December 2009 Google Webmaster Report

This is the last Google Webmaster Report of 2009 and it was a pretty busy month. The main changes this past month was Caffeine going live on one data center, the new user fade in interface is live, personalized search becoming the default and Google's attempts to appease the news business.

You can read last months report in the November '09 webmaster write up. The new WebmasterWorld thread does not have a lot of new chatter going on. The normal ranking fluctuations discussions are going on. One person said the UK results match the US results on November 4th. But overall, not much chatter in that thread going on.

Here are the Google highlights for the past month:

Google UI Changes:

• Google Sticks with Fade In Home Page Despite Searchers Hating It
• Larger Google Images & Region Tags In Google Search Results
• Google Jazz User Interface Out In The Wild
• Google Testing Related Searches Tab on Top Navigation Bar?
• Google URL Search Results Snippets Showing Breadcrumb Navigation
• Google Finally Tries Page Previews

Google Policy Change:

• First Five Click Free Program: Google Revises FCF Program

Google SEO Related:

• Google Caffeine Index Now on a Google Data Center: 209.85.225.103
• Major Google Search Thanksgiving '09 Update? Caffeine Related?
• Google Caffeine Index Goes Live Right Before Holiday Shopping Season
• SEOs Freak Out: Google To Personalize All Search Results
• Google Does Real Time Search : See It For Popeye
• Rich Snippets Now in Google UK & Other Non-US Properties
• Google Confirms Bug With Sitelinks Where You Can Link To Competitors
• Will Google Analytics Hurt My Google Rankings? Speed Issues?
• Page Load Time & Speed Will Likely Be a Ranking Factor in Google
• Google Page Speed Report Comes to Webmaster Tools

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.