Subscribe - Search Engine Watch

January 15, 2008

Google Pet Video, LOLCats and SES New York Mystery

If you're a Matt Cutts Gadgets Google and SEO blog reader, you know the feline Amy Cutts, his pet video co-star. To see her, click here.

To get SEW Expert Eric Enge's description of Amy and the vid, click here.

Sure, Amy can act, but can she learn search marketing?

At SES New York, apparently Amy can in this mystery Super Session.

Search for LOLCats?

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:20 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

July 18, 2007

Matt Cutts Seeking Search Bugs

Matt Cutts is asking for anyone that is aware of any search engine bugs to post them in comments on his blog. Apparently he has a meeting tomorrow about the subject and would like to get as many listed and worked on as he can find.

So if you have come across something and want to have it addressed now is your chance. Note he is not looking for posts asking why your site dropped etc. This is a call for legitimate bugs.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 12:48 PM | Permalink

April 19, 2007

Google Ad VP Spamming Google On The Side?

Threadwatch has outed Tim Armstrong, Google Ad VP, for his involvement with Associated Content, that seems to be a content generating company making money from AdSense on dubious keyword rich content.

ClickZ ran an article about Associated Content earlier this month.

Guess he is not Matt Cutts' favorite Googler given the fact Associated Content was found to be buying links.

Have any comments? Let's add them to the discussion on link buying.

Posted by aussiewebmaster at 11:03 AM | Permalink

November 8, 2006

Google's Consumer Packaged Goods Blog

Threadwatch reported that Google launched a new blog at http://google-cpg.blogspot.com/. The blog is named the Google CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) blog. What they write about are marketing ideas that they find on the web and they use at Google. As an example, they wrote about the Coke + Mentos viral video.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:10 AM | Permalink

September 27, 2006

Evil Matt Cutts: Matt's Evil Twin Brother

Spotted via SEO Home, it appears someone launched an alter ego to Matt Cutts's blog at evilmattcutts.com. You got to admit, this is funny. The picture, the reworded blog posts, and the concept. One example blog post is named How to Verify Google Bot, then Kill and cook him. Who owns the site? Well, I know who owns the domain, http://whois.domaintools.com/evilmattcutts.com.

Matt, what happened to your front tooth?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:41 AM | Permalink

August 16, 2006

The Inside Scoop from Search Bloggers

The major search engines all have unofficial bloggers talking about what's going on in their respective companies. At a recent SES session, search-blog stars Jeremy Zawodny, Gary Price, Matt Cutts and Niall Kennedy all revealed their modus operandi, and guest writer Sara Holoubek was there to capture their insights for today's SearchDay article, Expose: Search Engine Bloggers Tell All.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 7:44 PM | Permalink

August 14, 2006

Matt Cutts Confesses To Being GoogleGuy

In Monday Morning Roundup, Rand Fishkin writes:

Did anyone blog about Matt outing himself as GoogleGuy during SES? I believe his exact words were "I backed into that position."

Nope, Rand -- I was surprised about the lack of reaction and blogging to that myself. I'm still doing post-show catch-up, but it hardly seemed to catch any buzz. Perhaps one of the industry's oldest secrets -- Matt Cutts being GoogleGuy -- was no longer a secret to most any longer.

I moderated the panel, and the confession came out when a member of the audience flat out asked Matt if he was GoogleGuy. Matt hesitated just a moment, and I could swear I could almost hear the internal debate of "should I finally confess or not." And then he did, saying as Rand notes that he sort of backed into being the GoogleGuy who posts on forums and blogs. Matt then added that today, GoogleGuy might be one of many different people from Google commenting in public areas.

Matt's been blogging for just over a year now, and it's been great to have him out under his own name. Personally, while I love the Google Guy name, I sort of hope it gets retired. I'd rather have Googlers taking part in conversations under their own names than through anonymous handles. Plus, it would help avoid things where the named person might comment on something they've also posted under an anonymous handle. As I wrote last year:

Matt Cutts, posting over Threadwatch and sounding pretty in sync with GoogleGuy, explains that msn.com is a PR8 site and points to the Future PageRank checker at SEO Tools as a way to see this. (At this point, you're asking "Isn't Matt Cutts GoogleGuy?" For the record, Matt's never publicly laid claim to being GoogleGuy. But since Matt's more active on commenting with things these days, I think it's well time that GoogleGuy step forward with a real name, so that if they are one and the same, there's isn't confusion that two different people are talking. Honestly, at some point we'll have someone citing GoogleGuy, then someone citing Matt against GoogleGuy, which is absurd if they are the same. I and many others do know the real identity of GoogleGuy. I think it's well time everyone knows and hope GoogleGuy will step forward).

