Google Data » Michael Wyszomierski https://googledata.org Everything Google: News, Products, Services, Content, Culture Fri, 03 Apr 2015 21:58:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 How to deal with planned site downtime https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/how-to-deal-with-planned-site-downtime/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/how-to-deal-with-planned-site-downtime/#comments Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:00:00 +0000 Webmaster level: Intermediate to Advanced

Once in a while we get asked whether a site’s visibility in Google’s search results can be impacted in a negative way if it’s unavailable when Googlebot tries to crawl it. Sometimes downtime is unavoidable: a webmaster might decide to take a site down due to ongoing site maintenance, or legal or cultural requirements. Outages that are not clearly marked as such can negatively affect a site’s reputation. While we cannot guarantee any crawling, indexing or ranking, there are methods to deal with planned website downtime in a way that will generally not negatively affect your site’s visibility in the search results.

For example, instead of returning an HTTP result code 404 (Not Found) or showing an error page with the status code 200 (OK) when a page is requested, it’s better to return a 503 HTTP result code (Service Unavailable) which tells search engine crawlers that the downtime is temporary. Moreover, it allows webmasters to provide visitors and bots with an estimated time when the site will be up and running again. If known, the length of the downtime in seconds or the estimated date and time when the downtime will be complete can be specified in an optional Retry-After header, which Googlebot may use to determine when to recrawl the URL.

Returning a 503 HTTP result code can be a great solution for a number of other situations. We encounter a lot of problems with sites that return 200 (OK) result codes for server errors, downtime, bandwidth-overruns or for temporary placeholder pages (“Under Construction”). The 503 HTTP result code is the webmaster’s solution of choice for all these situations. As for planned server downtime like hardware maintenance, it’s a good idea to have a separate
server available to actually return the 503 HTTP result code. It is important, however, to not treat 503 as a permanent solution: lasting 503s can eventually be seen as a sign that the server is now permanently unavailable and can result in us removing URLs from Google’s index.

header('HTTP/1.1 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable');
header('Retry-After: Sat, 8 Oct 2011 18:27:00 GMT');

If you set up a 503 (Service Unavailable) response, the header information might look like this when using PHP.
Similar to how you can make 404 pages more useful to users, it’s also a good idea to provide a customized 503 message explaining the situation to users and letting them know when the site will be available again. For further information regarding HTTP result codes, please see RFC 2616.

Posted by Tomer Honen and Kaspar Szymanski, Search Quality Team, Dublin
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/how-to-deal-with-planned-site-downtime/feed/ 0 Improving our help content: stocking stuffers in our Help Center https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/improving-our-help-content-stocking-stuffers-in-our-help-center/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/improving-our-help-content-stocking-stuffers-in-our-help-center/#comments Thu, 23 Dec 2010 17:21:00 +0000 Webmaster Level: All

We provide lots of information for webmasters across many different channels — you can stay up to date with the latest features here on our blog, browse articles in our Help Center, have discussions in our forums (in 17 languages!), watch videos on our YouTube channel, or even read in-depth interviews (in English, Portuguese, and other languages).

There’s no shortage of useful information, but sometimes the relevant bits may be a bit difficult to locate, especially for novice webmasters. We see the same questions popping up over and over again, so we’ve tried to make our most frequently searched information as accessible and visible as possible:
We analysed the questions asked over the past year and a half and identified the issues you are most interested in. We then picked out the relevant bits from across our different resources and collected the answers to those questions in one new convenient FAQ page in our Help Center (available in 20 languages).

We also frequently get questions on how to get in touch with us, so we’ve put together all the different ways you can:
...tell us about a page you want to remove from our search results;
...tell us about spam you found;
...let us know when you’ve fixed issues on your website;
...and many more! All of these contact channels are now listed conveniently in one article with direct links to the relevant forms: Webmaster help and contacts (available from the homepage of our Help Center, also in 20 languages).

Now isn’t that a nice stocking stuffer (-:?
Happy webmastering in 2011, and keep the feedback coming!

Posted by Mariya Moeva, Search Quality Team, Dublin
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/improving-our-help-content-stocking-stuffers-in-our-help-center/feed/ 0 Ring in the new year with accessible content: Website clinic for non-profits https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/ring-in-the-new-year-with-accessible-content-website-clinic-for-non-profits/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/ring-in-the-new-year-with-accessible-content-website-clinic-for-non-profits/#comments Wed, 22 Dec 2010 18:55:00 +0000

Cross-posted on the Google Grants Blog

In our previous post, we did some source code housekeeping -- just in time for the holidays. But once users have landed on your site, how can you make sure they’ll know how to get around?

As it turns out, easily accessible content on your site can make a big difference. Users tend to have a better experience when a site helps them find and understand its content. Having an accessible site not only empowers users, it also helps search engines understand what your site is really about.

So if you’ve resolved to boost your site’s user experience and online presence for the new year, improving your content accessibility is a great way to start. Thankfully, there are tons of features you can add to make your site more accessible. In this post, we’ll highlight three of them:
  • Intuitive navigation
  • Concise, descriptive anchor text for links
  • Unique, accurate page titles throughout the site
Intuitive navigation
Help users avoid confusion by providing them with intuitive navigation, so that when they arrive at your site, they’ll know where to click to find the information they’re looking for.

Here are three features you can implement in order to lead your users down the right path:
  • Navigational menu: Having a menu with links to the site’s most important pages is the fastest, easiest way to show users where to click next.
  • Text-based links: While drop-down menus, image-based links, and animation-based links can be appealing, keep in mind that users on text-only devices and some search engines may not be able to see or understand these links. Thus, many users prefer text-based links, which are also easier for search engines to crawl and interpret.
  • User-viewable site map: 59% of our submissions did not have a user-viewable site map. By providing one, you display the structure of your site and give the user easy one-click navigation. If users are having trouble finding specific pages on your site, a site map can help them find their way. Don’t send your users into the wild without a map!
Let’s explore how these features can make a site’s navigation more intuitive by looking at one of our submitted sites, Philanthropedia.


Thanks to this site’s clean navigational menu, users can find all of the site’s important pages within a few clicks. Wherever users end up on the site, they can always click on the “Home” button to return to the main page, or on any of the links in the menu to return to the site’s important subpages. Like all of the links on this site, the links in the navigational menu are text-based links, which make it easier for both search engines and users to access the site’s content. Finally, Philanthropedia has included a user-viewable site map, shown below, in case visitors are looking for a specific page not listed in the main menu.


Concise, descriptive anchor text for links
Anchor text -- the clickable text of a link -- can help users quickly decide which links they want to click on and find out more about. Meaningful anchor text makes it easier for users to navigate around your site and also helps search engines understand what the link’s destination page is about.

