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:
- Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: August 28, 2009
This week's video recap goes old school with my old video set up, sorry, I forgot my HD camera at home. Yahoo had a small, unconfirmed search update. Bing is still spamming us webmasters with fake referrals, I say enough is enough! Google unleashes new penalties, new sitelinks and US results in the UK search engines. SEOMoz released their ranking factors, which our readers find mostly accurate. AdWords tries Sitelinks and new open product ads. - New Set of Google Penalties & New Siteslinks
A continuously updated WebmasterWorld thread has discussion about penalties, new sitelinks and more. WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, summed up what he is seeing in this thread and others. There are two main things going on: (1) Sites that have been ranking very well for years and years have noticed a major decline in rankings. Tedster said maybe "it's a new batch of the OOP (formerly called -950)." This might be related to the not real Google - Poll: Google AdWords Roll Over Info
A week ago, we asked you if Google should use mouse overs to show more ad details. I made a screen shot of the concept, which I will repost below. The poll results are in and some of you want it and some of you don't. It is really split - with a 56% response rate of people wanting this feature and a 42% response rate of people not wanting this feature. Question: Do You - Results Are In: Is SEOMoz's Ranking Factors Accurate? Mostly, Yes
Two days ago, I ran a poll asking our readers how accurate do they find the SEOMoz ranking factors survey. We have over a 160 responses in less than two days, so I thought I would post the results now. Overall, SEOs and webmasters find the survey to be accurate on some level. Here is the break down: Question: How Accurate Is the SEOMoz Search Ranking Survey? :: Very Accurate said 72 respondents or 43% - .ME Domain Names Can Now Be Geo Targetted In Google Webmaster Tools
Two threads at Google Webmaster Help report that .ME ccTLDs (domain names) can now be geo targeted in Google Webmaster Tools. Typically, Google doesn't allow you to geo-target a ccTLD (country specific top level domain). Google assumes that if you register a country specific TLD, you want to rank well in that country. They made an exception for a few ccTLDs including .TV domains a while back, but the .ME domains were not included in
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Advantage: Google Caffeine, Sphinn
- Facebook Makes Privacy Changes, WebmasterWorld
- Google UK On Fire (Literally), DigitalPoint Forums
- SEO Competitive Intelligence : Learn From Your SEO Rivals, Sphinn
- 2003 Called; They’d like their URL structure back, Sphinn
- Brand Name Ppc Competition, HighRankings Forums
- Google and Italy's anti-trust arm, DigitalPoint Forums
- is Link Building a "Unicorn", WebmasterWorld