By the way, if you missed the panel, Blogging for the search engines from Melanie Colburn at Searchblog is a very nice summary of it. Matt also made many new friends at the last conference and today blogs on how to tell who the real ones are :) That includes these two founding members of his fan club, complete with T-shirts. He also gets search god status on the new Men Of SEO blog.

Postscript: WebmasterWorld's Brett Tabke pinged me to say that Matt's been wearing a "Google Guy" name badge at PubCon for the past two years now, and Thomas Bindl notes this was the case last November at the show, as well. So I guess Matt's been out as GoogleGuy long before this. Then again, despite wearing that name badge in front of plenty of people, he still wasn't fessing up to it when I or others would ask him about going public. And over at Rand's blog in the comments, Matt's suggesting that he was answering a different question.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:54 AM | Permalink

August 9, 2006

The Google Doctor Interviewed

Philipp Lenssen links to an interview of the Google Doctor, Taraneh Razavi at Blogs for Companies. The interview really goes over more about why the Doctor started a blog at Google, then anything else. So you know, Sergey Brin suggested to her that she start her blog at http://dr-razavi.blogspot.com/. Other than that, she helped improve the nutrition and health of the meals provided at Google, and of course, does the day to day doctor duties at Google.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:56 AM | Permalink

August 8, 2006

August 2, 2006

More Matt Google SEO Videos: Google Terminology & More

Matt Cutts from Google released two more videos, as part of his SEO questions on video collection. These two new videos are:

- Does Webspam use Google Analytics? - 5 minutes and 11 seconds - Does Google Analytics play a part in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages)? - When does Google detect duplicate content, and how wide is the range? - I want to mark my page as porn in SafeSearchâ€“what do you recommend? - Is it okay to make hyperlinks in option elements? - Google Terminology - 4 minutes and 40 seconds - Whatâ€™s the difference between an index update, an algorithm update, and a data refresh? - I also discuss these definitions in terms of June/July 27th as much as I can.

Postscript From Danny: On Google Analytics, Matt says that this data is not used for web spam detection purposes and to the best of his knowledge, not by others in Google. However, I recently asked Google for clarification on this, in the wake of them NOT excluding the possibility that Google Checkout data might be used for a variety of purposes. I've yet to get a response back. At this point, my assumption is that while Google is probably using things like Google Toolbar data and Google Analytics data in ways beyond just reporting information back to the individual users.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:34 AM | Permalink

August 1, 2006

Google's Matt Cutts Answers Questions On Google Video

Matt Cutts has released six video sessions so far, over the past two days at his blog. They all answers questions sent to him on the topic of search engine optimization. Most of the videos are about five minutes long, you don't have to necessarily watch Matt talk, you can just listen (there is not much going on in the background). Here is a break down of the video SEO sessions:

Session 1: Quality of a Good Site, 5 minutes and 40 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Does Sitemaps depend on pageviews? - What are the top things to do in SEO? - Should I use bold or strong tags?"

Session 2: Myths, Large Site Launches, and Google Images, 4 minutes 10 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Myths: 1) sites on the same server, 2) IP, or 2) including off-domain JavaScript - Launching sites with millions of pages: how should I do it best? - Google images: updates on the horizon, and current Google Images technology."

Session 3: Optimize for Search Engines or Users?, 4 minutes and 25 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Which is more important: search engine optimization (SEO) or end user optimization? - What spam detection tools would you recommend? - Does cleanliness of code (W3C) help at all?"

Session 4: Static vs. Dynamic urls, 4 minutes and 30 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Static vs. Dynamic urls: does PageRank flow the same to both? What pitfalls should I avoid with dynamic urls? - Can Sitemaps alert webmasters when their site has been hacked? - Can I do geotargetting within Google's Quality Guidelines?"

Session 5: How to structure a site?, 4 minutes and 46 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Merging acquired domains with 301s? - How to create a site architecture with themes and keywords? - My urls have too many parameters--can I serve up static HTML to Googlebot instead? - How to do split A/B testing?"

Session 6: Supplemental Results, 4 minutes and 12 seconds. "Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Supplemental Results - Should I worry about results estimates for 1) supplemental results 2) using the site: operator 3) with negated terms and 4) special syntax such as intitle: ? Answer: No. That's pretty far off the beaten path. - Why do 301s take so long to be reflected in supplemental results? It's been months. - I started appearing in the supplemental results in May--should I be worried?"