20% of our submissions could improve their sites by improving the anchor text used in some of their internal links. When writing anchor text, keep two things in mind:
  • Be descriptive: Use words that are relevant to the destination page, avoiding generic phrases like “click here” or “article.” Make sure the user can get a snapshot of the destination page’s overall content and functionality by reading the anchor text.
  • Keep it concise: Anchor text that contains a few words or a short phrase is more attractive and convenient for users to read than a sentence or paragraph-long link.
Let’s take a look at how anchor text played out in two user-submitted examples:

OrganizationAnchor Text ExamplesUser FriendlinessAnchor Text Behavior
The Mosaic ProjectWork for Mosaic

Order Our Curriculum Guide

Outdoor School		High: Users can get an accurate idea of the content on the links’ destination pages just by reading the anchor text.Active verb phrases and rich nouns accurately describe the pages that the links are pointing to.
Asian Liver CenterLearn more

here		Low: The anchor text is too generic and does not give users an idea of what the linked-to content is. Generic phrases give little insight into the pages that the links are pointing to.

You can learn more about anchor text and internal linking strategies by checking out this blog post on the importance of link architecture.

Unique, accurate page titles throughout the site
Each page on your site is different, so flaunt your site’s diversity by giving a unique title to each page. Giving each page a unique title lets search engines know how that page is distinct from others within your site. In our analysis, over 28% of sites could have improved their site quality by adding unique page titles.

Let’s check out a few more examples to see what a difference unique, accurate page titles can make:

OrganizationPage Title ExamplesUser FriendlinessPage Title Behavior
VAMS InternationalUpcoming Events | VAMS International

Request Service | VAMS International

FAQ’s | VAMS International

High: Each page’s content is relevant to its title, and the user can get a good idea of each page’s unique offerings and functionality.Concise, rich language joined with the organization’s name accurately describes the corresponding pages. The titles show how each page is unique while also acknowledging that they are all associated with one organization.
MHCD Evaluation and ResearchMHCD Evaluation and ResearchLow: This site contains a lot of diverse content and rich functionality; however, the uniform page titles do not convey these strengths.This page title is too general and does not accurately describe the content on each page. The same title is used across all the pages on this site.

Wrapping things up
We hope that this blog post has given you some ideas on how to ring in the new year with improved content accessibility, which can boost the user experience and online presence for your site.

To learn more about the features discussed here and in our previous two site clinic posts, check out our SEO Report Card and SEO Starter Guide.

This blog post wraps up our website clinic for non-profits. We send our warmest regards to all the great non-profit causes you are working on, and thanks to everyone who took the time to submit their sites and read our posts!

Posted by Jen Lee and Alexi Douvas, Search Quality Evaluation Team
Contributors: Aditya Goradia, Brandon Falls, Charlene Perez, Diara Dankert, Michael Wyszomierski, and Nelson Bradley
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/ring-in-the-new-year-with-accessible-content-website-clinic-for-non-profits/feed/ 0 Holiday source code housekeeping: Website clinic for non-profits https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/holiday-source-code-housekeeping-website-clinic-for-non-profits/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/holiday-source-code-housekeeping-website-clinic-for-non-profits/#comments Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:15:00 +0000 Webmaster Level: Beginner

Cross-posted on the Google Grants Blog

As the holiday season comes around, we all have a bit of housekeeping to do. This is precisely why we wanted to focus the second post in our site clinic series on cleaning up your source code. Throughout our analysis of submitted non-profit websites, we noticed some confusion about what HTML markup, or tags, to use where, and what content to place within them, both of which could have significant impact on users and how your website looks on the search results page.

Before you deck the halls, deck out your <title> elements
Out of all the submitted non-profit websites, 27% were misusing their <title> elements, which are critical in letting both Google and users know what’s important to your website. Typically, a search engine will display ~60 characters from your title element; this is valuable real estate, so you should use it! Before getting into the actual code, let’s first take a look at how a great title element from one of our submitted sites, Sharp, will appear in the search results page:


Ideally, a great <title> element will include the name of the organization, along with a descriptive tag line. Let’s take a look at some submitted examples:

Organization

<title> source code

User Friendliness

Tag Behavior

Sharp

<title>Top San Diego Doctors and Hospitals - Sharp HealthCare</title>

Best

Includes organization’s name and a descriptive tag line

Interieur

<title>Interieur 2010 - 15-24 October Kortrijk, Belgium</title>

Good

Includes the organization’s name and a non-descriptive tag line

VAMS International

<title>Visual Arts and Music for Society | VAMS International</title>

Okay

Includes only the organization’s name


If you don’t specify a <title> tag, then Google will try to create a title for you. You can probably do better than our best guess, so go for it: take control of your <title> tag! It’s a simple fix that can make a huge difference. Using specific <title> tags for your deeper URLs is also important, and we’ll address that in our next site clinic post.

Keep an eye on your description meta tags
Description meta tags weren’t being utilized to their full potential in 54% of submitted sites. These tags are often used to populate the two-line snippet provided to users in the search results page. With a solid snippet, you can get your potential readers excited and ready to learn more about your organization. Let’s take another look at a good example from among the submitted sites, Tales of Aussie Rescue:


If description meta tags are absent or not relevant, a snippet will be chosen from the page’s content automatically. If you’re lucky and have a good snippet auto-selected, keep in mind that search engines vary in the way that they select snippets, so it’s better to keep things consistent and relevant by writing a solid description meta tag.

Keep your <h> elements in their place
Another quick fix in your housekeeping is assuring your website makes proper use of heading tags. In our non-profit study, nearly 19% of submitted sites had room for improvement with heading elements. The most common problem in heading tags was the tendency to initiate headers with an <h2> or <h3> tag while not including an <h1> tag, presumably for aesthetic reasons.

Headings give you the opportunity to tell both Google and users what’s important to you and your website. The lower the number on your heading tag, the more important the text, in the eyes of Google and your users. Take advantage of that <h1> tag! If you don’t like how an <h1> tag is rendered visually, you can always alter its appearance in your CSS.

Use alt text for images
Everyone is always proud to display their family photos come holiday season, but don’t forget to tell us what they’re all about. Over 37% of analyzed sites were not making appropriate use of the image alt attribute. If used properly, this attribute can:
  • Help Google understand what your image is
  • Allow users on text-only browsers, with accessibility problems, or on limited devices to understand your images
Keep in mind, rich and descriptive alt text is the key here. Let’s take another look at some of our submitted sites and their alt attribute usage:

Organization

Source Code

User Friendliness

Tag Behavior

Sponsor A Puppy

<img alt="Sponsor a Puppy logo" src=...

Best: the alt text specifies the image is the organization’s main logo

Uses rich, descriptive alt text to describe images, buttons, and logos

Philanthropedia

<img alt="Logo" height=...

Good: the alt text specifies the image is a logo, but does not further describe it by the organization or its behavior

Uses non-descriptive alt text for images, buttons, and logos, or uses alt text only sporadically

Coastal Community Foundation

<img src="...”>

Not ideal: alt text not present

No use of alt text, or use of text that does not add meaning (often seen in numbering the images)

A little window shopping for your New Year’s resolution
Google has some great resources to further address best practices in your source code. For starters, you can use our HTML Suggestion Tool in Webmaster Tools. Also, it’s always a good practice to make your site accessible to all viewers.

