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:
- What to Do When You Have a 404 Error
Rae Hoffman wrote a post at Search Engine Land about the opportunities you have if one of the links you have points to a 404. You can create a relevant 301 redirect, a user-friendly 404 page, or a custom non-404 error page that catches broken links. Rae goes through the various pros and cons of each strategy in a very useful and informative post. It's really important for you to reclaim those broken links. Vanessa - Ask.com: Not Focused on Core Search, or is it?
Our boss man Barry spoke with Jim Safka of Ask.com in a lengthy interview three weeks ago, and he's come out unimpressed by Ask.com's approach toward search. In the interview, Ask.com takes a stab at larger search engines (the big three) because he claims Ask.com is "smaller" (and can push things out quicker) and Safka also said that Ask "greatly over indexes in certain categories" (entertainment, health, hobbies, references). However, it seems from the conversation - Risk-Free Link Building Techniques?
Let's face it. Link building is all the hype in the search sphere. Google loves good kosher links. People like good relevant links. Whether or not there's a debate about paid links or links to bad neighborhoods, links are simply awesome when applied right. So what are the right ways to apply those links? A WebmasterWorld member wants to know. There are a number of tactics that can be employed to build natural links (and - A dofollow Blog Google Custom Search Engine
Do you hate how WordPress and other blog platforms immediately add nofollow to any links in your comments -- including (and especially) your name? Well, Search Engine Roundtable Forums member inertia created a very cool Google Custom Search Engine that searches a number of SEO and internet marketing blogs for those that say no to nofollow. Currently, the engine is searching a whopping 359 blogs. That's pretty awesome and I can imagine it took a - Google Webmaster Tools Link Update & "Download This Table" Feature is Back
Google has been updating the link reports in Webmaster Tools more frequently, so I stopped reporting them. But Google also removed the download this table feature from those reports back in February of this year. It was at that time, I was no longer easily able to provide you a report of my top links as reported in Webmaster Tools. First, here is a screen shot showing the "download this table" is finally back in - What Does a Google Malware Warning Look Like in Webmaster Tools?
It is not uncommon to see websites infected with malware. In fact, I see more and more cases of sites being removed or warned by Google for containing traces malware. Sites being hacked is way too common these days. Many of you have not experienced the consequences of a site hack. I have with Jennifer Convertibles and honestly, it was invaluable experience to deal with first hand. In a Google Groups thread, JohnMu of Google, - Does Google Conduct Minor Toolbar PageRank Updates Between Major Updates?
A WebmasterWorld thread asks a question most people who participate in search forums ask themselves. Does Google, on occasion, update the toolbar PageRank score of a particular web site between the major and mass toolbar PageRank updates we report? Why do we ask this question? Well, if you visit enough forums, you are bound to see a thread or five with the title, "PageRank Update." These threads are fairly noticeable at DigitalPoint Forums but they - Yahoo People Search Redesgined
Last night I was looking up a phone number for my wife and I noticed that Yahoo People Search has been totally redesigned and repurposed. The new design is extremely clean, compared to the old interface. In addition, when you conduct the search, it takes you directly into the Yahoo Search interface, as opposed to just showing you phone numbers. Here is the before screen shot that I took back in May 2004: Here is
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Bug in Google Webmaster Tools Charts, Google Groups
- Carcutt Wins $10,000 SEJ Contest, Donates Prizes to Orphanage, Sphinn
- Duplicated Content Is A Myth!, Cre8asite Forums
- Google Hires New CFO: Patrick Pichette, WebmasterWorld
- Google sued for $1B on IP theft allegations, DigitalPoint Forums
- Is The Long Url's Make A Problems, HighRankings Forums
- site:www.example.com and site:example.com returning different results, WebmasterWorld
- Tagging is broken in Google Reader (Now Fixed), Google Groups
- The Telegraph.co.uk Caught with Its Homework Undone, Sphinn
- YouTube required to get Google video search indexing?, Search Engine Watch Forums
