Patent analysis: how search engines treat inbound links

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Axandra news archive: 22 July 2008

Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

This week, we're taking a look at the new ranking patent that has been granted to Yahoo. This patent can help you to better understand how to get higher rankings on Yahoo and Google.

In the news: Google has over 75% of the US ad market, the Google toolbar does not help you to get indexed, information about web spam and more.

Table of contents:

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

Best regards,

1. Patent analysis: how search engines deal with inbound links

This month, Yahoo was granted a patent that describes how link texts may be used to increase the relevancy ranking of a web page. Although the patent was filed in 2002, it provides interesting details about how search engines can use link texts.

Why are link texts important?

All major search engines pay close attention to the text that is used in links pointing to web pages. A web page might be considered more relevant to a search term if the search term not only appears on the web page but is also used in the text of the link that points to the page.

Web pages can even get high rankings for a search term if they don't contain that search term. It's enough that many websites link to the page with the search term in the link text. This has been demonstrated with several Google bombs.

How do search engines treat link texts?

While it is clear that link texts are very important for search engines, it's not clear how much weight search engines assign to a link text when they index a page. Are some link texts more important than others?

The patent indicates that link texts are broken into parts, called tokens:

Once an anchortext phrase is identified, it is converted into a set of tokens. For example, page 306 contains the phrase "best Louis Armstrong site" pointing to page 200. The tokenization produces the following tokens:

"Best Louis Armstrong site""Louis Armstrong""Louis""Armstrong""Best""Best Louis""Best Armstrong""Best site"

The search engine algorithm calculates a weight for each of these tokens. If the weight exceeds a threshold, the linked web page may be indexed under that token.

How do search engines calculate the weight?

Search engines consider how often each word or word sequence can be found in link texts pointing to a particular page and how often the token appears in the index.

Search engines might assign the greatest importance to words that appear the least frequently in the search index. The reason for that is that those words are often more specifically related to the searched topic.

In addition, a token that appears very often in link texts that point to a special web page could be given higher weight. Tokens that appear very frequently in the search index ("site" or "best") might be discounted because they are not relevant to the special topic.

What does this mean to your website?

All major search engines use this method to rank web pages. If you want to get high rankings on search engines, you must make sure that your web site has good inbound links with the right link texts.

Optimized web pages are important to tell search engines that your website is relevant to your keywords. Good inbound links with the right link texts will enforce the relevancy of your pages for your keywords.

What you have to do to get high rankings on Yahoo and Google

Optimize your web pages for your keywords. While it is possible to get high rankings for a keyword if you have enough inbound links that contain that keyword, it is much easier to get high rankings for a special keyword if your web page has been optimized for that keyword. Try to get as many inbound links as possible. The links to your website should use your targeted keywords in the link text. Do not use the exactly same text over and over. Vary your link texts and use related but different expressions for the links to your site.

IBP's link builder can help you to get targeted links from related websites, Internet directories and blogs.

The Yahoo patent confirms the methods that modern search engines use to rank web pages. If you follow the tips and tricks above, your website will get the best possible rankings on Yahoo, Google and other major search engines.

Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com

2. Search engine news and articles of the week

Google has over 75% of US search ad market

"Google maintained its 77.4% share of US search marketing dollars, while Yahoo captured 17.8% of spending and Microsoft Live Search maintained its 4.8% share.

Microsoft Live Search and Yahoo Search still have good ROI in comparison to Google, which makes them essential marketplaces for advertisers that need to meet their increasingly scrutinized revenue targets."

Google's Matt Cutts: the Google toolbar does not help indexing

"Sometimes people think that the Google Toolbar led to Google indexing a page. [...] if Ken Simpson is implying that the Google Toolbar led to these urls being crawled, then he’s mistaken.

Both Philipp Lenssen and Google OS did controlled experiments by visiting unlinked deep pages with the toolbar, and both concluded that the toolbar did not lead to those urls being indexed."

Video: Google's Matt Cutts talks about web spam

"Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google, speaks about Webmaster Central, his first encounter with spam, and challenges for search engines in the future."

Why Google slows down acquired companies

"Google had acquired Jotspot some 16 months earlier, during which time Jot was only available to existing customers and closed to new signups. [...] Looking through the list of companies that Google has acquired, Jotspot would be considered lucky as many others have died, stalled or lost out to competitors because of the acquisition process."

