Entries from Search Engine Roundtable tagged with 'google search'

Yesterday, Danny covered a new user interface Google is testing on about 2% of their users right now. The interface is known internally (actually, it is not named this internally, but the name is catchy, so maybe we should use...

Posted on November 20, 2009 9:06 AM

Google announced that when a URL is too long, they might now replace the URL in the Google search results with a "site hierarchy display," or what appears to look more like a breadcrumb trail. Technically, Google analyzes a site's...

Posted on November 18, 2009 8:20 AM

Jaime from Google reminds us in a Google Web Search Help thread about a 1.5 month old search option feature Google added, named "More shopping sites." Basically, if you conduct a search on Google, click on "search options" and then...

Posted on November 17, 2009 8:30 AM

October 26th, Google launched a new labs product called Google Social Search. It is basically the only labs product I left on, by default, for my Google searches - it is that cool. Over the weekend, I like many many...

Posted on November 16, 2009 7:52 AM

There are two threads at Google Web Search Help where there are two search suggestions that Google has listened to as a possible addition to Google's advanced search. The first thread talks about how some searchers want a NEAR operator...

Posted on November 5, 2009 8:07 AM

A long, long, long time coming, Google is finally testing a page preview feature that shows snapshots of the pages on the search results before you click through. Yes, many search engines have had this feature for a while and...

Posted on November 4, 2009 9:04 AM

Google has temporarily removed the time line feature from search options. The new Google search options went live in early May. We have a screen shot from even before that shows the time line feature. But it has now been...

Posted on October 30, 2009 9:24 AM

Yesterday, we showed you a video demo of Google's Social Search. Well, now it is available for all to play with in google.com/experimental. Personally, I think this can work well for my searchers. But for most of those who do...

Posted on October 27, 2009 9:04 AM

You heard about the Twitter news from Bing and Google but did you see the video demo from Google's Marissa Mayer on how Google will handle searches within the social network of an individual? If Google knows who your friends...

Posted on October 26, 2009 8:16 AM

Since we cover almost every little change that Google makes, why not cover this. I have been hearing reports both at WebmasterWorld and via email from Tom and on Twitter that Google is showing now a main listing with two...

Posted on October 20, 2009 1:39 PM

Friday we reported AVG security called some of Google's pages a security threat. Later on in the day, Googler, Jem came in to tell us they spoke with AVG who promised to resolve the issue soon. Jem Said: We've been...

Posted on October 19, 2009 8:12 AM

Let me start off by saying I rarely use Google's search suggestions, so I am going by hearsay in the forums (which I mostly do anyway). A WebmasterWorld thread is of the general consensus that Google's search suggestions are getting...

Posted on October 16, 2009 8:51 AM

A Google Web Search Help thread has several Google users reporting that the AVG Free virus scanner is prompting security alerts on some of the Google search results pages. Many are claiming the Google result pages with YouTube results are...

Posted on October 16, 2009 8:12 AM

Search for Google Ireland in Google and you will notice that Google does not return Google.ie but rather returns Google.co.nz. Someone should send Google a memo that Ireland is not the same place as New Zealand. Here is a picture:...

Posted on October 15, 2009 8:33 AM

More and more people are noticing Google's new more results user interface, where it shows a plus box, instead of taking the user to a site command like search result. You can likely reproduce the plus box yourself for a...

Posted on October 12, 2009 8:48 AM

Wired reports that an article they published publicly embarrassed Google about a bug with Google Groups search that has been an issue for over a year now, that was fixed in a matter of a day, after Wired wrote about...

Posted on October 9, 2009 9:11 AM

For the first time in my six plus years of reporting on search forums, I spotted a thread where Google has made a change to a specific query based on a thread. Of course, they make changes for porn or...

Posted on October 8, 2009 9:10 AM

Google announced they have added some search refinements to the various Google search properties. The additions include past hour, specific date range, more shopping sites, fewer shopping sites, visited pages, not yet visited, books, blogs and news. To see them...

Posted on October 2, 2009 8:39 AM

Update: I was wrong, it was not a Google issue. For some reason, I had to resubmit my subscribed links XML feed to Google. I did that and now it is working again. So if you haven't yet, make sure...

