Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO � New robots.txt tool: "Sitemaps team just introduced a new robots.txt tool into Sitemaps. The robots.txt file is one of the easiest things for a webmaster to make a mistake on. Brett Tabke�s Search Engine World has a great robots.txt tutorial and even a robots.txt validator...
Part of the problem is that mucking around with robots.txt files is pretty rare; once you get it right once, you usually never have to think about the file again. Another issue is that if you get the file wrong, it can have a large impact on your site, so most people don’t mess with their robots.txt file very often. Finally, each search engine has slightly different extra options that they support. For example, Google permits wildcards (*) and the “Allow:” directive...
the robots.txt checker from the Sitemaps team is that it lets you take a robots.txt file out for a test drive and see how the real Googlebot would handle a file. Want to play with wildcards to allow all files except for ‘*.gif’? Go for it. Want to experiment with upper vs. lower case? Answer: upper vs. lower case doesn’t matter. Want to check whether hyphens matter for Google? Go wild. Answer: we’ll accept “UserAgent” or “User-Agent”, but we’ll remind you that the hyphenated version is the correct version.
The best part is that you can test a robots.txt file without risking anything by doing it on your live site..."
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Matt Cutts: Bigdaddy update, Google, and SEO � Bigdaddy progress update
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO � Bigdaddy progress update: " Bigdaddy continues to roll out and is now available at three data centers. In addition to 66.249.93.104 and 64.233.179.104, Bigdaddy is now up at 216.239.51.104. We’ve been going through the spam feedback and acting on it, and reading through the general search feedback as well.
...
Bigdaddy involves new infrastructure and is not just a data push or algorithm update. Don�t take it as a promise, but I�d expect a new data center to be converted to Bigdaddy roughly every 10 days or so. "
...
Bigdaddy involves new infrastructure and is not just a data push or algorithm update. Don�t take it as a promise, but I�d expect a new data center to be converted to Bigdaddy roughly every 10 days or so. "
Matt Cutts: on Big Daddy & possible sandbox behavior
Matt Cutts: on the SEO Rockstars show on webmasterradio.fm Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO � I�m on webmasterradio.fm!: "show is live at http://www.webmasterradio.fm/episodes/index.php?showId=16 so go download the mp3. It�s a mere 70-ish megabytes. Highlights included an update on BigDaddy, some questions about possible sandbox behavior, my take on the new show Lestat before it heads to Broadway, SEO contests, and my current pet peeve (subdomain spam, which BigDaddy does better on). "
Matt Cutts: BMW reincluded Google, and SEO � Recent reinclusions
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO � Recent reinclusions: Cutts writes "I appreciate BMW�s quick response on removing JavaScript-redirecting pages from BMW properties. The webspam team at Google has been in contact with BMW, and Google has reincluded bmw.de in our index. Likewise, ricoh.de has also removed similar doorway pages and has been reincluded in Google's index."
The phrase that jumps out at me is "The webspam team at Google has been in contact with BMW"...did BMW not have to submit "a reinclusion request with details on who created the doorway pages. We’ll probably also need some assurances that such pages won’t reappear on the sites before the domains can be reincluded." as posted earlier? It doesnt sound like it..
In comments it appears they did but there are still many questions:
" Can small sites without BMW’s financial clout expect comparable treatment from Google or can we consider this as just another newsworthy case study?"
"How convenient for BMW to be in touch with google. How exactly does the average webmaster get in touch with google? How often is the regular webmaster told why their site has been taken out of the google index? How quickly (or delayed) is the re-inclusion of banned sites?"
Cutts replies: "Our main goal has to be to give the most relevant results to our users; there is currently a trade-off between taking action to remove spam from our index vs. removing sites that lots of users look for with navigational queries. In my mind, the most scalable, robust direction to move in is to provide tools like Sitemaps and the webmaster console that allow everyone to diagnose and debug as much information as possible with their site. As we introduce features like the robots.txt checker, that helps every website owner equally, whether it be a mom and pop website or Nissan, Metallica, or the California DMV (all of which have had robots.txt issues in the past)....
we’ve been working on programs like emailing webmasters when we find quality violations on their sites...
it’s a pretty common idiom to have a Flash site and then provide a text version of a site; I wouldn’t worry about anything like that "
The phrase that jumps out at me is "The webspam team at Google has been in contact with BMW"...did BMW not have to submit "a reinclusion request with details on who created the doorway pages. We’ll probably also need some assurances that such pages won’t reappear on the sites before the domains can be reincluded." as posted earlier? It doesnt sound like it..
In comments it appears they did but there are still many questions:
" Can small sites without BMW’s financial clout expect comparable treatment from Google or can we consider this as just another newsworthy case study?"
"How convenient for BMW to be in touch with google. How exactly does the average webmaster get in touch with google? How often is the regular webmaster told why their site has been taken out of the google index? How quickly (or delayed) is the re-inclusion of banned sites?"
