The Google cache was way behind on dates for a number of sites according to this Webmaster World.com post.
Google cache not up to date?
It seems to be back on track now with major sites now reporting current dates. One poster even jokes that perhaps Google ran out of room.
A must read interview regarding search rankings and how links impact you. If you can only read one online marketing article today, this is the one. Read it, think about it, put it into action.
Lively lets you create a virtual 3-D world where others can chat with you and even help you create your 3-D world. This is so ‘98. In computer terms, that’s ancient. You can add a virtual room to your site hoping others stop by to chat. Personally I’ve got better things to do, but perhaps it may be a needed feature for certain sites. Perhaps it’s time for something retro that wastes even more time. Naw….
Yahoo! announced an update for their search index. There isn’t much buzz about it in the forums. Perhaps there isn’t much of a change, or no one cares about Yahoo!. Perhaps it’s because everytime they update they seem to totally screw it up and end up hitting the undo key.
Yahoo! Search Blog: Weather Report: Yahoo! Search Index Update
Happy fourth of July. Check out the search engine logos for today’s celebration!
MSN some very basic fireworks in their logo.
And Ask with a nice of one of our founding documents.
Dogpile disappointed us with nothing special today.
Happy fourth!!!
If you try to go to the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool, you won’t get it. Instead you get a permanent redirect to Advertising Your Business with Yahoo! Search Marketing. It wasn’t without warning. The tool has been off and on again for some time.
Some cool apps for Google are coming. Google has finally released an API for Google Webmaster Tools. This has been long awaited and we look forward to how people use this to everyone’s advantage. The tools are limited at the moment, but we look forward to Google expanding the API.
Developer’s Guide - Google Webmaster Tools API - Google Code
Yes, if your robots.txt file is unreachable, you may not be in Google. I have seen it happen and here’s a discussion on Google Groups about that very topic. Make certain you have a robots.txt file and that it’s reachable by the outside world.
Searchviews has an article that reinforces warning signs from SEO hustlers. While the weekly meetings recommendation is overkill for small and even most medium size customers, the warning signs portion of the article is good old news worth repeating.
In general, if they offer guarantees, run. Silly to be in a business where the only guarantee you can offer is that you’ll do everything realistic to help a business, but this is marketing.
Occasionally Google emails me a message stating that certain customer accounts need attention. I appreciate being kept informed of changes that I should make to customers for whom I manage PPC campaigns for, but I’ve always been suspicious of the ones that want me to increase the daily budget. Here’s one that really got my attention.
This campaign met its daily budget of USD $15.00 on 14 of the last 15
days. Increasing the budget to USD $13.09 would allow the ads to show
more often and get approximately 31% more clicks per month.
Of course it’s hard to increase a budget when the increase is lower than the current amount. If you receive messages like this for your PPC campaigns, do your homework. Don’t just increase your spend. Examine your bids and phrases. See how your ads are performing. Make the dogs inactive and experiment a bit before parting with hard earned cash. Obviously their formula is flawed so use some common sense.
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