Posted on September 24, 2009 9:33 AM

Ever conduct a search and see that you have at least ten pages of search results to browse through but then, as you get to page 4 or 5, Google cuts down those ten pages to only 4 or 5...

Posted on September 22, 2009 8:54 AM

A WebmasterWorld thread suggests that Google is getting better at either determining or showing that they know which sites are related to others in the related command. The related command is triggered when you click on the "similar" link in...

Posted on September 18, 2009 5:22 AM

Sometimes I like to point out weird anomalies in the Google search results. A search for [lufthansa fleet] returns a Wikipedia listing to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufthansa. The issue is, the way Google lists out the snippet and title is all weird: Why...

Posted on September 17, 2009 8:23 AM

Let's file this under weird or unexpected search results from Google. A search for business website design] returns one of those middle of the page Google refinements. The weird part is what Google returns as a refinement for that search....

Posted on September 16, 2009 8:35 AM

Googler, Jem, started a thread at Google Web Search Help asking the forum members to list out some of their favorite search features. The ones listed so far include: * [4 miles per 30 minutes in minutes per mile]: *...

Posted on September 10, 2009 8:16 AM

Google has changed the top navigation where you manage your settings. Here is a picture of the new way it is handled: As you can see, the "Settings" link drops down when you click on it and gives you the...

Posted on September 7, 2009 9:01 AM

There were several reports at the Google Web Search Help forums over the weekend reporting that the top Google navigation has gone missing. You know, that top bar, above the search box, that lists the other Google features you can...

Posted on September 7, 2009 8:20 AM

We all have seen them at least once in our search life time. A "did you mean" in red at the top of the Google will display for a query where you did mean to search for that. A Google...

Posted on September 2, 2009 9:02 AM

On August 6th, we reported how Google was pushing the AdWords ads nearer to the organic listings in some browsers. I illustrated the change in a short movie, so that it is crystal clear how much of an impact it...

Posted on August 31, 2009 8:40 AM

Ever notice when you do a search at Google for nfl or seo or ppc or other popular acronyms you see that Google will bold the longer version of the acronym? Yes, Google will not only bold the title and...

Posted on August 24, 2009 7:23 AM

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a member stating he noticed Google began testing moving the AdWords ads (search ads) nearer to the free/organic listings. It is hard to describe, so I created a video below. I illustrated how...

Posted on August 6, 2009 7:40 AM

Friday, Google started showing a new "show more results from" link in the Google search results listings. The new link is an AJAX like link that dynamically expands the page to show you five more listings from that site. In...

Posted on August 5, 2009 8:27 AM

We have covered the topic of someone else's Google web history showing up as yours. Including one parent catching her son searching for pornography. But what if you find your web history showing searches you did not do personally and...

Posted on July 24, 2009 8:21 AM

Last week, we asked if Google was picking titles from Google Maps? It turned out to not be the case. In fact, there has been a surprising number of people complaining about the titles Google is showing for a specific...

Posted on July 20, 2009 8:31 AM

Google's web history is great for finding things you have searched for in the past. It comes in handy for many reasons. In fact, it even helped a parent catch his son searching for porn, but is it always accurate?...

Posted on July 10, 2009 8:37 AM

Remember a little back Matt Cutts of Google posted that he wanted the Google search results to remove empty review sites from the listings? Recently, during my Google searches, I have been landing on sites that have answers, but require...

Posted on July 9, 2009 8:43 AM

The other day we reported on Searchers Want "Pages From [Country]," Google Might Drop It. Go read it quickly and come back here. The reports of people seeing this has grown tremendously. I see dozens of forum threads on the...

Posted on July 7, 2009 8:22 AM

A reader, BlogsDNA tipped me off on a new Google test. It appears that Google is showing a form of sub links under the main search results, that link to additional forum threads, when relevant, from a specific site. Here...

Posted on July 7, 2009 8:01 AM

Okay, so maybe the title is a bit too much. Building out Google Maps to make a difference in the housing market is a bit of a stretch. Google announced the launch of Google Maps Real Estate Search. It allows...

