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:
- Make Sure to Return the Right Response Code on 404 Pages
WebmasterWorld administrator tedster urges each and every webmaster to ensure that their 404 custom error page actually returns an appropriate 404 error code. He explains that he sees more 200 response codes than ever, lately, because custom 404 pages are often redirected using 302 to a page that then serves a 200 error. What this means is that eventually all of these "bad" URLs pile up and you have a duplicate content issue on your - Are 80% of Searches Really Informational, As Penn Study Says?
A study performed out of Penn State College found with reasonable accuracy that "about 80 percent of queries are informational and about 10 percent each are for navigational and transactional purposes." At Search Engine Land, Barry breaks down the behaviors and says that the informational queries include searching for a fact or topic, navigational searches include looking for a specific website, and transactional queries address buying products or services. According to Bill Slawski on Sphinn, - Search Engine Optimization Firm Sued, Required to Pay More than $100K in Fees
Kevin Heisler writes at Search Engine Watch that an "SEO agency" called Internet Advancement has been sued by Washington State and required to pay over $100,000 in fees for scamming its clients. Among the restitution includes penalties against offering services to new members and requiring refunds to be handed to scammed clients. Some of their failures are outlined in this complaint (doc link) document. They include: Defendants represent they will be able to secure top - User Behavior Influenced By Blended Search Results
iProspect has released findings of a blended search results study that shows that user behavior is being impacted by search results. According to the findings, users are more likely to click on the blended results (news story, video, or image) than one of the ~10 actual links themselves. Search Engine Watch provides a summary of the findings and concludes that a lot of companies are still not taking advantage of blended search. However, perhaps you - Google Now Crawling Content Behind Forms
We should have seen this coming, based on the number of reports that Google was submitting GET forms. But often, it is hard to validate those types of reports, due to people spoofing Googlebot and similar tactics. In any event, Google now admits to Crawling through HTML forms. Here are some things to know about this announcement in bullet form: For select menus, check boxes, and radio buttons on the form, Google will choose from - Possible Google AdWords Slap on April 12, 2008?
There are a few early reports that some Google AdWords advertisers received what is called a Google Slap, basically a spike in their minimum CPCs due to Google's quality score. A WebmasterWorld thread has two confirmed reports over the weekend that their cost-per-click (CPC) prices have skyrocketed overnight. Here are quotes of the two reports: Well, I got around 8,000 keywords with a bid of $10.00 today, which most where on $0.15 and $0.30. We - Yahoo Search April 2008 'Tax Day' Update
This weekend, we have reports coming from WebmasterWorld of major ranking changes at Yahoo Search. It appears Yahoo has started an algorithm and indexing update at their search engine. Currently there are no "weather reports" with the status of an update at the Yahoo Search Blog, but based on the conversation at the thread, there appears to be an updating taking place. The last update took place in early March, but in reality, most SEOs - Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: April 13, 2008
In this week's video recap, I discuss the major business turmoil Yahoo is going through with Microsoft, Google, AOL and News Corp. I also go through Flickr adding video, Yahoo acquiring IndexTools, Google's new AdWords policy, the guy who trademarked SEO, how one can penalized their competitors in Google, and so much more. The video is under ten minutes long and you can win some great schwag by watching. To win, watch the video and
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- 38 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started In Marketing, Sphinn
- Live Maps now supports Google's KML files, DigitalPoint Forums
- SEO Trademarker Responds: Community Standards, Sphinn
- SalesForce Integrates with Google Apps, WebmasterWorld
