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:
- Searchers Hate Custom Google Home Page, Want Opt Out
At midnight of June 10th, Google flipped the home page of Google.com to automatically show a background image. They announced that this will only be automatic for June 10th, a 24 hour period. Lots of people are calling it a Bing impersonation, which I assume Google knew and decided they didn't care about. But at the same time, although I personally like Google really pushing people into the customized home page - I think they - Google Confirms Webmaster Tools Stats Delay
Yesterday we reported that Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries Report Impression & Click Drops. This morning, Google confirmed the bug. JohnMu at 6:30am wrote: Thanks for posting! We have been analyzing the situation and found the problem. The data should be visible within a week or so. So if you are affected by this, you should be okay within a week. Google also posted it as a known issue: The search query data shown in - Will Twitter's New URL Shortener Hurt SEOs?
Twitter announced they will be wrapping all links through their own URL shortener. So if you post a URL, it will automatically be shortened and passed through http://t.co/ as a URL. I tested the URLs and they are 301 redirected, which is a good thing. But many SEOs already use a URL shortener and yes, those URLs are 301ed. The thing is, most SEOs prefer not to chain redirect URLs. By that I mean, you - Google Maps Navigation Comes To 11 More Countries
Google Maps Navigation, a free navigation GPS device for Android devices is now available in 11 more countries. Besides for the U.S. it is available in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. The requirements are that you are running Android OS 1.6 and have an internet plan for your device. You can learn more about it over at google.com/mobile/navigation/. Tom from Google Maps team posted a forum thread - Bing Tries To Launch Social Search Improvements
Yesterday, during the Keynote with the SVP of Microsoft, Bing introduced a way to search Twitter and Facebook using bing.com/social. As of 10pm (EST), 10 hours later, the feature which should have been live 10 hours ago, is still not live. I hope by the time this post goes live, that bing.com/social shows more than just an error page: When it does go live, the features demoed should include: Status updates and shared links from - SMX Advanced Seattle 2010 Live Blog Recap:
Here is our live blog coverage of the SMX Advanced 2010 show. This wasn't planned, but I did it anyway: SEO For Google Vs. Bing: How Different Are They?Twitter, Real Time Search & Real Time SEOShow Me The Links: Real Life Link BuildingThe Ultimate Social Media Tools SessionYou&A With Matt Cutts (Google Caffeine Index Live)Keynote Q&A: Yusuf Mehdi, SVP, Online Audience Business, MicrosoftSo You Want To Test SEO?Search Marketing In The Facebook ZoneMega Session: SEO
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- "american women are the worst" is the #1 "helpful suggestion" for amer. women... remove this! NOT helpful. RUDE!, Google Webmaster Help
- Google protests Apple's iPhone developers agreement, WebmasterWorld
- Interesting google SERPs for 'world cup', WebmasterWorld
- Google’s New Indexing Infrastructure “Caffeine” Now Live, Sphinn
- How a 3 Month Old Website Received 958,373 Visits from Google, Sphinn