Posted on July 6, 2009 8:32 AM

So Gabs spotted last week that Google was testing removing the "pages from UK" radio search button at Google UK. He was the only one I saw mention that until now, but I blogged it at Search Engine Land, because...

Posted on July 2, 2009 9:15 AM

A Google Webmaster Help thread has a searcher asking Google how they can remove a Facebook page from Google. The page has been deleted from Facebook, but it still shows up in the Google Cache. Googler, Wysz, gave the searcher...

Posted on July 1, 2009 8:37 AM

A week ago we showed that Google is truncating URLs in some cases. To my surprise, Jaime from the Google Web Search team picked up the story and decided to explain why Google does shorten URLs. He decided to post...

Posted on June 26, 2009 9:09 AM

An interesting thread at Google Web Search Help started by "anotherDad" tells the story of how a father was shocked to see a pornographic site come up in the Google search results for a search for his daughter's name. He...

Posted on June 24, 2009 8:46 AM

Sandip Dedhia from BlogsDNA for spotting this and also Vertical Leap noticed a bit later. It Google seems to be truncating the display URL in the search results to a single line. So I decided to test this and it...

Posted on June 19, 2009 8:11 AM

It appears that Google has quietly removed the file size figure from the search results. I am not sure when this happened, it could have been a year ago, but it did happen. A year and a half ago I...

Posted on June 15, 2009 8:23 AM

I don't think I wrote about Google's latest search results test. Over the past month or so, Google has been testing images, several of them, directly under a search snippet. BlogStorm first reported the finding back on May 26th, and...

Posted on June 11, 2009 8:28 AM

When Google's new search options feature went live earlier last month, Google also changed how they handle time based queries. Back in 2007 Google handled the time based query refinements by appending &as_qdr= to the URL, now Google is using...

Posted on June 2, 2009 8:59 AM

A few weeks ago, Google announced the support of rich snippets in the search results. Most SEOs and Webmasters said they would give it a try and I did also. So far, none of the sites I have tried it...

Posted on May 26, 2009 8:24 AM

Google's Matt Cutts explained in a video why Google does not currently index @ signs. It stems from not wanting to index email addresses, he said. But now with the popularity of Twitter, Matt would not be surprised if Google...

Posted on May 25, 2009 8:59 AM

A moderator at WebmasterWorld noticed Google stopped using standard URL redirects in the Google search results to track click events. If you hover over the link, it now appears that Google is just sending you directly to the destination URL,...

Posted on May 25, 2009 8:34 AM

After some testing, Google has finally announced that they will be launching changes to their search suggestions. The key changes include: (1) Search Ads in Search Suggestions: (2) Improved "navigational query" support: (3) Search Suggestions even on search results pages:...

Posted on May 21, 2009 8:34 AM

Part of the Google Searchology event announcements from yesterday, Google announced a new way to enhance the search results. This way is called rich snippets and it gives webmasters a way to communicate richer data to Google, so they can...

Posted on May 13, 2009 9:06 AM

The Google Wonder Wheel and search options we have seen being tested is now the real deal in Google.com. Google announced it yesterday at the Searchology event, which Danny live blogged. In fact, Matt posted a nice recap of all...

Posted on May 13, 2009 8:55 AM

A few weeks ago, Google launched a way to verify your Google Profile with them and ultimately show up in the Google results. In fact, Google offered free business cards with your Google Profile information on it. You can get...

Posted on May 11, 2009 8:22 AM

Not all of us are like the founder of LifeLock by hanging up billboards of our social security numbers giving people access to our most private number. The bottom line is that most people don't want their social security number...

Posted on May 8, 2009 8:55 AM

So we know Google is seriously testing AJAX search results and Google has confirmed that. We know Google was not passing referrer strings to the receiving sites, but Google promised to fix that. But these changes are going to be...

Posted on May 7, 2009 8:22 AM

Qwerty, a long time High Ranking Forum personality, wrote a blog post named Google Related Searches - Cheaters Rejoice. In short, he explains that Google is smart enough to know the answers to the New York Times crossword puzzle, without...

Posted on May 4, 2009 8:49 AM

An hour or so before I went offline for Passover, the Google Analytics blog announced a very significant change to how Google search will be passing along referral data. In the past, a search for flowers and a click on...

