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.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: September 12, 2008
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 11:01pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Weekly Search Buzz Roundup - 09/12/08: Google Satellite, Google News Archive & Yahoo September Traffic Increases
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 6:30pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg
Tags: Search Buzz RoundUp
Hello from Florida! Hope you all had a nice week!
Google News Archive Release
We've seen some cool projects from Google these past few weeks, and the Google News archive is pretty impressive. In a nutshell, Google will be providing scans of old newspapers and is possibly causing libraries to cease to exist. I sometimes wish Google was as ubiquitous when I was in school. This stuff rocks.
Your Geotargeting Radius Shouldn't Be Smaller than 20 Miles
Want to target to only 57th Street in NYC? Google will tell you that you can't set your radius smaller than 20 miles, so you can't really fine grain your results that narrow. That's too bad for New Yorkers who may want to really focus on specific parts of Manhattan, but at the same time, it makes a lot of sense for those less densely populated areas.
Check if Google is Indexing All Your Pages
If you want to see which pages are in Google's "supplemental results", follow the instructions provided by Michael Gray.
When You Should Request Reinclusion on Google
Earlier this week, we asked 'when should you submit a reinclusion request on Google?' The answer is simple: when you actually know you have gotten a penalty and rectified it. If your rankings drop, that does not necessarily mean you've been penalized!
Google Lets You Communicate
Who here has complained that Google isn't being responsive? Um, yeah. Well Google lets you submit feedback and communicate with them with a variety of web forms. Use them. Use Google Groups too. They help!
Google Also Lets You Redirect
While most of you know that 301 redirects are the best way to tell search engines that your site has moved, Google interfaces with webmasters who still don't know about it. Plus, you can figure out which pages have been noted by Google as changed versus which have yet to be crawled and reindexed.
Yahoo Search Marketing Desktop App Coming Soon?
It's almost 2009, and there's still no desktop editor for Yahoo Search Marketing. We have no official word from Yahoo if it's going to happen, but people speculate that '09 is the year that it will be released. Who wants to bet when it will be released? I think Barry will give away schwag for the person who guesses the closet date; be advised that you need to get your vote in by next Friday to be counted. (This is also a way to check if you guys read the recap, so comment regardless.) ;)
Google Should Understand the Negative Impact of Reputation Management
Do the negative results in Google fluster you when your relevant brand pages are pushed down because of a more viral -- but negative -- story gets ranked higher? Well, Google seems to make reputation management a problem for many companies and brands, and Eric Lander isn't a fan.
Yahoo Search Update Gives More Traffic
The Yahoo September 2008 update has been really good to most publishers. They're reporting 30-50% of an increase in traffic. Good stuff all around.
Google Talks about Sitelinks
Ever wanted to know about sitelink consistency on Google.com versus the Google Webmaster Tools? How about how sitelinks are chosen? Or criteria for appearing in the results? Google has written answers to some sitelinks FAQ and it's pretty informative.
Find Your Google Images
With all the talk about images being indexed in Google (or not), Google has finally stepped up to the plate to let you know what you can do to find out more about it.
Get Out of the AdWords Sandbox
There's a Google AdWords API sandbox issue Images aren't being created. The two possible conclusions: Google doesn't care so much about a sandbox environment or image creation isn't really a popular method.
Google Germany Bans the Porn
Did you ever travel to Germany to find pornography on Google? Well, Google's pornographic content -- at least videos, have been removed from Google's Germany index. According to Google, there are local laws that govern what can and cannot be retrieved on Google, so you may want to visit another country to stumble upon some interesting adult cinematics.
Random Trivia: Google's Webmaster Tool Verification Code is Not that Random
Ever wanted to know how the Google Webmaster Tool verification code was generated? Well, it's based on two factors: your URL and your email. Cool.
Are You a Forum Spammer?
Do you spam forums? Perhaps you're doing it and don't realize it. In a way, this is why WebmasterWorld has a strict no-linking policy; self promotion is bad news (and doesn't leave a good taste in people's mouths). Forum moderators are examples; follow them to know exactly what you should do and should not do.
Google Satellite Takes Off
This past weekend, Google launched a satellite into orbit that should help gather high resolution images of the planet. I'm pretty excited to see these photos and hope that Google will publish them soon.
Most of You Like Googling Yourselves
Seriously -- there are seven of you who don't Google yourselves? I find that hard to believe. What's the logic behind that? :) As Wiep says in the comments, "Those who said 'never' are probably either lying or checked the wrong box." Let's hope we have honest folks here!
Logos Galore
There wasn't much of a significant holiday this week, except that we did commemorate September 11th. Sadly, Google doesn't do the "memorial" logos; instead, they do the funny and lighthearted ones. This week, Google China celebrated Teacher's Day and Google all over the rest of the world celebrated some physics project: the Large Hadron Collider. (I spelled it right this time!)
As far as Google's 10th birthday logo, it hasn't been pushed live yet. We're expecting to see it on September 27th. Anyone want to guess what it will look like?
Matt "McDreamy" Cutts
Matt Cutts is dreamy. People dream about him more often than not. One day, Matt Cutts will prepare breakfast for Barry -- at least, that's what he wants.
Also, the SEOs are squares, according to Ranked Hard. I particularly like Jim Boykin's square. Which one is your favorite?
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Google Is Testing New Webmaster Tools Verification Process
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 5:53pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
It appears like the Google Webmaster Central team is testing a new verification process for Webmaster Tools.