Google faces another click fraud suit

"Google has been hit with a second lawsuit for fraud stemming from its parked domains program, which serves ads on otherwise empty Web pages. [...] The company said in its lawsuit that it had been charged for clicks from parked domains 'that had little relation to its business.'"

Search engine newslets

Google study: search marketing increases brand value.Google deliberately sells fewer ads — and may have gone too far. Google to acquire Russian context ads service Begun.Yahoo announces settlement with Carl Icahn.Google 'UK's top consumer brand'.New Google search interface looks more useful - see screenshots.Search featured: Guy Kawasaki.Google anti-gravity ray is fading.AdWords Editor service release for Windows and Mac.Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com

The Search Engine Facts newsletter is free. Please recommend it to someone you know.

You may publish one of the articles above on your Web site. However, you must not change the contents in any way. Also, you must keep all links and you must add the following two lines with a link to www.Axandra.com: "Copyright by Axandra.com. Web site promotion software."

All product names, copyrights and trademarks mentioned in this newsletter are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.

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Copyright © 2008 Axandra GmbH

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Four reasons why Google might not use the anchor text in the links to your website

1. Four reasons why Google might not use the anchor text in the links to your website
The text that is used in the links that point to your website has a major effect on the position of your website in Google's search results.
For example, if many people use the text "buy blue widgets" to link to your website, then it is very likely that the linked web page will get high rankings for the keyphrase "buy blue widgets" in Google's search results.
The link text (also called anchor text) is the text that is used in text links. Example:

this is the link text

Unfortunately, not all anchor texts will be used by Google. Check the following things to make sure that the links to your website pass the correct anchor tag:
1. The nofollow attribute

This is a no-brainer. Links to your website that use the rel="nofollow" attribute don't pass the link text to Google. Example:
great keyword
You can use IBP to find out if the websites that link to you use the nofollow attribute: start IBP, click the "Links" button and click "Check links".

2. Invalid characters in the URL

If an URL contains invalid extra characters then chances are that search engines won't be able to index the link correctly. Example:
great keyword
In this example, there's a space at the end of the URL. Some webmasters found out that anchor text is not passed to Google if the link contains an extra space character.
Note that most browsers are able to correct this link and they will display the web page correctly. Unfortunately, search engine spiders seem to have more difficulty with malformed links (or they take them as a signal of low quality).

3. The links use 301 redirects

Google's Matt Cutts recently confirmed that Google won't consider all anchor texts that are used in 301 redirected links. Example:
great keyword
The web server redirects "http://www.example.com/page.htm" to "http://www.example.com" with a 301 redirect. In that case, it's likely that Google won't use the link text.

4. The first link passes the link text

If a page links twice to the same page then Google will use the first link text and discard the other link texts. Example:
This is an example. The link text great keyword will be ignored by Google.
The first and the second link go to the same URL. In this example, Google will use the link text of the first link, which is "This". The link text of the second link will be ignored by Google.
If the second link points to another page of the linked website, then both link texts will be used by Google:
This is an example. The link text great keyword will be ignored by Google.

Ranking test: can there be too many links to your home page?

1. Ranking test: can there be too many links to your home page?
In an online webmaster forum, a webmaster described the link experiment that he did with his websites. He tried to find out how linking to the home page affected his rankings.


What did the webmaster test?

The webmaster tested the effect of links from sub pages of his website to his home page. He tried links to the home page of his website from the navigation and from the content and he tried links with and without keywords.
The test was done with a 4 year old domain name with a dedicated IP address. The web pages were HTML only. The website ranks top 5 in Google for its main, second and third keyword phrases and it has a total of 90 pages with unique content.

What were the results of the test?

It seems that too many links to the home page of your website can have a negative effect on your rankings:
Linking to the home page from every page in the content with the same keyword caused a six pages drop in rankings (-6 pages). Linking to the home page from every page in the content using keyword variations caused a three pages drop in rankings (-3 pages). Linking to the home page from the navigation with "main keyword" also caused a six pages drop in rankings (-6 pages). Linking to the home page from the first 10 pages listed on Google.com for "site:domain.com/*" increased the ranking from 5th to 3rd (+2 positions).
The webmaster also observed the following:
Linking from the content using keyword variations was effective to a point, after which the rankings dropped. There seems to be a page threshold. If the number of pages that link is even slightly above the threshold, the rankings will drop.

Does this mean that you shouldn't link to your home page?

