Hello from Florida! Hope you all had a nice week!
Google News Archive Release
We've seen some cool projects from Google these past few weeks, and the Google News archive is pretty impressive. In a nutshell, Google will be providing scans of old newspapers and is possibly causing libraries to cease to exist. I sometimes wish Google was as ubiquitous when I was in school. This stuff rocks.
Your Geotargeting Radius Shouldn't Be Smaller than 20 Miles
Want to target to only 57th Street in NYC? Google will tell you that you can't set your radius smaller than 20 miles, so you can't really fine grain your results that narrow. That's too bad for New Yorkers who may want to really focus on specific parts of Manhattan, but at the same time, it makes a lot of sense for those less densely populated areas.
Check if Google is Indexing All Your Pages
If you want to see which pages are in Google's "supplemental results", follow the instructions provided by Michael Gray.
When You Should Request Reinclusion on Google
Earlier this week, we asked 'when should you submit a reinclusion request on Google?' The answer is simple: when you actually know you have gotten a penalty and rectified it. If your rankings drop, that does not necessarily mean you've been penalized!
Google Lets You Communicate
Who here has complained that Google isn't being responsive? Um, yeah. Well Google lets you submit feedback and communicate with them with a variety of web forms. Use them. Use Google Groups too. They help!
Google Also Lets You Redirect
While most of you know that 301 redirects are the best way to tell search engines that your site has moved, Google interfaces with webmasters who still don't know about it. Plus, you can figure out which pages have been noted by Google as changed versus which have yet to be crawled and reindexed.
Yahoo Search Marketing Desktop App Coming Soon?
It's almost 2009, and there's still no desktop editor for Yahoo Search Marketing. We have no official word from Yahoo if it's going to happen, but people speculate that '09 is the year that it will be released. Who wants to bet when it will be released? I think Barry will give away schwag for the person who guesses the closet date; be advised that you need to get your vote in by next Friday to be counted. (This is also a way to check if you guys read the recap, so comment regardless.) ;)
Google Should Understand the Negative Impact of Reputation Management
Do the negative results in Google fluster you when your relevant brand pages are pushed down because of a more viral -- but negative -- story gets ranked higher? Well, Google seems to make reputation management a problem for many companies and brands, and Eric Lander isn't a fan.
Yahoo Search Update Gives More Traffic
The Yahoo September 2008 update has been really good to most publishers. They're reporting 30-50% of an increase in traffic. Good stuff all around.
Google Talks about Sitelinks
Ever wanted to know about sitelink consistency on Google.com versus the Google Webmaster Tools? How about how sitelinks are chosen? Or criteria for appearing in the results? Google has written answers to some sitelinks FAQ and it's pretty informative.
Find Your Google Images
With all the talk about images being indexed in Google (or not), Google has finally stepped up to the plate to let you know what you can do to find out more about it.
Get Out of the AdWords Sandbox
There's a Google AdWords API sandbox issue Images aren't being created. The two possible conclusions: Google doesn't care so much about a sandbox environment or image creation isn't really a popular method.
Google Germany Bans the Porn
Did you ever travel to Germany to find pornography on Google? Well, Google's pornographic content -- at least videos, have been removed from Google's Germany index. According to Google, there are local laws that govern what can and cannot be retrieved on Google, so you may want to visit another country to stumble upon some interesting adult cinematics.
Random Trivia: Google's Webmaster Tool Verification Code is Not that Random
Ever wanted to know how the Google Webmaster Tool verification code was generated? Well, it's based on two factors: your URL and your email. Cool.
Are You a Forum Spammer?
Do you spam forums? Perhaps you're doing it and don't realize it. In a way, this is why WebmasterWorld has a strict no-linking policy; self promotion is bad news (and doesn't leave a good taste in people's mouths). Forum moderators are examples; follow them to know exactly what you should do and should not do.
Google Satellite Takes Off
This past weekend, Google launched a satellite into orbit that should help gather high resolution images of the planet. I'm pretty excited to see these photos and hope that Google will publish them soon.
Most of You Like Googling Yourselves
Seriously -- there are seven of you who don't Google yourselves? I find that hard to believe. What's the logic behind that? :) As Wiep says in the comments, "Those who said 'never' are probably either lying or checked the wrong box." Let's hope we have honest folks here!
Logos Galore
There wasn't much of a significant holiday this week, except that we did commemorate September 11th. Sadly, Google doesn't do the "memorial" logos; instead, they do the funny and lighthearted ones. This week, Google China celebrated Teacher's Day and Google all over the rest of the world celebrated some physics project: the Large Hadron Collider. (I spelled it right this time!)
As far as Google's 10th birthday logo, it hasn't been pushed live yet. We're expecting to see it on September 27th. Anyone want to guess what it will look like?
Matt "McDreamy" Cutts
Matt Cutts is dreamy. People dream about him more often than not. One day, Matt Cutts will prepare breakfast for Barry -- at least, that's what he wants.
Also, the SEOs are squares, according to Ranked Hard. I particularly like Jim Boykin's square. Which one is your favorite?
