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.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google Webmaster Tools Breakdown?
There are a lot of reports lately of issues with Google Webmasters Tools. Issues are fixed but then they return. For example, we have this post reporting 0 crawled pages from October 23; on October 24, we still had individuals leaving comments saying that the problem wasn't fixed. In July, we had a 404 reporting error but it was later fixed. We have reports that Google Webmaster Tools are inaccurately displaying keyword positions among other - Why Are Old News Results Showing Up in My Google Searches?
Numerous webmasters are reporting that Google News (and Google Book Search results, as we reported) are showing up in the SERPs for particular Google searches. However, these news stories aren't recent; they are relatively old and dated. Unfortunately, I'm not able to reproduce the search (perhaps I'm searching for terms that always have associated news), but there's a question about Google's relevancy if it's providing old news stories. Further, to that end, there are also - Yahoo Gains Search Share, According to comScore
Bloomberg reports that Yahoo has gained search share in September 2008 while Microsoft has lost some of its share. Yahoo had about 20.2 percent of queries in September, up from 19.6 percent in August, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore said today in an e-mail. Microsoft's share fell to 8.5 percent from 8.9 percent. Google Inc. handled 62.9 percent, compared with 63 percent in August. Some feel that Yahoo's numbers are grossly miscalculated; one forum member has never - Handling Tracking URLs & Keeping Your Link Popularity
A Google Groups thread discusses a classic SEO challenge, passing link popularity for tracking URLs. Honestly, I cannot sum up the issue better than the original poster: Our site uses query string variables in our URL's to track traffic and internal vist patterns. As an example our email offers our external ads will use a URL similar to: www.website.com/shop/scarfs.asp?cpn=bbl2345 And then upon entering the website they might click on internal links like: www.website.com/shop/scarfs.asp?sc=2332 Those Variables - Google AdWords Hacked Ads In The Raw Search Results
We have reported time and time again about Google AdWords accounts being hacked into and abused. Typically, the hackers gain access, set up a new campaign, generate tons of ads, pointing to temporary domains and use your credit card to pay for that traffic. But I have never really noticed the ads in the raw search results for such hacked campaigns. Until now, that is. A DigitalPoint Forums thread lead me to a search for - Google's Third Webmaster Chat Recap Now Live
Google held their third webmaster chat session about a week ago. I was unable to provide you coverage of the event, but I knew they would be posting a recap of the event for us all who were unable to attend. You can read through the questions and answers discussion from the live chat. It is incredibly long, but you may find a nugget or two you would like. I heard there were some technical
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Adsense for Mobile taking off...., DigitalPoint Forums
- AdWords API Python Client Library Updated (v3.3.0), Google Groups
- If you had a $1000 for link building., WebmasterWorld
- Is Yahoo's Buzz A Buzz-Kill?, Sphinn
- Linked In Announces "Linkedin Apps", WebmasterWorld
- My two sites?, Google Groups