Posted by Alexi Douvas and Jen Lee, Search Quality Team
Contributors: Aditya Goradia, Brandon Falls, Charlene Perez, Diara Dankert, Michael Wyszomierski, and Nelson Bradley
]]> Webmaster Level: Beginner

Cross-posted on the Google Grants Blog

As the holiday season comes around, we all have a bit of housekeeping to do. This is precisely why we wanted to focus the second post in our site clinic series on cleaning up your source code. Throughout our analysis of submitted non-profit websites, we noticed some confusion about what HTML markup, or tags, to use where, and what content to place within them, both of which could have significant impact on users and how your website looks on the search results page.

Before you deck the halls, deck out your <title> elements
Out of all the submitted non-profit websites, 27% were misusing their <title> elements, which are critical in letting both Google and users know what’s important to your website. Typically, a search engine will display ~60 characters from your title element; this is valuable real estate, so you should use it! Before getting into the actual code, let’s first take a look at how a great title element from one of our submitted sites, Sharp, will appear in the search results page:


Ideally, a great <title> element will include the name of the organization, along with a descriptive tag line. Let’s take a look at some submitted examples:

Organization

<title> source code

User Friendliness

Tag Behavior

Sharp

<title>Top San Diego Doctors and Hospitals - Sharp HealthCare</title>

Best

Includes organization’s name and a descriptive tag line

Interieur

<title>Interieur 2010 - 15-24 October Kortrijk, Belgium</title>

Good

Includes the organization’s name and a non-descriptive tag line

VAMS International

<title>Visual Arts and Music for Society | VAMS International</title>

Okay

Includes only the organization’s name


If you don’t specify a <title> tag, then Google will try to create a title for you. You can probably do better than our best guess, so go for it: take control of your <title> tag! It’s a simple fix that can make a huge difference. Using specific <title> tags for your deeper URLs is also important, and we’ll address that in our next site clinic post.

Keep an eye on your description meta tags
Description meta tags weren’t being utilized to their full potential in 54% of submitted sites. These tags are often used to populate the two-line snippet provided to users in the search results page. With a solid snippet, you can get your potential readers excited and ready to learn more about your organization. Let’s take another look at a good example from among the submitted sites, Tales of Aussie Rescue:


If description meta tags are absent or not relevant, a snippet will be chosen from the page’s content automatically. If you’re lucky and have a good snippet auto-selected, keep in mind that search engines vary in the way that they select snippets, so it’s better to keep things consistent and relevant by writing a solid description meta tag.

Keep your <h> elements in their place
Another quick fix in your housekeeping is assuring your website makes proper use of heading tags. In our non-profit study, nearly 19% of submitted sites had room for improvement with heading elements. The most common problem in heading tags was the tendency to initiate headers with an <h2> or <h3> tag while not including an <h1> tag, presumably for aesthetic reasons.

Headings give you the opportunity to tell both Google and users what’s important to you and your website. The lower the number on your heading tag, the more important the text, in the eyes of Google and your users. Take advantage of that <h1> tag! If you don’t like how an <h1> tag is rendered visually, you can always alter its appearance in your CSS.

Use alt text for images
Everyone is always proud to display their family photos come holiday season, but don’t forget to tell us what they’re all about. Over 37% of analyzed sites were not making appropriate use of the image alt attribute. If used properly, this attribute can:
  • Help Google understand what your image is
  • Allow users on text-only browsers, with accessibility problems, or on limited devices to understand your images
Keep in mind, rich and descriptive alt text is the key here. Let’s take another look at some of our submitted sites and their alt attribute usage:

Organization

Source Code

User Friendliness

Tag Behavior

Sponsor A Puppy

<img alt="Sponsor a Puppy logo" src=...

Best: the alt text specifies the image is the organization’s main logo

Uses rich, descriptive alt text to describe images, buttons, and logos

Philanthropedia

<img alt="Logo" height=...

Good: the alt text specifies the image is a logo, but does not further describe it by the organization or its behavior

Uses non-descriptive alt text for images, buttons, and logos, or uses alt text only sporadically

Coastal Community Foundation

<img src="...”>

Not ideal: alt text not present

No use of alt text, or use of text that does not add meaning (often seen in numbering the images)

A little window shopping for your New Year’s resolution
Google has some great resources to further address best practices in your source code. For starters, you can use our HTML Suggestion Tool in Webmaster Tools. Also, it’s always a good practice to make your site accessible to all viewers.

Posted by Alexi Douvas and Jen Lee, Search Quality Team
Contributors: Aditya Goradia, Brandon Falls, Charlene Perez, Diara Dankert, Michael Wyszomierski, and Nelson Bradley
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/holiday-source-code-housekeeping-website-clinic-for-non-profits/feed/ 0 A helping holiday hand: Website clinic for non-profits https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/a-helping-holiday-hand-website-clinic-for-non-profits/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/a-helping-holiday-hand-website-clinic-for-non-profits/#comments Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:22:00 +0000 Webmaster Level: Beginner

Cross-posted on the Google Grants Blog

A New Year’s resolution
In the spirit of the holidays, here at Google we wanted to take the time to help out those who spend their days making our world a better place: non-profit organizations. A few weeks back, we asked webmasters of non-profits to submit their organization’s site to our Search Quality team for analysis. After some number crunching and trend analysis, we’re back to report on general areas for improvement and to guide you towards some useful resources!

Making our list, checking it twice
First, we’d like thank all of the amazing organizations who participated by submitting their sites. We got some great results, and are excited about all the diverse non-profit causes out there.

Our analysis will take place in the following two posts. The first post will focus on cleaning up HTML tags in your source code, while the second will examine improving user experience via better content accessibility.

Visions of... URLs... dancing in our heads
The great news is, every single site submitted had at least one or two areas to tweak to make it even better! So this information should be helpful to everyone out there, big or small. Just to whet your appetites, here’s a quick list of items that will not be addressed in our following posts, but that had some room for improvement in a large percentage of submitted sites:
  • Keep an eye on proper canonicalization: 56% of analyzed non-profit sites could improve their canonicalization practices. You can read more about canonicalization in this blog post from a previous site clinic.
  • Make sure your volunteer/support sections are visible: 29% of our submissions could improve their sites by making their support, volunteer, or donation sections easier to find. A great way to accomplish this is to add a donations tab to your navigation bar so it’s just one click away at all times.
  • Protect your confidential information: Lots of non-profits, especially those in the medical industry, deal with some very important and confidential information. Read up on how to control your crawled and indexed content, and remember to protect confidential content through proper authentication measures.
  • Make your Flash sites search engine friendly: We saw some beautiful sites running on Flash. Search engines have a hard time understanding Flash files, and we’re working to improve Flash comprehension on our end, but here are some discussion points on how you can help us understand your Flash content.
Posted by Alexi Douvas and Jen Lee, Search Quality Evaluation Team
Contributors: Aditya Goradia, Brandon Falls, Charlene Perez, Diara Dankert, Michael Wyszomierski, and Nelson Bradley
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/a-helping-holiday-hand-website-clinic-for-non-profits/feed/ 0 Best practices for running multiple sites https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/best-practices-for-running-multiple-sites/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/best-practices-for-running-multiple-sites/#comments Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:11:00 +0000 Webmaster Level: All

Running a single compelling, high quality site can be time- and resource-consuming, not to mention the creativity it requires to make the site a great one. At times–particularly when it comes to rather commercial topics like foreign currency exchange or online gambling–we see that some webmasters try to compete for visibility in Google search results with a large
number of sites on the same topic. There are a few things to keep in mind when considering a strategy like this for sites that you want to have listed in our search results.

