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 - 07/18/08: Google Ranking Technology, Comic Sans Disappears & Google Fridge Meltdown
Today's my dad's birthday, so before I actually start off the roundup, I just wanted to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! There, now that I got that out of the way, it's going to be 97 degrees today in New York. Nice! But thankfully there's air conditioning to hold me over for this recap and all. Google Shares its Ranking Technologies Amit Singhal of Google has written yet another post about the technologies behind Google rankings. - Can a META Description Kill Your Rankings?
A WebmasterWorld member says that when he changed his meta description, his rankings plummeted on his site. In the past, US courts found META tags immaterial but Google has recommended it. Tedster points to previous WebmasterWorld coverage that shows that there are "indirect ranking effects from the meta description, including lower clickthrough rates that can cause a decent ranking to fall away if the url doesn't perform." Barry agrees as well. Is Google using clickthroughs - Google and Microsoft's Second Quarter Results Revealed
Techmeme has the big buzz about Google's second quarter earnings. Google claimed this was a strong quarter with 35% in profits ($3.92 per share), but their earnings still didn't meet analysts' expectations. Meanwhile, Microsoft's earnings also rose. The company's fiscal fourth quarter ended on June 30th, with an approximate profit of $0.46 a share. While this is better than their earnings the previous year ($0.31/share), analysts were hoping for just a bit more ($0.47/share). Much - Google AdWords Allows Deeper Targeting With "Keywords + Placements"
Google announced an exciting feature for AdWords advertisers yesterday. Google explained the feature as, "instead of creating separate campaigns for keywords and placements, you can now include both in any campaign. All ad groups now have tabs for both keywords and placements, and the two can work together to target your ads on the content network." So, if you want to target an ad on my personal blog, which runs AdSense, but only want to - Did Ask.com Stop or Slow Crawling the Web?
A WebmasterWorld thread reports Ask.com's crawler has seemed to slow down to a halt. Some webmasters are reporting zero crawling activity from Ask.com, while others are reporting extremely limited crawling activity. WebmasterWorld moderator, jdMorgan, noticed the slow down to, he said: I have noticed that they have dramatically slowed down their crawling on my sites, but they have not stopped. Yes, this fuels me more on my write up named Sorry, Ask.com -- I Still - Are City/State Landing Pages Also Doorway Pages? Google Thinks So
A Google Groups thread has discussion on the topic of dynamically creating pages to target localized searches. For example, this particular webmaster wants to be able to target 28 different zip codes for his client's A/C business. He summarizes what he wants to do: Johns A/C does work in 28 different zip codes. He creates 28 webspages, page names reflect the township AC_service_City_zip.htm, meta tags reflect city, zip such as Johns AC serivce serving the
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- GoDaddy Botches .ME Registration Rush, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta Available, WebmasterWorld
- The Twelve People You Meet On Twitter, Sphinn
- The Ultimate Guide To Decoding Digg Speak, Sphinn
- Unable to view old mobile interface on iPhone, Google Groups
- How Good Is The Mainstream Media At Linking Out?, Sphinn
- Vanessa Fox: Search-Friendly Flash?, Sphinn
- Yahoo Saga and Posturing Continues, WebmasterWorld
