Lost a lot of traffic from Google recently? Slipping in the SERPs? You've heard of the Google Bomb, Google Whacking, the Google Dance and Googlisms, but there's a new Google-word you might be interested in if you're losing your Google Juice. What is this new term? I call it 302 Googlejacking. The problem seems to have been around since at least August 2003, and is commonly known as the Google 302 Pagejacking issue. To be fair, it has affected other search engines as well.
If you're curious, there are some things you can check that will show whether or not you've been afflicted by what some people call a bug at Google. (Who knows, maybe it's just a 'feature' we don't understand. ;) Also included are some side notes on the 1969 cache bug/feature that might be related, Google Update Allegra, a poll on the big three and more. If you're into SEO, read on.
Googlejack Test
Type the following into the nearest Google searchbox:
all inurl:yourdomain.com
Look through the results. If you see a Title and Description that are identical to your site with the URL for another site underneath it, you may have been pagejacked, or as I say it, Googlejacked.
Technical Details:
Two primary types of redirects are used on the web - 301's and 302's. A 301 redirect means 'moved permanently.' This is the type of redirect you should use most of the time if you care about search engines. The other type, a 302 redirect, basically means 'moved temporarily.' When someone redirects to your site using the 302 method, Google seems to be associating their website (i.e. their URL) with your page (i.e. your CONTENT.)
If you want to read more, please, visit the original source at kuro5hin.
Article By kpaul
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Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Google Allegra
Word has it Google's dancin again and the latest Google update is dubbed Allegra. I don't follow how / why these updates are given their names but so far it's looking decent. I've received complaints that folks sites have disappeared and others have increased in the rankings but that's nothing out of the norm. As I dig into the changes I'll provide insight.
Some rumors include an emphasis on GeoLocation with regards to sites and this would fit into the Local tab being moved to the Google homepage but right now it's just speculation.
Here's another good article on the Google Allegra update . They think they've already found a spam trick that's gaining ground called 302 hijacking. Basically, you 302 a url to someone else's url and you begin to rank well for their keywords. I think this will get fixed next month but we'll see.
Posted by: Jason Dowdell 7:30 AM
Permanent Link: Google Allegra Update
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Thursday, February 17, 2005
Google's Giant Sandbox
What is the Sandbox?
Before we get too far into an explanation as to what Google's sandbox is, it must be noted that not everyone even agrees that the sandbox exists. The sandbox is actually nothing more than a theory developed to explain what many different SEO experts have witnessed with their listings. Whether or not the sandbox really exists is actually irrelevant when we know that the effects of the sandbox exist.
Google's sandbox is a relatively new filter that appeared to be put in place back in March of 2004. This happened after the widely publicized updates of Austin and Florida, and the implementation of what is known as the Austin update. If you are not sure what those are, there is no need to worry as those updates are for the most part in the past. The sandbox filter seems to affect nearly all new websites placing them on an initial "probation" status. The effect of this is that new websites may get into Google's SERP's (search engine results pages) relatively quickly and may even perform well for a couple of weeks. When the filter is applied to the new website it is referred to as being put in the "sandbox". The new website still appears in the result pages, but it does not rank well regardless of how much original, well optimized content it has and regardless of how many quality inbound links it may have. The filter keeps new websites from having immediate success in the search engine result pages.
The sandbox filter seems to affect almost all new websites, with very few exceptions. It is important to note that the filter is not a punishment for anything a webmaster does with a new website. The filter is merely an initiation period for new websites.
The sandbox filter also affects competitive keyword driven sites more than sites that key in on less competitive keywords. If your website focuses on very competitive keywords, you are likely to remain in the sandbox for a longer period of time than if you focus on keywords that are relatively non-competitive.
Why Does the Sandbox Exist?
There is a lot of debate as to whether the sandbox filter is a good thing for Google to implement or not. Obviously webmasters who are trying to get their sites well positioned in Google do not like the sandbox filter as it prevents them from receiving the huge levels of traffïc that a top listing in Google can bring. The filter was not implemented at random, however, and there are some good reasons for the filter's existence.
