Document?

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 3:50pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

At a Cre8asite Forums thread, a user is looking for guidance on how to compile a SEO strategic document. What would be contained in such a document?

The first step in writing a document like this is determining your audience and asking who is going to read this strategy document. Once that's set, you can think of other goals, particularly the company goals and the departmental goals.

But be careful. Don't make promises you can't deliver:

I'd also try to be easy on predicting awesome sales. It is better to underestimate and be a winner later, then overestimate now and be seen as underachiever. Even if in the latter variant, you've done exceptionally well.

What do you think? Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums -- and the final outline for the SEO strategies document is revealed.

Google Adds Robots.txt Generator to Webmaster Tools

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 3:32pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Google Optimization

Want an official Google robots.txt generator? You have one. Yesterday, the Google Webmaster Central blog announced the launch of a new tool in Google Webmaster Central, the robots.txt generator.

Here's what it looks like:

You'll then need to download it and save it as your robots.txt file. (Be advised that you'll probably overwrite your current robots.txt file if you already have one.)

For now, forum response is supportive of the tool, but the big wish is that wildcards be supported in the future.

Danny Sullivan has written more about the tool at Search Engine Land, where he walks you through the process and explains the syntax of a basic robots.txt file.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Verification Temporary Bug

Posted: March 28th, 2008, 2:21pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Googler, JohnMu, posted a Google Groups thread telling everyone that Google is aware of the verification issue in Google Webmaster Tools and not to worry. He said:

I just wanted to give a short heads-up that we're aware of the issue with site verification in Webmaster Tools. The team is working on it, so you should all be able to take a deeper look into your site's indexing through Webmaster Tools soon! If your site was unverified, it will generally have no impact on any settings or statistics in your account. They will all be back once your site is re-verified.
I'm sorry for the disruption and hope to see you all in our chat tomorrow!

So no need to worry, everything should return to normal, if you are impacted by this.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Is Search Engine Optimization a Bad Investment?

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 4:06pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Julie Joyce writes on the SEO Chicks blog talks about the American Express believes that SEO is a waste of money. The idea is that there are snake oil salesmen (not all SEOs do this, though), but it ends up affecting the industry as a whole. Just because someone promised "guaranteed top 10 rankings in 90 days" doesn't mean he's doing it right or ethically. The industry shouldn't take a hit for that, but unfortunately, they do.

Julie says that you shouldn't give out bad advice as it's extremely irresponsible.

Yes, there are examples of poor SEO but that’s absolutely no reason to advise all small business owners against employing the services of reputable people who happen to have the background and the knowledge to compete in the online arena.

And she ends the article with a bang: that bad advice isn't much better than bad SEO. So there, AMEX.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

How To Join The Google Webmaster Help Group Live Chat on Friday

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 2:12pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Monday we reported that Google Webmaster Central Team to Offer Live Chat on Friday, March 28th. As promised, I am updating you with the how to join details of this live chat session. Google's Adam Lasnik posted a bunch of details at Google Groups, throughout a few pages.

Here is the FAQ which has the agenda and instructions. Let me summarize:

8:45 (PST) :: You can now join the chat
9:05 (PST) :: The introduction by the Googlers
9:15 (PST) :: Site Clinic (you submit your site)
9:40 (PST) :: Advanced topic: Images in search results by Maile Ohye
9:50 (PST) :: Additional Q&A time
10:00 (PST) :: Hang Up Your Phone (The End)

How To Join The Chat:

It appears Google is powering the chat and conference call via Webex. So to get the Webex meeting URL, you have to go here Friday morning. It won't be posted until then, I don't think. Then when you get to that sign in URL, you will be asked for your name and e-mail address. WebEx will then install it's software on your computer. Webex will then aid you in calling in, but you can call 1-866-469-3239 or if you are international you can use one of these numbers.

It appears you will not be allowed to speak on the phone. You can listen to the Googler's talk, chat with other listeners and then type your questions to a Googler during the Q&A.

Any questions? If so, use this Google Groups thread to ask them and don't forget, if you want your site reviewed, submit it here.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

March '08 Google Sitelinks Update

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 2:08pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There are many reports via DigitalPoint Forums that Google has added the Sitelinks feature to many new sites.

Tamar even mentioned to me yesterday that a search on tamar weinberg now returns Sitelinks for her site.

