The Winners And Losers Of Google's Freshness Algorithm Update!

Google rolled out a freshness update in its Caffeine algorithm, that impacted 35% of the searches made. Now, SearchMetrics has compiled a list of the biggest losers and winners post the update. Most sites that have benefited from the update are major brands and a variety of news sites. News sites is not a surprise as the update was aimed at rewarding fresh content, the fresher the better.

SearchMetrics has used a “visibility score” that’s based on analyzing millions of keywords to get to the results. The winners are losers are decided on this score only and not on loss or gain in traffic.

The Winners Of Freshness Algorithm:

The clear winners are news sites as was expected, since they are constantly updated with fresh content. Celebrity news and gossip sites have done well for themselves too. Brands like Coke have also gained better visibility. The surprise winners include travel-related brands like Hotels.com, SouthwestVacations.com, and pizza sites like Dominos.com.

The Losers Of Freshness Algorithm:

The losers also includes various types of sites, some of them being the winners type, as in news sites. Independent.co.uk is a news site that has been hit, along with several government sites- CPSC.gov etc.

Ironically, Google's update has hit its own site- Blogger.com.

This update aimed at fresher content was supposed to impact 35% searches, and Google thinks this move will give the users access to really fresh content.

Was your site affected? Do share your views.

Resource: www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/winners-losers-googles-freshness-algorithm-update/12332

Google Webmaster Tools Launches New Message Alert For Duplicate Content!

Google Webmaster Tools has launched a new message alert that will inform the webmasters whenever a particular URL is seen by Google as a duplicate of another domain's URL, and consequently doesn’t appear in search results.

How Google Identifies Duplicate Content:

Google recently introduced the Webmaster Tools alert feature and also threw light on the way, Google identifies duplicate content cluster and then selects a canonical version of the cluster to display as a part of search results.

Google is quoted on this matter as, “When we discover a group of pages with duplicate content, Google uses algorithms to select one representative URL for that content. A group of pages may contain URLs from the same site or from different sites. When the representative URL is selected from a group with different sites the selection is called a cross-domain URL selection.”

Google says that Webmasters mostly use rel=''canonical'' elements or 301 redirects to indicate the preferred URL to Google, and that is why the choice made by the algorithms are guided by the webmaster’s intent. Like in the case of multiple URLs having the same content (the reasons may be infrastructure configuration, optional parameters, or internationalization), the webmasters can use the aforementioned options to indicate to Google which version is canonical.

But, if these preferences are not defined, or if Google selects a different version than the site owner specified, then this alert comes into play. This new feature alerts site owners when Google algorithms select an external URL rather than one from their own website. As Google says, “To be transparent about cross-domain URL selection decisions, we’re launching new Webmaster Tools messages that will attempt to notify webmasters when our algorithms select an external URL instead of one from their website.”

Why Google Makes The Cross Domain URL Selections:

In the case that webmasters specified a URL, and still a cross domain URL was selected, Google has pointed out to these common reasons:

• Regional sites- Duplicate content on multiple regional sites is a common cause. Same content for a .com or a .ca site. In this case Google may will bring together the pages with duplicate content and will display the pages according to their relevance to the query.
• Incorrect canonicalization- If the webmasters have misconfigured the usage of canonicalization techniques, and have pointed to URLs on an external website, then Google's algorithms may select the external URLs. The same is the case with misconfigured content management systems or CMS plugins installed by the webmaster.
• Misconfigured server- In the case of shared hosting, a hosting misconfiguration can lead to duplicate content being displayed across two different domains.
• Hacked site- If a site is hacked, then a code is introduced that leads to unwanted canonicalization. For instance, a malicious code may lead the website to return an HTTP 301 redirect .

Another situation, where Google may select an incorrect URL is, when it displays a site that has scraped content from your site. In this case webmasters may complain too, as Google is quotes, “If you believe that another site is duplicating your content in violation of copyright law, you may contact the site’s host to request removal. In addition, you can request that Google remove the infringing page from our search results by filing a request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.”

When And Where Will You Get The Alert :

Google has specified that this alert will be available to the webmasters within the message center. Also, they will only see them if their site has duplicate content issue, and that Google is currently only reporting on the URLs from the Top Pages report.