Great job Matt, really appreciated by the SEOs and SEMs here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:28 AM | Permalink

June 13, 2006

A Look At 20 Googlers Via Orkut

Philipp Lenssen complied a list of 20 Googler Orkut profiles. Orkut is Google's social networking software, and many Googlers have profiles and accounts with Orkut. Some of the 20 compiled by Philipp include; Sergey Brin, Adam Bosworth, Jeff Huber, David Krane, Marissa Mayer and more. Nice work!

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:47 AM | Permalink

A Look At 20 Googlers Via Orkut

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:47 AM | Permalink

A Look At 20 Googlers Via Orkut

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:47 AM | Permalink

A Look At 20 Googlers Via Orkut

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:47 AM | Permalink

December 27, 2005

Google Recruits Creator of Python; Blog from Google Spain Manager Debuts; New Compilation of Blogs by Googlers

Here are a couple of Google items that we spotted on two of of my favorite blogs that focus most of their efforts on tracking Google.

+ Dirson, posts about another successful recruitment of progammer by Google. It appears that Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, is now a Google employee.

+ Dirson also reports that Miguel de la Reina (the manager of Google Spain) has launched a blog (in Spanish, of course) titled: Googelizados.

And speaking of Googlers...

+ Philipp Lenssen from Google Blogoscoped, posts about a new compilation of blogs by Googlers. It comes from the editor of The Google Planet which is a digest of blog posts by Google employees.

Btw, one of my favorite non-search sites of 2005 also comes from Philipp. If you've never visited his highly addictive, Games for the Brain site, it's more than worth a look and some time.

Also, my previous post about email services, includes a link to another favorite Google blog, Nathan Weinberg's Inside Google.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:06 PM | Permalink

Google Recruits Creator of Python; Blog from Google Spain Manager Debuts; New Compilation of Blogs by Googlers

Here are a couple of Google items that we spotted on two of of my favorite blogs that focus most of their efforts on tracking Google.

+ Dirson, posts about another successful recruitment of progammer by Google. It appears that Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, is now a Google employee.

+ Dirson also reports that Miguel de la Reina (the manager of Google Spain) has launched a blog (in Spanish, of course) titled: Googelizados.

And speaking of Googlers...

+ Philipp Lenssen from Google Blogoscoped, posts about a new compilation of blogs by Googlers. It comes from the editor of The Google Planet which is a digest of blog posts by Google employees.

Btw, one of my favorite non-search sites of 2005 also comes from Philipp. If you've never visited his highly addictive, Games for the Brain site, it's more than worth a look and some time.

Also, my previous post about email services, includes a link to another favorite Google blog, Nathan Weinberg's Inside Google.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:06 PM | Permalink

Google Recruits Creator of Python; Blog from Google Spain Manager Debuts; New Compilation of Blogs by Googlers

Here are a couple of Google items that we spotted on two of of my favorite blogs that focus most of their efforts on tracking Google.

+ Dirson, posts about another successful recruitment of progammer by Google. It appears that Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, is now a Google employee.

+ Dirson also reports that Miguel de la Reina (the manager of Google Spain) has launched a blog (in Spanish, of course) titled: Googelizados.

And speaking of Googlers...

+ Philipp Lenssen from Google Blogoscoped, posts about a new compilation of blogs by Googlers. It comes from the editor of The Google Planet which is a digest of blog posts by Google employees.

Btw, one of my favorite non-search sites of 2005 also comes from Philipp. If you've never visited his highly addictive, Games for the Brain site, it's more than worth a look and some time.

Also, my previous post about email services, includes a link to another favorite Google blog, Nathan Weinberg's Inside Google.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:06 PM | Permalink

Google Recruits Creator of Python; Blog from Google Spain Manager Debuts; New Compilation of Blogs by Googlers

Here are a couple of Google items that we spotted on two of of my favorite blogs that focus most of their efforts on tracking Google.

+ Dirson, posts about another successful recruitment of progammer by Google. It appears that Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, is now a Google employee.

+ Dirson also reports that Miguel de la Reina (the manager of Google Spain) has launched a blog (in Spanish, of course) titled: Googelizados.

And speaking of Googlers...

+ Philipp Lenssen from Google Blogoscoped, posts about a new compilation of blogs by Googlers. It comes from the editor of The Google Planet which is a digest of blog posts by Google employees.

Btw, one of my favorite non-search sites of 2005 also comes from Philipp. If you've never visited his highly addictive, Games for the Brain site, it's more than worth a look and some time.

