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: July 23, 2009
Posted: July 23rd, 2009, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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GoogleGuy Retire From WebmasterWorld Again?
Posted: July 23rd, 2009, 4:12pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: SEM SEO Companies
The infamous and legendary GoogleGuy at WebmasterWorld has gone almost a full year without posting at WebmasterWorld. GoogleGuy's last post was in a WebmasterWorld thread on July 24, 2008 at about 6:30pm (EST). He replied to confirm a PageRank toolbar update.
GoogleGuy use to be extremely active in the WebmasterWorld forums, ranking up 2,882 posts over the year. But for the past few years, he/she has been very quiet. Why? Well, now GoogleGuy is not the only Google Guy in the forums, there are plenty of Google representatives that go under aliases, i.e. AdSenseAdvisor or their own names, i.e. MattCutts, in both WebmasterWorld, other forums and the official Google forums.
But we would hate to see GoogleGuy expire. So please, GoogleGuy, just say hello, like you did in the past, to let us know you are still out there. If you do want to unmask yourself, that would be fine, but personally, I like the mask. ;-)
Sadly, no forum discussion here to link to.
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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.
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Google Maps Won't Take Pictures of George Washington Bridge
Posted: July 23rd, 2009, 3:41pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
I spotted a thread at the Google Maps Help forum asking why Google doesn't allow people to walk across the George Washington Bridge. Specifically, why doesn't Google let people plot the directions as walking directions when traveling across the bridge. Any New Yorker knows, the bridge is filled with people walking or biking back and forth. It is a good question.
But when I was scoping out the bridge on Google Maps, using street views, I noticed that you can only get street views at the lip of the bridge. Any blue area shows where the street views are available, the plain yellow, is not available:
That reminded me that there is a law where you cannot take pictures of anything on the bridge. In fact, one day, I took a picture of the no taking pictures sign on the George Washington Bridge. I guess Google listens to those rules.
So why can't we get walking directions on the bridge? And why no directions to the moon?
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.
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Yahoo's Revenue Drops Again, Squeeze Out Higher Profits (YHOO)
Posted: July 23rd, 2009, 3:33pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo Search Engine
Greg Sterling always does a great job with the financials, and he did so with the Yahoo (YHOO) earnings details. Yahoo Q2 Revs: $1.57B, Down 13 Percent But Profit Up 8 Percent from Search Engine Land has those details.
In short, revenue was down 13% but profit was up about 8%. Some thought Yahoo would layoff an additional 5%, but those reports were wrong.
We are all anticipating some Microsoft/Yahoo deal happening sooner then later, so time will tell. The Yahoo home page news failed to excite and the earnings report was not too positive. No wonder 60% feel Yahoo won't make a come back.
Microsoft (MSFT) is to announce earnings tonight, while Google (GOOG) already announced higher earnings. The real impressive company, to me, is AAPL.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google Webmaster Tools Won't Load For Some Users
Posted: July 23rd, 2009, 3:21pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
There are some reports of Google Webmaster Tools not loading for some users. Some of these reports are coming from WebmasterWorld and I also personally have this issue.
When I try to access the tool, the URL redirects back and forth between the Google Account authentication system and the webmaster tools home page. If I try a different browser, it lets me in, so it seems to be a cookie issue for some users.
Firefox Error:
The page isn't redirecting properly
Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.
* This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept cookies.
Safari Error:
Safari can’t open the page.
Too many redirects occurred trying to open “https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en”. This might occur if you open a page that is redirected to open another page which then is redirected to open the original page.
I can login to all other Google properties without an issue, I am just having this issue with Google Webmaster Tools. I rather not delete my Google cookies, cause that will stop them from tracking me for the past 15 years. :)
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.