Posted on April 17, 2009 8:28 AM

Every month we report on a monthly WebmasterWorld thread that discusses the current state of the Google web search index. This month, the WebmasterWorld thread has very little to report. If you want to see last month's report click here....

Posted on April 14, 2009 8:03 AM

Google continues to say that Google searches are "always case insensitive. Searching for [ new york times ] is the same as searching for [ New York Times ]." But since February 2008, we have been reporting cases where Google...

Posted on April 13, 2009 8:23 AM

Marty from the aimClear blog emailed me a screen shot yesterday morning, which looked like Google experimental search results. I then spotted a WebmasterWorld thread that discusses the same thing Marty emailed me. There is a new link in the...

Posted on March 25, 2009 6:33 AM

Google started showing search refinements in mid 2006. Later on that year, they cleaned up those refinements and they began showing up a lot for medical searches and for those that participated in the Google Coop solution. But now, a...

Posted on March 19, 2009 8:49 AM

Googlers know they have to be very careful what they say in public forums when I am watching. In a recent Google Webmasters Help thread, Googler, JohnMu replied to a thread, and I am going to beat him up for...

Posted on March 16, 2009 9:00 AM

A WebmasterWorld thread has several different webmasters reporting seeing huge spikes in Google referrals recently and then those spikes dropping down. The first post was on February 28th, but the spikes continue to happen on random days for several webmasters....

Posted on March 11, 2009 8:27 AM

There is an interesting thread at WebmasterWorld that Google may be biased towards showing more and more "big brands" in the top Google web search results. Yea, yea - big brands have more links, more trust, more pages and bigger...

Posted on February 23, 2009 8:35 AM

Searchers and SEOs have recently been noticing Google offering searchers tips on how to search better at Google.com. Two recent threads have popped up about this, one at WebmasterWorld and the other at Google Web Search Help. Thankfully, I found...

Posted on February 18, 2009 8:46 AM

A Google Web Search Help thread has an annoyed searcher who is upset Google's search box offers search suggestions for "youpron" when you type in the word "you." The easy solution is to turn off search suggestions in your search...

Posted on February 9, 2009 7:56 AM

Sometime yesterday, Firefox 2.x users were unable to use Google's search box, as they typically do. They would go to Google.com, enter in a search query and hit enter. Then nothing would happen. Really, nothing would happen. There is a...

Posted on February 6, 2009 8:34 AM

Last week, we reported that Google made the new "Did You Mean" feature a standard. Meaning, Google's search spelling suggestions are now acting in this new manner. The issue is, many are complaining that they are getting killed by this....

Posted on February 4, 2009 9:05 AM

Two days ago, we reported that Google is testing switching to AJAX to display their search results. But the tension over this discussion was not all that bad, that was until GetClicky.com wrote: Just know this: a major update that...

Posted on February 4, 2009 8:24 AM

Google has a search preference that allows a searcher to define how strict the adult filter should be. It is called Safe Search and I think it was originally designed by Matt Cutts. In any event, I am seeing dozens...

Posted on February 3, 2009 8:07 AM

The SEO Smackdown blog reports that they noticed Google switching "completely" to AJAX based search results. This can put a huge damper in rank checking tools, that scrap the Google search results. Most people are not seeing the Google search...

Posted on February 2, 2009 8:22 AM

You know when you misspell something in Google, they show a "Did you mean" with the correct spelling. Historically, Google has told us that even though they put that Did you mean in red, people still ignore it. So a...

Posted on January 29, 2009 3:21 AM

This is not really SEO related but I found this thread at Google Webmaster Help funny. A parent comes on, asks if there are any other ways porn sites can come up in their Google Web History without having access...

Posted on January 28, 2009 3:05 AM

Brian Ussery posted screen captures of Google possibly adding favorite icons on the left hand side of the display URL in the search results. He posted a screen capture at Google Blogoscoped Forums and emailed me a few. Here is...

Posted on January 25, 2009 2:33 AM

Google Operating System wrote about a new personalization feature Google is testing, named Preferred Sites. How does it works? You go to your search preferences and enter in a list of domains or sub domains that you prefer. If Google...