Some less creative webmasters, or those short on time but with substantial resources on their hands, might be tempted to create a multitude of similar sites without necessarily adding unique information to any of these. From a user’s perspective, these sorts of repetitive sites can constitute a poor user experience when visible in search results. Luckily, over time our algorithms have gotten pretty good at recognizing similar content so as to serve users with a diverse range of information. We don’t recommend creating similar sites like that; it’s not a good use of your time and resources.


If all of your sites offer essentially the same content, additional sites are not contributing much to the Internet.

While you’re free to run as many sites as you want, keep in mind that users prefer to see unique and compelling content. It is a good idea to give each site its own content, personality and function. This is true of any website, regardless of whether it’s a single-page hobby-site or part of a large portfolio. When you create a website, try to add something new or some value to the Internet; make something your users have never seen before, something that inspires and fascinates them, something they can’t wait to recommend to their friends.

When coming up with an idea for a website, scan the web first. There are many websites dealing with common and popular services like holiday planning, price comparisons or foreign exchange currency trading. It frequently doesn’t make sense to reinvent the wheel and compete with existing broad topic sites. It’s often more practical and rewarding to focus on smaller or niche topics where your expertise is best and where competition for user attention might be less fierce.

A few webmasters choose to focus their resources on one domain but make use of their domain portfolio by creating a multitude of smaller sites linking to it. In some situations these sites may be perceived as doorways. Without value of their own, these doorway sites are unlikely to stand the test of time in our search results. If you registered several domains but only want to focus on one topic, we recommend you create unique and compelling content on each domain or simply 301 redirect all users to your preferred domain. Think of your web endeavour as if it were a restaurant: You want each dish to reflect the high quality of the service you provide; repeat the same item over and over on your menu and your restaurant might not do so well. Identify and promote your strength or uniqueness. Ask yourself the following questions: What makes you better than the competition? What new service do you provide that others don’t? What makes your sites unique and compelling enough to make users want to revisit them, link to them or even recommend them to their friends?

We suggest not spreading out your efforts too broadly, though. It can be difficult to maintain multiple sites while keeping the content fresh and engaging. It’s better to have one or a few good sites than a multitude of shallow, low value-add sites. As always, we encourage you to share your thoughts via comments as well as by contributing to the Google Webmaster community.

Posted by Tomer Honen & Kaspar Szymanski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/best-practices-for-running-multiple-sites/feed/ 0 Website clinic: Call for submissions https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/website-clinic-call-for-submissions/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/website-clinic-call-for-submissions/#comments Mon, 25 Oct 2010 22:16:00 +0000 Webmaster Level: Beginner

Cross-posted on the Google Grants Blog

Googlers often participate in live site clinics at conferences, giving advice about real-world sites and allowing webmasters to learn by example. Now Google’s Search Quality team is excited to host an online site clinic right here on this blog. In future posts, we’ll be looking at some user-submitted examples and offering broad advice that you can apply to your site.

This site clinic will focus on non-profit organizations, but chances are that our advice will benefit small business and government sites as well. If you work for a non-profit and would like us to consider your site, read on for submission instructions.

How to Submit Your Site:
To register your site for our clinic, fill in the information requested on our form. From there, we will determine trends and share corresponding best practices to improve site quality and user experience. Our analysis will be available in a follow-up post, and will adhere to public standards of webmaster guidance. Please note that by submitting your site, you permit us to use your site as an example in our follow-up site clinic posts.

We have a few guidelines:
  1. Your site must belong to an officially registered non-profit organization.
  2. In order to ensure that you’re the site owner, you must verify ownership of your site in Google Webmaster Tools. You can do that (for free) here.
  3. To the best of your ability, make sure your site meets our webmaster quality guidelines. We will be using the same principles as a basis for our analysis.
All set? Submit your site for consideration here.

The site clinic goes live today, and submissions will be accepted until Monday, November 8, 2010. Stay tuned for some useful webmaster tips when we review the sites.

Posted by Alexi Douvas and Jen Lee, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/website-clinic-call-for-submissions/feed/ 0 SEO Starter Guide updated https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/seo-starter-guide-updated/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/seo-starter-guide-updated/#comments Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:00:00 +0000 Webmaster Level: Beginner

Update on October 3, 2010: We have fixed the issue causing the highlighted text to be obscured on Linux PDF readers.

About two years ago we published our first SEO Starter Guide, which we have since translated into 40 languages. Today, we’re very happy to share with you the new version of the guide with more content and examples.

Here’s what’s new:
  • Glossary to define terms throughout the guide
  • More example images to help you understand the content
  • Ways to optimize your site for mobile devices
  • Clearer wording for better readability
You may remember getting to see what Googlebot looks like in our “First date with Googlebot” post. In this version of the SEO Starter Guide, Googlebot is back to provide you with some more SEO tips.

You can download the new version here [PDF]. Entertain and impress your friends by leaving a printed copy on your coffee table.

Googlebot

Posted by Brandon Falls and Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/seo-starter-guide-updated/feed/ 0 Grab bag videos are back! https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/grab-bag-videos-are-back/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/grab-bag-videos-are-back/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:36:00 +0000 We’re kicking off June with the start of a new round of webmaster Q&A on the Webmaster Central YouTube channel. You submitted and voted on questions for Matt Cutts to answer, and Matt sat in the studio for a full day sharing advice for webmasters.

For those of you who watch each video (and who doesn’t?), we’ve worked hard to keep things interesting. Not only did Matt wear different colored shirts, we changed the backgrounds as well! Just don’t submit any screen grabs to We Have Lasers, okay?

To get you started, here’s the first video, which addresses a question about geographic targeting in Webmaster Tools:

We’ll be posting links to new videos as they’re posted on our Twitter account, so follow us there or subscribe to our YouTube channel to be notified of new answers.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/grab-bag-videos-are-back/feed/ 0 Is your site hacked? New Message Center notifications for hacking and abuse https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/is-your-site-hacked-new-message-center-notifications-for-hacking-and-abuse/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/is-your-site-hacked-new-message-center-notifications-for-hacking-and-abuse/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:00:00 +0000
Webmaster Level: All

As we crawl the web, we see bad content inserted on to thousands of hacked sites each day. The number of sites attacked is staggering and the problem is only getting worse. Hackers and spammers target and successfully compromise any sites they can - small personal sites, schools and universities, even multinational corporations. Spam attacks against forums and user content sections of sites, though not as shocking, are even more widespread.

You may have read in an earlier post that we've begun notifying webmasters about new software versions via Webmaster Tools to help protect their sites. Continuing with our effort to provide more useful information to webmasters, we're happy to announce that we'll soon be sending even more notifications to the Message Center.

Starting this month, we will notify more webmasters of more potential issues we've detected on their websites, including:
These notifications are meant to alert webmasters of potential issues and provide next steps on how to get their sites fixed and back into Google's search results. If it pertains to a hacking or abuse issue, the notification will point to example URLs exhibiting this type of behavior. These notifications will run in parallel with our existing malware notifications.

