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: July 20, 2010
Posted: July 20th, 2010, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Searchers Seeing Bing Powered Yahoo Results
Posted: July 20th, 2010, 4:19pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization
Yahoo said they will be testing Bing powered search results this month.
Since then, I haven't really seen anyone say they see it. How will you know if you are in a test group that is seeing the Bing powered Yahoo search results? Simple. The organic results should match Bing exactly.
Now, a senior member at WebmasterWorld said he saw the exact same results on Yahoo that he sees on Bing. He then eventually cleared his cookies and the results no longer matched. I trust him, he was 100% in the test group seeing Bing powered Yahoo results.
Textex, the person who saw it said:
I was seeing it for all queries. I then cleared my cookies and it was gone.
I personally tried it on several browsers and operating systems and did not see it myself. But who knows how likely I am to see these results.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Today Is Moon Day, Google's Nam June Paik & Columbia Logos
Posted: July 20th, 2010, 4:03pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Industry News
Today is Moon Day, it was celebrated widely last year by the search engines because last year was the 40th anniversary. This year, it pretty much has gone unnoticed or unrecognized by the search engines.
We have a logo today:
Google had a logo yesterday on Google Korea for Nam June Paik. He is considered the "first video artist." Check out this awesome doodle:
Finally, Columbia has a logo for the Doodle for Google competition there.
Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums.
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50% Of SEOs Use Nofollows Internally & 50% Don't
Posted: July 20th, 2010, 3:20pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
Despite the advice of Google's Matt Cutts, SEOs are continuing to use the nofollow attribute for internal linking. A few weeks ago, Matt advised against using the nofollow for internal linkage and PageRank sculpting.
We decided to run a poll asking SEOs if they agree with it. Believe it or not, many SEOs don't believe Matt and do things despite his advice.
The results are in and with 176 responses, 88 of them said one thing and the other 88 said the opposite.
I asked: "Do You Use Nofollow on Some Internal Links?" Here are the responses:
I am surprised, honestly surprised, by the results.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Do Links Every Really Disappear?
Posted: July 20th, 2010, 3:09pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Link Building
Tedster at WebmasterWorld asks an excellent question. In short, he wants to know if links ever truly disappear from Google's link graph. Let me quote him:
We've all seen URLs "fall out" of the index at times. But does Google still use those URLs as part of their web graph when they iterate link juice? Or is their web graph confined only to those URLs that can be retrieved as search results?
I'm sure that once a URL is crawled, the data is not just gone if the URL is no longer in the visible index - Google wouldn't throw away data, right So I wonder if the publicly visible pages that can be shown in the SERPs at any one moment are only a subset of the full web graph that Google uses for PageRank calculations - and others, too.
This idea came to him after midnight, on Sunday morning. I suspect many SEOs have thought of this in passing but never really put the concept down on paper.
Yea, I am sure they never go away in terms of Google storing them somewhere. But do you think they continue to pass on link juice after they are long gone?
Moderator, lammert, replied:
One of my sites has about 50% of the pages with the "noindex,follow" robots attribute. They are not visible in the SERPs, but experience is that link juice just happily flows. That may not be fully representative for links which "fall out" of the index, but the juice graph of Google consists of definitely more than just visible URLs.
What do you think? Take our poll:
Do "Fall Out" Links Ever Lose All It's Link Juice?customer surveys
Ever is a strong word, so let's say non-penalized links that simply just end up going away. Do they pass even a tiny bit of link juice? If so, answer "No."
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Mom & Google Save The Day: Finds Lost Keys
Posted: July 20th, 2010, 3:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
I spotted a cute story by a mom based in St. Louis where she saved the day by using Google. In short, one of her daughter's friends lost their car keys in Chicago. She figured, let me do a search in Google and see what I can come up with.
She searched for [Brandon Spells wallet] and spotted a Craigslist post with her daughter's friends keys. I kid you not.
The search result:
The Craigslist post:
Note, I am not sure how the PS is relevant, but it is there.
The mom then posted her story at Google Web Search Help forums for all to read.
I told her, she should make this into one of those Google Search Stories.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
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How Much Of Your SEO Consulting Is Billable?
Posted: July 20th, 2010, 2:55pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: SEM SEO Companies
A thread at HighRankings Forum asks members, how much of their time is billable. Some may work 10 hours per day and some may work 2 hours per day, of the time you work, how much of it is billable?
The person asked:
If you spend 50 hours/week doing SEO consulting, how much of that time do you get paid for @ your regular fee?
just head this question in my mind again after someone told me over a year ago that up to 50% of their time wasn't even billed..wondering if it's the same for SEO consultants.
A good questions. Personally, close to none of my time is billable. I run a web development company and my employee's time is billable, not mine. I run stats on how much of their time is billable and, for them at least, most of my guys are over 6 hours per 8 hours of billable work, which is good.
Here is a poll, of the time you are "working" (i.e. at work, doing seo, reading educational material, etc), how much of that time is billable?
How Much Of Your SEO Time Is Billable?Market Research
Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.
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SEOs Split On Buying Links From Brokers
Posted: July 20th, 2010, 2:49pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Link Building
Two weeks ago, we ran a poll asking if you would buy a text link from Text Link Ads or another link broker.
We have well over 300 responses and I wanted to share the results.
The bottom line is that SEOs can't agree on if you should or shouldn't.
- 48% said they would buy a text ad from a broker to benefit their own sites.
- 45% said they would not buy a text ad from a broker.
- 5% said they would only buy a text ad from a broker to hurt their competitors.
- 2% had other things to say
This was a pretty popular poll.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.