Posted on January 20, 2009 8:43 AM

I figured I take a different look at Matt's Give Google feedback on "noresults" pages. In short, Matt Cutts of Google wants you to submit feedback to Google on search results that lead to reviews, but those reviews don't actually...

Posted on January 14, 2009 8:01 AM

A Google Webmaster Help points out that Google handles most date formats in US format. So if a site has a date in the format of 04/06/2007, Google will read that as April 6, 2007, but in UK format, it...

Posted on January 5, 2009 8:01 AM

In response to an upset webmaster's post in the Google Webmaster Help forums, Googler JohnMu wrote down four things that some people suspect Google of doing, which he says he has never seen since working at Google. These include: Googlers...

Posted on December 22, 2008 8:19 AM

Google recently optimized for the hundredth time, the Google Search experience on the iPhone and also Android. But it seems like ever since the upgrade, many iPhone and iPod Touch users are having issues searching at Google on mobile Safari....

Posted on December 22, 2008 8:12 AM

Google cranks up the Consensus Engine by Andrew Orlowski at The Register completely took Marissa Mayer's comments out of context when he wrote in his introductory line: Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears...

Posted on December 15, 2008 7:52 AM

Last night I was noticing Twitters and some blog posts, as well as a DigitalPoint Forums thread that asked why did Google ban themselves. In short, a search for [google], [analytics], [adwords], [adsense], [google adwords], and so on, did not...

Posted on December 12, 2008 7:57 AM

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that Google is still offering search tips to help searchers become more efficient searchers. In short, Google offered what they call a "tip" at the top of the search results, directly above the organic results. The...

Posted on December 1, 2008 7:37 AM

You know the results bar at Google? The one that says, Results 1 - 10 of about X for keyword? It looks like this: Well, it is never much all that accurate. Some novice searchers look at that to compare...

Posted on November 12, 2008 9:01 AM

A Google Groups thread asks a wonderful question. Why is it that when there is an issue with Google, often Google won't write about it at one of the Google blogs or at the forums, but rather, respond to the...

Posted on November 10, 2008 7:55 AM

The other day, we reported again that Google Testing Dates on Search Snippets. But it is much more than just dates. Google is now showing additional attributes from the content on the page. For example: Notice how the above result...

Posted on October 10, 2008 8:10 AM

A WebmasterWorld thread reports Google is testing giving the users the ability to set the size of the search results snippets. Google is showing at the upper left of the search results page "Web: Result details: S M L" The...

Posted on September 29, 2008 8:11 AM

Google has been bolding the search phrase within the search results for as long as I can remember. For example, a search on [search engine roundtable] will bold the words "search," "engine," and "roundtable," on the Google search results page....

Posted on August 13, 2008 8:42 AM

About 15 days ago, I reported on the Google Yo-Yo Effect. This yo-yoing is a lot different then the typical ups and downs of Google's rankings. I know many of you are going to say, Google's results always differ. Trust...

Posted on July 29, 2008 8:04 AM

A Google Groups thread shows the tail of a webmaster who had issues with his robots.txt file. The robots.txt file was uploaded in what is called byte-order mark (BOM) encoding, which threw off Google, when trying to retrieve and understand...

Posted on July 28, 2008 7:45 AM

Let me take you back a few steps before getting into this update. On June 30th, Yahoo announced an update that did not update any of the search results around that date. Several days later, around July 7th, webmasters began...

Posted on July 17, 2008 8:27 AM

Part two of the WebmasterWorld thread on the July 2008 Google update discussion is virtually all about how Google is yo-yoing the results. Meaning, one day a site can have top positions for a keyword phrase in Google, the next...

Posted on July 16, 2008 7:51 AM

I found a very interesting tidbit from a Google Groups thread on unreachable robots.txt files. I always believed that a site does not need a robots.txt file. In fact, this site does not have a robots.txt file and yet we...

Posted on June 18, 2008 7:26 AM

A weekend WebmasterWorld thread is reporting dozens and dozens of webmasters noticing a major traffic drop due to Google. Some of these webmasters reported traffic declines in the 90% range. Many of the issues seem to be that Google has...

