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 - 05/02/08: Google Ad Scores Revealed, PageRank Update & META Keywords Don't Matter
Is it really May already? I guess time flies when you're working hard. Or something. The latter part of the week was a bit slow, but we still have a lot of great news for you, starting with a PageRank Update! Google PageRank Update That's right, my friends, we've observed a Google Toolbar PageRank update and some people are very happy to see it. Still, as commenter Rob Abdul points out, it really doesn't mean - Google Combines Street View and Driving Directions
In order to make it easier to get driving directions and see an intersection or area before you actually get to your desired location, the Google Maps team has integrated driving directions with Street View. For example, take a look at this: When you first click on the map, you get the driving directions. More specifically, in this new update, click on the camera next to the driving directions to see the specific place where - Are Forums "Social Media" Sites?
Before reading on, would you consider forums "social media?" This is the question that is posed on a High Rankings Forum post. Many people find that the answer varies. Forums, after all, are inherently social -- they bring people together on common ground. But others disagree. Forums are not "social media" because they don't like the negative connotations of social media (such as being "poked" like on Facebook). In other words, the person finds social - Google's CEO Eric Schmidt Interviewed by CNBC
CNBC interviewed Google's CEO Eric Schmidt earlier this week and the informative interview is now live for everyone to read. Video is available in three parts: part 1, part 2, and part 3. In a nutshell (thanks to engine and nomis5), Eric Schmidt says that he is not aware of the specifics of the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. We know what he knows -- whatever the press people are telling us. Additionally, Schmidt mentions the difficulty Google - Cool Keyword Research Tool: Search Radar
Want to do some keyword research? Check out this cool tool that Cre8asite Forums member eKstreme found: Search Radar and take a look at it in action: The tool looks like it pulls a variety of resources, so there may not be good results, for, say, search engine optimization. As iamlost points out, of the 4 main results there, only two (Bruce Clay and SEOBook) actually knew how to define SEO. But you can't count - Google Adsense Testing New Font Styles?
Google AdSense publishers are reporting via WebmasterWorld that Google is testing new fonts for the ad titles of the Google contextual ads. The new font styles seen include: Comic SansTimes New Roman The folks in the forum find the Comic Sans font to be funny. FYI, I am really font blind - if that is a real eye condition. :) In any event, this is what Comic Sans looks like, via Wikipedia. Seems somewhat curvy - Advertiser Dreams May Come True: Yahoo May Boost Google Ads Again
Last night, the big news was again Microsoft/Yahoo/Google business dealings. You can see all the headlines at Techmeme, including (1) Microsoft might start the hostile takeover today (tomorrow) and (2) Yahoo might announce they will continue to carry Google ads on the Yahoo search network. Greg Sterling has a post on that news at Search Engine Land. I know that many advertisers would be delighted if Yahoo used Google's AdWords network as their ad base. - SEOmoz's Web Developer "SEO Cheat Sheet"
The SEOmoz team released a two page PDF based SEO Web Developer Cheat Sheet that I personally printed out and gave to my RustyBrick developers. I did make a couple changes to it, nothing major. For example, as a matter of style, I personally like to reverse the suggested "Recommended Title Tag" from having the web site name go last, instead of first - or even not show the web site name at all. Update, - Google Crawl Rate Drops: Google Responds?
Yesterday I reported that GoogleBot is crawling less pages then they once were, based on a large WebmasterWorld thread. Now, I spotted a response from a Googler at a Google Groups thread with similar complaints. This time, I decided to login to Google Webmaster Tools and check my crawl stats, which can be found under Tools and then at "Set crawl rate." I noticed the same thing for this site, as well as my other
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Does Meta Data Within Images Count in Search?, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Quality Score Observation, WebmasterWorld
- Yahoo's new patent decides that the way a site look matters, Search Engine Watch Forums
