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 - 03/07/08: RIP Ask.com, Google Sitewide Search & Siloing Debate
SHello from sunny Austin Texas! I'm at South by Southwest for the week but I couldn't possibly go without giving you the highlights of the week in search. So, without further ado, here you go! - Google.com Goes Down in Germany For Hours
Seems like yesterday, German Google users were unable to access any of the Google properties including Google.com, Google Mail, Google Groups, Google Reader and so on. Reportedly it impacted both Telekom and 1&1 users. Google Blogoscoped is based on Germany and has a lot of details on the downtime. In fact, he received a statement while Google was offline in Germany that translated into: Apparently this afternoon there were problems with accessing Google through a - Google AdWords Adds Category Exclusion To Site Exclusion
Google keeps adding new ways for AdWords advertisers to fine tune where their ads are displayed within the Google content network. Last night the Inside AdWords blog announced the new feature that allows you to now exclude categories of sites from displaying your ads. Here is how it looks within the AdWords interface: The old site exclusion interface: Exclude your ad by site topic: Exclude by page type: I am very pleased they keep adding - Test Your Page Load Time Before Google Tests it For You
So Google confirmed page load time will be a factor in the quality score and it is just a matter of time for this to be implemented. In fact, the Inside AdWords blog posted an official announcement about it last night. Search Engine Watch Forums moderator, abbottsys, doesn't want to wait for Google to test his page's load time, instead, he is taking action now. He posted a nifty tool to test a page load - Sculpting PR, Siloing, Controlling PageRank Via NoFollow Sparks Debate
I honestly wanted to avoid this topic, but due to the amount of attention on this topic right now, it is our duty to let the non-forum activists know about the controversy. Shari Thurow authored an article on Search Engine Land named You'd Be Wise To "NoFollow" This Dubious SEO Advice. In short, Shari said worry more about your site architecture then using the nofollow attribute to funnel your PageRank, sculpt your PageRank, or silo - SEO Analytics: SEOmoz & Enquisite
The other day, SEOmoz released what they named SEO Analytics. The beauty about this package is that nothing needs to be installed on your site, all this does is watch the search space for signals on your domain. It really does not track rankings or traffic, it does however track links, search engine saturation, mentions and more. Here are some screen captures via SEOmoz: Google Mentions: Live Search Saturation or Index Count: Google News Mentions:
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- SES NYC: Give us Your Questions For Jason Calacanis, Sphinn
- AdWords Maintenance Saturday March 8th - 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PST, Google Groups
- Microsoft adCenter Analytics Beta Updated, WebmasterWorld
- Poor Bill Gates, DigitalPoint Forums
- TV Ads Beta invitations today, WebmasterWorld