It's hard to tell whether the results of this experiment are valid because there are too many other variables that influence the rankings of a web page.
It doesn't sound sensible that Google will downrank a web page that has a link to its home page on every page. Most users expect a link to the home page on every page of a website and even Google has a link to its home page from every page.
As Google's usual webmaster advice is to focus on the website user, it seems implausible that Google would penalize home page links.
We think that it's more likely that the ranking drops are caused by Google's change filter. If you change your web page contents, Google will temporarily downrank your web pages. This has been described in a Google patent.

High positions on Google depend on much more than the internal links on your website. If you want an analysis of all important factors that influence the position of your website on Google, analyze your site with IBP's Top 10 Optimizer

New Google patent: the reasonable surfer and your links

1. New Google patent: the reasonable surfer and your links
Last month, Google was granted a patent that states that the different links on a linking page have a different effect on the linked pages. How does this affect your website and what do you have to do to secure your rankings?


What is the patent about?

The patent describes that the value of a link seems to be based on the probability that a web surfer would click on the link. Here's the summary from the patent application:
"Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention may provide a reasonable surfer model that indicates that when a surfer accesses a document with a set of links, the surfer will follow some of the links with higher probability than others. This reasonable surfer model reflects the fact that not all of the links associated with a document are equally likely to be followed. [...]
Examples of unlikely followed links may include 'Terms of Service' links, banner advertisements, and links unrelated to the document."
When Google finds links on a web page, it classifies the links. Some links on the indexed page have more value than others.

How does Google classify the links?

To determine the value of a link, Google analyzes several things:
Features of the link: color and size of the anchor text, link position, number of words, how commercial the text is, length of the linked URL, link type (image or text), context of words Features of the linking page: URL of the page, number of links on the page, presence of other words on the page, match between the topic of the link text and the other words on the page Features of the linked page: URL of the page, associated websites, words in the URL, length of the URL User behavior data: language and interests of the user, used search query terms, frequency of link selection, navigational actions (forms completed, links selected, etc.)

Where does Google get the user behavior data from?

To get the user behavior data, Google can use the Google toolbar. According to the patent description:
"[Google's toolbar] may record data concerning the documents accessed by the user and the links within the documents (if any) the user selected.
[...] may record data concerning the language of the user, which may be determined in a number of ways that are known in the art, such as by analyzing documents accessed by the user.
[...] may record data concerning interests of the user, which may be determined, for example, from the favorites or bookmark list of the user, topics associated with documents accessed by the user, or in other ways that are known in the art.
[...] may record data concerning query terms entered by the user. The web browser or browser assistant may send this data for storage in repository 430."
There's quite a lot of things that Google records when you surf the web with the Google's toolbar installed.

How can you improve the links that point to your website?

Of course, you cannot influence all links that point to your website. If you can, you should consider the following things:
Your link should be in the regular text of the linking page. It should not be in the footer or another navigational elements. If possible, the link should be "above the fold". The anchor text should contain words that are related to your website. Use the keywords for which you want to get high rankings. The link texts should be natural. Anything that looks like manipulation might devalue the link. Avoid commercial words in your links. Terms like "buy now" and similar commercial phrases might devalue the link. The link should be on a related page. If you sell shoes then a link from a web page that deals with shoes will have a higher impact on your search engine rankings than a link from an unrelated website that links to all kind of web pages.

The Google patent confirms that not all links are created equal. Although the patent has been granted to Google last month, they filed it several years ago. That means that the methods described in the patent might have been used by Google for years.
If you want to know which ranking algorithm Google uses today and if your website is compliant to Google's latest ranking algorithm, analyze your page with IBP's Top 10 Optimizer. The Top 10 Optimizer will tell you in plain English if the links to your website are okay and it will also tell you what exactly you have to change.
Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com
2. Search engine news and articles of the week
More search engine statistics

"Google accounted for 72.17 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending May 29, 2010. Yahoo! Search, Bing and Ask received 14.43 percent, 9.23 percent and 2.14 percent, respectively. [...]
Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing April 2010 with May 2010, Automotive, Business and Finance, Entertainment, News and Media, Shopping and Social Networking categories showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines."
Editor's note: these numbers confirm that it is very important that your website can be found on search engines for the right keywords.

"Google's new Caffeine web index heralds a new age of possibilities for the search engine. [...] The fortunes of whole companies and countless careers live and die by their rankings in search results. [...]
'With Buzz, our mathematical models were awfully good, but they didn't know the nuance of human relationships,' says Singhal. 'That was a privacy mistake, which we accept. Mea culpa.'"

