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 Officially Launches "Pages Similar To" Feature
Monday I noticed a new Google showing a one box like result at the bottom of the search results for navigational searches, such as for [search engine roundtable]. Here is a picture of the "pages similar to" feature that shows at the bottom of the results: Note, you may not see it yet, because Google is rolling it out, but it is now officially live and a feature Google is pushing out. Google said: We - Bing Updates Language Detection After One or Two Crawls
I've never been happy with how Bing handles geo-location detection of web sites. They use and rely mostly on the meta language tag to determine if the site should be in Bing US versus a localized version of Bing. Google's Matt Cutts somewhat mocked how Bing handles this by saying: Historically, meta tags for language and country have been less reliable than inferring the language or country directly. For example, lots of webmaster also just - When Will Google Deal With AdSense Issues On Their Cached Pages?
A new WebmasterWorld thread brings up an old issue with Google's AdSense ads rendering on the Google Cache results. Some ads, depending on the site's layout and html, won't render properly. Let me quote the complaint in the new thread: When showing the cache of URLs of a site I see something strange. A lot of public service ads or no ads at all as well as ads not related to the content appear. Using - Google Dropping External Keyword Tool For New Keyword Tool
In September 2009 Google unveiled their new AdWords keyword tool. Since then, both the External Keyword Tool (Old Tool) and the new one (which required you to login) were available. Now, it appears the old External Keyword Tool is the new tool with a CAPTCHA. Here is a picture of when I go to this NEW external keyword tool: Here is a picture of the old tool, currently available in Google's cache: A WebmasterWorld thread - Google Sitemaps Bug : Reporting 0 Indexed URLs
Do not panic, there is a global bug with Google Webmaster Tools where Google is reporting that your site has zero pages indexed. This is currently a confirmed bug impacting all sites in Google Webmaster Tools. Google posted this in the known issues area saying: The indexed URL counts for Sitemaps that you have submitted in Webmaster Tools may be showing zero (0) indexed URLs for some sites. We are aware of this issue and
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Experts Weigh in: Definitive Guide to Social Media Strategy Before Tactics, Sphinn
- Foursquare and Wall Street journal Team Up, WebmasterWorld
- Google Places (Local Business) – Will it ever be fixed?, Sphinn
- Best Method Of 'showing' Dates In Urls?, HighRankings Forums
- Google CEO, Eric Schmidt: A Quirky IPO, WebmasterWorld
- Message bug: personal messages turn blank, YouTube Help
- New Adsense Layout?, WebmasterWorld
- SEO Benchmarks and KPI; measuring success, Sphinn
- The Problem with Performing SEO in a Vacuum, Sphinn
- The Secret to Effective Linkbaiting, Sphinn
- Update required on Finnish maps displaying Swedish language, Google Maps Help
