The Search Engine Blog

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Google is reporting a much needed improvement in their rich snippets testing tool and breadcrumbs. If you are attempting to use rich snippets in your site and can’t figure out why Google isn’t displaying them, give this new took a try to see if it helps. http://bit.ly/c1VY3F

The move to Bing is on! Are your ads ready? Read the three step process here….
The Big Paid Search Merge Begins: Yahoo to Microsoft adCenter

Yahoo! is showing Bing results 25% of the time. Searching at Yahoo! will show the Yahoo! logo, but will give you Bing search results. The merger is in full swing. Webmaster tools at Bing are also changing and it’s hoped that some missing features will be replaced with some Yahoo! technology.

Yahoo! Search Blog » Blog Archive » Yahoo! Begins Testing with Microsoft

When can you rely on statistics? Never. It appears that the Google links bug isn’t a bug. They are stating the numbers are accurate because they are now showing more data. So were the figures prior to this a bug? It reinforces my position that watching trends in reporting is far more important.

Is Link to Your Sites in Webmaster, reporting links with a Bug ? – Webmaster Central Help

Can’t spell worth a darn? Now when you search in Google, it will suggest the correct spelling in the pull down that shows suggested searches. You don’t need to wait for a page to load to see the correct spelling. Students need not use a dictionary anymore. Computers will continue to think for you. Personally I only use the suggested search when I can’t find what I’m looking for on my own. I’d rather trust and exercise my brain than access some artificial brain technology.
Official Google Blog: This week in search 6/6/10

Google seems to be allowing 70 characters for title tags, up from 66. This is the blue clickable link that shows in most search results. What will you do with your four extra characters?

Length Title tag has grown

The new Google redesign has a large number of webmasters complaining about serious losses in traffic. You may have noticed the new logo, but poke about and you’ll see a lot of other changes. What else changed under the hood that could impact traffic? Time will tell.

Google Referrals Way Down Since the SERP LayOut Change?

A number of sites are crying MayDay as their long tail keywords traffic falls during Google’s latest updates. Of course someone must be doing better to fill that void. Funny how they aren’t complaining.

Long tail searches are searches four or more words long. Fat belly are two to three words. Now you’ll be able to interpret the content on the site link below.

Google MAYDAY Updates – SERP Changes May 2010

Bring on the doom and gloom soothsayers. Many webmasters are claiming that they are seeing the Google caffeine update on about 80% of Google’s datacenters. Whether it is an update or not, there are definite changes going on in the Google indexes and it is affecting site rankings.
Google Updates and SERP Changes – April 2010

What Yahoo! calls a Weather Report others just call updates. Ranking changes and shuffling of your listings are in the forecast.
Yahoo! Search Blog » Blog Archive » Weather Report: Yahoo! Search Update