Also, my previous post about email services, includes a link to another favorite Google blog, Nathan Weinberg's Inside Google.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:06 PM | Permalink

November 29, 2005

Blog On French Search Industry

Via Xooglers, former Googler Franck Poisson is running a French-language blog that covers the search industry, obviously of interest to anyone watching search and France. Long standing site French search site Abondance is well worth checking out, as well. The new Multilingual Search Blog is another resource French search watchers will also want to visit.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:18 AM | Permalink

Blog On French Search Industry

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:18 AM | Permalink

Blog On French Search Industry

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:18 AM | Permalink

Blog On French Search Industry

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:18 AM | Permalink

November 25, 2005

Former Google Brand Manager Blogging Days At Google

Spotted via Google Weblog (unofficial), Xooglers is a new blog run by Google's former director of consumer marketing and brand management, Doug Edwards.

It promises to be "a gathering spot for ex-Googlers to reminisce and comment on the latest developments in search." So far, it looks to be Edwards only.

He introduces himself here and potential plans to do a book, but prefers for now to tell his Google story via a blog. Elsewhere in the blog, you can read of him answering Sergey Brin's tough hiring question and his view Google cofounder Larry Page isn't worried about being polite if he knows he's right.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:10 AM | Permalink

Former Google Brand Manager Blogging Days At Google

Spotted via Google Weblog (unofficial), Xooglers is a new blog run by Google's former director of consumer marketing and brand management, Doug Edwards.

It promises to be "a gathering spot for ex-Googlers to reminisce and comment on the latest developments in search." So far, it looks to be Edwards only.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:10 AM | Permalink

Former Google Brand Manager Blogging Days At Google

Spotted via Google Weblog (unofficial), Xooglers is a new blog run by Google's former director of consumer marketing and brand management, Doug Edwards.

It promises to be "a gathering spot for ex-Googlers to reminisce and comment on the latest developments in search." So far, it looks to be Edwards only.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:10 AM | Permalink

Former Google Brand Manager Blogging Days At Google

Spotted via Google Weblog (unofficial), Xooglers is a new blog run by Google's former director of consumer marketing and brand management, Doug Edwards.

It promises to be "a gathering spot for ex-Googlers to reminisce and comment on the latest developments in search." So far, it looks to be Edwards only.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:10 AM | Permalink

November 10, 2005

Matt Cutts Banned On Google? And Oct. 2005 Jagger Update Winds Down

The Oct. 2005 Google Jagger update saga that has sucked the life out of so many (but not all; some are blissfully unimpacted by it) seems to be ending. Indeed, so says Google's Matt Cutts in his Jagger winding down post. But Matt, if the update is over and bugs worked out, why's your blog banned on Google?

The article I just posted for Search Engine Watch members (go on, support the site - become a member and get to read the full story) goes into detail about the situation, but here are the highlights for everyone.

He's not really banned, but less savvy site owners could easily get that impression.
Dave Naylor presents the evidence in Jagger3 hahahaha, where he shows how a search for mattcutts.com brings up no matches. That's often a sign that a site has been banned.
He's not banned, however, as a search for matt cutts shows. You'll see how he's ranking in the top results for that, which wouldn't happen if he was banned.
But wait! Notice how he ranks twice, with listings for both www.mattcutts.com and mattcutts.com! That's a canonical error -- my favorite hated word and problem that I wrote about earlier. It's Google getting confused about which domain name to use for Matt's site (and other sites as well).
Overall, another reason for what I said earlier -- it's overdue for search engines to let us register all our domain names directly with them and indicate the ones they should be using.

Also, by winding down, that doesn't mean winding down on Google itself. Matt's post wrote that you'd find it in action if you went to the http://66.102.9.104/ data center. Over time -- the coming days -- changes will migrate to all the Google data centers.

In some related notes, Barry at Search Engine Roundtable points to Update Saga. Part zillion over at WebmasterWorld, where people are wondering if the update has come to an end. It also notes that GoogleGuy has warned of a PageRank/backlink update to happen between now and the end of the year.

Thoughts on Jagger: Recips Got Hammered, Trust Trumps All from Andy Hagans at the Link Building Blog is a nice, short piece summing up what he things were the two major changes in the update.

First, reciprocal links don't see to work as well (What are they? Want to discuss? check out this SEW Forum thread: Reciprocal Linking – Dead or Alive?). Second, sites with authority/TrustRank seem to do better (What's that? Check out Yahoo My Web: An eBay For Knowledge).

