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  Daily Search Forum Recap: February 9, 2010

  Posted: February 9th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

  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.

  
  

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  Google "Save Us From Berlusconi" Spam?

  Posted: February 9th, 2010, 3:22pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Search Engine  

  I spotted a very weird Google Webmaster Help thread that I honestly do not fully understand. If you search for URLs containing the words "Save Us From Berlusconi" in that order, in Google, you will find almost 4 million matches.

  The webmaster who reported the issue, didn't first realize that this was beyond his web site. He wanted to know why GoogleBot was crawling all his URLs with adding on /?q=Save+Us+From+Berlusconi to the end of the URL. Some sites do not 404 or 301 redirect URLs that add on variables to the end of the URL, so he was suggested to do so in this case.

  But the question goes beyond just a single web site. Is this some form of political message being sent around by those who do not like the curent Prime Minister of Italy? Anyone want to venture a guess?

  Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

  
  

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  When Not To Use Canonical Tags With Pagination

  Posted: February 9th, 2010, 3:09pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Search Engine Optimization  

  When Google announced support for the canonical tag just about a year ago, webmasters were excited for the possibilities of a serving a 301 redirect to spiders but not users. But when should you not use it?

  A Google Webmaster Help thread has Google's JohnMu explaining some situations as to when you should or should not use it.

  In summary, think of the canonical tag as a real 301 redirect for spiders. If a spider is redirected away from new content, then that is an issue. When it comes to paginating content, such as product category pages or article archives, you really need to give a way for search engines to find that content. If you set the canonical tag to redirect spiders from page 2, 3, 4, etc of your product category pages to page one, then the spiders might never be able to index the products on page 2, 3, and 4.

  John explained this well, saying:

  Pagination: this is complicated, I personally would be careful when using with rel=canonical with paginated lists. The important part is that we should be able to find all products listed, so at the very least those lists should provide a default sort order where we can access (and index) all pages. Since this is somewhat difficult unless you really, really know what you are doing, I would personally avoid adding rel=canonical for these pages. One possible solution could be to use JavaScript for paginated lists with different sort orders, for example, that way you would have a single URL which lists all products.

  This is something to keep in mind when building out the canonical tag within your content management system.

  Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

  
  

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  Upcoming Google AdSense Webinars

  Posted: February 9th, 2010, 3:03pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google AdSense  

  Google's Ashley posted a thread at Google AdSense Help forums announcing upcoming AdSense Webinars. The upcoming webinars include:

  1. AdSense Optimization Basics - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 5:00 pm GMT/ 9am PST
  2. Advanced Optimization - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 5:00 pm GMT/9am PST
  3. Improving AdSense Performance using GAM - Tuesday, March 2, 2010 10:00 am GMT
  4. Realizing the potential of AdSense for Search (AFS) - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 5:00 pm GMT/9am PST

  You can register for the webinars by clicking here.

  Technical requirements: To participate, all you need is a computer with an Internet connection and speakers or a pair of headphones. Note to Mac users: The current version of WebEx Event Center does not support Internet Phone (VOIP) for Mac users.

  Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.