As the SEO community figured out the basic elements of Google's ranking algorithm, inbound links, original content rich with keywords, and the proper use of anchor text, search engine spammers began to take advantage of these elements, setting up websites that were in clear violation of Google's policies with the knowledge that eventually those websites would be banned. This, however, did not matter. If a search engine spammer got a website to rank well in Google for even one month, the profïts justified the cost of building the site in the first place. All that needed to be done in the future was to rebuild the sp@m websites with different domains and slightly different content. The idea for spammers was a simple one - capitalize on Google's traffïc for as long as possible (before being banned), then do it all over again with a new website. The method was extremely effective and easy to implement.
What made this all the more easy to accomplish was Google's extremely fast indexing. While other search engines would take several months to index a new website, Google could index a website in as little as one month (sites are currently being indexed within a few days). Search engine spammers were living large off of Google's generosity.
To solve this problem, Google determined that it would compromise by continuing to index websites quickly, attempting to get as much new, fresh content out to the general public as possible, but new websites would not be trusted as implicitly as they had been in the past. Instead, all new websites would be put on probation. As time passed, and a website continued to pass any sp@m filters, it would begin to perform well in the rankings. Eventually, the site would be allowed to "leave" the sandbox and join the rest of the established websites.
How Does This Affect My Website?
If you have a new website, there is a good chance that you will be placed in the sandbox. This should be expected, but it should not change the way you build your website or market it. You should use the sandbox filter to your advantage.
Google still ranks websites in much the same way that it did in the past. Websites are judged on the quality of their inbound links and the quality of their content. Google will continue to change how they evaluate inbound links and content, but the basic elements of ranking will remain the same.
While your website is in the sandbox, you should use the time to build your traffïc using regular traffïc building methods such as writing articles, building a strong community of visitors, and partnering with websites that offer some synergy to your visitors. During this probationary time, you have an excellent opportunïty to build all the elements that cause websites to perform well in the search engines. When your site finally does leave the sandbox, it should be very well positioned within Google.
Is My Website in the Sandbox?
When webmasters learn about the sandbox filter, their first question is always whether or not their websites have been placed in it. Determining whether or not you are in the sandbox is relatively easy.
First, being placed in the sandbox is different than having your website banned. If you do a search for your domain in Google and it returns zero results for your website (and you had been previously listed in Google), there is a chance that you have been banned. One of the best ways to determine if you have been banned is to look at your log files to see if Google is visiting your website. Banned websites typically do not receive Google visits, regardless of who is linking to them.
If you have not been banned, but do not rank well with Google, you should look at the quality of your content and the quality of your inbound links. You should also see if you rank well for non-competitive keywords. Remember how the filter affects competitive keywords more than less competitive keywords? Well, you can use this to determine if you have been sandboxed. Finally, if you rank well in all the other major search engines, but do not show up at all in Google's rankings, you have probably been sandboxed.
Is There A Way to Get Out of the Sandbox?
The quick answer to this is yes, there is a way out of the sandbox, but you will not like the answer. The answer is to simply wait. The sandbox filter is not a permanent filter and is only intended to reduce search engine sp@m. It is not intended to hold people back from succeeding. So eventually, if you continue to build your site as it should be built, you will leave the sandbox and join the other established websites.
Again, if your website has been placed in the sandbox you should use this time to your advantage. It is a great opportunïty to build your traffïc sources outside of the search engines. If you have a website that does well in the search engines, you may be tempted to ignore other proven methods of traffïc building such as building a community, or building strong inbound links through partnerships. However, if you establish traffïc sources outside of search engines, when you finally leave the sandbox, you will see a welcome increase in your traffïc levels.
Conclusion
Google has been going to great lengths to reduce search engine sp@m. Some have faulted Google for this, claiming that legitïmate sites are being affected as well as the sp@m websites. While this is probably the case, as an owner of a website, you need to place yourself in Google's position and ask yourself what it is really looking for in a website. Google is looking for websites that offer quality content and still relies on the natural voting system that was first used to establish pagerank. Google may change the way it qualifies content or inbound links, but the basic elements of a quality website will always remain the same.