Want to discuss or comment? Visit our SEW Forum thread, Oct. 2005 Google Update "Jagger". C'mon by Matt -- tell us what's going on :)

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:04 AM | Permalink

Matt Cutts Banned On Google? And Oct. 2005 Jagger Update Winds Down

He's not really banned, but less savvy site owners could easily get that impression.
Dave Naylor presents the evidence in Jagger3 hahahaha, where he shows how a search for mattcutts.com brings up no matches. That's often a sign that a site has been banned.
He's not banned, however, as a search for matt cutts shows. You'll see how he's ranking in the top results for that, which wouldn't happen if he was banned.
But wait! Notice how he ranks twice, with listings for both www.mattcutts.com and mattcutts.com! That's a canonical error -- my favorite hated word and problem that I wrote about earlier. It's Google getting confused about which domain name to use for Matt's site (and other sites as well).
Overall, another reason for what I said earlier -- it's overdue for search engines to let us register all our domain names directly with them and indicate the ones they should be using.

Thoughts on Jagger: Recips Got Hammered, Trust Trumps All from Andy Hagans at the Link Building Blog is a nice, short piece summing up what he things were the two major changes in the update.

Want to discuss or comment? Visit our SEW Forum thread, Oct. 2005 Google Update "Jagger". C'mon by Matt -- tell us what's going on :)

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:04 AM | Permalink

Matt Cutts Banned On Google? And Oct. 2005 Jagger Update Winds Down

He's not really banned, but less savvy site owners could easily get that impression.
Dave Naylor presents the evidence in Jagger3 hahahaha, where he shows how a search for mattcutts.com brings up no matches. That's often a sign that a site has been banned.
He's not banned, however, as a search for matt cutts shows. You'll see how he's ranking in the top results for that, which wouldn't happen if he was banned.
But wait! Notice how he ranks twice, with listings for both www.mattcutts.com and mattcutts.com! That's a canonical error -- my favorite hated word and problem that I wrote about earlier. It's Google getting confused about which domain name to use for Matt's site (and other sites as well).
Overall, another reason for what I said earlier -- it's overdue for search engines to let us register all our domain names directly with them and indicate the ones they should be using.

Thoughts on Jagger: Recips Got Hammered, Trust Trumps All from Andy Hagans at the Link Building Blog is a nice, short piece summing up what he things were the two major changes in the update.

Want to discuss or comment? Visit our SEW Forum thread, Oct. 2005 Google Update "Jagger". C'mon by Matt -- tell us what's going on :)

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:04 AM | Permalink

Matt Cutts Banned On Google? And Oct. 2005 Jagger Update Winds Down

He's not really banned, but less savvy site owners could easily get that impression.
Dave Naylor presents the evidence in Jagger3 hahahaha, where he shows how a search for mattcutts.com brings up no matches. That's often a sign that a site has been banned.
He's not banned, however, as a search for matt cutts shows. You'll see how he's ranking in the top results for that, which wouldn't happen if he was banned.
But wait! Notice how he ranks twice, with listings for both www.mattcutts.com and mattcutts.com! That's a canonical error -- my favorite hated word and problem that I wrote about earlier. It's Google getting confused about which domain name to use for Matt's site (and other sites as well).
Overall, another reason for what I said earlier -- it's overdue for search engines to let us register all our domain names directly with them and indicate the ones they should be using.

Thoughts on Jagger: Recips Got Hammered, Trust Trumps All from Andy Hagans at the Link Building Blog is a nice, short piece summing up what he things were the two major changes in the update.

Want to discuss or comment? Visit our SEW Forum thread, Oct. 2005 Google Update "Jagger". C'mon by Matt -- tell us what's going on :)

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:04 AM | Permalink

November 9, 2005

Yahoo's Ass Kicking Statue Controversy

This was one of those, "should I skip it" decisions, but I did find it interesting. Phillip at Google Blogoscoped in Yahoo in Battle Mode summarizes how Yahoo's mail team was given a statue (yep, there's even a picture) for "kicking an enemy's ass." That would be Google's bottom being whacked, specifically.

Phillip then points to Google's Kevin Fox having long commentary on the statue. Kevin used to be at Yahoo, and he does a compare and contrast feeling that Google's about making better products while Yahoo's focused on "how to beat Google" and finds the competition goes too far with the statue's comparison to Britain fighting Nazi Germany.

The comments after Kevin's post go all over the place and are fun to read -- pro-Yahoo, anti-Yahoo, pro-Google, anti-Google. Phillip also points to two Yahoo employees who comment on the statue as well (Ryan Kennedy suggests a toned-down description for the statue; this employee prefers the "be humble" approach).

Yahoo's new email interface is way, way cool (double verified by checking with my wife, who is a regular user) -- but honestly, the old system was already kicking Google's butt for the simple fact that anyone could sign-up for it without getting someone to send you an invite or having to get text messaged a secret code. When Gmail's freely open to anyone, then let the weigh-up really take place.

