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...
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...
Remember when I reported that we saw Google Sitelinks in position 60? I said then that it seems Google is admitting to the minus 60 penalty: What I do find very interesting is that Googler, JohnMu, tells the webmaster to...
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:...
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...
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,...
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,...
There are reports from several sources including WebmasterWorld that Google is having a tough time mapping the proper URLs with the associated page titles for those URLs. One report says that Google is treating searches for portal A on a...
On February 20th, I asked our readers if they thought a listing in the Open Directory Project would have a major impact on a site's Google ranking. The response was split down the middle. We only had 58 responses, which...
Juicy title, isn't it? Well, that is the topic of discussion at a WebmasterWorld. A senior member decided to post some generic, not specific examples, ways to hurt a website's Google rankings. Here are some of the methods you can...
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,...
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...
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...
SEOmoz posted results from a study he did where he concluded that only the first anchor text on a page is counted by Google as the anchor text for that link. For example, let's say you have a two links...
Moving document and file locations on the web is fairly common. So what do you do when you have to communicate the move to your users and the search engines? You set up a redirect. There is no question that...
A Google Groups thread on the -60 penalty at Google (there are so many of these now, -6, -10, -250, etc) now has several responses from Matt Cutts of Google. Matt replies specifically to the nature of the posters site...
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....
A WebmasterWorld thread asks how long should he or she wait for after making a change to see if that change worked in Google. In this specific case, the SEO has a web site that seems to be penalized. He/she...
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...
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...
We now have official confirmation that the Google position 6 penalty is now being reversed. Sebastian commented to let me know that Matt Cutts of Google has confirmed at Sphinn that whatever was causing quality sites to be moved down...
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...
WebmasterWorld administrator, tedster, has compiled the feedback of the December 2007 Google SERP Changes thread, which we covered earlier in a new WebmasterWorld thread. In this thread, he says there is a pattern of reports he has been noticing where...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
A WebmasterWorld thread is speculating that Google has recently shown more interest in ranking domain names that have keywords that match the searcher's query. One member explained: This could just be a regional thing, but G.ie seems to be giving...
A WebmasterWorld thread has Labnol asking, "Can rankings vanish because a site is not updated?" If you do not update a site's content, can it set off a red flag at Google or another search engine and have the site...
Friday we reported that Google to Begin Treating Subdomains as Folders: Max 2 Results Per Search based on a post from Tedster at WebmasterWorld. Soon after, Matt Cutts of Google commented saying: This isn't a correct characterization of what Google...
A WebmasterWorld thread has dozens of reports from SEOs and Webmasters that Google has dropped the number of pages they indexed of their sites. Here is one such report: On all the searchees I look at a regular basis I...
Yesterday I covered the news at Search Engine Land of a new Google experimental search feature that lets you move search results up and remove results from the Google search results page. The changes you make only impact you -...
What SEO doesn't like talking about spam? Now add a newly granted Google patent that talks about spam and an SEO is in heaven! Bill at created a Cre8asite Forums thread about a new granted patent named Methods and systems...
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...
Validate your robots.txt - Googlebot becomes smarter from Sebastian reports official confirmation from Google that they are testing out new crawler directives. He explains that adding "Noindex: /" to your robots.txt file will now deindex your complete site. Specifically, Google...
A Search Engine Watch Forums thread asks why a URL is showing up twice for the same search. The example search is sheffield jobs. Result number nine is www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=49, but if you go to page two you should see the...
We recently had the October 2007 Paid Link Debate which recapped the discussion around Danny Sullivan's Official: Selling Paid Links Can Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings On Google. But will SEOs and Webmasters stop buying links? That is the question...
Last week Tamar wrote about How to Stop Googlebot from Crawling Your Site Rapidly, so I thought I write about the opposite. How can you induce GoogleBot into crawling your site. Although there is no magic shot that guarantees inducement...
Over at the Google Groups forum, yet another Googler said that bad links to your site cannot hurt you, at least for the most part. Wysz, a Googler, said in response to someone being worried that a spammy site is...
A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion about Google's allintitle, allinanchor and allinurl operators. Basically, these are special operators you can use when search in Google. For example, if you want to find pages that match a keyword phrase but limit it...
A WebmasterWorld thread has dozens of reports that Google's page index counts of sites have been bouncing up and down like a rollercoaster. By page index site, I assume they mean the number of pages Google reports when you conduct...
There are several reports across multiple forums about a large update at Google. It appears people are noticing large search results shifts at Google Web Search. Some are obviously happy with the changes, such as one user at Search Engine...
A WebmasterWorld thread was broken out by WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, where he summarizes one isolated change he may have noticed from the latest Google update. The change, he said, has to do with Google grouping more of the same category...
Google has updated Google Webmaster Tools with a link update yesterday. Google typically does these updates monthly, around this time. There are additional reports of and ranking changes. There is currently discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld. Here is a...
Matt Cutts finally chimed in on the big buzz about Hyphens & Underscores Are Now Treated Equally in Google.com, which was broken by Stephan Spencer at News.com. Matt said, he "didn’t quite say that in the talk." What he did...
Google has updated Google Webmaster Tools with a link update over the weekend. Google typically does these updates monthly, around this time. There are additional reports of PageRank updates and ranking changes. There is currently discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and...
A WebmasterWorld thread says that Google has counted links from within Microsoft Word Documents, as links to a page. We all know Google indexes files like Word Documents, PDFs, and many many other types of documents. We also know you...
Last night, Google announced that they have done away with the "supplemental results" label from the search results within Google.com. What this means is that Google will no longer label results with a "Supplemental Results" tag in the search results....
A WebmasterWorld thread asks why when you do a search at Google.com on a phrase, why does Google return results with that phrase of words scattered around the page, as opposed to a page that matches that exact phrase. The...