Archive for the ‘Industry News’ Category

It appears that something is up with Google and their cache reporting.  A lot of pages seem to have  cache dates of August 12 or there abouts, sites that were previously cached regularly are reporting that they have not been cached.

So the questions now are :-

Is it the cache date reporting that is wrong or

Is it that Google has suddenly ramped down their caching? 

Are they ‘full’ again as they were a couple of years back?

Is something BIG, HUGE, MONUMENTAL, about to happen, are we in for another update of ‘Florida’ proportions?

Much has been said of late at the apparent worsening of web spam handling within the Google index. Could we be standing on the precipice blissfully unaware

Yep, according to Techcrunch  Google is to stop all development on Google wave! Well this  Old Welsh Guy has to say that maybe the reason for the almost total rejection by all but devout googlites or geeks was that we simply didn’t like the way it suddenly appeared in our private parts (ooer missus) without warning nor proper explanation.

Many people are starting not to trust Google as much as previously, little things like using toolbar feedback for URL discovery, or the automatic toolbar update changing privacy settings to personalised search, and feedback to google with information without asking did it for me.

Now all cookies from Google are blocked on my main browser, the Google toolbar has been wiped off the face of the earth, and I make sure there is nothing to sign me into Google at all. Which is a shame, as I really liked the simplicity of Chrome, now I don’t trust Google as far as I can throw them, and at 350 pound per share I struggle to lift them let alone throw them

So Wave has gone, which again is a shame, but whoever thought that launching a product that appears in someones face when they log into web mail REALLY should have read Dale Carnegie’s book on How to Win Friends and Influence People. Although they certainly influenced people to immediately hit the ‘NO THANKS’ option!

Not sure if anyone else has come across this, but if a site has the same page title sitewaide, it appears that in some cases, google is creating their own titles based on page content.

Impossible to say if this is the title being used for ranking, or if it is just for display, (as in when it uses the ODP (DMOZ) titles).

Interesting find though

In what can only be described as bizarre, Google appear to be about to offer SEO services to businesses.  Three years ago almost to the day, Google bought double click, and it was reported then that they had by default become an SEO company. Google rapidly sold off the arm, and claimed once again to be whiter than white.

Now though it appears that by May, Google will be offering SEO services? HOW?

The FIA ruled that search results must be clearly marked as paid, if money has changed hands to place a site there.  This is why the paid status is clearly defined, as consumers have a right to know what is an advert and what has editorial integrity!  By offering this service, Google have crossed over, they are going to ‘help’ a site get better rankings in an algorithm that only THEY know with absolute confidence. so in fact. we have come full circle and have gone back to where yahoo and Alta-Vista were all those years ago with PFP (Pay For Position) .

What next I wonder? Will Google come up with a fantastic ‘new’ ideal called PFI Pay For Inclusion. Seems to me that Google are on the slippery slope, and are sliding ever further into the ‘do not trust’ pond!

What next? The Google political Party

Don’t do evil?  Maybe we should send them postcards with this on to remind them of their motto.

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It seems that Google have become victims of their own success of late, in that they feel they need to do things because they can!

When Google started, it had a simple interface, you typed what you wanted, and you got a nice simple set of results. We then had the google directory, and then came Froogle, image search and many other ‘alternative’ methods of searching (which is fine).

Of late though the Search Results Page of Google looks like something a party goer threw up after a drinking session of the ‘most colourful cocktails’ section of the menu at the office party!

IT IS A MESSS, and this mess just got messier. With (what I would refer to as) their new Consolidated Realtime Additional Presentation Fomat (C.R.A.P. for short)

At the top we have  PGA tour, below that we have news result, then below that we have a bunch of what can only be described as CRAP!

LMAO that Gatorade dropped tiger woods

“RT XXXXX Gatorade first sponsor to drop tiger woods”

“You know what? I also had an affair with tiger woods, THERE”

There is a scroll down box that is filled with ‘real time’ search results. You know what? If I wanted to read pathetic childish crap, then i would subscribe to pathetic childish Twitter accounts, I really don’t need to get it shoved at me from Google.

What Google HAVE managed to achieve in a single stroke is to attract MORE spammers to the twitter service that is already full to the brim of spammers!

Imagine what would happen if the ‘hot topic’ was a product, we would get mountains of results, tweets, news, more news, shopping feeds etc and what we REALLY want is below the fold.

Sorry Google but this for me is a step too far. I know it is panto season, and I know that you were going to perform Mother Goose, but I understand that it had to be cancelled as someone in product development killed the Goose that was laying the golden eggs!

Anyone who has been around the web for a while will have seen the rise in Web2.0 style sites with user generated content. This concept is a superb arrangement for all parties as the site owner gets free content, and the writer gets a platform to air their views. Everything in the garden is rosy, until the big old spammer arrives with his dirty tricks.

If it wasn’t for Akismet and my manual editing of comments here on this blog, many of my readers would have bigger appendages ‘down below’ shiny new watches(shiny for a while), a cupboard full of triangular blue pills, and would be corresponding with a 5′4 blonde beauty from Russia who is really 44 years of age and called Malcolm and living in Hull. Oh and they would also be planning on moving to Russia to live with Malcolm (AKA the blonde beauty) as soon as they get their money from the Nigerian dead oil minister deal and their Internet Lottery winnings (best £5000 they ever spent).

OK back to the real world. Google have just published a beginners post dealing with spam, but as ever there are a couple of Easter eggs in the content. Read the rest of this entry »

So there you have it, I am not a hamburger, I am a high quality translator! Or at least Google is now.

Announced on their blog is a new high speed ‘translate as you type service, along with some other changes to the google translate service.

The service actually had 3 services introduced (more in the above link), although I have to ask, how many people actually use it? Other than to learn how to swear at people in their own language

Close on the heels of the Google announcement that the keywords meta dat is no longer used in the rankign algortithm, Yahoo! have come out and said pretty mucht he same. This is something us seasoned webmarketers have been saying for a long time, but despite this, there are ‘SEO’s ‘ out there who are still pedalling KW meta optimisation.

 The admission came at an Ask The Search Engines session at SMX East in New York this week. When asked about Support for the meta keywords tag, moderator Danny Sullivan stated that only Yahoo provided support of the tag, which prompted  Cris Pierry, (Senior Director of Search at Yahoo), to announce that support actually had been ended unannounced “several” months ago.

So there you have it the tag is dead, so move along please…. nothing to see here !

This is something that is coming up more and more often these days. In fact this blog comes up highly for some of those phrases since I published the Google adwords telephone numbers in may 2008. One thing to note here is that now you need to have your adwords account ref (top right of the screen inside adwords) to get through. Methinks they are filtering who they speak to and who has to go the long route!

Anyhow, if you need help, then try the telephone path, if not, here is a real good place to start for adwords help in some areas there will be a yellow ‘chat box’ on the screen,  if it is there, then use it.

Next is the long route path adwords support page or go to this form select whatever your query is about, scroll down to the bottom and select ‘email adwords support.

People in the UK can email adwords-uk@google.com

I am sure that I am not the only SEO who’s inbox and PM box on forums has been full of ‘My site has gone from the rankings’ type messages during the last few weeks. This is always the case when Google ’stir their secret sauce’.  This latest incarnation appears of have had far more wide ranging impact that they might have envisaged, Possibly this is the only problem with having such a wide ranging interconnected algorthim.

One of the big changes has been the ’slackening’ or perhaps lowering of the bar on non UK specific domains appearing in the UK SERPS. Read the rest of this entry »