Speaking of statues, how about Yahoo putting a little message on the Bob's Big Boy statue that Chris and I came across in one of the Yahoo buildings when visiting this summer. I'll see about getting the photo off Chris's phone -- I made him stand there and take it. But it looks just like this, except the hamburger was replaced with the Inktomi logo.

Bob's an old friend I remember well, from my days of visiting Inktomi. He was in the lobby, and I'd sit next to him waiting for someone to come meet me.

If memory serves, Inktomi founder Eric Brewer bought him to represent the serving/caching service that Inktomi used to provide. When Yahoo bought Inktomi, Bob came over -- and apparently was nearly tossed out until someone gave him a home.

He deserves a better home and maybe his own message devoted to the Yahoo web search team -- those from Inktomi, plus the AltaVista and FAST/AllTheWeb vets. They assembled a great product that directly rivals Google's core search results. Heck, put Bob out in the main entrance of Yahoo! Just make the message praising the efforts without dissing the competition, and I suppose everyone will be happy.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:58 AM | Permalink

Yahoo's Ass Kicking Statue Controversy

Bob's an old friend I remember well, from my days of visiting Inktomi. He was in the lobby, and I'd sit next to him waiting for someone to come meet me.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:58 AM | Permalink

Yahoo's Ass Kicking Statue Controversy

Bob's an old friend I remember well, from my days of visiting Inktomi. He was in the lobby, and I'd sit next to him waiting for someone to come meet me.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:58 AM | Permalink

Yahoo's Ass Kicking Statue Controversy

Bob's an old friend I remember well, from my days of visiting Inktomi. He was in the lobby, and I'd sit next to him waiting for someone to come meet me.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:58 AM | Permalink

October 21, 2005

The MSN PageRank 2 Controversy & Search Engines Needing To Offer Domain Management Tools

As part of the current Google update underway, it's been noticed that MSN now has a PageRank score of 2. What's the deal, Google -- decide to pull a little love away from MSN? Not so, says Google's Matt Cutts -- they're actually a PR8. Then why do you see a PR2 score when you go to MSN? Let's break it down, as well as revisit the oft-desired need for search engines to allow site owners to tell them directly which domains should be treated as the same.

Visit MSN at http://www.msn.com with the Google Toolbar installed, and you'll see a PR2 score reported.
MSN.com down to pagerank 2! at WebmasterWorld has some of the discussion this sparked, where the anonymous GoogleGuy from Google puts the blame on redirection that MSN is doing. Look at http://msn.com, and you'll see a PR8 score is reported, we're told.
OK, but if you try that, you get redirected to http://www.msn.com, where it's still PR2.
Answer? You need to get the Google PageRank score for msn.com in another way than trying to reach that page, since the redirection will send you to what's technically a different page, the home page of www.msn.com
How? Google's Matt Cutts, posting over Threadwatch and sounding pretty in sync with GoogleGuy, explains that msn.com is a PR8 site and points to the Future PageRank checker at SEO Tools as a way to see this. (At this point, you're asking "Isn't Matt Cutts GoogleGuy?" For the record, Matt's never publicly laid claim to being GoogleGuy. But since Matt's more active on commenting with things these days, I think it's well time that GoogleGuy step forward with a real name, so that if they are one and the same, there's isn't confusion that two different people are talking. Honestly, at some point we'll have someone citing GoogleGuy, then someone citing Matt against GoogleGuy, which is absurd if they are the same. I and many others do know the real identity of GoogleGuy. I think it's well time everyone knows and hope GoogleGuy will step forward).
Run a test for msn.com using the checker, and you'll get a list of the PageRank scores reported by various Google datacenters, including the server that feeds the toolbar display. All of them are PR8.
Again, you can't see these scores showing up in your browser when trying to go to msn.com, because you get redirected to www.msn.com, which has a different PR score.

All this brings us back to the issue of redirection. MSN is doing a 302 temporary redirect from msn.com to www.msn.com, which can confuse search engines into knowing if they should be treated at the same site. A 301 permanent redirect would be preferred.

But more preferred than that, life would be a lot easier if site owners could simply register all the various domains that may resolve to their "main" domain with Google and other search engines, rather than them having to guess.

