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 29, 2010
Posted: April 29th, 2010, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Google Was Down, Says Google & Twitter & Me
Posted: April 29th, 2010, 10:45pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Google went down sometime around 3pm (EST) for many people. I know it was down for me in New York and if you look at tweets around that time for [google down] you will see hundreds of people saying the same thing.
But it is even neater to use Google's new Twitter Search and if you go to a search on [google down] on there, you will see a massive spike around 3pm to 3:30pm today. Here is a screen capture:
See that spike? Spikes like that do not lie.
Here are some tweets from people reporting Google was down and then up and then down:
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
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Google Showing "Brands For..." In Google Jazz Interface
Posted: April 29th, 2010, 3:57pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Malcolm Coles spotted a possible new feature in Google Search. This feature is only in the colorful Google Jazz interface, and shows up for searches like [digital cameras], [cheap laptops], [label printers], [fishing rod] and others. Basically, Google is showing "brands for" the products you are searching for. For example, if you search for digital cameras, Google may show you Canon, Olympus, Sony and so on in this top brand filter.
Here is a screen shot from Malcolm:
This seems like a pretty interesting play for shopping keywords and I wonder how one can get their brands in here.
A Google Web Search Help has one person saying it shows for a search on electronic cigarettes. This person asked the obvious question:
Where are these brands chosen from? How do we get listed in these results?
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
Update: Greg Power from Labelzone tells me that he sees the 'brands for' feature and he not in the new Google Jazz user interface.
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Google AdSense Tries New Layouts & New Features Ads Light Bulbs
Posted: April 29th, 2010, 3:46pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
A WebmasterWorld thread has a couple AdSense publishers reporting that Google is testing a new AdSense layout. The new layout hows the ad title and ad description on a single line. This is instead of showing the ad title and then a break and then a ad description.
Here is a picture of the new ad format, which I found on Digital Inspiration:
Another thing I noticed, which may not be all that new, is that Google AdSense Featured Ads, which were initially marked by a gold star are now marked by yellow light bulbs. Here is a picture of what those light bulb ads look like:
Here is the previous version, the gold star version:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Are Mobile Sites A Duplicate Content Issue?
Posted: April 29th, 2010, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Optimization
Bryson Meunier wrote a piece at Search Engine Land named Don't Penalize Yourself: Mobile Sites Are Not Duplicate Content. The article basically explains that if you have a mobile web address, i.e. different URLs for your mobile content, with the same content you have on your main URLs, it is NOT duplicate content. He said, Google is smart enough to figure out your mobile content is not duplicate to your main content - because they are smart enough to know when to show you the mobile content versus the normal content.
He said:
Knowing that search engines index and return mobile content for relevant queries, and that they have blended mobile ranking algorithms to rank mobile content for mobile queries and desktop content for desktop queries, it’s clear to me that they don’t treat mobile sites like traditional desktop duplicate content. Knowing this, it’s a wonder that many mobile SEO experts, including some whose opinions I generally respect, would continue to recommend blocking your mobile site from Googlebot and other web crawlers.
A Sphinn thread has a comment about this from Sebastian who said:
So many webmasters and SEOs are totally ignorant WRT more or less identical content presented on different platforms vs. duplicate content flooding a single channel. Hopefully this piece pushed to the front page will enlighten many of them.
Honestly, what I still don't get is why are webmasters still creating different URLs for mobile content? Why aren't they detecting useragents and showing a different stylesheet for those mobile handsets? I really don't understand why bother with special URLs? I mean, yea, Google is smart enough to know a mobile URL from a non-mobile URL based on the content. But when someone links to your mobile URL, that link doesn't help you as much as it linking to your main URL. I rant about this more over here and give pretty good examples of how this works.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
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Google UK Drop UK Country Filter?
Posted: April 29th, 2010, 3:18pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
In an ongoing and constantly updated WebmasterWorld thread, it appears some people are reporting major shifts in Google UK. People are saying that the search results dramatically changed. But some suspect that the UK specific filter that makes Google UK, umm, UK specific, was turned off.
Here are some of the reports in the thread:
I have noticed that all of a sudden my rankings are back to when caffine done it's first roll out. It was temporary but this time I have noticed that big sites have dropped as well but in other industries. The .co.uk rankings are very similar to .com. Anyone else see this?
not sure what they have done today in the UK but my traffic on one site has gone crazy, i hope they dont turn it back.
Senior member, InternetHeaven said that Google does occasional flip the UK filter switch off. He said in response to the UK results looking like US results:
This happens from time to time. It's like the UK filter is turned off for a bit. Worst still is the AU infiltration! Every so often the UK Google results are crammed with AU results - now that's always a dark day for us...
About a year ago, there was a major Google UK shakeup, which resulted in an explanation from Matt Cutts on the state of Google UK. Just two days ago, Matt Cutts did a new video on the UK Google results. Here it is:
So is something up?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google Starts Caring About Canada, Changes Maps Data Provider
Posted: April 29th, 2010, 3:10pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
I believe there is a saying that Canada is under appreciated and people tend to overlook the country due to their neighbors. I believe I heard the phrase, once or twice, that "no one cares about Canada," or something like that. If you tracked the various Google Maps forums, you would have seen many complaints about Google Maps data in Canada. Not only is the data often stale, it is often inaccurate in some places. No matter how many times Canadians reported issues, the issues rarely were fixed.
That will change, according to Google. A new blog post by Google said they will now be using "new map data in Canada" from various sources to keep the data more current. Google said:
One of the biggest changes is that now you can give us direct feedback about our map of Canada - let's say a new park has just opened in your neighborhood. You'll notice a link that says "Report a Problem" in the lower right corner of Google Maps when you're looking at Canada, which will let you send your updates and feedback directly to us.
Google made this switch in the U.S. back in October 2009 and it is well received here. Canada, the country no one cares about, is the second country to get this special treatment.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.