A notice of suspected hacking, for example, will look like this:


We've been notifying webmasters of suspected hacking for years, but a recent upgrade to our systems will allow us to notify many more site owners that have been hacked. We hope webmasters will find these notifications useful in making sure their sites are clean and secure, ultimately providing a better user experience for their visitors. In the future, we may extend this effort even further to include other types of vulnerabilities or abuse issues.

Just as before, webmasters who have not already signed up for Webmaster Tools may still do so and retrieve previously sent messages within one year of their send date. And if you don't want to miss out on any important messages, remember to use the email forwarding feature to receive these alerts in your inbox.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in our Webmaster Help Forum or leave your comments below.

Posted by Jessica Wong and Jason Morrison, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/is-your-site-hacked-new-message-center-notifications-for-hacking-and-abuse/feed/ 0 Protect your site from spammers with reCAPTCHA https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/protect-your-site-from-spammers-with-recaptcha/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/protect-your-site-from-spammers-with-recaptcha/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:00:00 +0000 Webmaster Level: All

If you allow users to publish content on your website, from leaving comments to creating user profiles, you’ll likely see spammers attempt to take advantage of these mechanisms to generate traffic to their own sites. Having this spammy content on your site isn't fun for anyone. Users may be subjected to annoying advertisements directing them to low-quality or dangerous sites containing scams or malware. And you as a webmaster may be hosting content that violates a search engine's quality guidelines, which can harm your site's standing in search results.

There are ways to handle this abuse, such as moderating comments and reviewing new user accounts, but there is often so much spam created that it can become impossible to keep up with. Spam can easily get to this unmanageable level because most spam isn’t created manually by a human spammer. Instead, spammers use computer programs called “bots” to automatically fill out web forms to create spam, and these bots can generate spam much faster than a human can review it.

To level the playing field, you can take steps to make sure that only humans can interact with potentially spammable features of your website. One way to determine which of your visitors are human is by using a CAPTCHA , which stands for "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart." A typical CAPTCHA contains an image of distorted letters which humans can read, but are not easily understood by computers. Here's an example:


You can easily take advantage of this technology on your own site by using reCAPTCHA, a free service owned by Google. One unique aspect of reCAPTCHA is that data collected from the service is used to improve the process of scanning text, such as from books or newspapers. By using reCAPTCHA, you're not only protecting your site from spammers; you're helping to digitize the world's books.

Luis Von Ahn, one reCAPTCHA's co-founders, gives more details about how the service works in the video below:


If you’d like to implement reCAPTCHA for free on your own site, you can sign up here. Plugins are available for easy installation on popular applications and programming environments such as WordPress and PHP.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/protect-your-site-from-spammers-with-recaptcha/feed/ 0 State of the Index 2009 https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/state-of-the-index-2009/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/state-of-the-index-2009/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:50:00 +0000 Webmaster Level: All

At PubCon in Las Vegas in November 2009, I gave a "State of the Index" talk which covers what Google has done for users, web developers, and webmasters in the last year. I recently recreated it on video for those of you who didn't make it to the conference. You can watch it below:


And here are the slides if you'd like to follow along:


Posted by Matt Cutts, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/state-of-the-index-2009/feed/ 0 Answering your December Grab Bag questions https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/answering-your-december-grab-bag-questions/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/answering-your-december-grab-bag-questions/#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:16:00 +0000 Webmaster Level: All

You asked and Matt Cutts answered. It's time to answer the latest round of Grab Bag questions! Here's the first answer, complete with Matt's new hairstyle:


We have a lot of videos ready to share, so we're not currently taking new questions for the Grab Bag. If you have a question that you would like answered, your best bet as always is to head to our Webmaster Help Forum, where you'll find plenty of knowledgeable webmasters, including some Bionic Posters!

To be kept up-to-date on our latest video releases, you can follow @googlewmc on Twitter, where we'll announce new videos and blog posts as they're published.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/answering-your-december-grab-bag-questions/feed/ 0 One million YouTube views! https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/one-million-youtube-views/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/one-million-youtube-views/#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:34:00 +0000 we launched our very own Webmaster Central channel on YouTube. Just today, we saw our total video views exceed one million! On the road to this milestone, we uploaded 154 videos, for a total of nearly 11 hours of webmaster-focused media. These videos have brought you conference presentations, updates on tools for webmasters, general tips, and of course answers to your "Grab bag" questions for Matt Cutts.

To celebrate our one million views, we're sharing a fun video with you in which Matt Cutts shows us what happened when he lost a bet with his team:



We're also pleased to announce that we've added captions to all of our videos and plan to do so for our future videos as well. Thank you to everyone who has watched, shared, and commented on our videos. We look forward to the next million views!

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/one-million-youtube-views/feed/ 0 Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/google-does-not-use-the-keywords-meta-tag-in-web-ranking/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/google-does-not-use-the-keywords-meta-tag-in-web-ranking/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:00:00 +0000 Recently we received some questions about how Google uses (or more accurately, doesn't use) the "keywords" meta tag in ranking web search results. Suppose you have two website owners, Alice and Bob. Alice runs a company called AliceCo and Bob runs BobCo. One day while looking at Bob's site, Alice notices that Bob has copied some of the words that she uses in her "keywords" meta tag. Even more interesting, Bob has added the words "AliceCo" to his "keywords" meta tag. Should Alice be concerned?

At least for Google's web search results currently (September 2009), the answer is no. Google doesn't use the "keywords" meta tag in our web search ranking. This video explains more, or see the questions below.


Q: Does Google ever use the "keywords" meta tag in its web search ranking?
A: In a word, no. Google does sell a Google Search Appliance, and that product has the ability to match meta tags, which could include the keywords meta tag. But that's an enterprise search appliance that is completely separate from our main web search. Our web search (the well-known search at Google.com that hundreds of millions of people use each day) disregards keyword metatags completely. They simply don't have any effect in our search ranking at present.

Q: Why doesn't Google use the keywords meta tag?
A: About a decade ago, search engines judged pages only on the content of web pages, not any so-called "off-page" factors such as the links pointing to a web page. In those days, keyword meta tags quickly became an area where someone could stuff often-irrelevant keywords without typical visitors ever seeing those keywords. Because the keywords meta tag was so often abused, many years ago Google began disregarding the keywords meta tag.

Q: Does this mean that Google ignores all meta tags?
A: No, Google does support several other meta tags. This meta tags page documents more info on several meta tags that we do use. For example, we do sometimes use the "description" meta tag as the text for our search results snippets, as this screenshot shows:


Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don't use the description meta tag in our ranking.

Q: Does this mean that Google will always ignore the keywords meta tag?
A: It's possible that Google could use this information in the future, but it's unlikely. Google has ignored the keywords meta tag for years and currently we see no need to change that policy.

Posted by Matt Cutts, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/google-does-not-use-the-keywords-meta-tag-in-web-ranking/feed/ 0 Supporting Facebook Share and RDFa for videos https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/supporting-facebook-share-and-rdfa-for-videos/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/supporting-facebook-share-and-rdfa-for-videos/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:30:00 +0000 Have you ever wondered how to increase the chances of your videos appearing in Google's results? Over the last year, the Video Search team has been working hard to improve our index of video on the Web. Today, we're beginning the first in a series of posts to explain some best practices for sites hosting video content.

