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:
- Google Page Speed Report Comes to Webmaster Tools
Like all you know, page speed with be a ranking factor in Google in 2010 and if you didn't believe it until now, maybe Google adding a page speed report to Google Webmaster Tools will convince you of that. I figured I show you detailed screen shots of how slow this site is, using this tool. As you can see from the chart below, this site is slower than 86% of the other sites on - Google Sticks with Fade In Home Page Despite Searchers Hating It
Back in October, Google began testing the fade in home page and they tried several variations over the course of the time. Google has finally decided to go ahead with this look and feature for simplistically purposes. The Google blog announced it last night. They admitted some of those tests were failures and they even admitted they were worried making this the default look. Here is how Marissa phrased it: All in all, we ran - Short URLs Don't Want Google's Breadcrumb Display URL in SERPs
About two weeks ago, Google introduced breadcrumb display URLs in the search results. It was suppose to be for "small percentage of search results" but they are showing up quiet often. Google said they are doing this for URLs that are "too long, too short, or too obscure to add useful information." So Google adds the useful information for you. Not all webmasters agree that Google is improving their URL structure with the display URL - Larger Google Images & Region Tags In Google Search Results
Google announced two changes to the search results. The first is larger images in the search results for some searches and the second is region tags in the search results. Let me explain both. The larger images may show up in the search results, when Google thinks an image should be highlighted. For example, the before and after: Before: After: Google also announced a new regional tag that will show up in certain situations in - Bing Maps Adds Features & Augmented Reality
Microsoft made buzz yesterday with the announcements on the Bing Maps blog and Bing Search Blog. Greg Sterling explains it well at Search Engine Land as "Bing Maps breaks new ground in online mapping even as it plays a bit of catch up with Google." The augmented reality comes in where Microsoft overlays data on those maps in a more social way. Microsoft explains: Photosynth and Silverlight are the underlying technologies in Bing Maps that
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- "Selected Sites" Feature Broken on Adsense for Search?, WebmasterWorld
- Account temporarily disabled, WebmasterWorld
- Facebook To Remove Regional Networks, And Adds More Privacy Options, WebmasterWorld
- Google Nukes NME Message Boards for Viagra Spam, Sphinn
- Why link building may not work, Sphinn
- Discover v2009: In Case You Missed It, AdWords API Forum
- Known Issue: Performance report currently unavailable, Google Merchant Center Help
- Newsweek article - Bing Bad For Consumers., Bing Community