Posted on June 11, 2008 8:18 AM

Just over a week ago, we had reports that Google dropped most .info TLDs from the search results. Today, we are getting more early reports of the same thing happening, after it recovered quickly last time. We have reports from...

Posted on June 5, 2008 10:17 AM

Last night, I had a nice chat with Googler, JohnMu. I joked around with John, asking if he has messed up yet, in terms of Google communication with webmasters. He said not really - which I agree with. But he...

Posted on June 5, 2008 10:05 AM

Talk about theories! A WebmasterWorld thread has a theory that was posted by senior member, travelin cat, who noticed that his top ranking pages tend to have related YouTube video's embedded on them. The YouTube videos are not his videos,...

Posted on May 29, 2008 7:40 AM

Over the weekend, I noticed reports from WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums suggesting that Google dropped .info and blogspot results from its index. First reports came in at around 9:50am (EST) on May 23rd at both forums. Massive panic actually started...

Posted on May 26, 2008 8:37 AM

A WebmasterWorld thread has some discussion over one member spotting a Google IP address navigating through his site. The IP address originates from the Mountain View location and resolves to Google, so he is convinced a Googler is manually reviewing...

Posted on May 23, 2008 7:00 AM

Remember the floating four story I wrote a week or so ago? Basically how a search result would be in the fourth position and then go so a lower position, then come back to four and then go back again...

Posted on May 21, 2008 9:07 AM

Back in February, I wrote a story named Upper Case & Lower Case Searches May Return Different Google Search Results. Since then, the discussion on that topic has died off. But in the past month or so, more and more...

Posted on May 21, 2008 8:49 AM

It looks that Google might be conducting some sort of major update. Yes, I know - Google is constantly updating, constantly adding content and "improving" the algorithm. But some changes make a bigger impression in the forums then others. I...

Posted on May 21, 2008 8:28 AM

Google updates their search algorithms and indexes fairly often. Results change all the time. The goal for Google is to make this transparent for searchers by providing relevant results. But when a change happens, typically the webmaster will notice and...

Posted on May 16, 2008 8:24 AM

An interesting discussion is taking place at WebmasterWorld on the topic of the robots.txt file. One webmaster did not want his robots.txt file to be indexed by Google, but has no way of delisting in in Google. The only ways...

Posted on May 15, 2008 8:02 AM

The folks at WebmasterWorld really look at every fine detail when it comes to Google's search behavior. Moderator, Receptional Andy said he noticed that when searching in Firefox at Google, Google would append an HS parameter in the URL, when...

Posted on May 12, 2008 7:45 AM

A WebmasterWorld thread has some interesting observations, which I thought would be fun to name the "Floating Four" symptom. In short, it seems like there are some pages that happen to float into the fourth position at Google's search results...

Posted on May 6, 2008 8:30 AM

WebmasterWorld moderator posted a detailed thread at WebmasterWorld claiming that he feels the proxy hijacks that Google has suffered from in 2007, and was getting better towards the end of 2007 seems to be 100% cleaned up now. IncrediBill concluded:...

Posted on April 24, 2008 7:56 AM

As Danny reported over the weekend, Google added a significant search feature (Matt Cutts mentioned it first to let us know). You can now type into Google, whois domain.com and get the whois information for that domain. For example, whois...

Posted on April 23, 2008 11:26 AM

Google has finally written a formal post at the Google Webmaster Central blog named Best practices when moving your site. It honestly is a nice place to send a client or webmaster when the question comes up. Does it give...

Posted on April 17, 2008 7:33 AM

I'll be honest, I keep watching the WebmasterWorld thread discussing the April 2008 Google update, code named Update Dewey. The latest thing that I noticed were recent reports from very senior members saying that Google is shuffling around the results,...

Posted on April 16, 2008 7:44 AM

We should have seen this coming, based on the number of reports that Google was submitting GET forms. But often, it is hard to validate those types of reports, due to people spoofing Googlebot and similar tactics. In any event,...

Posted on April 14, 2008 7:50 AM

I don't think this is exactly related to Google mixing up titles and URLs from yesterday (if you have examples, please comment, so Matt can address them at Google). But over at Search Engine Roundtable Forums, PPCBlogger showed us an...

