Google News Inside

Does Google Use Social Networking Sites for Ranking?

The short answer, yes, it does — now. It didn’t earlier in the year, but today’s world, it certainly does. Here’s a short 3 minute clip from Matt Cutts explaining it. Incoming search terms:google webmastersdoes google use social networkinggoogle rank for social networking sitesgoogle ranking of social network sitesgoogle search ranking for social networking sitesGoogle [...]

Google Reminds Webmasters that Low-Quality Backlinks Don’t Matter

Susan Moskwa wrote on the Webmaster Central Blog about how Google deals with low-quality and spammy backlinks. Finally, keep in mind that low-quality links rarely stand the test of time, and may disappear from our link graph relatively quickly. They may even already be being discounted by our algorithms. If you want to make sure [...]

Google Webmaster Tools Introduces “Labs”

Google Webmaster Central announced a new feature of Google Webmaster Tools: Labs. So far, there are only two features available in Labs. “Fetch as Googlebot” which will do a couple of things. It will first see if Googlebot is even allowed to fetch the page. Then it will make sure it returns a 200 status [...]

Matt Cutts Explains How Robots.txt Actually Works

Here is a great explanation of how robots.txt actually works. A secret tip that I’ve learned through a few SEO sessions with some ex-Googlers, is to use the Noindex: tag. It looks like this: User-agent: * Disallow: /contactus Noindex: /contactus By doing this, you both disallow the crawler from crawling the page and you also [...]

How Does REL=Canonical Actually Work?

Googler Greg Grothaus gave spoke at SES San Jose last month and did a follow-up post to the Google Webmaster Central blog with similar content. Here are some great tips for understanding how rel=”canonical” actually works. rel=canonical Questions and Answers Q: Does this work across hosts (aka: subdomains)? A: Yes. So zeta.zappos.com could suggest www.zappos.com [...]

Has Google Changed to Mold to Social Media?

Matt Cutts provides a great video clip explaining how Google is handling the rush of social media sites and content in the past 6 months.

Google Wants to Help Make Sure You’re Secure

Google’s own Matt Cutts recently posted an article about how Google is helping you stay secure. To kick off the security enhancement efforts by Google, they are focusing on WordPress, the same software that powers this blog and the same software that I recently hosted a conference about; WordCamp NY.

Google Helps Break the Language Barrier

Language has been a common barrier between people on the web. Whether you’re talking on Instant Messenger (IM), writing a blog post, writing an e-mail, or posting on a forum, a common problem has been the language barrier. A very small fraction of the world understands and can coherently read or speak another language than [...]

Google Webmaster Tools Needs Improvement

Here is just one aspect of Google Webmaster Tools that I feel needs some more love. Pages with external links is a great tool to have, simply because it provides an easy-access breakdown of all the links going to individual pages. But, a huge big but, the data is provides is not displayed in a [...]

Matt Cutts and Sex Sites

Alright, so the title is a little misleading, but check out this interview of Matt Cutts for the Google Webmaster Germany blog. The title is not completely irrelevant because Matt talks about his early exposure to the family safe filter, filtering out the porn, but Matt diggs digs into search and the future of search. [...]

Google Webmaster Tools Access Provider Program

Yesterday, Google announced that they are launching an Access Provider Program for Google Webmaster Tools. This is a huge advancement for Webmaster Tools. Since the launch of Google Webmaster Tools back in mid-2006, there hasn’t been too much activity as far as features go. A few updates here and there, but nothing major like this. [...]

Google Webmaster Tools Feed+Sitemap Workflow

I was checking my subscriber count to see if Google had fixed the integration with Feedburner and Webmaster Tools so that they sync up exactly, but alas, it still does not. It still only pulls in the number of Google Reader subscribers. After checking that, I noticed an Add button next to the ginside.com/feed/ which [...]

Still Feeling the Boot?

So you’re still not appearing in the Google search results? Have no fear, well, at least not too much fear, as the Google Webmaster team is here to….hmm help? Yeah, I think so. Mariya Moeva of the Webmaster Central team writes some tips about how to effectively get your site back into the Google search [...]

Google News: Tips for Successful Crawling

This article is coming directly from Google’s Help for Publishers: Tips for Successful Crawling, but I’m adding some emphasis on the points I think people often overlook. Tips for Successful Crawling Below are listed common crawling issues related to the article body that Googlebot extracts from the HTML page. You can also find some tips [...]

Google Trifecta Webinar

Google is going to be putting on a webinar/seminar that includes the Google Trifecta. Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, and Google Webmaster Tools. The Google Webmaster team is putting on The Google Trifecta, including Webmaster Tools, Analytics, and Website Optimizer. Click here TITLE: The Google Trifecta: Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Website Optimizer DATE: Tuesday, July 8th, [...]