Google's John Mueller says the noscript tag can cause problems

Yesterday, Google's John Mueller told a webmaster in an online discussion that the noscript tag can look suspicious to Google:
"One of the problems with noscript is - as others have mentioned - that it's been abused quite a bit by spammers, so search engines might treat it with some suspicion.
So if this is really important content, then I wouldn't rely on all search engines treating your noscript elements in the same way as normal, visible, static content on your pages. If this is 'just' for comments, then that might be worth considering regardless, especially if the alternatives are much more complicated."

Google's John Mueller says that you shouldn't hide links

In another discussion, Google's John Mueller writes about hiding links from Google in JavaScript:
"You're hiding links from Googlebot. Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing that as it makes it harder to properly understand the relevance of your website. I also doubt that you'd see any kind of visible change with regards to PageRank.
Ultimately, that's your choice, just as it would be our choice to review those practices as potential attempts to hide content & links."

Google's Street View Wi-Fi data included passwords, email

"Google did indeed record email access passwords [and] extracts of the content of email messages [...] Google also told CNIL that the data collected by the Street View cars is also used by other services, including Google Maps and Google Latitude, which allows users automatically transmit their location to friends, and to track others who choose to share their location via the service."
Related: Connecticut to lead multistate probe of Google

Pimp your links: how to improve your existing backlinks

1. Pimp your links: how to improve your existing backlinks
Getting links to your website is one of the most important things that you have to do if you want to get high rankings on Google and other big search engines.
Unfortunately, it is also one of the most difficult tasks. Do you make the most of your existing links? It's often much easier to improve your existing backlinks then getting new links to your website.


1. Correct links that point to your old domain names

If you changed your domain name in the past, chances are that some people still link to your old domain name.
Of course, the links to your old domain name should redirect to your new domain with a 301 redirect to make sure that the links aren't lost. Unfortunately, links through 301 redirects do not pass the full link power to your website.
For that reason, contact the webmasters who link to your old domain name and ask them to link to your new domain. This will increase the effect of the links on your website rankings.

2. Correct links to broken pages on your website

Check your website statistics and redirect all links that go to a non-existing (404) page on your website to an existing page on your site so that the visitors aren't lost.
As above, it's even better to contact the webmasters who links to the non-existing pages and ask them to change the links.

3. Try to improve the link texts

When you're contacting other webmasters to tell them that they link to your old domain name or to a broken link on your website, you can also suggest new link texts for your links.
If the links to your website include the words for which you want to get high rankings in the link text, your chances of getting ranked for these keywords increase.

4. Suggest other relevant websites

This might sound like a strange advice but it can help your rankings: when you contact a webmaster and ask for a link, you might also suggest other websites that are related to yours.
If the website that links to your website links to other websites that are related to your website topic, it's more likely that search engines will find your website relevant to that topic. Details about this co-citation effect can be found here.

5. Check the links on your own website

If you want to see certain pages of your website in Google's search results, these pages should also be linked from your own website pages. If a web page is hidden in the navigation of your website then it's less likely that this page will get a good position in Google's results.
Your website should have a clear and logical navigation that emphasizes the pages that you want to see in Google's search results.

High rankings on Google are the result of good inbound links and optimized web page content. Our popular website promotion tool IBP helps you to get both.

Official Google statement: the effects of outbound links on your website

Back to our newsletter archive
Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.
This week, we're taking a look at an official Google statement about the effects of links from your site to other websites.
In the news: Links from .edu or .gov domains have no special value, search engines (and webmasters) might benefit from the economic crisis, Microsoft won't make Yahoo another offer and more.
Table of contents:
We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.
Best regards,
1. Official Google statement: the effects of outbound links on your website
Last month, Google published an official statement about linking out to other websites. Some webmasters still think that linking to other websites might have a negative effect on their Google rankings. That is not the case.

Links to other websites can have a positive effect on your website if you link to the right websites. Here's a summary of Google's statements:
The good side of outbound links

Relevant links to other websites can help your website visitors. For example, you could provide your readers in-depth information about similar topics or you could offer your readers your commentary on existing resources.
Outbound links can also help your credibility. Links to the right websites show that you have done your research and that you have expertise in the subject manner. Good links to other websites can make visitors want to come back for more analysis on future topics.
A very positive effect on links to other websites is that they help you to build relationships with other domain experts. If you send visitors to another website then that website might send visitors to your website in return.

