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:
- Weekly Search Buzz Roundup - January 18, 2008: Google PageRank "Update," Yahoo "PageRank" Patent & The SEMMYs
Now that Barry is adding video to the buzz roundup (a move which I totally disagree with (since I like reading more than listening, hehehe), I have to be on my best behavior. Without further ado, here's what you missed this week. Your New Google PageRank Isn't Really Visible There's much going on about the new Google directory update since it's not consistent with the PageRank score that you see. Now if only DMOZ accepted - Google Runs with Five Philanthropic Initiatives
Yesterday, Google announced that its charity organization (Google.org) will be working on five different initiatives to "combat climate change, global poverty and emerging threats such as pandemic disease." While the news is being received well by many individuals who are glad that Google is stepping it up a notch, others are obviously skeptical of the approach: I suspect that handing out $30 million in grants is cheaper than showing true corporate responsibility. Don't forget the - Are Sex Tips Allowed on Google AdSense or Considered "Adult Content"?
A Google Groups member wonders if adding sexual health tips can affect your AdSense ad acceptance since Google will treat them as an "adult" site. The answer is yes, it can. AdSensePro writes: A casually written blog about someone's cooking lessons, for example, would probably be acceptable in the AdSense network, while a casually written blog about someone's personal sex tips probably wouldn't be acceptable. More information can be see at the Google AdSense blog - Microsoft's Live Search Not Ranking New Sites Well Anymore
Guess what? Beyond the value that Microsoft's Live Search Webmaster Portal has for gaining statistical information about your website, it also has an added bonus of the ability to connect with the Live Search team. A WebmasterWorld member says that if you're not ranking at all in Live Search, the team at the Webmaster Portal actually listen to your complaints, especially since there's a good number of complaints that sites don't seem to rank on - Can You Stay Away from Search News for 24 Hours?
On her blog, DazzlinDonna proposes a plan that some people think is unfathomable: stay away from search news for 24 hours. Her argument is that if you avoid the news, you might actually be able to get things done. The question is: can you do it? If so, do it today. The discussion moves over to Sphinn where most, if not all of the forum participants, believe that they cannot step away from their computers - Image Links, "The Next Best Thing" to Text Links
A short WebmasterWorld thread asks if links from logos or images give off any link popularity amongst the search engines. WebmasterWorld Link Development moderator, pageoneresults, replies that although text links are preferred, "you are getting the next best thing which is an image link." But how do you get the most out of your image links? Make sure the image has an ALT attribute (alternative text)Can't hurt to try adding a TITLE attribute (i.e. title="") - Baidu to Become Domain Registrar, Just Like Google?
Baidu, the Google of China, reportedly has received approval from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) to become a domain name registrar. Why do we care? Remember when Google became a domain registrar in January 2005? We, SEOs, did not stop worrying about if Google would use that data in their search algorithms. Most SEOs believe, without a doubt, Google uses some whois data, data that is easily provided to them, in their algorithms. - Yahoo Search January 2008 Update
I am seeing early signs of reports of a Yahoo Search index and algorithm update. The last update at Yahoo Search was on December 3rd of last year, so we are well due an update. We have threads at both WebmasterWorld (see new posts of this old thread) and at DigitalPoint Forums, with signals that the update has begun. And about 99% of the time, we report the update before the official Yahoo Search Blog
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- 2 campaigns for the same page?, DigitalPoint Forums
- Get a grip on the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP), Sphinn
- New Google Approach to Indexing and Stopwords, Sphinn
- Some Adsense tips that quadrupled my CTR and got me some more $$$, DigitalPoint Forums
- The 4 Different Types of Authority Links (and 11 Ways to Get Them), Sphinn
- Why The SEO Industry Needs Small Business, Sphinn
- Yahoo Supports OpenID 2.0 Standard Single Log Ins, WebmasterWorld