People have been wanting this for ages. C'mon Google and Yahoo! You've both made moves to let us submit sitemaps and URLs to be crawled. Let's get with it so we can register domains with you and how they should be treated through some type of program. It so long overdue. That's especially so given that after the last indexing summit, as I've written, the search engines were unable to unify on any common treatment of dealing with redirects.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:21 AM | Permalink

The MSN PageRank 2 Controversy & Search Engines Needing To Offer Domain Management Tools

Visit MSN at http://www.msn.com with the Google Toolbar installed, and you'll see a PR2 score reported.
MSN.com down to pagerank 2! at WebmasterWorld has some of the discussion this sparked, where the anonymous GoogleGuy from Google puts the blame on redirection that MSN is doing. Look at http://msn.com, and you'll see a PR8 score is reported, we're told.
OK, but if you try that, you get redirected to http://www.msn.com, where it's still PR2.
Answer? You need to get the Google PageRank score for msn.com in another way than trying to reach that page, since the redirection will send you to what's technically a different page, the home page of www.msn.com
How? Google's Matt Cutts, posting over Threadwatch and sounding pretty in sync with GoogleGuy, explains that msn.com is a PR8 site and points to the Future PageRank checker at SEO Tools as a way to see this. (At this point, you're asking "Isn't Matt Cutts GoogleGuy?" For the record, Matt's never publicly laid claim to being GoogleGuy. But since Matt's more active on commenting with things these days, I think it's well time that GoogleGuy step forward with a real name, so that if they are one and the same, there's isn't confusion that two different people are talking. Honestly, at some point we'll have someone citing GoogleGuy, then someone citing Matt against GoogleGuy, which is absurd if they are the same. I and many others do know the real identity of GoogleGuy. I think it's well time everyone knows and hope GoogleGuy will step forward).
Run a test for msn.com using the checker, and you'll get a list of the PageRank scores reported by various Google datacenters, including the server that feeds the toolbar display. All of them are PR8.
Again, you can't see these scores showing up in your browser when trying to go to msn.com, because you get redirected to www.msn.com, which has a different PR score.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:21 AM | Permalink

The MSN PageRank 2 Controversy & Search Engines Needing To Offer Domain Management Tools

Visit MSN at http://www.msn.com with the Google Toolbar installed, and you'll see a PR2 score reported.
MSN.com down to pagerank 2! at WebmasterWorld has some of the discussion this sparked, where the anonymous GoogleGuy from Google puts the blame on redirection that MSN is doing. Look at http://msn.com, and you'll see a PR8 score is reported, we're told.
OK, but if you try that, you get redirected to http://www.msn.com, where it's still PR2.
Answer? You need to get the Google PageRank score for msn.com in another way than trying to reach that page, since the redirection will send you to what's technically a different page, the home page of www.msn.com
How? Google's Matt Cutts, posting over Threadwatch and sounding pretty in sync with GoogleGuy, explains that msn.com is a PR8 site and points to the Future PageRank checker at SEO Tools as a way to see this. (At this point, you're asking "Isn't Matt Cutts GoogleGuy?" For the record, Matt's never publicly laid claim to being GoogleGuy. But since Matt's more active on commenting with things these days, I think it's well time that GoogleGuy step forward with a real name, so that if they are one and the same, there's isn't confusion that two different people are talking. Honestly, at some point we'll have someone citing GoogleGuy, then someone citing Matt against GoogleGuy, which is absurd if they are the same. I and many others do know the real identity of GoogleGuy. I think it's well time everyone knows and hope GoogleGuy will step forward).
Run a test for msn.com using the checker, and you'll get a list of the PageRank scores reported by various Google datacenters, including the server that feeds the toolbar display. All of them are PR8.
Again, you can't see these scores showing up in your browser when trying to go to msn.com, because you get redirected to www.msn.com, which has a different PR score.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:21 AM | Permalink

The MSN PageRank 2 Controversy & Search Engines Needing To Offer Domain Management Tools

Visit MSN at http://www.msn.com with the Google Toolbar installed, and you'll see a PR2 score reported.
MSN.com down to pagerank 2! at WebmasterWorld has some of the discussion this sparked, where the anonymous GoogleGuy from Google puts the blame on redirection that MSN is doing. Look at http://msn.com, and you'll see a PR8 score is reported, we're told.
OK, but if you try that, you get redirected to http://www.msn.com, where it's still PR2.
Answer? You need to get the Google PageRank score for msn.com in another way than trying to reach that page, since the redirection will send you to what's technically a different page, the home page of www.msn.com
How? Google's Matt Cutts, posting over Threadwatch and sounding pretty in sync with GoogleGuy, explains that msn.com is a PR8 site and points to the Future PageRank checker at SEO Tools as a way to see this. (At this point, you're asking "Isn't Matt Cutts GoogleGuy?" For the record, Matt's never publicly laid claim to being GoogleGuy. But since Matt's more active on commenting with things these days, I think it's well time that GoogleGuy step forward with a real name, so that if they are one and the same, there's isn't confusion that two different people are talking. Honestly, at some point we'll have someone citing GoogleGuy, then someone citing Matt against GoogleGuy, which is absurd if they are the same. I and many others do know the real identity of GoogleGuy. I think it's well time everyone knows and hope GoogleGuy will step forward).
Run a test for msn.com using the checker, and you'll get a list of the PageRank scores reported by various Google datacenters, including the server that feeds the toolbar display. All of them are PR8.
Again, you can't see these scores showing up in your browser when trying to go to msn.com, because you get redirected to www.msn.com, which has a different PR score.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:21 AM | Permalink