The bad side of outbound links

Links to other websites can have a negative effect on your website if you don't monitor to which websites you link. According to Google, unmonitored (especially user-generated) links and undisclosed paid advertising outbound links can reduce your website's credibility.
If your website allows user comments or other user created contents, then you should make sure that these comments are moderated and/or you should add the rel="nofollow" attribute to user generated links.
Google doesn't like paid links. If you accept money for outbound links, you should also add the rel="nofollow" attribute to the link.
Google recommends not to have more than 100 links per web page. Too many links on one page confuse your website visitors.

Should you worry about the PageRank of the linked website?

Google makes it very clear that you shouldn't worry about the PageRank of a website as long as you are linking to a website you believe your website visitors will enjoy.
It doesn't matter if the linked website has a lower PageRank than your website as long as the website is somehow related to your site. According to Google, webmasters should consider outbound links as a common sense way to provide more value to their users, not as a complicated formula.

If you link to good websites, outbound links will have a positive effect on your site. IBP's link builder helps you to find good related websites, it helps you to build relationships with other websites and it also helps you to increase the number of inbound links to your website.
Further information about link building, how to get good inbound links and how to avoid common mistakes can be found in our free SEO book.
Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com
2. Search engine news and articles of the week
Links from .edu and .gov domains have no special value

Many webmasters and marketers think that a website will get a ranking boost on Google if it has links from .edu or .gov domains. Google's Matt Cutts and Google's John Mueller recently said that this wasn't so:
"This is a common misconception - you don't get any PageRank boost from having an .edu link or .gov link automatically. If you get an .edu link and no one is linking to that .edu page, you're not going to get any PageRank at all because that .edu page doesn't have any PageRank. [...] We generally treat all links the same - be it from .gov or .edu or .info sites."

Google tries to improve search quality with an improved user interface

"The role of 'user experience' research is to try and get the inside story on what people do when they search. We're constantly asking: What's the user's experience of search? What works and doesn't work for them? What are they looking for? What DO they want?"

Search won't fall off cliff as online ads slow

"Although the slowdown threatening to drag out two quarters or more has hit the online ad industry, search could remain the bright spot in an otherwise dismal scenario. [...]
Economic hardships have led consumers to use search engines more as they evaluate shopping options and compare prices."

Ballmer rules out new bid for Yahoo.

"Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Friday that Microsoft is 'not interested' in making a new offer for Internet company Yahoo, despite Yahoo's share price currently sitting at less than half what Microsoft initially offered. [...]
'Look, we made an offer, we made another offer. It was clear that Yahoo didn't want to sell the business to us, and we moved on.'"

Google at 10: searching its own soul

"As Google recently turned 10 years old, some analysts and investors began to say the company was suffering from early signs of maturity. Google’s growth rate, while still brisk, has slowed significantly and is expected to slow more because of the economic slowdown."

Search engine newslets
Microsoft tries to steal Verizon deal from Google.Google improves its AdSense ad filter.Google CEO on Obama tech czar job: No thanks.Google and Microsoft executives trade jabs.Hitwise ranks election traffic to news sites.Russian company to sue Google for $3 billion for contextual ads technology.Google's China market share to grow in 2009.Microsoft in web search deal with Sun.Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com
"This only took us approximately 3 months."

"I began working in SEO in 1998 with one of the first Internet hosting and marketing companies. Working with Ken Stubbs, the first President of ICCAN, and Glenn Davis of www.openvision.com I was responsible for SEO for large US companies like Wilson Sporting Goods, Fortune Brands, and others.
Our group was at the cutting edge of SEO at the time and still is today. Today I own www.1contemporary.com, an online and store based import/export dealer of high-end modern designer European Italian furniture. 1 Contemporary Furniture is the 3rd oldest website under the keyword 'contemporary furniture, Italian furniture, designer furniture, and european furniture. We ship to 50 states and around the world over 40 of the most renowned names in the industry world-wide.
For the past 7 years www.1contemporary.com has been at the top on the first page of our keywords and we remain so today thanks to IBusinessPromoter."
Gill Fisher, President, 1 Contemporary Furniture

Get your website in front of more than 160,000 readers

Let us know how IBP has helped you to improve your website and we might publish your success story with a link to your website in this newsletter. The more detailed your story is, the better.

Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com
The Search Engine Facts newsletter is free. Please recommend it to someone you know.
You may publish one of the articles above on your Web site. However, you must not change the contents in any way. Also, you must keep all links and you must add the following two lines with a link to www.Axandra.com: "Copyright by Axandra.com. Web site promotion software."
All product names, copyrights and trademarks mentioned in this newsletter are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.
Back issues:
http://www.free-seo-news.com/

Official Google statement: 6 tips to get quality links

Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.
Last week, Google published an official statement about quality links and their effect on your website rankings. In the statement, Google wants to explain their viewpoint on earning quality links. This week's article contains six link building tips that Google endorses.
In the news: it seems there was another Google ranking algorithm update, Google uses more rich snippets, after a longer pause, Google continues to crawl web pages and more.
Table of contents:
We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.
Best regards,
1. Official Google statement: 6 tips to get quality links
Last week, Google published an official statement about quality links and their effect on your website rankings. In the statement, Google wants to explain their viewpoint on earning quality links.

Google recommends that you do the following to get more links to your website:

1. Get involved in the community around your topic

You should interact and contribute on forums and blogs that are related to your website. Building a good reputation can drive people to your website. If these people like your website, they will link to it.

2. Offer long-lasting, unique and compelling content

This is a no-brainer. The more compelling your website is, the more people will link to it. In addition to unique articles, you can offer useful tools on your website.

3. Solve the problems of your target group

If your website offers solutions to common problems of your target group, your website visitors are likely to link to your site. Publish tutorials or videos on your website or offer practical tools.
Surveys and original research can also attract links. According to Google, both methods grow your credibility in the community and increase visibility.

4. Humor can help

Entertaining content is shared more than ever before. If your website offers something funny (a humorous downtime message, amusing content, etc.), chances are that people will link to your site.
However, these short-lived link-bait tactics usually wear off quickly and they do not contribute much to a long-term linking strategy.

5. Directories help you to get links

According to Google, there are great, topical directories that add value to the Internet. However, there are also a lot of low quality directories.
When you submit your website to a directory, make sure it's on topic, moderated, and well structured. Do not bulk-submit your website and make sure that your website will be added to the right category.

6. Avoid spamming methods

Any legitimate link building strategy is a long-term effort. There are those who advocate for short-lived, often spammy methods, but these are not advisable if you care for your site's reputation.
Buying PageRank-passing links or randomly exchanging links are the worst ways of attempting to gather links and they're likely to have no positive impact on your site's performance over time.
If your site's visibility in the Google index is important to you it's best to avoid them!

Google's official statement confirms the strategies that are used by our popular SEO tool IBP. If you need quality links or if your want to get high rankings for your website, test the demo version now.
IBP offers tools that help you to get quality links, it helps you to get your website on the first result page, it tracks your rankings and more.
Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com
2. Search engine news and articles of the week

Discussion: another Google algorithm update?

"Since June 2nd, I have dropped 80% or more of the google referred traffic to this rather small site (-300 pages) and now when I look at the serp pages, I see top result pages with, literally, 8-10 ad blocks per page. [...]
What I've been calling mini-spam is creeping up everywhere too. Mini-spam is subtle and hard to detect but it's on the increase too. Things like a trustworthy news site offering links to their latest stories are seeing changes where those links now lead to a search results page with that story up top forcing a second click."

"Google gave an update of its rich snippets initiative - which adds extra information to Google search results. For example, showing restaurant review ratings. It's an experimental Semantic Web feature, but today's update shows that usage is increasing and Google wants to ramp it up significantly."
Editor's note: if you want Google to show rich snippets for your website, use this contact form.

Bing: From search engine to 'decision engine' in one year

"In the year since Microsoft rebranded Live Search and launched Bing, it has spent millions and millions of marketing and engineering dollars to set Bing apart from Google. Look at the numbers, and it seems to be working; the search engine gained back nearly 5 percent of the U.S. search market share in 12 short months. [...]
Bing is quickly retreating from the Google model of search to the Yahoo model of explore. Finally, Bing is living up to its slogan – that it's a 'decision engine.'"

Discussion: after a pause of some days, Google continues to crawl websites

"After weeks of very little spidering it appears that Google finally got hungry and is eating up pages like mad today. Showing over 6000 pages hit today. [...]
Basically a 100% increase in crawling in the last few days. However, the SERPs are actually showing outdated info, for example I changed a page title on Monday, by Tuesday the new title was in the SERPs and then Wednesday night it's back to the old title. Doesn't seem to matter which datacenter."

Search engine newslets
Bing: bringing timely data to a rich health search experience.Google AdWords Ad Sitelinks now available for any campaign.Google remotely removes Android apps after a possible bot net attack.Where Gmail is going.ComScore releases May 2010 U.S. online video rankings.Google is working on Google News spam.Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com
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