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.
- Weekly Search Buzz Roundup - February 8, 2008: SphinnCon Israel, Google Challenges Microsoft/Yahoo & Mardi Gras/Chinese New Year
Barry is still in Israel, which is awesome because I like taking charge of the blog. Of course, he's posted a bit, but to be fair to his family, he's left the busy work to me. [Un]fortunately, it's all coming to an end since he's headed back to America this weekend, so you'll see more of his smiling face next week. SphinnCon Israel 2008 The biggest news on that front, obviously, is Barry's successful conference, - Are You Going to SMX West?
Guess what? There are seventeen days until SMX West to be held in Santa Clara, CA. And guess what else? I'm going to be attending, as is Barry! It's going to be great fun. Are you going to be there? In case you're wondering, we're obviously going to provide conference coverage, and here are some of the extracurricular activities to occur in the evenings: On Monday night, February 25th, there will be an SMX Bash. - Does Google Automatically Index New Blogspot and WordPress Blogs?
If you have a brand new site on Blogspot or WordPress, does it automatically get indexed in search engines? In my experience, the answer was actually yes! But some others believe that it doesn't always happen. Tedster, for example, says the following: Without any external links, Google is not likely to index any site, whether it's a blog or not. They're definitely not likely to keep in the index for very long even, if they - Do You Vary Anchor Text in Your Search Engine Optimization Efforts?
A Search Engine Watch Forums thread asks whether it's useful (or detrimental) to vary your anchor text. Should anchor text be differentiated? The answer is yes. As AussieWebmaster says, "always vary your anchor text." Is there a sweet spot? Not really. But what you should do is make sure that the anchor text is well optimized (you can use a thesaurus, for example, to find other reasonable search terms) and that you're not too spammy. - The Search Industry Celebrates Chinese New Year 2008
Yesterday was the Chinese New Year. While Search Engine Roundtable didn't have a theme (Barry's still on the other side of the globe missing out on the festivities here), Google and Ask did. Happy year of the Rat, guys! Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld. - Yahoo Answers User Generated Links Not Clickable
Yahoo Answers allowed registered users to post links as answers but since yesterday, those links have not been clickable. Webmasters at both DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld have been complaining about the issue since 4am (EST) yesterday. But it appears that this is just a technical bug. Yahoo! Answers link update from the Yahoo Answers Blog said they "are working to fix the problem and we don’t yet have an estimate on when it will be - Google Removed "Download This Table" From Webmaster Link Reports
If you login to Google Webmaster Tools and go to your "links" and then "external links" section, you may notice Google removed the "Download This Table" link from the bottom. What remains is the "Download all external links." Why did Google remove the table download? Is it a temporary mistake or did they remove it for other reasons? Both exports had useful data, so I am a bit confused as to why one was removed.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Announcing Your Social Safety Net: Social Alerter, Sphinn
- Happy Birthday Johnmu, Cre8asite Forums
- What Does Social Media Have to do with Search? Plenty, Sphinn
- New--And Unfortunate--Changes To Google Local Search, Sphinn
- When You Should Pause Your PPC Campaign, Sphinn
- New - Google News Local, Search Engine Watch Forums
