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:
- SMX West 2008 Conference Coverage Recap
SMX West 2008 is now over and it was a great conference. The size of the conference did not take away from the intimacy people felt with the speakers. Most attendees are on their way back now, as am I. Here is a recap of all our coverage. Before I post that, I must thank our contributors. Starting with our Tamar Weinberg of many hats including her own blog Techipedia, Debra Mastaler of Alliance Link - Google Finally Updates Webmaster Tools External Link Data: February 2008 Update
We reported several days ago that Google hasn't updated their external link counts and data in Google Webmaster Tools since early January. Webmasters and SEOs began to complain so Googlers began looking into it. We now have reports via Google Groups that webmasters are seeing an update to their link counts in Webmaster Tools. I would share our most popular pages according to Google but in early February Google removed the download table option and - Microsoft adCenter's Fixes Dynamic Keyword Feature
Good news adCenter advertisers, Microsoft has finally fixed the broken dynamic keyword feature in adCenter. We first reported the news back on February 21st, but even then it was an issue that was fairly old. But it should now be fixed. adCenterRep posted last night saying: I am happy to say that this issue is now resloved. If you do experiance any errors, please contact support so that we can get it resloved quickly for - Obituaries Are Not Wanted in Google News
A Google Groups has a member complaining about the number of obituaries found in Google News, the local section. It is from there I learn, that generally, Google doesn't want obituaries in Google News. Google News Guide Marcela said: BonBon is right -- these articles generally shouldn't be included in Google News at all. If you send us the URLs to the sites, we can do a little detective work. Here's the form you can - Upper Case & Lower Case Searches May Return Different Google Search Results
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 all lower case and then next in upper case. The first report in this thread came in on February 21st: For one of my main keywords, when using capital letters, I rank about 6 places
SMX West Conference Recap:
- SEO Checkup
This panel of SEO experts reviews sites live on the web and offers advice on improving indexing and ranking. Moderator: Rob Kerry, Editor, Sphinn Panelists: Jake Baillie, Managing Director, STN Labs Christine Churchill, President, KeyRelevance First site: pbreview.com. It's a paintball website, they don't sell the products, but have reviews of the products. It has had partial optimization (meta tags and meta descriptions). He doesn't have specific issues, but is looking for suggestions. The people - Linking Q&A
SEO & Linking Track Linking Q&A - This panel of search representatives and search marketers takes questions about linking, from link building, to issues about buying links, to internal linkage and more. Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land Q&A Moderator: Brent Csutoras, Online Marketing Specialist, BrentCsutoras.com Speakers: Nathan Buggia, Lead Program Manager, Live Search Webmaster Central, Microsoft Matt Cutts, Software Engineer, Google Priyank Garg, Director Product Management, Yahoo! Search Rae Hoffman, Principal, Sugarrae Internet - Search Marketing, B2B-Style
This session looks at some of the best practices B2B marketers should follow when doing search marketing, including the use of downloadable material, actions beyond offering white papers, testing registration and landing pages plus more. Moderator: Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, Search Engine Land Speakers: Galen De Young, Managing Director, Francis SEO Ben Hanna, Vice President, Marketing, Business.com Patricia Hursh, President, Smart Search Marketing Ben Hanna starts Research Background of business.com and their research. The world - SEO Q&A
PowerPoint Free! Put your questions about SEO to our panel of experts and get answers about ranking and crawling issues. Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land Q&A Moderator: Cindy Krum, Senior SEO Analyst, Blue Moon Works, Inc. Speakers: Jill Whalen, CEO and Founder, High Rankings Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc. Todd Friesen, Vice President of Search, Visible Technologies Greg Boser, President, 3 Dog Media Stephan Spencer, President, Netconcepts Question: What are the most - Analyzing The Competition
Moderator: Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, Search Engine Land Q&A Moderator: John Marshall, CTO and Founder, Market Motive Christine Churchill, President, KeyRelevance is first up to talk about this topic. This is a huge field offline but she will chat about the online tools. - Goal is to acquire information that leads to intelligence that helps make better business decisions - Get data from public sources - Not industrial espionage - Much of the data is - Generation Google: A Talk With Today's Teens
Generation Google: A Talk With Today's Teens - They've grown up with search engines as an everyday fact-of-life, rather than some magical new technology that's revolutionized finding information. This panel of "Generation Google" teens, as some have dubbed them, answers questions about how they search, view search engines and yes -- even do search marketing of their own. Listen to a short audio preview! Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land Q&A Moderator: Cindy Krum, - Web Analytics Roundtable
This session provides an overview of web analytics and how it can be used to analyze search marketing performance, followed by Q&A with web analytics experts and tool representatives. Moderator: Jim Sterne, Founding President and Chairman, Web Analytics Association Q&A Moderator: John Marshall, CTO and Founder, Market Motive Speaker: Gary Angel, President, Semphonic Q&A Speakers: Wes Funk, Omniture Brett Crosby, Senior Manager, Google Analytics Richard Zwicky, CEO, Enquisite Gary gives an overview of what we're - Growing Your Small SEM Firm
Session Summary You're getting -- or want to get -- more business than your small SEM firm can handle. Do you scale up by hiring more people? If so, what trade-offs do you face, and how do you scale successfully? These issues and more are explored during this panel. Moderator / Speakers Chris Elwell, President of Third Door Media, is moderating this session along with Dana Todd, Chief Marketing Officer for Newsforce, who is moderating - Industrial Strength SEO
Moderator: Detlev Johnson, CEO, Search Return Q&A Moderator: Matt McGee, SEO Manager, Marchex Martin Laetsch, Senior Director of Search Strategy, Covario, Inc. is first up. He starts off by saying we just all learned a ton about SEO. He said for small sites, it not that hard to put the time in to work the SEO. But what if we have hundreds, thousands, etc of sites to optimize? There is not enough time in the - Keynote - Generation Next: Search In The Coming Decade
Keynote Generation Next: Search In The Coming Decade - In this panel, luminaries from the major search engines discuss where they see search going as the decade unfolds. Moderators: Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, Search Engine Land Gord Hotchkiss, President and CEO, Enquiro Speakers: Brad Goldberg, General Manager, Search Business Group, Microsoft Dr. Larry Heck, Vice President of Search and Advertising Sciences, Yahoo! Doug Leeds, Senior Vice President of Product Management, Ask.com Peter Norvig, Director of
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Analyzing Your Competitor's Backlinking Strategies, Sphinn
- EU fines Microsoft $1.4 billion For Defying Sanctions, WebmasterWorld
- EU fines Microsoft record $1.4bn, DigitalPoint Forums
- Google dosent have leap years?, DigitalPoint Forums
- Google Images... Won't someone please think of the children!, Sphinn
- How Many Angles Do You Have for Keyword Research?, Sphinn
- Microsoft Bid Proving a "Significant Distraction" For Yahoo, WebmasterWorld
- Sample Privacy Policy! (As required by Google Adsense), DigitalPoint Forums
- Search Marketing Tips from Online Marketing Heroes, Sphinn
- What Is Expected From 8 Months Seo Specialist ?, HighRankings Forums
- Yahoo being sued for bid mismanagement, DigitalPoint Forums
- Yahoo on Segmenting Web Sites into Topical Hierarchies, Sphinn
- You can't escape from Google-Jail when you've spread a bazillion of stinky links, Sphinn
