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:
- Webmasters Report April 2008 Google SERP Updates
Following March's update, WebmasterWorld members talk about the newest updates to the Google algorithm, including the previously discussed Dewey update. Some observations include front page rankings that appear to be delisted (or "dumped way back," as one person puts it). He notes that one of his websites that has been up for over a decade is now totally gone with the exception of 2 pages that were updated in 2001. News results also seem strange. - Are there Best Practices for Link Building?
In Search Engine Land's weekly column about link building, Eric Ward tackles a question about link building best practices. Is there such a thing? Guess what? The answer is no. He explains: The problem with link building best practices is that if you ask ten link builders to agree on a set of best practices, each of them will be right, and each of them will be wrong, myself included. What works for one link - How to Rank in Google News
The Google News Team recently blogged about the "secrets" of achieving rank in Google News. They dispelled many myths and clarified other facts. Some of the interesting facts include the following: Having an image next to your article improves your ranking: MYTH Updating an article after posting it will create problems with Google News: TRUE Timing the publication of your article improves your article ranking: MYTH Articles that are just images or video won't be - Google Search Results are Now Dated in Different Languages
Barry Welford spotted dated results on a variety of Google localized search engines. For example, if you performed a search on Google French, you'd see this: The same result occurs on Google Finnish: Of particular note is the fact that Google is showing the date in your mother tongue. Will adding dates become normal in the future? We can only keep watching. Forum discussion continues at Sphinn. - Google To Sell Off SEM Division of DoubleClick, Performics: Does Right By SEM Community
After Google finally acquired DoubleClick the controversy of Google now officially owning an SEM company was a reality. DoubleClick owned Performics, a company that sells SEM services, including SEO and PPC. Yes, a major conflict of interest. Google, officially announced that they will be selling off the search marketing side of Performics. While that means a bunch of SEOs and SEMs jobs are bit up in the air now, the SEM community still feels, overall, - Google Clarifies AdSense Blending & Calls Blending Ads Permissible
Last week, I reported that Google said blending AdSense ads is not allowed, well, it seems like I was somewhat wrong. At least, we all were, on some level. AdSenseAdvisor updated us in the WebmasterWorld thread (see post number 3617913). AdSenseAdvisor said, in short, "blending is permitted." Yes, there is a "but" in that statement. AdSenseAdvisor added, "publishers should not rely on deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks," he/she continued, "where a group of links - Google Webmaster Tools Can't Verify .ASIA Domain Names
Just when we were getting over the Google Webmaster Tools Verification bug, when the far east is now suffering with a similar bug. If you have a .ASIA domain, Google has confirmed that you will not be able to verify the domain with Google Webmaster Tools. At least not at the moment. Google is currently working on fixing the issue and hopefully you will be able to verify your .ASIA domain with Google shortly. Googler, - Firefox 3 Beta 5 Sending Google Search Results Through Redirect?
There is an interesting new bug with Firefox 3 Beta 5, that sends a surfer through a redirect page after clicking on the Google search result. Here is how to reproduce the issue: (1) Be in Firefox 3 Beta 5 (2) Be signed in to Google (you must be signed in to your Google account) (3) Go to Google.com (4) Enter the search term: [yahoo] or any other search term (5) Click the first result
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- AdWords on Dogpile, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Google AdWords API Java Client Library Updated, Google Groups
- Google Docs Community Channel launches on YouTube, Google Groups
- Strange Behavior of site: operator, WebmasterWorld
- Yahoo teams up with vlingo for voice search, WebmasterWorld