No website owner in his right mind "likes" Google's sandbox. However, a smart website owner will use the sandbox as an opportunïty to build a website that Google simply cannot reject.
About The AuthorMark Daoust is the owner of Site-Reference.com. This article originally appeared at http://www.site-reference.com/Search-Engines/5147/index.html.
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Before we get too far into an explanation as to what Google's sandbox is, it must be noted that not everyone even agrees that the sandbox exists. The sandbox is actually nothing more than a theory developed to explain what many different SEO experts have witnessed with their listings. Whether or not the sandbox really exists is actually irrelevant when we know that the effects of the sandbox exist.
Google's sandbox is a relatively new filter that appeared to be put in place back in March of 2004. This happened after the widely publicized updates of Austin and Florida, and the implementation of what is known as the Austin update. If you are not sure what those are, there is no need to worry as those updates are for the most part in the past. The sandbox filter seems to affect nearly all new websites placing them on an initial "probation" status. The effect of this is that new websites may get into Google's SERP's (search engine results pages) relatively quickly and may even perform well for a couple of weeks. When the filter is applied to the new website it is referred to as being put in the "sandbox". The new website still appears in the result pages, but it does not rank well regardless of how much original, well optimized content it has and regardless of how many quality inbound links it may have. The filter keeps new websites from having immediate success in the search engine result pages.
The sandbox filter seems to affect almost all new websites, with very few exceptions. It is important to note that the filter is not a punishment for anything a webmaster does with a new website. The filter is merely an initiation period for new websites.
The sandbox filter also affects competitive keyword driven sites more than sites that key in on less competitive keywords. If your website focuses on very competitive keywords, you are likely to remain in the sandbox for a longer period of time than if you focus on keywords that are relatively non-competitive.
Why Does the Sandbox Exist?
There is a lot of debate as to whether the sandbox filter is a good thing for Google to implement or not. Obviously webmasters who are trying to get their sites well positioned in Google do not like the sandbox filter as it prevents them from receiving the huge levels of traffïc that a top listing in Google can bring. The filter was not implemented at random, however, and there are some good reasons for the filter's existence.
As the SEO community figured out the basic elements of Google's ranking algorithm, inbound links, original content rich with keywords, and the proper use of anchor text, search engine spammers began to take advantage of these elements, setting up websites that were in clear violation of Google's policies with the knowledge that eventually those websites would be banned. This, however, did not matter. If a search engine spammer got a website to rank well in Google for even one month, the profïts justified the cost of building the site in the first place. All that needed to be done in the future was to rebuild the sp@m websites with different domains and slightly different content. The idea for spammers was a simple one - capitalize on Google's traffïc for as long as possible (before being banned), then do it all over again with a new website. The method was extremely effective and easy to implement.
What made this all the more easy to accomplish was Google's extremely fast indexing. While other search engines would take several months to index a new website, Google could index a website in as little as one month (sites are currently being indexed within a few days). Search engine spammers were living large off of Google's generosity.
To solve this problem, Google determined that it would compromise by continuing to index websites quickly, attempting to get as much new, fresh content out to the general public as possible, but new websites would not be trusted as implicitly as they had been in the past. Instead, all new websites would be put on probation. As time passed, and a website continued to pass any sp@m filters, it would begin to perform well in the rankings. Eventually, the site would be allowed to "leave" the sandbox and join the rest of the established websites.
How Does This Affect My Website?
If you have a new website, there is a good chance that you will be placed in the sandbox. This should be expected, but it should not change the way you build your website or market it. You should use the sandbox filter to your advantage.
Google still ranks websites in much the same way that it did in the past. Websites are judged on the quality of their inbound links and the quality of their content. Google will continue to change how they evaluate inbound links and content, but the basic elements of ranking will remain the same.
