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:
- Are SEO Blackhats Turning White or Is The Industry Melting?
Last week was the SES Chicago show, we were unable to make it, but I am hearing a lot of buzz about it from the community. As someone who has been reporting on the industry for over five years now, I found one topic pretty interesting. It seems like either SEO "blackhats" are becoming more "whitehat" or that we are all starting to understand each other a lot better or maybe, the line has blurred - Google Sitelinks Being Cut Off?
I am a huge fan of Google Sitelinks for a lot of reasons. But what do you do when the Sitelinks Google is displaying for your site is wrong? The manage Sitelinks feature doesn't give you too many options, outside of removing them. So what do you do? First place to go would be the Google Webmaster Help discussion forums and post a thread like this guy did. In short, his site is showing Sitelinks - Verizon Wireless Currently Blocking GPS Features For Google Maps
If you are a Blackberry Storm mobile user on the Verizon Wireless network and want to fully utilize Google Maps, you may be out of luck. Tom from the Google Maps team said in a Google Mobile Forum thread that Google Maps is not able to use the Verizon Wireless GPS feature at this current time. Tom does explain that they are able to locate your location through cell phone towers or wifi networks, but - Ads to be Integrated into Google Search Suggestions
It appears that Google is looking for new ways to enhance (erm, monetize?) Search Suggest. Danny Sullivan notes at Search Engine Land that some users are spotting Google AdWords ads within Search Suggest, as seen below: Search Suggest is also apparently expanding news results and more. In terms of ads, though, Danny notes that the placement (top?) is questionable. What happens if someone accidentally clicks on that ad? It's easy for someone to slip up - Google Tests Pagelinks, Reviews in SERPs, and Enhances Spelling Correction
Danny Sullivan notes at Search Engine Land that there are a number of Google search engine enhancements that we may start to see very soon. They include reviews seen within the SERPs, pagelinks (a term he coined), and better spell correction and are illustrated below. The Search Engine Land post explains these in detail, but I'll give you the background. The image below indicates that you can now see more information about business listings, including - How to Tell if Your Site is Being Penalized
There's a Google Groups thread that is discussing the ways webmasters can tell that their site is penalized by Google. In case you wanted to cover all your bases, you might want to try the tactics that they suggest you look at: One person suggests that you will *only* find your site listed when you do a site:domain.com search (rather than searching for the homepae). Another says you won't see it when you do a
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- 7 Tips to Save Money on your PPC Campaign, Sphinn
- Google Pushes for Net Neutrality?, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Missing "My Saved Locations", Google Groups
- My First SEO Conference - SES Chicago review, Sphinn
- The Secret to Making Every Link Count For Your SEO Rankings, Sphinn
- Australian Court Serves Documents via Facebook, WebmasterWorld