The last Google Sitelinks update was about a month ago on February 22nd.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

The META Description & Google Search Engine Snippet

Posted: March 27th, 2008, 1:06pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

One of the oldest questions in the search engine optimization practice is on the META description. The META description is this little tag you include in the header file, that provides a machine readable short summary of your page. Many search engines including Google, Yahoo, & Live Search use the META description in one way or an other. Here is a screen capture of what our META description looks like within the source code of a page:

A Cre8asite Forums thread has a recent discussion that probes into the META description and how it impacts the search engine snippet. The search engine snippet is the piece of content found directly under the blue hyperlink of the search results listings. Here is the search engine snippet in Google for a search on search engine roundtable:

Yes, in this case it matches my META description but not always. If you search for barry schwartz you get this alternative description for this site:

Google and most engines, try to match the content of your search and then apply a more contextually relevant snippet to your query. In the case of "barry schwartz," Google noticed that "barry" and "schwartz" were both not mentioned in the META description, so it proceeded to look for content on the page that matched. What it found was the word "barry" in the little links under each post, in the alt and title tag text:

Ron Carnell, Cre8asite Forums Administrator, makes an interesting observation, which seems to be true:

In every single instance in my experience, putting the search terms in a meta-description sentence resulted in THAT sentence being used in the snippet as soon as the page was crawled. Every instance.

Got that?

Anyway, the forum thread also touches on topics such as why a search engine doesn't use anchor text when developing a search snippet? It also asks how we, webmasters, would want to extend the META description. I love Cre8asite Forum Modertor, EGOL's response:

Looking forward... maybe some day search engines will be able to pass query information to websites. If a person searches for "Bluenote Widgets" perhaps the search engine could pass those words to my website and there would be an easy to install tool that make them appear in highlight on my page... or maybe the link to my page would dropdown to the occurrence of those words on my page. These links could be tiny icons beneath the snippet. Searchers would click them if they want the highlighting or the dropdown anchor.

EGOL's first answer is a lot like how the Google Co-Op works to allow webmasters to trigger certain search results for trusted searchers:

By the way, do subscribe to our Google coop subscriber links.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Is There a Way to Prove ROI from Search Engine Optimization?

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 3:52pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Some clients just need to know if their SEO investment is worthwhile. But how do you measure ROI, or rather, can you prove that there is a return on the investment?

It's a hard question to answer. On the superficial level, you can check Google Analytics and check if there has been an increase of visitors to your site, and if so, where they came from. But typically, there's really no way to prove ROI since there are so many different factors in play, including the increase in traffic, the attribution of that traffic to your actual SEO efforts, and the long-term investment of your SEO efforts.

Additional metrics include gathering prospective callers from the website (a practical solution to measure this would be to put a different phone number on the website versus on print publications) or by simply asking "How did you hear about us?" to people who dial in.

Forum discussion and (which includes a very nifty guide for metrics posted by nethy) continues on High Rankings Forum.

How to do Local SEO from Facebook

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 3:19pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Andrew Shotland aka Local SEO Guide has a very cool writeup on Facebook Pages and Local Search Engine Optimization. He explains that it's possible to do local SEO from your Facebook page and illustrates the process, which includes setting up your own blog, installing a Facebook application called SimplyRSS, keeping content updated regularly, and networking on Facebook very often.

Does it work? He illustrates that an accountant from the UK is using it, and it seems to appear pretty useful. However, with 8 fans, my bet is that they're not applying Andrew's fourth tip: "networking up the wazoo." In any event, with an RSS reader, you can embed your blog posts into almost any Facebook page that you can customize, be it your profile page or a fan/product page, and it's a very valuable tool to leverage.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Google's New Search Box Within Search Results Increases Traffic

Posted: March 26th, 2008, 1:21pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Early March we reported that Google Tests Additional Sitewide Searchbox Within SERPs. Yes, for certain queries, Google will show a site search box, likely so they can increase search volume for the engine but say that they can help the searcher. In any event, since then I have been watching to find reports on what a search box like this would do to one's traffic.

One report via a WebmasterWorld thread reports that his traffic doubled due to the addition of the search box under his search listing in Google. Here are the exact words from the webmaster (see post #3592869):

They did one for my site. Works with a search for my domain. Traffic doubled overnight.

The thread is also analyzing how many pages a site has to have to be granted the site search box in the search results. There are sites found with less than 10,000 indexed pages with the site search box, according to the thread. But not everyone wants the site search box. Amazon.com for one doesn't. As you can see, when Google launched it, we took a screen capture of Amazon having the site search box, but now it is gone, because they asked Google to pull it.