As a webmaster, do you think this alert will come in handy, to figure out why a certain page never shows up in search results? For further clarifications, you can refer to Google's in-depth help topic, and do leave your comments behind on this feature.

Source: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/google-webmaster-tools-launches-message-alert-duplicate-content/11960/

Google Search Now Indexing Facebook Comments!

This one is a big news- Google is now indexing AJAX and JavaScript content. This means that the text from comments on Facebook pages will now show up in Google search results.

What Is The Big News?

The comments made on blogs and sites via the Facebook comments box are now being indexed by the search engine. As reported by Digital Inspiration, the Googlebots can now crawl comments made on web pages and can now read Facebook comments, just like any other text on the page. And when a search is made about the text of the comments, they will show up in the search results. Now, your comments made on a site through Facebook, are searchable via Google. This indexing stands clear for other commenting engines written in JavaScript like- Disqus and Intense Debate.

For example, see this comment made on TechCrunch-

And now a Google search of the comment that came up with the commentator's named queried.

Why The SEOs Are Happy With The News?

This is a great news for SEOs as till now, Google bots were not able to pick up comments made via systems such as Disqus, Facebook Comments, and Intense Debate as they could not read text within iFrame coding. Consequently, the blog commenting done by SEOs did not give any search boosts to their websites. But now that Google has started indexing Facebook comments using Googlebots the text posted in those comment boxes will now be visible in Google search.

Google has confirmed the move. The head of Google’s Webspam team, Matt Cutts, sent out a Tweet and confirmed the news on Twitter:

“Googlebot keeps getting smarter. Now has the ability to execute AJAX/JS to index some dynamic comments.”

The news has spread like wildfire on the internet, and among internet marketers, and Google has been quoted as saying, "What you're seeing is a result of Google increasingly being able to crawl JavaScript and AJAX content. We have steadily been increasing our ability to index richer content such as JavaScript/AJAX. If users can see something in their browser, our goal is to be able to index that content irrespective of its language or format."

Now, commenting through third party engines will lead to SEO boost, as opposed to earlier when commenting engines like Disqus, Facebook or Intense Debate could not be crawled by the search bots. As a blog or website admin, these commenting platforms were quite convenient to enable commenting, and tackle spam. But they were useless for SEO purposes. However, now that Google bots can read AJAX and JavaScript, the comments and commentator's name are finding place in search results.

The Privacy Concern For The Common Users:

The delight of SEOs aside, Google indexing their comments may not seem that exciting to users. Most users guard their privacy against Google by upping their Facebook privacy on their profiles, but now, their names and comments will show up via Facebook Comments on blogs. This sort of backdoor entry for Google may not be appreciated by people.

People may not like their online commenting activities being indexed by Google and their names coming up in search results. What remains to be seen is how Facebook will react to this? What will it do to protect the users' privacy, is being watched by the industry experts now.

The Takeaway Tip For SEOs:

Now, Facebook Comments come in various formats like-XFBML and HTML5. After several tests, it has been observed that you must comment with the XFBML implementation, as it is what that is showing in search results.

Source: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/google-search-indexing-facebook-comments/11997/

Google Page Speed Online Comes Out Of Labs!

The wait is over as the Google Page Speed Online has finally come out in the open from the Google Labs. Now. You can get to know the speed of your site, by dropping it on the search bar given right at the center of the tool page.

Google Page Speed is an online tool that will let you know the load speed of your site on a scale of 1 to 100. That's not all, it will also give you suggestions about what needs to be done to improve the page loading speed.

As Google says, “Page Speed Online analyzes the content of a web page, then generates suggestions to make that page faster. Reducing page load times can reduce bounce rates and increase conversion rates.”

Why The Need Of Fast Loading Sites?

Site load time is one of the major factors in reducing visitor's bounce back rates. It is an essential part of the entire user experience of your site, and a slow site leads to poor user experience. So, probably Google wants you to speed things up in the interest of the users!

Try out the online tool, drop your URL in the box and see the results for your site. Make the changes and ensure better user experience. How did you find the tool, do share your views.

Source: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/google-page-speed-online-labs/11631