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 Recap - 06/20/08: Father's Day, Google Robots.txt and Sitemaps Files & Long Tail Benefits for SEO
Another Friday marks the end of another busy week. We celebrated Father's Day and had a nice hot (and a bit rainy) week over here. And yourselves? Father's Day Sunday marked Father's Day in just about every country (which is so cool -- I never knew this!) and search engines celebrated with all dads. We did a little unique design ourselves. What did you think? Google Webmaster Chat Recordings Now Available Were you not able - Google.co.uk Dissected and Explored
Google.com is an entirely different beast from Google.co.uk -- and webmasters have taken the time to discuss some interesting observations on the .co.uk end. Some are seeing results jumping around with major reshuffling. On a related note, some are seeing the same but are getting results only for very long tail searches. Another observes issues with geotargeting. The specific scenario: For instance many phrases for a 14 year old UK hosted global authority .com is - Google AdWords Team Discusses Factors that Influence Quality Score
So, you want to keep a great Google AdWords quality score. What do you need to consider in your ads? AdWordsPro.Sarah tells us in a Google Groups thread. There are six things to consider. CTR: The higher, the better. Account structure: Your keywords should be in "tightly themed ad groups." Landing Page Quality: More information here. Account history: Your average CTR. Historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group Other Factors: There are - What is Acceptable Hidden Flash Content?
A Google Groups thread requests clear guidelines from Google about acceptable hidden flash content. In some cases, people are very adamant about focusing on dynamic content but don't want to sacrifice indexability. He employed a tactic that displayed content in the Flex application where a mixture of PHP and dynamic deep linking is utilized, but got deindexed as a result. He thinks it's a penalty. Others suggest that it isn't -- it's a technical limitation - Can Quality Sites Be Google Bowled & Hurt in Google's Search Results?
A WebmasterWorld thread asks if there is a way to prevent Google Bowling. Google Bowling is known as a method of using links to hurt your competitors. While Google still denies it, most SEOs believe this is possible can this be prevented? In the thread, Tedster said: There is one thing that protects a website against Google Bowling - a solid backlink profile of its own. The more your "real" quality backlinks grow, the less - Can You Remove a Site From a Country Specific Google Search Engine?
An unusual question came up at WebmasterWorld, asking if you can request a site to be completely removed from a country specific Google search engine. For example, the site owner wants to remove his site from Google Netherlands, because the site has some issues being available to Holland searchers. So the owner of the site wants to remove it from all search results within the Google Holland/Netherlands search engine. Is that even possible? I don't - Google Does Not Give Preference to .COM's over .INFO's or Other TLDs
A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks if Google "hates" .info or .tv domains? The answer is simply no. This question was brought up at least three times last night in the Google Webmaster Live Chat event, which I documented and not only did Google's Matt Cutts said there is absolutely no difference in a link from a .info versus a link from a .com. In fact, there is a Googler that leaves his home page to - Google AdWords Conversion Tracking Goes Missing for Advertisers
Conversion tracking is one of the key metrics many advertisers use when determining if they will run a PPC ad and how much they are willing to spend on an ad. So when it goes missing, advertisers become really concerned. A Google Groups thread has confirmed reports that for some Google AdWords advertisers, the screen that displays conversion tracking, is not displaying the data as it normally does. Don't worry, the data is not lost, - Recording & Coverage of Google's Second Live Chat Session
The second Google webmaster live chat event is now over. I love these things and I wanted to make sure that you all can listen to what took place, just in case you missed it. The agenda went as follows: INTRO: A quick hello from some of your favorite Help Group GuidesJohn Mueller talked about personalized search.Maile Ohye talked about case sensitivityJonathan Simon talked about getting your content out of Google (not in)A ton of
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- XML content crawling, Google Groups
- AdWords: Fun with Page Load Times, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Courts: WHOIS Does Not Establish Domain Name Ownership, Sphinn
- Google Bangin' The "No Paid Links Drum" Again, Sphinn
- Help With SEO Reports, HighRankings Forums
- Microsoft To Acquire Navic Networks, WebmasterWorld
- Sort by oldest in Google Reader Friends Shared Items doesn't work, Google Groups
- There's No Shortcut for Link Building: A Case for Relationship Building, Sphinn
- YouTube Screening Room, WebmasterWorld
