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:
- The Fundamentals of Link Building
Adam Audette wrote a brilliant piece on the fundamentals of link building on his blog, and he's right on the money. His core message is that links reflect value, so your linking strategy should focus on finding that valuable link and seeking out the appropriate neighborhoods for gathering such links. The higher the quality of the link, the better it is for you. I'd summarize the entire post, but it really deserves its own read, - Is it Better to Be Ranked #10 or #11?
What would you consider a better scenario? Would you rather be below the fold on page one or above the fold on page two of the search results? If so, why? The answer may depend on your wants and needs. On DigitalPoint Forums, a forum member is saying that he's getting a lot less traffic in the #10 ranking than in the #11th position. While few don't see a difference between page 1 and page - Is Google Seeing index.html the Same as the Root Domain?
Jill Whalen discovered through several site audits that Google appears to have merged the index page with the root page of the domain. In other words, if your www.domain.com was the same as www.domain.com/index.html and you still linked to www.domain.com/index.html, Google is now seeing these pages as one and the same versus in the past where they would treat them as two separate pages and even split toolbar PageRank. It may be an issue of - Yahoo! Search Marketing Announces New Customer Support Hours
YahooPete has visited the forums over the weekend and has announced that Yahoo! Search Marketing's customer support hours have changed. The new hours are: Monday – Friday: 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time Saturday: 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time Sunday: Closed The number for the support team is (866) 924-6676. Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums, Search Engine Watch Forums, and WebmasterWorld. - Yahoo Slurp, Yahoo Search Crawler, Suffering From ADHD?
A DigitalPoint Forums thread has dozens of reports that Yahoo Search's crawler, Yahoo Slurp, took some bad medicine recently. Many are reporting that they see the crawler spidering their sites like never before. Some times they have seen the spider multiple to over a 1,000 crawls at one time. The first report claimed about 500 Yahoo spiders: I have a forum and I get 500+ (sometimes 800+) Yahoo spiders daily. Why is there so many? - Microsoft ContentAds Publisher Program Pilot Sign Up Form
It seems like you can now request to join the pilot Microsoft ContentAds program as a publisher. Currently, there was really no public method to request to show Microsoft ContentAds, via the adCenter content network, on your site. But now, there appears to be a form at http://advertising.microsoft.com/publisher that you can sign up at. By completing the form, you have a chance at: To keep informed about new developmentsReceive invitations to participate in focus groups - Google Goes Dark Saturday Night at 8 O'Clock
The world was abuzz about Google.com going black around the world at 8pm local time. It happened a bit earlier at Google Israel, and then Saturday night it went black again: Why? For Earth Hour. Google users in the United States will notice today that we "turned the lights out" on the Google.com homepage as a gesture to raise awareness of a worldwide energy conservation effort called Earth Hour. As to why we don't do - Google China Highlighting Query Terms in Search Results in Red
Google China seems to be highlighting the query term in the search results in red, instead of just bolding the query term, like was done in the past. For example, a search on search engine roundtable at Google China returns all matches of the keyword phrase on the page in red. Here is a screen capture: Let's compare this to a search at Google.com: Wonder why Google China is going with the red highlights, as - Google's First Live Chat Webmaster Help Session a Success
As reported, Google held their first live chat even hosted by the Google Webmaster Help team. I listened and participated in the live chat event, and I can personally attest that it was a huge success. I believe there were well over 200 attendees, maybe almost 300. It was hosted using an 800# call in, to hear the Googlers. Plus a WebEx plugin to view slides, video and two methods of chat. The first was - Google Search Index March '08 Update Underway?
The huge WebmasterWorld thread devoted to tracking Google changes over the course of March 2008 has sprung some late March legs. Reseller, well known at WebmasterWorld for tracking the slightest changes at Google, posted two data centers that are very different. The two data centers that appears to be shuffling around include: 72.14.207.10464.233.183.104 Reseller jokes: May be the folks at Google Search Quality Team are focusing this weekend at improving the search relevancy at the - Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: March 30, 2008
In this week's video recap of the Weekly Search Buzz we announced the winner of the prize from last week's video recap, plus I chatted about some of the most interesting and important discussions around the search industry. This week's video recap is a summary of the Weekly Search Buzz RoundUp - 03/28/08: YouTube Video Statistics, Google Demographics Targeting & Video Ads on Google and Yahoo. In this video edition I discussed YouTube Insights, Google - AdWords Mobile Ads - A Legacy Product?, Search Engine Watch Forums
- AdwordsBot, please stop lowercasing destination urls!, WebmasterWorld
- Clicks Down, According to ComScore, WebmasterWorld
- Google Calendars have stopped working : Gabe, Google Groups
- Google loses second exec to Facebook, DigitalPoint Forums
- Google: Images do accrue PageRank, Search Engine Watch Forums
- If you had a wish list and $3 million dollars, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Microsoft adCenter - Where's The Revenue?, Sphinn
- Nice function on google china first page!, DigitalPoint Forums
- How Long Does It Take To Get Out Of Supplemental Index?, HighRankings Forums
- Shine: Yahoo Unveils Content Portal For Women, WebmasterWorld
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