Posted on April 11, 2008 7:01 AM

This is no April Fools joke, Google is really showing the same search result for some queries in special cases. A WebmasterWorld brought it my to attention and then I was given a way to reproduce it by Andreas. The...

Posted on April 2, 2008 8:52 AM

A couple days ago, I announced on my personal blog that I expanded the keyword list that triggers the Google Co-Op subscribed links from showing up. If you don't remember, the Google Co-Op subscribed links are a way for a...

Posted on April 2, 2008 7:56 AM

On the last day of March, I reported on a major Google search index update which seemed to have impacted tons and tons of SEOs, as opposed to just a ton of SEOs (if you know what I mean). Yes,...

Posted on April 2, 2008 7:36 AM

The huge WebmasterWorld thread devoted to tracking Google changes over the course of March 2008 has sprung some late March legs. Reseller, well known at WebmasterWorld for tracking the slightest changes at Google, posted two data centers that are very...

Posted on March 31, 2008 7:03 AM

There are many reports via DigitalPoint Forums that Google has added the Sitelinks feature to many new sites. Tamar even mentioned to me yesterday that a search on tamar weinberg now returns Sitelinks for her site. The last Google Sitelinks...

Posted on March 27, 2008 8:08 AM

One of the oldest questions in the search engine optimization practice is on the META description. The META description is this little tag you include in the header file, that provides a machine readable short summary of your page. Many...

Posted on March 27, 2008 7:06 AM

Brent Csutoras reported that when searching for social media consulting on Google, up came an indented result for his site. But the indented result, under the main result was from a different site. He took a screen capture of the...

Posted on March 17, 2008 7:25 AM

Google seems to have updated the design of the advanced search form. Here are pictures of the new page design, as I see them right now: Now if you click on that plus sign to open the "Date, usage rights,...

Posted on March 5, 2008 7:15 AM

We now have three different threads in the past week that report Google has the wrong site in its cache for a query. We have seen this before, where we said Google Slow to Update Cache Data? In that case,...

Posted on March 4, 2008 7:33 AM

An interesting thread has been brewing over at WebmasterWorld with reports of an unusual Google query test. It seems like searchers in the UK, searching on UK based IPs at Google may see different results when they search first in...

Posted on February 28, 2008 9:04 AM

I am very confused by a search result at Google Netherlands. Stay with me now, and search for internet publishing at Google.nl. What comes up in the second result for me is www.publiceren.net, which looks to be a video result....

Posted on February 22, 2008 6:44 AM

Over the weekend, in a WebmasterWorld thread that is tracking the Google February 2008 SERP changes, the recent discussion is around a new Google update. This Google update is reportedly impacting the search results in the position two, three, four...

Posted on February 18, 2008 7:01 AM

Besides for Google discounting their search API registration it appears that the Google Search API results are not always matching those of a normal Google search. Now, this has been the case for as long as I remember. Since back...

Posted on February 15, 2008 7:48 AM

A WebmasterWorld has several reports from non-US based site owners saying their rankings in the main USA based Google.com has dropped from the first page to page five or beyond. This is not just one report from people complaining, there...

Posted on January 31, 2008 6:30 AM

In late December, we reported about a possible Position 6 Google Penalty. What that meant was that many people noticed their number one or two rankings all of a sudden dropped to position number 6. Google's Matt Cutts denied such...

Posted on January 23, 2008 7:36 AM

Google launched Universal Search back in mid-May of last year. Since then, SEOs and Webmasters have become interested in how to leverage that to their benefit. But some are just upset and want the universal search blend to go away....

Posted on January 22, 2008 7:45 AM

It appears Google made a slight change in how they display the "cache" and "similar pages" link within the search results listings. Yesterday, the link appeared on the same line as the URL, as shown here: Today, the link appears...

Posted on January 10, 2008 7:10 AM

A WebmasterWorld thread reports seeing Google Local results above the sponsored listings on the right hand side of the Google search results page. Back in December, I reported at Search Engine Land that Google was testing vertical results in that...