If it increases traffic, then maybe it is worth keeping. Maybe Amazon thought that it would reduce traffic to their site, because the searcher would stay on Google one step longer and have less of a chance clicking over. Who knows?

I'll keep watching the space for signs of how this search box impacts webmasters.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Why Does Google Hate Link Manipulation?

Posted: March 21st, 2008, 2:33pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Anyone who knows the Google Web Spam team well, knows that they all have a huge distaste for link manipulation. In my opinion, it is more than just a distance for some of the web spam team members, specifically Matt Cutts.

Matt Cutts, a great guy, Google engineer since January 2000, has a strong, deep, gut wrenching distaste for link manipulation, in my opinion. Where do I get this opinion from? I don't think from our conversations but from watching Matt write and communicate with webmasters on link issues since early 2003.

Let me pull out one recent post by Matt Cutts that demonstrates it. A Sphinn thread, Matt writes:

Todd, what about a query like [symptoms of a heart attack]? The searcher wants accurate results ASAP, and might not have enough time or patience to research the subject thoroughly. We think about searches like this and issues like this all the time, which is why Google may come across as humorless when we talk about some linking issues.
I thought Eric made a pretty compelling argument. When you search, you don't want a search engine that is "fooled" by lower-quality links. And if you're trying to compete for search rankings fairly, you don't want a site that takes short cuts to do better than your site. That's why it's so helpful to have great content first and foremost and then promote that content well as opposed to just building links to low-quality content.

Just read that. Do people search for such things? I would think so. I don't think heart attacks are sudden always and I hear many people get them without knowing, they just feel discomfort. So Matt takes this stuff beyond seriously, but sometimes, I feel, personally. Imagine, spending eight plus years working at a company to build out a search experience that provides as much help to the searcher as possible. Now, imagine you have people come in and try to manipulate that? In my opinion, it would take a strong man to not take that somewhat personally. Of course, Googlers can't take it personally, but in some cases - it can be hard not to.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Google Should Add Inbound Link Opt Out Feature to Webmaster Tools

Posted: March 20th, 2008, 1:24pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Recently, one of the most requested Google Webmaster Tools features I have been hearing through the forums either directly or indirectly is the ability to mark links as links you do not vouch for.

Even though we have said time and time again that links can't hurt you, no one believes it. Not only do people feel they can hurt you, they feel they can kick you while you are down already, which makes it even worse. Once Google penalizes your site for having bad links pointing to it, Google expects you to contact the people linking to you and make them remove the links. Good luck with that!

That is why Webmasters want a feature to opt out links from counting in Webmaster Tools. Yahoo Site Explorer has it, so maybe Google should follow the lead. Here is how Yahoo Site Explorer works.

(1) Login to Yahoo Site Explorer

(2) Click on your inlinks link

(3) Mouse over a link and notice the "report spam" button:

(4) Click the report spam button and you are taken to this page to confirm the request:

After that, then supposedly, Yahoo won't count that link against you.

If SEOs and webmasters are expected to be responsible for the links pointing to them, even if they can't control all of them, then Google must give them a way to fully control which links are counting for good or bad.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Message Center Bug

Posted: March 19th, 2008, 1:49pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Google recently improved the Webmaster Tools "message center" by having messages wait for you even if you are not verified.

But a few reports are coming from Google Groups that the message center is not displaying open messages. Users are seeing they have a message, they click on the message and are presented with the following error:

Your messages are not available at this time. Please try again later.

Google Webmaster Trends Analysts, Jonathan Simon, responded saying:

This appears to have been a temporary issue.

But another user came in an hour or more later saying that he also just received that error.

I was unable to verify or replicate the error myself, because I don't have any messages waiting for me. Google, want to send me a note so I can test it? ;-)

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Yahoo Site Explorer Showing Less Links Recently?

Posted: March 19th, 2008, 1:10pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

A DigitalPoint Forums has reports from dozens of webmasters that their link counts in the tool are way down.

Some users are reporting as much as of an 80-percent reduction in the number of links Yahoo Site Explorer is finding for their sites.

Lost about 75% on all sites today.

Ya! This was a huge drop though..not the usual slight fluctuation. i lost like 12k links.

I don't track my links on a frequent basis for this site, but I was able to dig up a past link count that I posted here back in October 2007 where I found I had 216,880 inlinks reported. Today, Yahoo Site Explorer reports I have 271,196 inlinks. So I don't see any reductions and I also checked some tools that might have been tracking this for me on an automated basis and I see no reduction.

