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.
Feeds
5540 items (5015 unread) in 3 feeds
Google
(325 unread)
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Official Google Webmaster Central Blog (325 unread)
SEO
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Emily Chang (347 unread)
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Search Engine Roundtable
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Search Engine Roundtable (6 unread)
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Daily Search Forum Recap: March 25, 2009
Posted: March 25th, 2009, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Google Adds More Search Refinements & Detailed Snippets
Posted: March 25th, 2009, 1:01pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
The Google Blog announced Google has added additional search refinements and detailed snippets. Here is part of the announcement:
More and better search refinements
Starting today, we're deploying a new technology that can better understand associations and concepts related to your search, and one of its first applications lets us offer you even more useful related searches (the terms found at the bottom, and sometimes at the top, of the search results page).Longer snippets
When you enter a longer query, with more than three words, regular-length snippets may not give you enough information and context. In these situations, we now increase the number of lines in the snippet to provide more information and show more of the words you typed in the context of the page. Below are a couple of examples.We noticed Google testing long snippets at least twice and also an option to control snippet size.
Do you like it?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Are Foreign Links Considered Spam?
Posted: March 25th, 2009, 1:01pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Link Building
A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the topics of building links from foreign web sites, in different languages.
For example, if I run a web site that is in English, focused for US users - what happens if I get some links from sites hosted in Israel, with Hebrew anchor text, linking to my English web site?
The obvious answer is that these types of links are not considered spam or low quality, simply because of the site's origin. If a foreign site is linking to yours out of relevance, then it is fine. If you go ahead and buy thousands of links on foreign publisher web sites, then that might lead to other issues.
In fact, when you want to rank well in localized versions of Google, it is recommended to not only publish a localized version of the site using the country's TLD, but also to acquire links from sites sharing the localized view and on the localized TLD.
Would acquiring "foreign" links to your USA English based site help you rank in both Google USA and Google localized? Maybe but it might not be the optimal way to go about your country specific SEO.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google: More AdSense Ads = Higher Revenue Per Impression
Posted: March 25th, 2009, 12:51pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
AdSenseAdvisor said in a WebmasterWorld thread that having more ads on the page will lead to higher revenues per impression.
This may be obvious, that showing more ads, will lead in more revenues per page view, but not for all publishers. Some are of the belief that showing less ads increases the value of each click and then might lead to more revenue per impression.
It is nice to see that a Google representative has went on record as saying that this is generally the case.
I assume many of you disagree, if so, why?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google AdSense With Matt Cutts Banners
Posted: March 25th, 2009, 12:40pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
A DigitalPoint Forums thread posted a screen shot of an unusual Google AdSense ad. Here is a picture of the ad:
Matt Cutts is the head of Google's web spam team. I am not sure how many sales this type of banner would lead to, since those who are looking for SEO services, may not know Matt. But it might lead to conversion for those prospects that do their homework.
In any event, this was a funny thread to spot.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
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Google Pushing More Search Options On Searchers?
Posted: March 25th, 2009, 12:33pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Marty from the aimClear blog emailed me a screen shot yesterday morning, which looked like Google experimental search results. I then spotted a WebmasterWorld thread that discusses the same thing Marty emailed me.
There is a new link in the Google results that says "Show Options." When clicked, it opens up other grouping options. Robert, a WebmasterWorld admin also sees it and he describes the options as:
The main groupings select among...
- types of results (All results, Recent, Videos, Forums, Reviews)...
- time of results (with options between Anytime and the past year)...
- different types of what I'd call snippet displays (with options including standard or longer snippets, and snippets including image thumbnails)...
- and different views (including Standard, Wonder wheel, Timeline, and Search Suggestions)Here is a screen capture:
When I try to search for the query that they spotted this with, I get a message from Google that reads:
The option you have selected is currently unavailable.
Is this a form of experimental search being forced on searchers?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.