There’s a useful thread over at Google Webmaster Groups that highlights an issue with default filenames such as index.html and sitemaps. As user edralph888 explains:
The URL in our sitemap is in the format:
http://www.domain.com/index.html?whatever=value
The problem with Googlebot is that even though that is the URL we put in the sitemap, it doesn’t use that URL [...]
Googlebot Strips Default Filenames From Sitemap URLs
September 22nd, 2008 · No Comments
Tags: Search Marketing
The DaveN Blog Hack Raises Questions On Google Blacklist API
September 19th, 2008 · 4 Comments
When Dave Naylor first reported some issues with his blog, I fired up SERPGuard.com to check out his URL. Our tool interacts with Google’s API to find compromised sites which are listed on their malware or phishing blacklists. Dave’s pages were being dropped from Google’s SERPs, which raised my suspicions he had been blacklisted but [...]
John Mueller Answering Webmaster Questions on Twitter
September 12th, 2008 · No Comments
John Mueller is a well known face in Google’s Webmaster Help Group and works as a Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google Zürich. He’s also a regular on Twitter under his familiar username JohnMu. Seeing as it’s Friday, he’s allowing people to send him Webmaster questions through the service.
I don’t know if this is official Google [...]
Tags: Search Marketing
Jaiku Moves To Google Servers: Open To All
August 29th, 2008 · 4 Comments
Jaiku have finally completed their much anticipated move to the Google App Engine. They have also moved the platform out of its closed status and given existing users an unlimited number of invitations. This email was sent out a few minutes ago:
We’ve been working on the Jaiku service over the weekend after
finding an issue with [...]
Tags: Social Media
GSiteCrawler Now On Ubuntu 8.04
August 15th, 2008 · 5 Comments
I went cold-turkey on Windows at the beginning of this year, installing Ubuntu on my work station. It’s been frustrating at times, when you have to learn to do tasks again but you soon adapt. One thing I have missed though are some Windows tools and applications. Most have been replaced, even PhotoShop has a [...]
7 Google Docs Templates For Search Marketers
July 31st, 2008 · 1 Comment
Earlier this month, Google gave their users access to a free library of document templates. I found time last night to dig around and discovered some useful ones for search marketers. To save you some time, here are direct links to the ones I downloaded.
1. Non Disclosure Contract (NDA)
An NDA is an essential tool for [...]
Tags: Business Management · Google
Free Tool For Google Malware & Phishing Blacklists: Launching SERPGuard
June 26th, 2008 · 2 Comments
SERPGuard is a free alert service that checks the Google Safe Browsing Blacklists for your domain(s). You may create an account, log in and add all your sites into one simple interface. If our system detects any of your URLs on the Google phishing or malware blacklists, we will send you an RSS message and [...]
Tags: General Interest · Search Marketing
Matt Cutts Suggests Google Penalties For Fake Stories
May 22nd, 2008 · 21 Comments
Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, has finally waded in on the issue of fake linkbait. Jonathan Crossfield (aka Kimota) provides some background information on the controversy.
In summary, Lyndon Antcliff posted a satirical story on a client’s site, which ended up being quoted on several mainstream news channels. Critics have claimed that Lyndon manipulated [...]
Tags: Google
Google Analytics Merges Data on Accounts
April 4th, 2008 · 3 Comments
I have several sites in our Google Analytics account, as most people do I suspect. However I noticed this morning that Google seems to be mixing up the data in a couple of them. Here’s a screenshot of the content report (pageviews/traffic by content) when logged in as RussianMarketer.com:
As you can see, there are several [...]
Tags: Google
Nick Wilsdon is the CTO of 