While your website is in the sandbox, you should use the time to build your traffïc using regular traffïc building methods such as writing articles, building a strong community of visitors, and partnering with websites that offer some synergy to your visitors. During this probationary time, you have an excellent opportunïty to build all the elements that cause websites to perform well in the search engines. When your site finally does leave the sandbox, it should be very well positioned within Google.
Is My Website in the Sandbox?
When webmasters learn about the sandbox filter, their first question is always whether or not their websites have been placed in it. Determining whether or not you are in the sandbox is relatively easy.
First, being placed in the sandbox is different than having your website banned. If you do a search for your domain in Google and it returns zero results for your website (and you had been previously listed in Google), there is a chance that you have been banned. One of the best ways to determine if you have been banned is to look at your log files to see if Google is visiting your website. Banned websites typically do not receive Google visits, regardless of who is linking to them.
If you have not been banned, but do not rank well with Google, you should look at the quality of your content and the quality of your inbound links. You should also see if you rank well for non-competitive keywords. Remember how the filter affects competitive keywords more than less competitive keywords? Well, you can use this to determine if you have been sandboxed. Finally, if you rank well in all the other major search engines, but do not show up at all in Google's rankings, you have probably been sandboxed.
Is There A Way to Get Out of the Sandbox?
The quick answer to this is yes, there is a way out of the sandbox, but you will not like the answer. The answer is to simply wait. The sandbox filter is not a permanent filter and is only intended to reduce search engine sp@m. It is not intended to hold people back from succeeding. So eventually, if you continue to build your site as it should be built, you will leave the sandbox and join the other established websites.
Again, if your website has been placed in the sandbox you should use this time to your advantage. It is a great opportunïty to build your traffïc sources outside of the search engines. If you have a website that does well in the search engines, you may be tempted to ignore other proven methods of traffïc building such as building a community, or building strong inbound links through partnerships. However, if you establish traffïc sources outside of search engines, when you finally leave the sandbox, you will see a welcome increase in your traffïc levels.
Conclusion
Google has been going to great lengths to reduce search engine sp@m. Some have faulted Google for this, claiming that legitïmate sites are being affected as well as the sp@m websites. While this is probably the case, as an owner of a website, you need to place yourself in Google's position and ask yourself what it is really looking for in a website. Google is looking for websites that offer quality content and still relies on the natural voting system that was first used to establish pagerank. Google may change the way it qualifies content or inbound links, but the basic elements of a quality website will always remain the same.
No website owner in his right mind "likes" Google's sandbox. However, a smart website owner will use the sandbox as an opportunïty to build a website that Google simply cannot reject.
About The AuthorMark Daoust is the owner of Site-Reference.com. This article originally appeared at http://www.site-reference.com/Search-Engines/5147/index.html.
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Wednesday, February 16, 2005
MSN Search Official Launch
Without fireworks, with a simple few lines communicate on their Blog, Microsoft guys have officially announced the launch of their neww MSN search engine, which, consequentially, is not in beta anymore. As forecasted earlier last month on this blog, this happens in February, just a few weeks after their beta rump-up announcement.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Do reciprocal links still work?
Rumor has it that reciprocal links are not as effective as one way links. Some people in online discussion forums claim that one way links from a web site to another site work far better than reciprocal links. Is this true and what do you have to do about this?
What are one way links? What are reciprocal links?
If you link to another web site and the other web site links back to you, it's a reciprocal link. If you link to another web site and the other web site doesn't link back to your site, it's a one way link.
Why are links to your web site important?
Links to your web site improve the link popularity of your web site. If your web site has good incoming links, the ranking of your web pages will increase on major search engines.
Google has an official statement about this topic:
Basically, this means that your web site will get better rankings if many other web sites that are related to your own web site link to your site.
So are one way links really better than reciprocal links?
No, reciprocal links and one way links work just the same. The reason why some people think that reciprocal links don't work is that many webmasters who engage in reciprocal linking don't care about theming but only about the number of links. One way links are usually from topic-related sites.
If you link to any Tom, Dick and Harry you'll end up with a links page full of unrelated web sites. The jumble of links on the page is the reason why the links don't have power, not the fact that you're linking back to the site.