We previously talked about the importance of submitting a Video Sitemap or mRSS feed to Google and following Google's webmaster guidelines. However, we wanted to offer webmasters an additional tool, so today we're taking a page from the rich snippets playbook and announcing support for Facebook Share and Yahoo! SearchMonkey RDFa. Both of these markup formats allow you to specify information essential to video indexing, such as a video's title and description, within the HTML of a video page. While we've become smarter at discovering this information on our own, we'd certainly appreciate some hints directly from webmasters. Also, to maximize the chances that we find the markup on your video pages, you should make sure it appears in the HTML without the execution of JavaScript or Flash.

So, check out Facebook Share and RDFa and help Google find your videos!

Facebook Share:
<meta name="title" content="Baroo? - cute puppies" />
<meta name="description" content="The cutest canine head tilts on the Internet!" />
<link rel="image_src" href="http://example.com/thumbnail_preview.jpg" />
<link rel="video_src" href="http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345"/>
<meta name="video_height" content="296" />
<meta name="video_width" content="512" />
<meta name="video_type" content="application/x-shockwave-flash" />
RDFa (Yahoo! SearchMonkey):
<object width="512" height="296" rel="media:video"
resource="http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345"
xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/media/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">
<param name="movie" value="http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345" />
<embed src="http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="512" height="296"></embed>
<a rel="media:thumbnail" href="http://example.com/thumbnail_preview.jpg" />
<a rel="dc:license" href="http://example.com/terms_of_service.html" />
<span property="dc:description" content="Cute Overload defines Baroo? as: Dogspeak for 'Whut the...?'
Frequently accompanied by the Canine Tilt and/or wrinkled brow for enhanced effect." />
<span property="media:title" content="Baroo? - cute puppies" />
<span property="media:width" content="512" />
<span property="media:height" content="296" />
<span property="media:type" content="application/x-shockwave-flash" />
<span property="media:region" content="us" />
<span property="media:region" content="uk" />
<span property="media:duration" content="63" />
</object>
Posted by Michael Cohen, Product Manager, Video Search Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/supporting-facebook-share-and-rdfa-for-videos/feed/ 0 Specifying an image’s license using RDFa https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/specifying-an-images-license-using-rdfa/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/specifying-an-images-license-using-rdfa/#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2009 04:00:00 +0000
We recently introduced a new feature on Google Image Search which allows you to restrict your search results to images that have been tagged for free reuse. As a webmaster, you may be interested in how you can let Google know which licenses your images are released under, so I've prepared a brief video explaining how to do this using RDFa markup.



If you have any questions about how to mark up your images, please ask in our Webmaster Help Forum.

Posted by Peter Linsley, Product Manager
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/specifying-an-images-license-using-rdfa/feed/ 0 Webmaster Central YouTube update for July 6th – 10th https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-july-6th-10th/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-july-6th-10th/#comments Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:55:00 +0000 Want to see what's new on the Webmaster Central YouTube channel? Check out the answers to the latest Grab Bag questions:
Below is Matt's clarification about Google's use of the meta description tag:


Feel free to leave comments letting us know how you liked the videos, and if you have any specific questions, ask the experts in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-july-6th-10th/feed/ 0 Webmaster Central YouTube update for June 29th – July 3rd https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-29th-july-3rd/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-29th-july-3rd/#comments Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:03:00 +0000 Want to see what's new on the Webmaster Central YouTube channel? Check out the answers to the latest Grab Bag questions:
Do you run a small business? Check out Matt's tips on how to attract visitors on a small budget:


Feel free to leave comments letting us know how you liked the videos, and if you have any specific questions, ask the experts in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-29th-july-3rd/feed/ 0 Webmaster Central YouTube update for June 22nd – 26th https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-22nd-26th/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-22nd-26th/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:22:00 +0000 Want to know what's new on the Webmaster Central YouTube channel? Here's what we've uploaded in the past week:

As part of Google's goal to make the web faster, we uploaded several video tips about optimizing the speed of your website. Check out the tutorials page to view the tutorials and associated videos.

Matt Cutts answered a new question each day from the Grab Bag:
And during Adam Lasnik's visit to India, he was interviewed by Webmaster Help Forum guide Jayan Tharayil about issues related to webmasters in India. We have the full three-part interview right here.

We'll get you started on this batch of videos with Matt's tips for targeting your site to a specific region:


Feel free to leave comments letting us know how you liked the videos, and if you have any specific questions, ask the experts in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-22nd-26th/feed/ 0 Webmaster Central YouTube update for June 15th – 19th https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-15th-19th/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-15th-19th/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:36:00 +0000 Webmaster Central YouTube channel? Here's what we've uploaded in the past week:

Maile Ohye gave a webmaster-focused presentation about Product Search.

Matt Cutts answered a new question each day from the Grab Bag:
To get you started on watching this latest batch of videos, here's Matt's answer about directories and paid links:



Feel free to leave comments letting us know how you liked the videos, and if you have any specific questions, ask the experts in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-15th-19th/feed/ 0 Webmaster Central YouTube update for June 8th – 12th https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-8th-12th/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-8th-12th/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:22:00 +0000 Webmaster Central YouTube channel? Here's what we've uploaded in the past week:

Matt Cutts answered a few new questions from the Grab Bag:
Matt also went over a great example of whitehat linkbait:



And if you've ever thought about hiding text, here's one technique that didn't fool Google:



Feel free to leave comments letting us know how you liked the videos, and if you have any specific questions, ask the experts in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-8th-12th/feed/ 0 Webmaster Central YouTube update for June 1st – 5th https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-1st-5th/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-1st-5th/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:33:00 +0000 Webmaster Central YouTube channel? Here's what we've uploaded in the past week:

Matt Cutts answered a new question each day from the Grab Bag:
In response to questions we've been getting about the videos themselves, we created a behind the scenes look at our setup. And just to throw in some more variety, Matt took a break from SEO questions for a few minutes to show off a fun use of a barcode scanner with Google Book Search. You can read more about it on the Inside Google Book Search blog.

For your instant viewing pleasure, here's the answer to the question about URL shortners:


And now a peek behind the scenes:


Feel free to leave comments letting us know how you liked the videos, and if you have any specific questions, ask the experts in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-june-1st-5th/feed/ 0 Webmaster Central YouTube update for May 26-29 https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-may-26-29/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-may-26-29/#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:18:00 +0000 Webmaster Central YouTube channel, and since then we've been busy keeping it fresh with new content. We're not yet uploading 20 hours every minute, but did you know that we've been releasing a new video almost every weekday? You can keep up with the latest updates by subscribing to our channel in YouTube, or by adding our feed to your RSS reader.

If you're more of a weekly digest kind of person, we're here for you too. For every week that we have new videos available, we'll let you know here on the blog. In the videos uploaded in the past week, you'll find answers to these questions from Matt's Grab Bag:

Can product descriptions be considered duplicate content?
How can new pages get indexed quickly?
What are your views on PageRank sculpting?
Will you ever switch to a Mac?

