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:
- SEOs Lose Rankings Due to New "Did You Mean" Feature
Last week, we reported that Google made the new "Did You Mean" feature a standard. Meaning, Google's search spelling suggestions are now acting in this new manner. The issue is, many are complaining that they are getting killed by this. Some have e-commerce sites and this is resulting in Google dropping their position by at least two placements, due to showing the new "Did you mean" feature. One example is brought by a webmaster in - Google Accidently Knocks New Zealand Off The Globe
If you tried bring up New Zealand in Google Maps yesterday, you would be surprised to see, Google lost all the map data for that early bird country. A Google Maps Help thread have reports that are confirmed from Google, that Google had a bug that indeed knocked parts of Google Maps New Zealand off the map. Google's Mike CH confirmed the issue saying: We messed up - very, very sorry about that. It's fixed - Google AdWords "Show Products From ..." No Longer A Test?
Conduct a Google search for mens or luggage or hard drives and you might see, like I see, in the AdWords are a plus sign for "show products from [site name]." Here is one of the examples: When you click the plus sign, you get this: The same shows up on the right hand side of the search results for many other keywords. I believe the requirement is that you be an advertiser at Google - Webmasters Revolt Over Google's AJAX Search Results Tests
Two days ago, we reported that Google is testing switching to AJAX to display their search results. But the tension over this discussion was not all that bad, that was until GetClicky.com wrote: Just know this: a major update that Google is testing has completely broken the ability for any external analytics service like Clicky to determine the search query used by a visitor arriving at your web site. Why would they do such a - Google Search February 2009 Webmaster Report Update
Here is the February 2009 webmaster report on Google's search result changes based on the WebmasterWorld thread. I will summarize what people are noticing in the Google search results, as per the thread. Google accidently labeled the internet as malwareSome SEOs noticed index counts double in sizeSome are reporting a "glitch" that promotes .edu & .gov as Google BombsLonger tail keywords seem to be 'rollercoastering' in the SERPsTedster's theory is that Google is tweaking the
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- GGeoXml.getTileLayerOverlay() Deprecated, Google Groups
- Gmail Interface Changed, DigitalPoint Forums
- Google cold calling, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Google Latitude Helps Track Mobile Users, WebmasterWorld
- Legitimacy of guaranteed SEO, Sphinn
- Offline is international, Google Docs Help