What do you have to do now?
Just go back to the original concept of reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is about building partnerships with related web sites and about spreading your reach within a specific industry or topic.
When you build links for your web site, concentrate on other sites that have a similar theme like your web site. Links from related web sites will have a positive effect on your ranking, no matter if these links are one way links or reciprocal links.
Building high quality reciprocal links is one of the best ways to promote your business on the Internet. Focus on web sites that are related to your own web site and try to get links from these web sites. Axandra software tool ARELIS can help you to find these web sites.
By the way, don't focus too much on the green PageRank bar in the Google toolbar. Although Google uses PageRank for its ranking algorithm, it's very likely that the official PageRank of a web site that is displayed in the Google toolbar is not the real PageRank that Google uses for its ranking algorithm.
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What are one way links? What are reciprocal links?
If you link to another web site and the other web site links back to you, it's a reciprocal link. If you link to another web site and the other web site doesn't link back to your site, it's a one way link.
Why are links to your web site important?
Links to your web site improve the link popularity of your web site. If your web site has good incoming links, the ranking of your web pages will increase on major search engines.
Google has an official statement about this topic:
PageRank interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for Page B by Page A. PageRank then assesses a page's importance by the number of votes it receives.
PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value.
Important pages receive a higher PageRank and appear at the top of the search results. Google's technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page's importance.
Basically, this means that your web site will get better rankings if many other web sites that are related to your own web site link to your site.
So are one way links really better than reciprocal links?
No, reciprocal links and one way links work just the same. The reason why some people think that reciprocal links don't work is that many webmasters who engage in reciprocal linking don't care about theming but only about the number of links. One way links are usually from topic-related sites.
If you link to any Tom, Dick and Harry you'll end up with a links page full of unrelated web sites. The jumble of links on the page is the reason why the links don't have power, not the fact that you're linking back to the site.
What do you have to do now?
Just go back to the original concept of reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is about building partnerships with related web sites and about spreading your reach within a specific industry or topic.
When you build links for your web site, concentrate on other sites that have a similar theme like your web site. Links from related web sites will have a positive effect on your ranking, no matter if these links are one way links or reciprocal links.
Building high quality reciprocal links is one of the best ways to promote your business on the Internet. Focus on web sites that are related to your own web site and try to get links from these web sites. Axandra software tool ARELIS can help you to find these web sites.
By the way, don't focus too much on the green PageRank bar in the Google toolbar. Although Google uses PageRank for its ranking algorithm, it's very likely that the official PageRank of a web site that is displayed in the Google toolbar is not the real PageRank that Google uses for its ranking algorithm.
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Sunday, January 23, 2005
Search Engines, Blogs: "rel=nofollow" !
From the MSN blog, a couple of days ago:
What a brilliant idea! Now the thousands of blog contributors that honestly comment on someone else's blog are considered spammers exactly like those few ones that spammers are indeed: spammers win again, legitimate contributors lose again.
Spam-fear is the new Internet drug and unfortunately the spammers are its pusher and the internet community is addicted. After terrific email spam filters that think that an email from your mom is spam just because she asks you to call her, and so you will never read it, because it's directly moved into the trash-can, now the "engeniuos" rel=follow attribute will keep all the legitimate commenters away from the blogs and will encourage the spammers to spam even more.
Why should i give my contribution to a competititor blog if all i get back is:"you are a spammer, because you are commenting my blog"?
You spam-crusaders are ridiculous: you are destroying the spirit of the Internet! You don't want spam on your comments? MODERATE THEM, you lazy! That maybe MSN or Google or Yahoo do not have enough money to pay an employee to moderate a blog with 300 (!!!) comments per days? That maybe the small blog owner gets hundreds of comments per day on his blog?? Come on guys, if you cannot moderate 10 comments per days or in the 90% of cases even a couple of comments per week, stop blogging and go for a holiday!
Moderation is the ONLY way to fight spam and to not penalize the honests: spammers have their own blacklist of sites being difficult to be spammed; start moderating and you will see that spammers will stay away from your site. The rel=nofollow attribute is just rubbish and it will be a catastrophe, you will see. And especially giants like Microsoft will not be immune from this catastrophe.