A Google Groups thread reports finding the following data in his log file:
66.249.71.119 - - [11/Sep/2008:10:17:09 +0100] "GET / google38b4a154a92b0b4f.html HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
66.249.71.119 - - [11/Sep/2008:10:17:09 +0100] "GET /fdfdkll.html HTTP/
1.1" 404 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://
www.google.com/bot.html)"Googler, JohnMu, said that this is related to Google testing a new verification process:
The accesses of "/fdfdkll.html" were made by an experimental new system that is set to complement / replace the existing Webmaster Tools verification system. In the future, the requests should change to the more common "/noexist(...)" that we're used to. I'm glad to see that progress is being made on the verification system :-), thanks for bringing it up!
Google Webmaster Tool's current verification process was always been someone awkward for webmasters to get working and share with their clients. So here is hoping to a better system soon!
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
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Google Germany Drops Adult Video Sites Like RedTube.com
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 3:47pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
It appears Google Germany has removed many, if not all, adult video sites from their index. A Google Groups thread reported this, where an adult video site owner said his Adult Tube site was removed from Google.de and so were all his competitors.
Googler, JohnMu, explained that a site command for at least one of the sites, such as site:www.redtube.com, returns a message from Google that it was removed due to local laws.
If you click over to ChillingEffects.org it explains:
A URL that otherwise would have appeared in response to your search, was not displayed because that URL was reported as illegal by a German regulatory body.
The same with other sites, such this message, "German Court Order against display of privatamateure.com and youporn.com."
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
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Marissa Mayer of Google Speaks about the Future of Search
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 3:43pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg
Tags: Other Google Topics
On the Official Google Blog, Marissa Mayer has spoken about her role at Google and the future of search. She explains that search will be becoming more mobile, that voice and natural language search will probably be more emphasized, and that other advances will be made as well. Additionally, Mayer talks about the impact of universal search and personalization. Finally, Google will likely emphasize language using machine translation.
Mayer concludes her insightful blog post letting us know that search will be forever improved and that it is "a science that will develop and advance over hundreds of years."
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
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Google AdWords System Maintenace: Tomorrow, September 13
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 3:38pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg
Tags: Google AdWords
Tomorrow, between 10AM and 2PM PDT, Google AdWords will be down for maintenance. During this time, you can't log into your account, but your ads will run normally.
There's nothing special for this maintenance as far as I can gather, but Google reminds us that they run this on the second Saturday of each month, so tomorrow it is.
Forum discussion continues at Google Groups and WebmasterWorld.
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Who's To Blame? Google or Tribune for United Airlines Stock Drop
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 3:31pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
If you haven't seen my coverage of the Google News Error Aids In United Airlines Stock Drop at Search Engine Land, let me bring you up to speed in a couple lines. Earlier this week, Google's news crawler crawled Florida Sun-Sentinel website to find a link to an article that discussed United Airlines filing for bankruptcy. The article was actually an old story, but had no date, so Google picked it up as a new story. Then others saw the story on Google News (not on their home page), assumed it was new, and wrote about it. United Airlines stock price feel about 12% on that old news.
A day later, Google blamed the Tribune (the owner of the web site) for not dating their article. Google explained the link was found on the home page, Googlebot crawled the link, indexed the article, and found September 7, 2008 as a date listed on the page. Tribune then came back blaming Google for the mistake, saying that the URL is old, never changed, the content is the same, and it is all the same from 2002. The only thing that happened was that the article became a "most popular" link on the Florida Sun-Sentinel website, but the link and URL was old.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the "Securities and Exchange Commission opened a preliminary inquiry into the circumstances around UAL Corp.'s stock drop, according to people familiar with the matter." John Reed Stark, head of the SEC's office of Internet enforcement said, "Anytime anyone spreads false information over radio, TV, Internet message boards or chat rooms, about a public company that will raise questions as to whether someone is committing securities fraud."
So who is to blame? That is the discussion at a WebmasterWorld. Should legal or financial action be taken against either company? Should we learn from this and improve the process and algorithm to make sure it doesn't happen, but not take any action? This is a tough call, very tough call.
Here is a poll, who do you think is to blame?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld. .
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Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta Feature Requests
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 3:22pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: MSN Microsoft adCenter
Yesterday we talked about how Yahoo is lacking a desktop editor for their search marketing platform. Today, there is a nice thread at Search Engine Watch Forums on the topic of improving the adCenter Editor Beta application.
Search Engine Watch Forums moderator, Mel66, said offered up five pieces of advice:
- Don't require us to hit "save" to save the changes, it is too easy to forget
- Add help content in the tool
- Give better warnings as to why something might not be working
- Enable status changes from "draft" to "active"
- Allow us to mass edit the parameter based keyword destination URLs.
Of these five suggestions, the official adCenter representative confirmed items number one and two are coming soon.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
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Your Link Building Request Will Fail
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 3:20pm CEST by Tamar Weinberg
Tags: Link Building
Ever ask someone to add a link to your site as part of some link building strategy? Most people have encountered link building requests every so often in this sphere. Have you ever asked? Have you had success? Wiep Knol has explained why most link requests fail.
The end result? It depends on who, what, when, where, and why. For the "who," you want to be identifiable and more transparent than the person named Kelly who has a standard email address. Use your company URL, a portfolio link, etc.
The "what" comes down to whether or not you really care to provide some useful information. If you are providing the desired anchor text, you will likely be ignored. Give a summary and let the webmaster you pitched figure out what he or she wants to do with it.
Wiep also speaks about the other 3 W's -- when, where, and why. It definitely should give you some good tips on how you can request those links.
Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: September 11, 2008
Posted: September 12th, 2008, 12:00am CEST by Tamar Weinberg
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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.