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: October 27, 2009
Posted: October 27th, 2009, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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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.
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Yet Another Bing October 2009 Update?
Posted: October 27th, 2009, 3:32pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Microsoft MSN Search
Seven days ago, we reported on a Bing Search index update that many began noticing. Well, it seems like the WebmasterWorld thread has been updated by a webmaster that watches Bing closely.
This webmaster has noticed a totally new update on Bing and the Bing search results. The webmaster, textex, said:
I am seeing and even different set of results now. We improved nicely in rankings only to drop down to page 2-3. Anyone else seeing this?
Have you noticed a change from last week to this week on Bing? And traffic changes? Any ranking differences?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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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.
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Israel on Google Maps, Now in Hebrew
Posted: October 27th, 2009, 3:16pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
There have been some recent complaints in the Google Maps Help forum from English speaking people who live in Israel. In short, Google seems to have recently changes the Israel data to show street and city names in Hebrew (עברית).
Here is one complaint:
I too am having the same problem, in Israel for a month and it worked perfectly in English till two days ago then poof it changed to Hebrew which makes it very difficult for us English speakers.
Yes, Google Maps in Israel was in English and now is in Hebrew. Here are pictures:
Do keep in mind, embedding maps, maps on mobile devices or via the API for Israel show basically nothing due to licensing rights. The only way to see this level of detail is accessing maps.google.com on your desktop. But that is an other complaint.
Forum discussions at Google Maps Help.
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Google Social Search Now Live
Posted: October 27th, 2009, 3:04pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Yesterday, we showed you a video demo of Google's Social Search. Well, now it is available for all to play with in google.com/experimental.
Personally, I think this can work well for my searchers. But for most of those who do not have Google Profiles set up, it likely won't add much. Google currently promises to only look at information you give to them via your Google Profile or via Gmail. For Google to know who your Twitter connections are, you need to share that information on your Google Profile. Then Google will crawl your social profiles and make a map of all your friends, and associate what they read in Google Reader, share, click on and produce with you, when you search.
Here are two videos explaining it all:
Here is a useful Google help document and Google Blog post, plus Danny's article and more commentary at Techmeme.
Of course, there are some worried that Google will go beyond their boundaries and figure out your social profile without you specifically sharing it. Google said they won't, but many don't trust Google.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help, WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.
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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.