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: April 12, 2010
Posted: April 12th, 2010, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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SEOs Blaming Site Speed For Rankings Already
Posted: April 12th, 2010, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
Friday afternoon Google announced that page and site speed is now a ranking factor. Yes, we knew this was coming for months now and Google gave us tools to prepare for this, but how much of an impact does it play in the overall ranking algorithm at Google? Very little!
Google said:
While site speed is a new signal, it doesn't carry as much weight as the relevance of a page. Currently, fewer than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed signal in our implementation and the signal for site speed only applies for visitors searching in English on Google.com at this point. We launched this change a few weeks back after rigorous testing. If you haven't seen much change to your site rankings, then this site speed change possibly did not impact your site.
Yes, less than 1% of the search queries are impacted. That is pretty minor. You can always read what Matt Cutts said or what Search Engine Land said. But this is often missed and people misconstrue things.
A Google Webmaster Help thread already has one webmaster who blames his hosting company for a downgrade in rankings. He said that because his website was down for 40 hours, it impacted his site speed ranking. Um, if your site is down for 40 plus hours, Google may remove you for a bit for other reasons.
I am sure more and more webmasters and SEOs will bring up site speed issues as a ranking issue in Google. Yes, having a fast site is important but you need a really really slow site to impact your Google rankings.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and Google Webmaster Help.
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Does Facebook Sharing or Links Help with SEO?
Posted: April 12th, 2010, 3:20pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Link Building
A Cre8asite Forums thread asks a question about the potential SEO or link building impact Facebook can have on a web site. The simple question is, is there a benefit in terms of ranking to have users share and fan your Facebook pages and for you to share information and links with them on those pages?
This site has a Facebook page over here, links are automatically shared. But technically, although Google sees the page the links do not pass any weight. They all go through a middle page and then another redirect, which I think blocks all link passing capability.
That being said, it does not mean that Facebook sharing doesn't help with your SEO efforts. The thing with social media is getting people to see your content that otherwise would not have seen it. If more people see your content, then more people can discuss your content and possibly link to your content on sites that do pass link juice. So although Facebook may not have a direct impact on your rankings, there may be a very strong indirect impact on your rankings.
Let's also not forget how much traffic a site like Facebook or Twitter can send. So keep that in mind also.
I admit it, I do a horrible job of manning the this Facebook page to answer comments and questions. I am not a huge Facebook guy, but I am trying to check in daily now and maybe I will get the hang of it. I am very active on Twitter so feel free to follow me there also.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.
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Google Offers Prizes To Encourage AdWords Forum Participation
Posted: April 12th, 2010, 3:10pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
Getting experts in a field to help others in the same field is not always an easy task. However, that is how this industry was built up - from newbies learning from the old timers and passing on that tradition day in and day out. Over the years, forum participation has changed from what it was, even 3 years ago. Social networking sites, Facebook, Sphinn, Twitter and so on have captured the hearts and the time of many of these experts, leaving the forums less flowing of knowledgeable people sharing.
Don't get me wrong, there are still a tremendous amount to be learnt and shared in the forums. In fact, if there wasn't anything in the forums, then this web site would be dead. Having said that - sometimes encouraging participating is needed or a good idea, especially in Google run forums.
That is exactly what Google is trying with a new experiment in the Google AdWords Help forums. A thread started by Google AdWordsPro Bindu has details of a competition for forum participation where those who participate can win prizes.
The competition is simple - help others and you can win. Here are the details:
What:
Once you sign-up as a participant in this competition, your posts (answers to posts on the forum from May to Jun 15, 2010) will be evaluated by Google Employees. You will be judged on the quality(accuracy, helpfulness, tone, etc) and quantity of your posts/answers.When:
Your forum posts/answers from May 1 to May 31, 2010.What's in it for me?
We never thought you'd ask! The first winner gets a free AdWords optimization proposal for their account and the other two get a customized AdWords report. Apart from this, all three winners win a $25.00 credit applied to their AdWords account.I'll be the first to say that experts are likely going to find these "prizes" to be somewhat lame. But we will see how this experiment goes.
Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.
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Bug: Google AdSense for Search Code Error
Posted: April 12th, 2010, 3:04pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
Those trying to go through Google AdSense to generate a search box for their web site might be out of luck. According to a Google AdSense Help thread, the ability to create valid code to place on your web site, so that you can enable Google search and monetize that search on your web pages has been buggy.
Early reports came March 31st, with no answer until Friday. The first report said:
I followed step by step instructions to generate code for adsense search box, when I click Submit and get code button it isn't showing the code for adsense search box, When I click the button it becomes unclickable and shows the message 'Saving your settings', I have waited for many minutes but nothing happens, seems like it never stops saving my settings.. Tried in Firefox, IE and Chrome, not working on any of them.
Finally, this past Friday, April 9th, Google's AdSensePro Annie replied to the thread confirming the issue:
Thanks for reporting this bug. We are aware of this problem and our engineers are in the process of fixing it. In the meantime, you can generate the same code at: http://www.google.com/cse/.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
There is no ETA for the fix and it appears the issue is still there for many publishers.
So if you want to monetize your search pages, maybe try google.com/cse as a work around.
Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.
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Google Maps Embed Bug Causes Issues With Zooming
Posted: April 12th, 2010, 2:57pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
Google finally admitted to a Google Maps bug that disabled the capability of zooming in or out of the map. A Google Maps Help thread explains that the issue happens when you try to embed a map using the iframe feature and that the street views man overlays on top of the zoom buttons, making the zoom buttons inactive.
Here is a picture from someone in the forums:
As you can see, the street views peg man lays almost on top of the zoom buttons. That is the issue.
Google, after about a week of complaints, finally chimed in saying:
Apologies for not hopping in here earlier in the week. I escalated this issue and it has since been resolved, as some of you have noticed. Thank you all for your persistent reports, and sorry for any convenience this temporary problem may have caused!
I personally tried to replicate this and when I did, I noticed the street views man was gone from the embed feature - so maybe this is a temporary solution?
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.
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Search Market Share Reports Show Google Losing & Bing Gaining?
Posted: April 12th, 2010, 2:47pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Industry News
Both Hitwise and comScore released their search marketing share reports this past week. Both showed Bing growing and Google not from the previous month, in fact, Google has lost share for the "fourth straight month" according to Hitwise.
Here is the Hitwise breakdown:
Here is the comScore:
Yea, Google still has a dominate lead, but it does look like Bing is chipping away slowly and slowly.
Forum discussion at (the very pro Bing forum) WebmasterWorld.