Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums on September 23 & 24, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Will Your SEO Efforts Change Due To Google Instant?
As we posted earlier today, most SEOs say their referrals haven't changed since Google Instant launched. That is a good thing, and it complies a lot on what Conductor reported, where search behavior seems to be pretty much the same as it was prior to Google Instant. Knowing that, I would assume most SEOs wouldn't be adjusting their SEO efforts. Of course, soon after Google Instant launched the topic of SEO is dead came up - Google Instant Hasn't Really Changes Traffic Referrals
A couple weeks ago, we asked if Google Instant has impacted your organic search traffic to your web site. As you know, Google Instant has changed how people search. But does that make a difference on how your pages are ranked, how people search and ultimately how people click on your Google listing to view your web site. We have 230 or so responses to our poll. Most said their traffic has remained the same, - 70% Say Sphinn Is Dead Or Simply Don't Care
Earlier this month, Sphinn (disclosure, I am extremely involved with the company behind Sphinn) dropped user voting on stories and the industry revolted. It was a big deal for a couple days and now you don't hear much about it. So I felt it was a good time to start up the controversy, especially since I am offline right now (scheduled post). Back then, I posted a poll asking if removing voting from Sphinn essentially - AdWords Advertisers Mostly Say Google Instant Hasn't Impacted Their Campaigns
One of the major things I was worried about when Google Instant launched was how would it impact AdWords advertiser campaigns. As I explained, Google Instant changes the way Google shows your AdWords ads. Google will count an impression on your ad if the user stops typing for three seconds, hits enter in the search box or clicks on a search result or ad. A WebmasterWorld thread had some advertisers reporting 3 to 4 times - Can White Hat SEOs Compete With Black Hat SEOs?
A HighRankings Forum thread has a nice black hat verus white hat discussion. These types of discussions were more popular in the old days, so it is nice to see one spring up again. The thread creator basically said, the problem with white hat SEO is that it can't compete with black hat SEO. Especially on the very competitor keyword phrases. The issue with this debate is that it is not true. There are plenty - 60% Of You Don't Like Google Instant
Four days after Google Instant launched, I ran a poll asking our readers if they like Google Instant. I am not surprised to see 60% saying they don't like it. I am a bit surprised to see only about 20% saying they do like it, I was expecting over 30%. We had a nice number of responses, just about 550 responses to the poll. Here is the break down: 59% said they DISLIKE Google Instant22% - 82% Of SEOs Say Linking To Banned Web Sites Can Hurt You
There is a debate in the SEO industry on can links hurt you. We know many SEOs believe links to their site can hurt them, even if competitors send you those links. So the next poll I ran is what if you linked to banned sites, can that hurt you? Most SEOs said, yes it can hurt you. The 120 plus responses, 82% felt there is danger in linking to banned web sites. Here is - 40% Of SEOs Do Not Nofollow External Links
A few months ago we shared the poll results showing 50% nofollow their internal links for PageRank flow. So a month ago, I posted a poll asking how many people nofollow external links. Nofollowing external links is thought to be a way of "hoarding" your PageRank or just being very careful with who you link to. So we asked in our poll the percentage of links nofollowed on your sites, on average. We had 208