(1) Either this site was not impacted or
(2) This was a temporary bug that is now fixed.

Are your Yahoo inlinks report down drastically?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Very Explicit Porn Hits Google Universal Search

Posted: March 19th, 2008, 12:50pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Warning, clicking on the following Google search result may return an image of extreme pornographic nature. The image is of a woman's vagina and is found on a pornographic site, but the image appears to be hosted on Google's Blogger network.

The search phrase is a common search in Google Web search for hot celebrities (warning, there may be an image that you don't want to see or don't want your kids to see). The image comes up at the top of the page, above the organic results, in the top universal search spot. I will not share a complete screen shot, but I will share a very censored version (just so it is documented), if you really want a full screen shot, go to this blog.

I have notified several of my contacts at Google before writing this post but told them I would blog it.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums & DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Adds "Malicious Behavior" To Google Webmaster Guidelines

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 1:31pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Beu reports in a Search Engine Watch Forums thread that Google has updated their Webmaster Guidelines again. This time, they added a link to types malicious behavior that is against Google's guidelines.

Before:

Don't create pages that install viruses, trojans, or other badware.

After:

Don't create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.

The link takes you to a page on Installing viruses and other badware.

Frank, AussieWebmaster comments saying, "you figure that would be understood by now." But in reality, you would think that way about most of Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Google can't win on that front, I'll give it to Google on that one.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update From Matt Cutts of Google: Just want to highlight a comment from Matt on this entry:

I wanted us to be crystal clear that we may remove phishing urls as well.

Google Indented Results Showing Different Domain?

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 1:25pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Brent Csutoras reported that when searching for social media consulting on Google, up came an indented result for his site. But the indented result, under the main result was from a different site.

He took a screen capture of the weird occurrence and placed it on his blog.

Google will only indent results when the results are from the same site and found on the same page.

I was not able to reproduce the error, it may have been a personalized result but in any event, the shown event should never ever happen. Maybe it was a temporary bug or maybe Google confused the site to be the same. I am not sure.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Google Webmaster Tools External Links Report Showing 0 Links

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 12:32pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

The Google Webmaster Tools "external links" report is buggy over the weekend. The tool is not showing any backlinks anymore for, I believe, any site.

For example, here are the non-existent backlinks for the Search Engine Roundtable:

There are dozens of reports from webmasters worrying if Google banned them or not. Threads at DigitalPoint Forums and Google Groups both have concerned webmasters discussion the issue.

The issue started Sunday morning or early afternoon and is still an issue at the time I write this. Hopefully it will be fixed shortly.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and Google Groups.

Now Fixed: At about 3pm (EST), it has now been fixed. JohnMu, a Google Webmaster Trends Analysts posted below and I confirmed it is now fixed.

Web Design News » Tags » Optimization

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675 items tagged "Optimization"

Posted: September 6th, 2010, 4:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: September 3rd, 2010, 3:48pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: September 3rd, 2010, 3:18pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: September 3rd, 2010, 2:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: September 2nd, 2010, 3:27pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: September 2nd, 2010, 3:21pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 31st, 2010, 3:54pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Posted: August 30th, 2010, 3:35pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

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Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 30th, 2010, 3:17pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 27th, 2010, 3:52pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Posted: August 27th, 2010, 3:31pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

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Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Posted: August 26th, 2010, 11:43am CEST by jimcallender

Tags: magento speed Optimization

Posted: August 26th, 2010, 11:19am CEST by jimcallender

Tags: magento Optimization speed performance

Posted: August 20th, 2010, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 19th, 2010, 4:19pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 13th, 2010, 3:25pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 11th, 2010, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 9th, 2010, 3:54pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 6th, 2010, 3:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 6th, 2010, 3:14pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 5th, 2010, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 4th, 2010, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 4th, 2010, 3:21pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: August 4th, 2010, 3:05pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization

Posted: August 3rd, 2010, 3:37pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Posted: August 2nd, 2010, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: July 30th, 2010, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: July 30th, 2010, 3:32pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: July 30th, 2010, 3:11pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: July 29th, 2010, 3:20pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Posted: July 28th, 2010, 3:45pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

Posted: July 28th, 2010, 3:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: July 27th, 2010, 3:26pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: July 26th, 2010, 4:01pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: July 26th, 2010, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: July 22nd, 2010, 4:02pm CEST by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: July 22nd, 2010, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick