SEO Blog

This article, at CNET caught my eye this morning. The second paragraph in particular read:

“We’re celebrating our seventh birthday…. We had a pretty strong year,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in a phone interview with CNET News.com”

Two things surprised me: 1) Eric Schmidt was talking to CNET - I guess CNET’s year in purgatory ended earlier than expected, and; 2) He’s celebrating Google’s 7th birthday now, but people like Matt Cutts celebrated September 7th. Now I’m confused. I’m sure Eric Schmidt knows when Google’s ‘birthday’ (or incorporation date) is, but Matt seems pretty on the ball too (! ) Perhaps it’s a month long birthday party?

The best part of the interview? Eric Schmidt stating that Google’s index is now 3x the size of their competitors, and refusing to say how big it really is. Hmmmm… Nice standard answer going forward. The answer to everything in the universe is 3x…

Note that the statement about 8,168,684,336 web pages is no longer on Google’s top page.

Size doesn’t matter, relevance does.

I don’t think it any one index can be quantified as 3x more relevant or accurate than another.

Just arrived in NYC last night, and while on the plane spent a bit of time thinking about Googlenet, and what Microsoft and or Yahoo must do to counteract the reshaping of the Internet that the release of a free wifi network, such as the rumored Googlenet. By must do, I am simly acknowledging the likelyhood that if Google rolls out free Internet before MSFT, it likely will dominate the Internet the way that Microsoft has dominated the desktop. The challenge being that more and more applications will be delivered via the Internet (in the future), and this eats right into Microsoft’s market.

T-mobile really offers eith one the best quick roll-out. Yes, I mentioned earlier that if MS bought Level 3 they could add a wifi / wimax component to it, and create a free network virtually overnight. But why wait? T-mobile has the network, and people are already used to using it. Buy a popular network, and make it free. You’ve already got all of Starbuck’s clients; why would they switch???

I haven’t written much the last week - mostly because I’ve been swamped. So it was very surprising to get about 200 new blog comments overnight.

Highly irregular in fact, as I have not received 200 “real” comments total since I started two months ago!

Overnight, I received about 3 comments for every blog entry published to date. Amazingly, all 3 were the same, for every single entry.

“Great Post. You should read this < link to online realtor site >”

“Very interesting, have you checked out < link to gambling site >”

and;

“Wonderful insight. Let me know what you think of mine < adult site >”

No, I’m not going to take the bait on the wording of that last one.

People really are wasting their money getting people to spam blogs to obtain inbound links. The spam artists are making a killing here, and ruining a few businesses quickly.

Google, MSN, Yahoo, and the others also have taken measures to diminish the value of blog spam. They seek it out. In particular, they discount comments links, and ask that they be rel =nofollow… i.e. blogs should be set up so that the links in blogs should not be counted by the search engine spiders.

Google has unveiled it’s “beta” blog search tool - blogsearch.google.com.

Apparently they started indexing blogs for this tool in June 2005, so anything from that date forward should be good. Older blogs which do no update frequently probably will not be found.

On thing that I wonder - now that Google has it’s own blogsearch tool, which likely will become at tab on the google.com homepage, how will blog entries be handled in regular search?

Will blog entries continue to be found in regular search results, and will they carry the same weight in Google’s algorithms? Or will they solely be listed within the blogsearch section of google - treated as separate beasts, just like images and newsgroup postings. I hope not, as that would likely trivialize their overall value as content additions to a web site.

Although it’s too early to know, I suspect that some people have already started tracking this, and will be able to present their findings shortly, and over time.

Will they also add an algorithm to purge splogs?

For more information - go straight to the horse’s mouth, at Google’s about blogsearch information page.