Feel free to leave comments letting us know how you liked the videos, and if you have any specific questions, ask the experts in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/webmaster-central-youtube-update-for-may-26-29/feed/ 0 Canonical Link Element: presentation from SMX West https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/canonical-link-element-presentation-from-smx-west/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/canonical-link-element-presentation-from-smx-west/#comments Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:50:00 +0000 Google and other search engines announced support for a canonical link element that can help site owners with duplicate content issues. I recreated my presentation from SMX West and you can watch it below:



You can access the slides directly or follow along here:



By the way, Ask just announced that they will support the canonical link element. Read all about it in the Ask.com blog entry.

Thanks again to Wysz for turning this into a great video.

In fact, you might not have seen it, but we recently created a webmaster videos channel on YouTube. If you're interested, you can watch the new webmaster channel. If you subscribe to that channel, you'll always find out about new webmaster-related videos from Google.

Posted by Matt Cutts, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/canonical-link-element-presentation-from-smx-west/feed/ 0 Introducing the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/introducing-the-google-webmaster-central-youtube-channel/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/introducing-the-google-webmaster-central-youtube-channel/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:30:00 +0000 State of the Index presentation, Matt Cutts said that one of the things to look for from Google in 2009 is continued communication with webmasters. On the Webmaster Central team, we've found that using video is a great way to reach people. We've shown step-by-step instructions on how to use features of Webmaster Tools, shared our presentations with folks who were unable to make it to conferences, and even taken you through a day in the life of our very own Maile Ohye as she meets with many Googlers involved in webmaster support.

We plan on releasing more videos like these in the future, so we've opened up our own channel on YouTube to host webmaster-related videos. Our first video is already up, and we'll have more to share with you soon. If you want to be the first to know when we release something new, you can subscribe to us using your YouTube account, or grab this RSS feed if you'd like to keep track in your feed reader. Please let us know how you like the channel, and use the comments in this post to share your ideas for future videos.

And while we'll all do our best to make sure Matt Cutts understands that Rick Rolling is so last year, be careful where you click on April 1st.

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/introducing-the-google-webmaster-central-youtube-channel/feed/ 0 State of the Index: my presentation from PubCon Vegas https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/state-of-the-index-my-presentation-from-pubcon-vegas/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/state-of-the-index-my-presentation-from-pubcon-vegas/#comments Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:15:00 +0000 recreated my Virtual Blight talk from the Web 2.0 Summit late last year, so we decided to post another video. This video recreates the "State of the Index" talk that I did at PubCon in Las Vegas late last year as well.

Here's the video of the presentation:



and if you'd like to follow along, here are the slides:



You can also access the presentation directly. Thanks again to Wysz for recording this video and splicing the slides into the video.

Posted by Matt Cutts, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/state-of-the-index-my-presentation-from-pubcon-vegas/feed/ 0 Google Trifecta recording now available https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/google-trifecta-recording-now-available/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/google-trifecta-recording-now-available/#comments Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:18:00 +0000 hosted an online presentation about three free tools to help analyze and improve your sites. Dubbed "The Google Trifecta," this presentation explains the key features of Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer, and how you can use them together.

To make the information from this presentation accessible to those who were unable to listen in last week or would like to review it again, we've put a recording of the session on YouTube for your viewing pleasure:



If you have any followup questions about the topics covered in the video, we welcome you to ask! Each of these products has a discussion group available for you to discuss the product with other users and Googlers. Please post in the appropriate group, so your question is seen by the right people:

Google Webmaster Help (Webmaster Tools)
Analytics Help
Website Optimizer Forum

Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/google-trifecta-recording-now-available/feed/ 0 Free online seminar: The Google Trifecta https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/free-online-seminar-the-google-trifecta/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/free-online-seminar-the-google-trifecta/#comments Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:15:00 +0000 Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality Team

Staying competitive in the online space can be hard if you don't have the proper tools at your disposal. That's why we offer solutions like Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer to help you improve your site's effectiveness and functionality.

You may already use Google Webmaster Tools to help improve your site's visibility in Google's search results, but what can you do to optimize your pages for visitors who have already made it past the search results and into your site? Using Webmaster Tools in conjunction with Analytics and Website Optimizer, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of your pages' visibility in Google, where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site, and what content will most effectively get them to take the action you want.

For the first time ever, the Webmaster Tools, Analytics, and Website Optimizer teams will join forces to hold a free online seminar. I'll be there to talk about Webmaster Tools and discuss tips for using it with our other products for site owners. So if you enjoy live webmaster-focused events like our recent JuneTune live chat, check out the details below and register!

TITLE: The Google Trifecta: Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Website Optimizer
DATE: Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
TIME: 9:00 - 10:00 a.m. PT (16:00 UTC)
JOIN US: Register to attend

During this online seminar, team members will:
  • Provide brief introductions to their products
  • Highlight recent product updates and releases
  • Discuss the benefits of using all three products together
  • Answer common questions submitted by attendees
Upon registration, we also invite you to submit any specific topics you'd like us to cover. If you can't make that date or time, don't worry. We know that 9 a.m. for us isn't 9 a.m. for everyone! You'll be able to access an archived version of the presentation via the same registration URL.

Update: A recording of the event is now available on YouTube.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/free-online-seminar-the-google-trifecta/feed/ 0 Feeling lucky at PubCon https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/feeling-lucky-at-pubcon/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/feeling-lucky-at-pubcon/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:15:00 +0000 Posted by Michael Wyszomierski, Search Quality

Last month, several of us with Webmaster Central hit the "good times" jackpot at PubCon Vegas 2007. We realize not all of you could join us, so instead of returning home with fuzzy dice for everyone, we've got souvenir conference notes.

Listening to the Q&A, I was pleased to hear the major search engines agreeing on best practices for many webmaster issues. In fact, the presentations in the duplicate content session were mostly, well, duplicate. When I wasn't sitting in on one of the many valuable sessions, I was chatting with webmasters either at the Google booth, or at Google's "Meet the Engineers" event. It was exciting to hear from so many different webmasters, and to help them with Google-related issues. Here are a few things that were on the minds of webmasters, along with our responses:

Site Verification Files and Meta Tags
Several webmasters asked, "Is it necessary to keep the verification meta tag or HTML file in place to remain a verified owner in Webmaster Tools?" The answer is yes, you should keep your verification file or meta tag live to maintain your status as a verified owner. These verification codes are used to control who has access to the owner-specific tools for your site in Webmaster Tools. To ensure that only current owners of a site are verified, we periodically re-check to see if the verification code is in place, and if it is not, you will get unverified for that site. While we're on the topic:

Site Verification Best Practices
  • If you have multiple people working on your site with Webmaster Tools, it's a good idea to have each person verify the site with his or her own account, rather than using a shared login. That way, as people come and go, you can control the access appropriately by adding or removing verification files or meta tags for each account.
  • You may want to keep a list of these verification codes and which owner they are connected to, so you can easily control access later. If you lose track, you can always use the "Manage site verification" option in Webmaster Tools, which allows you to force all site owners to reverify their accounts.
Subdomains vs. Subdirectories
What's the difference between using subdomains and subdirectories? When it comes to Google, there aren't major differences between the two, so when you're making that decision, do what works for you and your visitors. Following PubCon, our very own Matt Cutts outlined many of the key issues in a post on his personal blog. In addition to those considerations, if you use Webmaster Tools (which we hope you do!), keep in mind that you'll automatically be verified for deeper subdirectories of any sites you've verified, but subdomains need to be verified separately.

