Archive: October, 2008

In a brilliant move yesterday, Google Webmaster Tools (GWT)  has updated their ‘Crawl Errors’ section by adding the ‘Source URL’ to the Errors for URLs in Sitemaps and Not Found (404) reports. Why is this brilliant? Well previously, for those users with challenges acquiring server log files in order to determined the source of the link for those errors which originated from external URLs, a band-aid redirect was the only option (not very many low level programs would declare the referring page so this was quite a challenge for most). While that corrects the HTTP error it doesn’t address the root cause which was a website owner posting a malformed or outdated link to your website. If this link arrives from a highly reputable source, you’ll be doing them a favour by informing them of the error which will also help with their own site’s user experience and will get you some well earned brownie points. As well, correcting the link would swing any Page Rank (PR) your way and you’d also have a great excuse here to solidify a healthy link relationship.

Show me Where these Dead Links are Coming From

Okay, here’s a snip of the new feature;

Google scored a large coup against rival Microsoft last week when the IT manager of the city of Washington DC selected Google Docs and Apps over Microsoft Office applications.

The $500,000 contract might appear small relative to the size of Google and Microsoft however the licensing agreement covers all 38,000 municipal staff employed by Washington DC. The licenses cover the use of Google email (Gmail), spreadsheets and word-processing programs and will see Google products used in accounting, budgeting, emergency response, schools and all other areas in which civic government operates in the DC area.

The switch from Microsoft products to Google products by one (smaller) major US city hardly marks a turning point in Google’s bid to dis-entrench Microsoft from its position as the world’s dominant software maker. Microsoft continues to power much of the modern world and still services most large corporations, governments and institutions around the world. What the DC switch does demonstrate is Google’s ability to capture small (but likely growing) segments of Microsoft’s traditional market with its lower-cost set of highly functional applications.