SEOs Discuss Strategies To Escape Google Panda
We have written a ton of advice on helping sites with Panda problems in the past, so do check out our panda archives. That being said, there is a WebmasterWorldthread has some SEOs and webmasters trying to share tips they've used to recover from Panda. Personally, I cannot vouch for these sites or tips and I am very skeptical if (1) these tips all work and/or (2) these sites were impacted by Panda.Here... July 15th, 2011 by admin
Subdomains: Hubpages Way Out Of Google Panda Purgatory?
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal blog posted an article named Site Claims to Loosen Google "Death Grip".The article describes how Hubpages was hit hard by Google's Panda update and finally, after five months, they are noticing a recovery. They cite the main reason for their recovery is the strategy of moving their low-quality content from the main www of their site to subdomains, essentially bring... July 14th, 2011 by admin
Google Ignoring Your Page Titles?
For the past month, I've been seeing sporadic reports that Google is ignoring the webmaster's title tag and rewriting it to a Google made up title tag.There are four different threads on this topic at WebmasterWorld since June on the topic.This new change seems to be a limited test since around June and for the most part, webmasters are not happy about it.We know Google may opt to change your meta... July 14th, 2011 by admin
Google Updates Product Search Feed Specs – September 22
Google has announced very important and potentially costly changes for merchants who submit their feeds to Google Product Search.As of September 22, 2011, there will be a new feed specification and an updated policy for those feeds in place.The changes impact most of you who submit feeds to Google Product Search. The key U.S. changes are below but you can find all the changes for each country and... July 12th, 2011 by admin
GM Of CO.CC Argue’s Google Delisting
On July 1st, we were the first to report that Google delisted all CO.CC web sites from their index. Yes, over 10 million sites were delisted from Google in a matter of seconds.Google's explanation was that the subdomain contained too much spam and Google simply wanted to just clean it all out. Of course, Google has the right to do so, it is their search engine and index.James Kim, the General Manager... July 11th, 2011 by admin
Poll: Which Sites Were Hit Worst By Panda?
A Sphinn has discussion around a post by Pixelrage on what types of sites were hit hardest by the Google Panda update.He listed the following:Affiliate Storefronts Parked domains Microsites Sites targeting short-tail keyword Sites not updated oftenWhile this may or may not be true on a general level, I know a lot of you were hit by the Panda update. Please take our poll below and select all the site... July 8th, 2011 by admin
Pic: Negative Links In Google Webmaster Tools
In February we reported on webmasters complaining they were seeing negative link counts in Google Webmaster Tools.Today, I spotted a thread at Google Webmaster Help showing this actually happening. A picture really proves it.I am not sure how a site can remove links from a link count, but somehow this report is showing negative link counts from omnique.com, which is cool. Maybe SEOs can learn something... July 4th, 2011 by admin
Google: Stop With The Tin Foil Hat SEO
I love it when I see Googlers go off on SEO advice.A Google Webmaster Help thread has Googler Susan Moskwa replying to one webmaster about them wanting to remove content from their own web site. The webmaster was thinking because they don't have a certain number of words on some of their content, they are better off removing the content because it can hurt the rankings of the rest of the web site.... June 28th, 2011 by admin
Time For Google Panda Webmaster Notifications?
As many of you know by now, Panda 2.2 is now confirmed to have rolled out and some sites have seen recoveries while others have not, and others were now hit.Danny Sullivan wrote a nice explanation on how Panda is more a ranking factor than a algorithm update. He gets into it in detail, but what Panda clearly is, is a penalty that downgrades the rankings of a site for having low quality content. If... June 22nd, 2011 by admin
Google Shows Old Twitter URLs In Search Results
@dixon_jones, a well known and respected SEO, asked Google's JohnMu in a Google Webmaster Help thread why Google shows the old Twitter URL versus the new Twitter URL in the search results.For example, my old Twitter URL is twitter.com/rustybrick but the new style for the Twitter URL is twitter.com/#!/rustybrick. Yes, Twitter uses the new AJAX schema for the URLs. So why does Google show the old version... June 22nd, 2011 by admin
Google Top Query Report Download Broken
If you try to download the top query report from Google Webmaster Tools you will be out of luck.There is a bug that is preventing the data from being downloaded as a CSV file.At the bottom of the top query report in Google Webmaster Tools there is a link to "Download this table." Clicking it will in fact download a file but the file will be pretty much empty.A Google Webmaster Help thread has reports... June 21st, 2011 by admin
Blaming Others As A Ranking Factor In Google? No!
Every now and then I like to point to sad but yet education SEO threads of things you should never do in a Google forum.The latest example was highlighted by several readers and emailed to me from the person complaining as well - which makes this even more fun. In fact, I was going to ignore the whole thread but when I got the email, I had to write about it for all to enjoy.A Google Webmaster Help... June 21st, 2011 by admin
Auto-Responders Via Google Reconsideration Requests?
Many many webmasters and SEOs use the reconsideration request form that has been around for years. Even more so now that Google responds to them.But a WebmasterWorld thread asks if all or some or none of them are automated responses.One SEO said, "They [Google reconsideration requests] all are [automated]. Google isn't listening."But is that true? Tedster, WebmasterWorld's administrator said something... June 14th, 2011 by admin
Dell Sitelinks Go Missing In Google UK Bug
Dell's SEO manager posted a thread in the Google Webmaster Help forum asking why Dell UK lost their sitelinks.Doug from Dell UK explained they did a large migration of content, but was careful with usage of 301 redirects and SEO implications of the migration. He also explained they did this on several other Dell ccTLDs and did not see the Google Sitelinks disappear like they did on Google UK.So he... June 13th, 2011 by admin
Anchor Links Used For Image References In Google Images
Loupiote posted an interesting fact about how Google Image search works in the Google Webmaster Help forum.He asked why does Google show images he is simply linking to, off his site, as an image on his site when all he is doing is linking to the image. He is not even using the image source tag, he is only linking to the image.This search result shows two images, the first is not on his site but rather... June 10th, 2011 by admin
