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:
- Too Much Blending of Google Ads Hurts: It Pays to Experiment
On WebmasterWorld, netmeg did a test with a bunch of blended ads. Other ads, however, weren't as blended in with the theme of the site. Surprisingly, after viewing analytics, netmeg learned that blending hurts: the non-blended ads performed better than the ones that fit in too well with the site design. netmeg is not alone. Other people notice that unblending is yielding better click throughs and cost per impressions. How does this make sense? Here's - FeedBurner Allows Access Again To feedproxy.google.com Via Robots.txt File
In case you didn't know, you can upgrade your Feedburner URL to feedproxy.google.com. However, some people noticed that feedproxy.google.com is actually disallowing robots.txt -- odd, huh? In fact, the problem has been breaking some feeds. Fortunately, Google has been paying attention to the relevant discussion and will be adding the following code snippet to the robots.txt file for feedproxy.google.com: User-agent: * Disallow: /~a/ Google has updated the issues page to confirm this update has been - How To Ensure That Your Google Quality Score is 10/10
Want a quality score of 10? Here's an easy way to do it. On Search Engine Watch forums, abbotsys explains the procedure that was attempted. Take a 2 word keyphrase (e.g. word1 word2). Register a domain with word1word2 in the name, like word1word2.com. Build a simple page for the domain with word1 and word2 in the title tag. In the actual content, talk all about word1 and word2. When abbotsys says simple, he means it: - Live Search September 2008 Update Underway
A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting early signs of a major Microsoft Live Search update. The rankings, indexing and algorithm seems to have updated. First reports came in from senior member, textex, at 9:30am (EST) yesterday. Since then, other members began to confirm the update. Old time member, Marcia, said: A ten place drop from first to second page for the first site I checked isn't looking too appealing right now. It looks like sites with - Google Disable the "Hidden" Site Search Feature?
A WebmasterWorld thread uncovers a very interesting occurrence that is taking place when using a site command feature, known as the "hidden" or "invisible" site command search. If you want to search with a site command but don't want the referral data to show that you are using a site command while searching, you use to be able to use a flavor of a Google Custom Search Engine to get at it. The example given - Google Webmaster Tools Generating False HTTP Errors
Google Webmaster Tools seems to be generating a lot of fake errors. About a month ago they fixed the false 404 errors and now this month, they are reporting false HTTP errors. Here is a screen capture of the overview report from my Webmaster Tools login area for this site: There are a dozen or so reports on this issue at Google Groups with others complaining about this issue. It worries webmasters to see this - Google Still Loves Blogs, Says Matt Cutts
David Naylor asked if Google is starting to hate blogs, based on his blog having indexing issues. He gave several forms of evidence to support the issues Google is having when indexing his blog. Well, blog owners and writers, do not worry, Matt said that Google still loves blogs. In a Sphinn thread, Matt said: We still like blogs, I promise. The issue with Dave's blog seems to be just that, an issue. Matt commented
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Basic Formula for Managing Bids, WebmasterWorld
- Forcing MSN not to use the DMOZ description - How?, WebmasterWorld
- Social Networks More Popular Than Dating & Porn, Sphinn
- Thanks for your submissions, teachers!, Google Groups