Imagine the huge community hating Microsoft and going to spam thousands of blogs (and not only) with links back to Microsoft with the attribute rel=nofollow. Or imagine this scenario: all the 581,000 sites linking back to Yahoo decide to boycott Yahoo's express inclusion policy and put a rel=nofollow attribute on their links to Yahoo; the results would theoretically be that Yahoo does not have any site linking back to them, officially.
Unfortunately, i suspect that Google MSN and Yahoo would implement this new filter on their algorythms with an exception: links to Google, MSN and Yahoo sites would be immune from the rel=nofollow attribute. They win, spammers win, we lose.
Here we will not implement this ridiculous idea, and we will check all the links in the comments for being sure to delete the rel=nofollow attribute so, spammers, you are welcome to come and try to spam this blog. We will moderate, and if your link it is not approriate or related to the topic, your comment will be simply deleted...in the name of the only possible crusade against spam: (rel=nofollow)=NOFOLLOW!
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...Paul told me that Google is planning on announcing support for a <rel=”nofollow”> tag on individual <A> links. Any link with this tag will indicate to a crawler it is not necessarily approved by this page and shouldn’t be followed nor contribute weight for ranking. Our Search Champs suggested this and it has been a part of our plans since, we think it’s a great idea.
I quickly circulated this around our hallway and also to the MSN Spaces team – and we got quick agreement from both teams. Over the coming weeks, our MSNBot crawler will start respecting this new tag, and sometime after that MSN Spaces will start to support this as well (I expect Mike Torres and MC will have more details – the team has already made investments to help prevent blog spam to begin with). Cheers to Yahoo! and Six Apart for also supporting this movement....
What a brilliant idea! Now the thousands of blog contributors that honestly comment on someone else's blog are considered spammers exactly like those few ones that spammers are indeed: spammers win again, legitimate contributors lose again.
Spam-fear is the new Internet drug and unfortunately the spammers are its pusher and the internet community is addicted. After terrific email spam filters that think that an email from your mom is spam just because she asks you to call her, and so you will never read it, because it's directly moved into the trash-can, now the "engeniuos" rel=follow attribute will keep all the legitimate commenters away from the blogs and will encourage the spammers to spam even more.
Why should i give my contribution to a competititor blog if all i get back is:"you are a spammer, because you are commenting my blog"?
You spam-crusaders are ridiculous: you are destroying the spirit of the Internet! You don't want spam on your comments? MODERATE THEM, you lazy! That maybe MSN or Google or Yahoo do not have enough money to pay an employee to moderate a blog with 300 (!!!) comments per days? That maybe the small blog owner gets hundreds of comments per day on his blog?? Come on guys, if you cannot moderate 10 comments per days or in the 90% of cases even a couple of comments per week, stop blogging and go for a holiday!
Moderation is the ONLY way to fight spam and to not penalize the honests: spammers have their own blacklist of sites being difficult to be spammed; start moderating and you will see that spammers will stay away from your site. The rel=nofollow attribute is just rubbish and it will be a catastrophe, you will see. And especially giants like Microsoft will not be immune from this catastrophe.
Imagine the huge community hating Microsoft and going to spam thousands of blogs (and not only) with links back to Microsoft with the attribute rel=nofollow. Or imagine this scenario: all the 581,000 sites linking back to Yahoo decide to boycott Yahoo's express inclusion policy and put a rel=nofollow attribute on their links to Yahoo; the results would theoretically be that Yahoo does not have any site linking back to them, officially.
Unfortunately, i suspect that Google MSN and Yahoo would implement this new filter on their algorythms with an exception: links to Google, MSN and Yahoo sites would be immune from the rel=nofollow attribute. They win, spammers win, we lose.
Here we will not implement this ridiculous idea, and we will check all the links in the comments for being sure to delete the rel=nofollow attribute so, spammers, you are welcome to come and try to spam this blog. We will moderate, and if your link it is not approriate or related to the topic, your comment will be simply deleted...in the name of the only possible crusade against spam: (rel=nofollow)=NOFOLLOW!