Google APIs

Google offers a lot of APIs to developers. So what are some of the APIs available to developers right now? Google Apps APIs Google Base Data API Blogger Data API Google Calendar Data API Google Code Search Data API Google Contacts Data API Google Health Data API Google Notebook Data API Google Spreadsheets Data API [...]

Google Webmaster Tools API

Late last week, Google launched the Google Webmaster Tools API. With this new API available, it starts us down the road of being able to create incredible applications. I brought up this API seven (7) months ago when I wrote about APIs which Google should create. The Webmaster Central API was the first API I [...]

Join the Google Webmaster Team this Friday!

Adam Lasnik has extended an invitation for anyone with “…a phone (we’ll pay for the call), a sufficiently-modern web browser, and an internet connection…” to join the Webmaster Central group for a phone conference. This will be a great opportunity for people that may have felt unheard, to finally get their voice heard. I know [...]

Google Does Not Equal Perfection

Call me meticulous, call me observant, even call me OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) with websites, but one thing we cannot call Google is perfect. The screenshot below is what I just found in the Webmaster Tools area. Design is one thing I am very picky about. I’m using Firefox 2.0.0.11 on Mac OS X Leopard. It’s a small thing, but even the small things matter [to me].

Webmaster Tools Adds Content Analysis

As I spotted on Sphinn today, Google has indeed added some new tools. This tool comes in very useful to webmasters. Instead of using third-party tools to analyze the HTML and content of your site, now we can utilize Googlebot to do it for us. Another great job done by the Webmaster Tools team.

Google Webmaster Central: Features, Features, Features.

Barry noticed this one. The Webmaster Central Team has released some new features for everyone to enjoy. This is the first time we have really seen any connection to Sitelinks. Sitelinks are those additional links that you see after a specific query has been run, such as searching for “google products“.
Now you’re able to semi-control what links are listed there. Google has yet to offer a “please, please, please, list mine!” button, but they do have options to give you control over which listings to disallow.

Google Webmaster Central Re-design

Google’s Webmaster Central recently went through an overhaul in design. Many different aspects went into this update. New color scheme, better usability, and added features.

This new web front of Google has been public was renamed to what it is today back in August 2006. Since then, we have seen a lot of changes, new features, and enhancements to the platform — which we have been thankful for.
The first thing I noticed with this new release is how to view different sites in your account. The prior dropdown list was far more effective than this new release — in my opinion. The new dropdown is just a div and you have to scroll through it if you have a lot of domains (such as I do). My first request would be that they revert back to the older dropdown style for selecting different sites within your account.

Google’s Webmaster Central on Duplicate Content

Duplicate content is an issue I’m trying to battle right now myself. It’s been on my mind about Wordpress. Are the archives pages and category pages creating duplicate content? If you look at my site, I actually only allow for category pages to be indexed right now because I’m testing out whether or not that will help my rankings to focus the link popularity. For a full explanation, take a look at this article by Maile Ohye.

Can Googlebot See You? Let’s Find Out

Making sure that Googlebot can see all your pages or rather only being able to see the pages you want it to see, is very important. Google is the only major search engine provider to offer any kind of tool that gives you the ability to see whether or not its robot can see your pages.
For a long time, you would just need to add things in your robots.txt and wait a few months to see if it actually does indeed stop indexing certain pages or if some type of regular expressions (”regex”) you entered, actually worked. The process was slow, too slow — it took too long.
This has been a feature of Google’s Webmaster Tools for quite some time now, but I only recently started using it more aggressively. I will be using this site, ginside.com, as an example for how effective this tool actually can be for webmasters.

Google Webmaster Message Center

A little excerpt from Matt Cutts, Remember when we had to pause emailing webmasters because someone was trying to spoof emails and pretending to be emailing from Google? As part of the latest security push from Google, they have now released a frontend interface that will let Google communicate with webmasters in an official manner. Now you can officially receive messages about your site(s) so that there’s not even a bit of confusion about whether the message is actually from Google or not. Google Webmaster Help Center – what is the message center?

Google Webmaster Central Opens in Germany

Google’s Webmaster Central team has opened up another language version of the infamous Google Webmaster Central blog. Now it’s for all those German readers. I can be assured that they appreciate this a lot. Hopefully the Webmaster Central team can expand even further sooner than later. Maybe to French or Spanish in the coming months.

My 2007 Google Wishlist

There are a lot of enhancements and feature-requests that I want from Google still, so here’s my list. Google Maps (I did this already, but here’s a re-cap) Optional Direction Mapping Real-Time Traffic Reporting Account Settings -> Home Optional Quick-to Home Google AdSense Obscure the Google Pub ID Faster updating in the control panel Optional Video-only ads Integration into Google Analytics for tracking Webmaster Central An API Enhancements to the new backlink tool These are just a few things I am hoping Google will add this year.