Cutts replies: "Our main goal has to be to give the most relevant results to our users; there is currently a trade-off between taking action to remove spam from our index vs. removing sites that lots of users look for with navigational queries. In my mind, the most scalable, robust direction to move in is to provide tools like Sitemaps and the webmaster console that allow everyone to diagnose and debug as much information as possible with their site. As we introduce features like the robots.txt checker, that helps every website owner equally, whether it be a mom and pop website or Nissan, Metallica, or the California DMV (all of which have had robots.txt issues in the past)....
we’ve been working on programs like emailing webmasters when we find quality violations on their sites...
it’s a pretty common idiom to have a Flash site and then provide a text version of a site; I wouldn’t worry about anything like that "
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
an entirely new way to optimize web sites... Visitor Enhanced Optimization - VEO for short
Internet Marketing Secrets and Strategies. Issue #85 February 02 2006: "Does Google trust you? Are you on the list of trusted sites? Do you ever wonder why some sites get the green light and rise to the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages) and why others never seem to get anywhere? It's all about trust....
In VEO you don't play against the search engine algorithm, you ignore it completely. You don't focus on keyword densities, you aim for a happy visitor. You don't sell sell sell products like an affiliate, you brand the site and soft sell the products through articles...
suggests that you have a passion for your topic matter. That you become an expert in your field. Learn it inside out and write about it, putting that content on your site. Advertise the site and build it into a strong brand while soft selling products in the background.
If all this sounds backwards and crazy, remember that Colin's inspiration and motivation, came from that long conversation with Google. It's as close as you'll ever get to them giving an endorsement.
VEO Report: "how to establish trust with Google' - It is not enough to pursue inbound links and tweak your content to match a keyword density formula. In fact these activities will likely erode trust with Google""
In VEO you don't play against the search engine algorithm, you ignore it completely. You don't focus on keyword densities, you aim for a happy visitor. You don't sell sell sell products like an affiliate, you brand the site and soft sell the products through articles...
suggests that you have a passion for your topic matter. That you become an expert in your field. Learn it inside out and write about it, putting that content on your site. Advertise the site and build it into a strong brand while soft selling products in the background.
If all this sounds backwards and crazy, remember that Colin's inspiration and motivation, came from that long conversation with Google. It's as close as you'll ever get to them giving an endorsement.
VEO Report: "how to establish trust with Google' - It is not enough to pursue inbound links and tweak your content to match a keyword density formula. In fact these activities will likely erode trust with Google""
Google to Unveil New Chat Feature
Google to Unveil New Chat Feature - Forbes.com: "Online search engine leader Google Inc. is wedding its instant messaging and e-mail services in the same Web browser, hoping the convenience will lure users from the larger communications networks operated by its chief rivals.
The new chat feature to be unveiled Tuesday will provide users of Google's Gmail service with a list of contacts drawn from past e-mail exchanges and then signal who's available for online conversations...
Google hopes to make it even simpler to connect with an online contact by allowing users to initiate an electronic conversation within the same Web browser showing an e-mailbox, bypassing the need to switch to a separate instant messaging application."
The new chat feature to be unveiled Tuesday will provide users of Google's Gmail service with a list of contacts drawn from past e-mail exchanges and then signal who's available for online conversations...
Google hopes to make it even simpler to connect with an online contact by allowing users to initiate an electronic conversation within the same Web browser showing an e-mailbox, bypassing the need to switch to a separate instant messaging application."
Monday, February 06, 2006
Matt Cutts: on 410's 404's Google, and SEO
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO: "a good interview with the Sitemaps team. The most useful tidbit (which I didn�t know until now) is that Google treats a 404 HTTP status code (page not found, but it may reappear) and a 410 HTTP status code (page not found, and it�s gone forever) in the same way. I believe that we treat 404s as if they were 410s; once Googlebot has seen a 404 at that location, I think we assume that the document is gone forever. Given how many people use 404 instead of 410, that�s probably a good call for the time being."
Google blacklists BMW for page rank cheats - vnunet.com
BMW.de is in trouble for using 'doorway' pages which violate Google webmaster guidelines Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO blogs that the Google: "webspam team continued ramping up our anti-spam efforts by removing bmw.de from our index, and ricoh.de will be removed soon for similar reasons....
BMW used JavaScript-redirecting pages which fell foul specifically of "the principle of “Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.”
It appears that at least some of the JavaScript-redirecting pages have already been removed from bmw.de, which is very encouraging, but given the number of pages that were doing JavaScript redirects, I expect that Google’s webspam team will need a reinclusion request with details on who created the doorway pages. We’ll probably also need some assurances that such pages won’t reappear on the sites before the domains can be reincluded""
BMW used JavaScript-redirecting pages which fell foul specifically of "the principle of “Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.”
It appears that at least some of the JavaScript-redirecting pages have already been removed from bmw.de, which is very encouraging, but given the number of pages that were doing JavaScript redirects, I expect that Google’s webspam team will need a reinclusion request with details on who created the doorway pages. We’ll probably also need some assurances that such pages won’t reappear on the sites before the domains can be reincluded""
Wi-Fi sharing company wins Skype, Google backing | CNET News.com
Wi-Fi sharing company wins Skype, Google backing | CNET News.com: "A wireless communications start-up in Spain that is partly a grass-roots social movement seeking to encourage users to share Internet access with their neighbors is set to announce on Monday $21.7 million in funding from big name backers, such as Skype Technologies and Google.
Fon Technology SL said it has secured 18 million euros in initial financing from Skype, the popular Web-based calling company now owned by eBay, Google, and venture capital firms Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital. "
Fon Technology SL said it has secured 18 million euros in initial financing from Skype, the popular Web-based calling company now owned by eBay, Google, and venture capital firms Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital. "
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