Posted on January 8, 2008 7:24 AM

There are many many ways to remove content from Google. We have discussed this topic over and over again. In fact, here are those articles: A New Way To Remove Content in Google.com via Google Webmaster Central Removing A Page...

Posted on January 4, 2008 7:18 AM

The Ultimate Fate of Supplemental Results from the Google Webmaster Central blog announces, what Google calls, the "next major milestone" for Google's supplemental results. What is happening exactly? Google is implying that when you conduct a search in Google.com, Google...

Posted on December 20, 2007 7:44 AM

We asked the question a while back, Should Google Display RSS Feeds in Web Search Results and we determined, no. Then GoogleGuy confirmed Google does not want to display most RSS feeds in the Google index. The Google Webmaster Central...

Posted on December 19, 2007 7:43 AM

A WebmasterWorld thread has a nice amount of Webmasters noticing an increase in the number of supplemental pages being returned by Google. How does one measure the number of supplemental pages in the Google index for their site when Google...

Posted on December 19, 2007 6:52 AM

Permanent redirects, also known as 301 redirects, are the life blood for webmasters when they make changes to their URL structures. It is common practice and knowledge, that when you change a URL from one location to a new location,...

Posted on December 18, 2007 7:38 AM

This weekend has been a landmark time in the SEO industry. To huge blog posts, with dozens of policy changes over the past couple of weeks, have been instrumental in what makes this weekend so significant. The official Google Webmaster...

Posted on December 3, 2007 7:49 AM

Ever wonder what exactly makes up the pieces of the search results you see at Google? Matt Cutts, the head of "search quality" at Google blogged about it over at the Google Webmaster Central Blog. Here is the video where...

Posted on November 27, 2007 7:17 AM

Reports are coming from WebmasterWorld that when you conduct a country specific search, you are no longer able to see which pages are supplemental. The example given was a search at google.co.uk. When you conduct a site: specific search for...

Posted on November 20, 2007 7:15 AM

The Google Advanced Search page has added new date parameters to the date option drop down. Prior, I believe they only had the option to choose by the past 3, 6 or 12 months. Now you can also search by...

Posted on September 5, 2007 7:58 AM

Is there any mileage to the claim that it is possible to get your site spidered faster if you integrate the Google Custom Search Engine into your website? This is the question a new webmaster is asking on the High...

Posted on July 16, 2007 9:08 AM

Yesterday, 2 burglars tried to raid an amusement center, but after an hour, couldn't open the safe, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette. The burglars tried to disable a security camera by repeatedly spraying it with WD-40 — it only...

Posted on July 11, 2007 10:35 AM

There have been lingering reports at both Search Engine Roundtable Forums and WebmasterWorld that Google's site command feature for the UK search engine is broken. For example, if you conduct a site:www.bbc.co.uk and restrict it to "pages from the UK",...

Posted on June 7, 2007 7:54 AM

The folks over at Google Webmaster Central keep pumping out more and more features. The latest feature is showing how other sites link to you, by showing the "most common words used in anchor text to your site." How do...

Posted on March 16, 2007 7:53 AM

Big news last night, Google wrote they will be taking steps to further improve our privacy practices. What that means is that after 18 to 24 months, Google will begin to anonymize their sever logs to help protect it a...

Posted on March 15, 2007 7:00 AM

Matt Cutts posted an interesting write up he named Search results in search results. In that post, he located a Google Groups thread started by Philipp Lenssen asking: Is there any official Google statement regarding that search result on one's...

Posted on March 12, 2007 10:45 AM

Yesterday, I was conducting a search on michael jordan for this post and I spotted related searches at the bottom of the Google results. It looked like this: View Full Size Image I thought it was new, but waited on...

Posted on December 19, 2006 8:19 AM

A member at DigitalPoint Forums was told to learn how to spell negligible but searching for it in a search engine. So he entered in neglible (misspelled) into Google.co.uk (same works for .com) and Google did not offer up a...

Posted on November 9, 2006 7:04 AM

Several WebmasterWorld members report conducting a search on a keyword phrase at Google.com and being presented with results in the form of URLs only, for all 10 results. This is not just reported for one obscure query, but several other...

Posted on October 23, 2006 8:04 AM