New Links Tool Provides Spam Too

The recently launched linkback analysis tool also comes with a health helping of spam. I noticed this first when it was released and I was hoping it would be dealt with…but to no avail, it’s still there. Hopefully the new tool will be updated soon so this doesn’t appear anymore…it’s taking up most of my screen!

myWebmaster Central Made Easy

This is the second update that I’m aware of today for the Webmaster Center. This one is about how to access your domain(s) within the portal. Below is a screenshot of what it looks like and how easy it is to access any site in your account. This is a huge improvement and for me it makes navigation a lot easier. I used to have to go back to the homepage every time I wanted to switch sites, but this will make it much easier. Thank you Google!

New Webmaster Tool: Backlinks

There is a new backlink tool feature within the Google Webmaster Center. There is now a tool to track backlinks both internal and external. Searchengineland.com has done an amazing write-up about it so I can’t take any glory for this one. Head over there and take a look at the article, there are some really sweet tools that they released. To access the tool directly, use this URL: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/links?siteUrl=(FULL DOMAIN HERE)&hl=en I’ll do a more detailed write-up about it later on once I’ve had a chance to use the new tool and such.

Is there Badware on your site?

Bad…badware..bad! But now you know…well, you will know. As part of our efforts to protect users, we have been warning people using Google search before they visit sites that have been determined to distribute badware under the guidelines published by StopBadware. Warning users is only part of the solution, though; the real win comes from helping webmasters protect their own users by alerting them when their sites have been flagged for badware — and working with them to remove the threats. So if you have a bad website and you want to know why Google doesn’t like it, now you will know and you can fix it. Webmaster Central Blog

Webmaster Guideline Changes

Google has released a modified version of their Webmaster Guidelines. Here’s the brief overview of the changes: Don’t use “&id=” as a parameter in your URLs, as we don’t include these pages in our index. However, we’ve recently removed that technical guideline, and now index URLs that contain that parameter. So if your site uses a dynamic structure that generates it, don’t worry about rewriting it — we’ll accept it just fine as is. Keep in mind, however, that dynamic URLs with a large number of parameters may be problematic for search engine crawlers in general, so rewriting dynamic URLs into user-friendly versions is always a good practice when that option is available to you. If you can, keeping the number of URL parameters to one or two may make it more likely that search engines will crawl your dynamic urls.

Webmaster Central Has Some New Tools

There are some sweet new tools in the webmaster overview area. Specifically in the sitemaps department. Some of the new tools are the Crawl Rate (as seen below) and the Enhanced Image Search options. Just yet another great tool to communicate to webmaters how often GoogleBot is crawling around. The interaction between Google Search and the webmaster is becoming more efficient.

Query Stats to Update Every Monday

Vanessa Fox writes about how the Google Webmaster Central hotspot will update sitemap stats every Monday now (instead of it being randon and no one really knowing when it updates.) This is very good for us webmasters so we know exactly when stats are updating and how fresh the data is. I know I use my sitemaps quite often to see how I’m ranking. It saves time and effort.

Verifying GoogleBot As Real

Matt Cutts writes, not on this own blog for this one, but on the Webmaster Central blog, about how to verify GoogleBot as real. I actually disagree with the method they are attempting to use as solution for one reason: it will put high stress and load-time issues on the server and GoogleBot. I haven’t tested this to be sure, but I am speaking hypothetically. With

Do You Want to Be Like Matt Cutts? Now You Can!

Google has opened up a position to basically be the interaction between webmasters and themselves. Here’s a brief overview of the profile… Responsibilities: Monitor webmaster issues (in various online forums, conferences, internal questions, etc.). Analyze data for trends. Formulate recommendations. Route issues using appropriate escalation paths. Investigate specific issues, as needed. Full Profile

Vanessa Fox & Amanda Camp Interview

Seattle24×7.com has a great interview with Amanda Camp and Vanessa Fox, two great contacts that work under the Google Webmaster Central department. They dig deep into topics such as the beginning of Webmaster Central and touches on how their time is divided while on the job. It’s a really good interview. Seattle24×7: How did Google Sitemaps get started in Seattle? Vanessa: It actually traces its roots back to Zurich, Switzerland. Shiva Shivakumar, the director here, started the Zurich office. Sitemaps sort of began as his idea. So Zurich did a lot of the backend, behind…Seattle24×7.com

Some New Webmaster Tools Added

Looks like the sitemaps portion of the now claimed webmaster tools, had some new additions.

Download the Data
This tool basically just lets you grab a data dump of all the statistics recorded in your account for all the domains.

Google Treating www and non-www the Same Now

Christian talks about how Google is now treating www and non-www domains the same with how they relate to the link:domain.com syntax. Seems to be working properly for me when checking the www and non-www search for linkbacks.