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Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Msn Search Beta Moves to Regular Msn Search
As anticipated a few days ago, Microsoft have moved one step further, with its new search engine. The new MSN search, in fact, is still in beta, officially, but now it's the only searchable engine at MSN. If you make a search at MSN.com for turnkey websites you get the results directly from the beta search engine. This means that Microsoft is now delivering all the regular MSN search engine traffic to its new beta search engine. So, great news for those of you (and of us ;-) ) that have made SEO for the new MSN search engine: it's harvest time!
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Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Microsoft's Beta at search.msn.com Rump-up
From the Microsoft Blog we have got to know these great news:
This is going to be really great news, especially for those who practice ethical SEO: the new MSN Search Engine returns really relevant results and it doesen't seem to be foolished by aggressive SEO operators like it happens to Google and Yahoo.
As i have said a few weeks ago, when i predicted that something would have started happening very early this year, once again i forecast for the new MSN search engine to come out completely from its beta status by the end of February or beginning of March, if not before. Let's wait and see.
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"As you know we have been testing the beta of our new search service on an opt-in basis for several months now. From time to time we also route some of the customers from our live search service at search.msn.com through the Beta web site in order to do scalability testing. Next week we intend to begin turning up the dial and direct more of our users to the Beta. You’ll continue to see us doing this on occasion for the forseeable future. As before, the service remains in beta status and we will officially launch it when it’s ready. "
Oshoma Momoh,
General Manager, MSN Search Program Management
This is going to be really great news, especially for those who practice ethical SEO: the new MSN Search Engine returns really relevant results and it doesen't seem to be foolished by aggressive SEO operators like it happens to Google and Yahoo.
As i have said a few weeks ago, when i predicted that something would have started happening very early this year, once again i forecast for the new MSN search engine to come out completely from its beta status by the end of February or beginning of March, if not before. Let's wait and see.
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MultiCameraFrame?Mode=
"Blogs and message forums buzzed this week with the discovery that a pair of simple Google searches permits access to well over 1,000 unprotected surveillance cameras around the world - apparently without their owners' knowledge."
Editor's note: These cams can be found by searching for inurl:"MultiCameraFrame?Mode=" or inurl:"view/index.shtml" on Google.
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Editor's note: These cams can be found by searching for inurl:"MultiCameraFrame?Mode=" or inurl:"view/index.shtml" on Google.
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Tuesday, January 04, 2005
How To Determine If Your Site Is Banned In Google
Step 1: Check log files or Web analytics reports for search engine activity.
Instead of relying on positioning software to determine whether or not a site is banned in Google, review your log files or Web analytics reports to see if Googlebot is actually crawling your site. Staff with advanced technical skills can review log files; less technical staff can review Web analytics reports. If you notice a significant drop in Google crawling, it can mean one of two things:
Instead of relying on positioning software to determine whether or not a site is banned in Google, review your log files or Web analytics reports to see if Googlebot is actually crawling your site. Staff with advanced technical skills can review log files; less technical staff can review Web analytics reports. If you notice a significant drop in Google crawling, it can mean one of two things:
- Site has been banned, or
- Google has difficulty crawling your site due to technical reasons.
Step 2: Check index count.
A site's index count is the number of pages that are included in a search engine index. A page cannot rank unless it is included in the search engine index. One way to check the index count in Google is to perform the following search: site:yourdomain.com yourdomain.com If your site is included in the Google index, it has not been banned. However, if your site has an index count of zero, it is a strong indication that your site might be banned.
Step 3: Check link count.
A site's link count is the number and quality of links pointing to a Web site. Link development is actually a more complex process than it seems. But for the purposes of this process, all we are concerned with is the actual number of links to your site that Google can find. Whenever you do a link count on Google, remember that it is done on a per URL basis. In other words, you will have a link count number to your home page, a different link count number to an individual category page, and so on and so forth. Since most sites tend to have the highest link count to their home pages, then getting a home-page link count is probably all you will need to do. In Google, getting a link count is very simple: link:www.yourdomain.com If there are links to your site in the Google index, your site has not been banned. However, if your site has a link count of zero, it is a very strong indication that your site might be banned.
