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
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Google
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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 (7 unread)
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Daily Search Forum Recap: July 7, 2009
Posted: July 7th, 2009, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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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.
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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.
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Yahoo Launching SearchPad Today
Posted: July 7th, 2009, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo Search Engine
Yahoo is reportedly releasing SearchPad today. We covered the preview of this earlier, where webmasters called it a big scraper tool - what search engine isn't. ;-)
What is it?
Search Pad is a note taking application built into Yahoo! Search that automatically assists you in saving websites you visit and taking notes as you search. Search Pad helps you collect, edit, organize, save, print, and email your notes for immediate or future use.
Search Pad is helpful in completing tasks and making decisions that require collecting information over multiple search sessions such as making a large purchase, planning a vacation or gathering information on a health issue.
You can learn all about it and see additional screen shots at [help.yahoo.com].
This can be a very useful tool for searchers, so I am looking forward to trying it out once and never using it again.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.
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Google Country Filter Removal a Bug?
Posted: July 7th, 2009, 3:22pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
The other day we reported on Searchers Want "Pages From [Country]," Google Might Drop It. Go read it quickly and come back here. The reports of people seeing this has grown tremendously. I see dozens of forum threads on the issue, and it is not limited to countries outside of the United States, it is also being reported within the United States (not sure how that is possible).
In any event, at first I thought it was a "feature" Google was testing. But I keep watching the threads and I keep seeing Googler, Jimmy and Jem, respond that this is something Google is looking to fix. I don't get why this would be a "bug" because it looks like a deliberate change or test from Google, but Jimmy from Google keeps calling this a bug impacting some users.
Some people who have seen this are reporting they no longer see it. Again, I really don't think this is a "bug," no matter what Google says. This really seems like a feature test to me. I don't think the Googlers in the thread understand the issue.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
Update: Google has confirmed that this is not a bug, but rather a test they are running.
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New MSNBot Named adidxbot Causing Trouble
Posted: July 7th, 2009, 3:08pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Microsoft MSN Search
There are several reports around the web about a new search bot by Microsoft that is causing major issues for web servers. The bot is named adidxbot and the useragent looks like this: adidxbot/1.1 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm).
This bot has been on the loose since the middle of May. There are threads at WebmasterWorld and Bing Community with complaints about this bot. The bot reportedly indexes and crawls incredibly quickly, with no remorse on the web server. This can cause servers to see spikes of CPU usage and slow down the normal visitors from using the site. In addition, the spider does not obey the crawl delay command.
A Bing representative said the fix was just released this morning and the bot should no longer cause issues for webmasters. Brent Young of the Bing team said:
I just received word that they fixed the bug that was causing this. If you are still experiencing issues, please email me at lswmc@microsoft.com
I hope so.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Bing Community.
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Google Testing Sub Links For Forum Thread Results?
Posted: July 7th, 2009, 3:01pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
A reader, BlogsDNA tipped me off on a new Google test. It appears that Google is showing a form of sub links under the main search results, that link to additional forum threads, when relevant, from a specific site. Here is a picture showing two such cases for a search:
I personally do not see this in any browser I tried, nor on any platform. But it does seem interesting. Often discussion forums have many threads about the same exact topic. This gives Google a way to include multiple threads without cluttering up the search results with indented results from the same site.
I am not sure if this will stick, but it does look interesting.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.