Underscores vs. Dashes
Webmasters asked about the difference between how Google interprets underscores and dashes in URLs. In general, we break words on punctuation, so if you use punctuation as separators, you're providing Google a useful signal for parsing your URLs. Currently, dashes in URLs are consistently treated as separators while underscores are not. Keep in mind our technology is constantly improving, so this distinction between underscores and dashes may decrease over time. Even without punctuation, there's a good chance we'll be able to figure out that bigleopard.html is about a "big leopard" and not a "bigle opard." While using separators is a good practice, it's likely unnecessary to place a high priority on changing your existing URLs just to convert underscores to dashes.

Keywords in URLs
We were also asked if it is useful to have relevant keywords in URLs. It's always a good idea to be descriptive across your site, with titles, ALT attributes, and yes, even URLs, as they can be useful signals for users and search engines. This can be especially true with image files, which otherwise may not have any text for a search engine to consider. Imagine you've taken a picture of your cat asleep on the sofa. Your digital camera will likely name it something like IMG_2937.jpg. Not exactly the most descriptive name. So unless your cat really looks like an IMG_2937, consider changing the filename to something more relevant, like adorable-kitten.jpg. And, if you have a post about your favorite cat names, it's much easier to guess that a URL ending in my-favorite-cat-names would be the relevant page, rather than a URL ending in postid=8652. For more information regarding issues with how Google understands your content, check out our new content analysis feature in Webmaster Tools, as well as our post on the URL suggestions feature of the new Google Toolbar.

Moving to a new IP address
We got a question about changing a site's IP address, and provided a few steps you can take as a webmaster to make sure things go smoothly. Here's what you can do:
  1. Change the TTL (Time To Live) value of your DNS configuration to something short, like five minutes (300 seconds). This will tell web browsers to re-check the IP address for your site every five minutes.
  2. Copy your content to the new hosting environment, and make sure it is live on the new IP address.
  3. Change your DNS settings so your hostname points to the new IP address.
  4. Check your logs to see when Googlebot starts crawling your site on the new IP address. To make sure it's really Googlebot who's visiting, you can verify Googlebot by following these instructions. You can then log into Webmaster Tools and monitor any crawl errors. Once Googlebot is happily crawling on the new IP address, you should be all set as far as Google is concerned.
  5. To make sure everyone got the message of your move, you may want to keep an eye out for visits to your old IP address before shutting it down.
Proxies
A few webmasters were concerned that proxy services are being indexed with copies of their content. While it's often possible to find duplicate copies of your content in our results if you look hard enough, the original source is most likely going to be ranked higher than a proxy copy. However, if you find this not to be the case, please drop us some URLs in the Webmaster Help Group. There are many Googlers including myself who monitor this group and escalate issues appropriately.

It was great talking with webmasters at the conference -- we hope those of you unable to join us found this post useful. If you want to continue to talk shop with me, other Googlers, and your fellow webmasters, join the follow-up conversation in the Webmaster Help Group.

Update: Additional PubCon notes from Jonathan Simon are available in our discussion group.
]]> https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/feeling-lucky-at-pubcon/feed/ 0 A spider’s view of Web 2.0 https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/a-spiders-view-of-web-2-0/ https://googledata.org/google-webmaster-central/a-spiders-view-of-web-2-0/#comments Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:52:00 +0000 Written by Michael Wyszomierski and Greg Grothaus, Search Quality

Many webmasters have discovered the advantages of using Ajax to improve the user experience on their sites, creating dynamic pages that act as powerful web applications. But, like Flash, Ajax can make a site difficult for search engines to index if the technology is not implemented carefully. As promised in our post answering questions about Server location, cross-linking, and Web 2.0 technology, we've compiled some tips for creating Ajax-enhanced websites that are also understood by search engines.

How will Google see my site?

One of the main issues with Ajax sites is that while Googlebot is great at following and understanding the structure of HTML links, it can have a difficult time finding its way around sites which use JavaScript for navigation. While we are working to better understand JavaScript, your best bet for creating a site that's crawlable by Google and other search engines is to provide HTML links to your content.

Design for accessibility

We encourage webmasters to create pages for users, not just search engines. When you're designing your Ajax site, think about the needs of your users, including those who may not be using a JavaScript-capable browser. There are plenty of such users on the web, including those using screen readers or mobile devices.

One of the easiest ways to test your site's accessibility to this type of user is to explore the site in your browser with JavaScript turned off, or by viewing it in a text-only browser such as Lynx. Viewing a site as text-only can also help you identify other content which may be hard for Googlebot to see, including images and Flash.

Develop with progressive enhancement

If you're starting from scratch, one good approach is to build your site's structure and navigation using only HTML. Then, once you have the site's pages, links, and content in place, you can spice up the appearance and interface with Ajax. Googlebot will be happy looking at the HTML, while users with modern browsers can enjoy your Ajax bonuses.

Of course you will likely have links requiring JavaScript for Ajax functionality, so here's a way to help Ajax and static links coexist:
When creating your links, format them so they'll offer a static link as well as calling a JavaScript function. That way you'll have the Ajax functionality for JavaScript users, while non-JavaScript users can ignore the script and follow the link. For example:

<a href=”ajax.htm?foo=32” onClick=”navigate('ajax.html#foo=32'); return false”>foo 32</a>

Note that the static link's URL has a parameter (?foo=32) instead of a fragment (#foo=32), which is used by the Ajax code. This is important, as search engines understand URL parameters but often ignore fragments. Web developer Jeremy Keith labeled this technique as Hijax. Since you now offer static links, users and search engines can link to the exact content they want to share or reference.

While we're constantly improving our crawling capability, using HTML links remains a strong way to help us (as well as other search engines, mobile devices and users) better understand your site's structure.

Follow the guidelines

In addition to the tips described here, we encourage you to also check out our Webmaster Guidelines for more information about what can make a site good for Google and your users. The guidelines also point out some practices to avoid, including sneaky JavaScript redirects. A general rule to follow is that while you can provide users different experiences based on their capabilities, the content should remain the same. For example, imagine we've created a page for Wysz's Hamster Farm. The top of the page has a heading of "Wysz's Hamster Farm," and below it is an Ajax-powered slideshow of the latest hamster arrivals. Turning JavaScript off on the same page shouldn't surprise a user with additional text reading:
Wysz's Hamster Farm -- hamsters, best hamsters, cheap hamsters, free hamsters, pets, farms, hamster farmers, dancing hamsters, rodents, hampsters, hamsers, best hamster resource, pet toys, dancing lessons, cute, hamster tricks, pet food, hamster habitat, hamster hotels, hamster birthday gift ideas and more!
A more ideal implementation would display the same text whether JavaScript was enabled or not, and in the best scenario, offer an HTML version of the slideshow to non-JavaScript users.

This is a pretty advanced topic, so please continue the discussion by asking questions and sharing ideas over in the Webmaster Help Group. See you there!
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