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.
Feeds
5540 items (5015 unread) in 3 feeds
Google
(325 unread)
-
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog (325 unread)
SEO
(4690 unread)
-
Emily Chang (347 unread)
-
Search Engine Roundtable
(4343 unread)
Search Engine Roundtable (5 unread)
-
Daily Search Forum Recap: May 31, 2010
Posted: May 31st, 2010, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
-
No Title Tag? Google May Use Text From Next "Large Font"
Posted: May 31st, 2010, 3:35pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
Most webmasters and SEOs know by now that Google tends to typically use the title tag of the page as the blue, clickable link in the search results. But that may change based on query or other things. But what if you are missing a title tag in your page source, what would Google use?
I spotted a thread in the Google Custom Search Help forum discussing this. I should note, Google Custom Search is not the same as Google web search, but they do pass over similar algorithms and techniques, as one would imagine.
Googler, Prathap Reddy said in that thread:
Google uses the title of the document from file properties as title of the search results. If no title is found, the first found large font is used as title for the document, with some exceptions.
Now, again, I am sure this can be easily verified with some SEO testing but as far as Google Custom Search goes, if the title tag is not there, Google may use the first large font found on the page as the title (clickable link) from the search results.
Forum discussion at Google Custom Search Help.
-
Update Robots.txt 24 Hours Prior To Adding New Content
Posted: May 31st, 2010, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
On Friday, Google's JohnMu tweeted an important tip. Let's say you block a directory from being crawled in your robots.txt file. Let's say you want to add content in that directory to be crawled by Google. John explained that since Google caches your robots.txt, you want to update the robots.txt file at least 24 hours prior to update content within that directory.
Here is JohnMu's tweet:
.bbpBox14893860956 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/635162/backgr2.jpg) #e0e9f2;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
Robots-tip: crawlers cache your robots.txt; update it at least a day before adding content that is disallowed. Q&A in Buzz.less than a minute ago via webJohn Mueller
JohnMuTedster in WebmasterWorldposted this tip and added:
I never thought about this before, but we certainly know that googlebot works off a cache of the robots.txt most of the time. Otherwise it would need to ping robots.txt right before each URL request, and that would get nasty pretty fast.
So apparently, 24 hours is what John is saying is the length of the cache time. Good to know. When Disallowed content gets place online, this is one precaution I never thought about.
The discussion goes off on to if you should use the robots.txt protocol to block content or not. But I won't get into that debate in this post.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
-
Google Lets Advertisers Place AdSense Ads On Top 1,000 Web Sites
Posted: May 31st, 2010, 3:16pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
Last week, Google announced that AdWords advertisers who take part of the content network can now say they just want their ads on the top 1,000 sites on Google's content network.
Google released a public, updated monthly, list of the 1,000 most visited sites. The list does not contain adult sites or Google sites, but it includes mostly all the other sites that have AdSense ads on them, including Facebook which is number one on that list.
Do you think as an advertiser you would select only the top 1,000 or do you want any site Google deems relevant, based on the content of the web site, to show your ad? I can see pros and cons to both.
To only show your ads on the top 1,000 sites select 'non Ad Planner 1000' within the 'category filters' section of your AdWords account.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
-
2010 Memorial Day Logos From Google, Yahoo, Bing & Others
Posted: May 31st, 2010, 1:44pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Industry News
Today is Memorial Day in the United States of America and to commemorate the day, many search engines have logos, themes and/or badges/ribbons on their home pages. Below I will show you pictures of those logos, themes and ribbons. But to see the past years logos see 2009, 2008, 2007, 2005 and 2004. I should note that last year was the first year Google put up something on their home page for Memorial Day even though they have gone on record as not doing so for events that are not light hearted.
Here are todays logos, themes and ribbons:
Google's Ribbon/Badge:
Yahoo (animated):
Yahoo (static):
Bing:
DogPile:
Cre8asite Forums:
Search Engine Roundtable:
I should note that this is the first year in a long time where Ask.com does not have a theme up. They do have it as the question of the day:
Update: For Ask.com, I was seeing their beta home page. They do in fact have a theme up on their main home page. Here is a screen shot:
Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums, Google Blogoscoped Forums, Google Web Search Help and Google Webmaster Help.