Step 4: Review and fix possible technical issues.
If your site's index count is low and Google is finding links to your site, then the site might not be banned. Google might have a difficult time crawling your site due to technical issues. Items to review include: · URL structure · Robots exclusion protocol · Server redirects which are improperly formatted · Site navigation scheme(s) · Poor cross-linking · Password protection Technical issues often arise after a site redesign and server changes. For those of you about to redesign your site, especially if you are going from a static to a database-driven site, make sure you bring in a professional search engine marketer early in the design process to ensure that your design/development team isn't doing something to prevent the search engines from crawling your site. Also, Google has technical issues from time to time. I call it a search engine hiccup. Usually, the technical glitch is resolved within a month.
Step 5: Resubmit and monitor.
After fixing all possible technical issues, resubmit your site to Google at http://www.google.com/intl/en/addurl.html. I generally submit the home page and site map (as a back-up). Google should be able to crawl your entire site from your home page. You don't have to resubmit your site to be included in the Google index if Google were able to find high-quality links to your site. People just like the security of being able to submit. After resubmission, review your log files and Web analytics reports. You should see more Google activity once technical issues are fixed. However, if you see little or no Google activity, then it is a very strong indication that your site has been banned.
Step 6: Review spam penalty checklist.
To review, your site has probably been banned in Google if you see the following:
- Log files/Web analytics reports indicate that Google is no longer crawling your site.
- Index count is zero.
- Link count is zero.
- No technical issues exist that prevent Google from crawling your site.
Step 7: Review Google guidelines, terms, and conditions.
If Google has penalized your site, you will have to change everything that violates their terms and conditions. You can review their Webmaster Guidelines at http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/guidelines.html and general Webmaster Info at http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/. All too often, unsuspecting Web site owners have hired a search engine marketing firm that spams the search engines. With Google, it is common to find free-for-all link farms, doorway pages and domains, and cloaking. In order to get your site unbanned, you will have to find the exact issue (or issues) that violates Google's terms and conditions. You will have to send this information in an email to Google when you ask to be let back into their index.
Step 8: Email Google, resubmit, and monitor.
For the sake of this article, let's assume that the spam problem is a doorway domain that gets link popularity through a link farm. When you send an email to Google at help@google.com, make sure you include the following information in the email:
- The domain that you believe has been banned.
- All of the contact information of the person in charge of that domain.
- The reasons why you believe the domain has been banned. (Hint: show Google that you've read their terms and guidelines).
- What you have done, specifically, to change your site.
- If you hired a search engine marketing (SEM) firm, then you need to give them the name and URLs of the SEM firm, the URLs of the doorway pages, and at least a couple of links to the FFA link farm.
- An apology and a promise that it won't happen again.
In general, a Google software engineer will not directly reply to your request for re-inclusion. You will know if your site has been accepted back into the Google index by reviewing your log files and Web analytics software for Google activity.
Conclusion:
It must be rough to suddenly lose Google traffic after three years of search engine visibility. Maybe it was a Google hiccup. Maybe the site was redesigned. Maybe the competition has better quality content and better link development. Or maybe the Web site owner hired an SEM firm that spammed the search engines. Hopefully, this 8-step process will help readers get on the right track.
Related links:
- Disabling Google and Other Search Engines from Crawling a Site
- The Myth of Permanent Search Engine Positions
- URL Structure and Search Engine Optimization
- Getting Your Web Site Listed in the Google Index
About the Author:
Shari Thurow is Marketing Director at Grantastic Designs, Inc., a full-service search engine marketing, web and graphic design firm. This article is excerpted from her book, Search Engine Visibility (http://www.searchenginesbook.com/) published in January 2003 by New Riders Publishing Co. Shari can be reached at shari@grantasticdesigns.com.
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