October 13, 2005

Google's Onsite Dentist Is A Hoax!

It turns out there is no onsite dentist as Google, as we and others reported yesterday. Yeah, you got us! Google Blogoscope's got the official denial from Google over here. Those worried about the dental hygiene of Googlers can relax to know onsite visiting dental service for them is still available.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:50 AM | Permalink

Google's Onsite Dentist Is A Hoax!

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:50 AM | Permalink

Google's Onsite Dentist Is A Hoax!

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:50 AM | Permalink

Google's Onsite Dentist Is A Hoax!

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:50 AM | Permalink

October 12, 2005

Google Tooth: Google's Onsite Dentist

If you're going to give your employees free meals, I guess you've got to give them a dentist to take care of the aftermath. I'm not sure if the dental work is free, but via SiliconBeat, you can read more about Google's full-time dentist Dr. Sam Gustard and see pictures of his clinic on his blog, That's The Tooth.

The initial post covers Googlers giving him a "Google Tooth (beta)" logo and why it's cheaper for the company to have a dentist on site than have those employees spending hours going offsite for dental work. Plus, what if you get a toothache during a key product release?

OK, but honestly -- somehow other companies manage to get by with employees making use of personal time to visit a dentist and managing to maintain good enough dental hygiene that an unexpected emergency doesn't stop products from shipping.

Then again, if the money's flowing, who wouldn't want to have a company giving you easy access to a dentist, especially if it's free.

Postscript: Turns out, this is a hoax. More details in Google's Onsite Dentist Is A Hoax!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:24 AM | Permalink

Google Tooth: Google's Onsite Dentist

Then again, if the money's flowing, who wouldn't want to have a company giving you easy access to a dentist, especially if it's free.

Postscript: Turns out, this is a hoax. More details in Google's Onsite Dentist Is A Hoax!

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:24 AM | Permalink

Google Tooth: Google's Onsite Dentist

Then again, if the money's flowing, who wouldn't want to have a company giving you easy access to a dentist, especially if it's free.

Postscript: Turns out, this is a hoax. More details in Google's Onsite Dentist Is A Hoax!

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:24 AM | Permalink

Google Tooth: Google's Onsite Dentist

Then again, if the money's flowing, who wouldn't want to have a company giving you easy access to a dentist, especially if it's free.

Postscript: Turns out, this is a hoax. More details in Google's Onsite Dentist Is A Hoax!

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:24 AM | Permalink

September 23, 2005

Recapping Official Search Engine Blogs

Search Engine Blogs as Public Relations Tools from Loren Baker over at Search Engine Journal is a nice overview of how the various major search engines are turning more and more to blogs as a communication tool, with continuing unofficial help from employee blogs such as those from Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny and Google's Matt Cutts (hey, Google, get his blog listed in your Blogs By Googlers section on the Google Blog already!).

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:10 AM | Permalink

Recapping Official Search Engine Blogs

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:10 AM | Permalink

Recapping Official Search Engine Blogs

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:10 AM | Permalink

Recapping Official Search Engine Blogs

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:10 AM | Permalink

September 8, 2005

Mac Mozilla Chief Mike Pinkerton Joins Google Firefox Team

Via Dirson, news that Mike Pinkerton of the Mozilla Mac browser project is jumping over to Google's "Firefox" team. Pinkerton suggests it may mean more Mac love for Google users.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:42 AM | Permalink

Mac Mozilla Chief Mike Pinkerton Joins Google Firefox Team

Via Dirson, news that Mike Pinkerton of the Mozilla Mac browser project is jumping over to Google's "Firefox" team. Pinkerton suggests it may mean more Mac love for Google users.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:42 AM | Permalink

Mac Mozilla Chief Mike Pinkerton Joins Google Firefox Team

Via Dirson, news that Mike Pinkerton of the Mozilla Mac browser project is jumping over to Google's "Firefox" team. Pinkerton suggests it may mean more Mac love for Google users.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:42 AM | Permalink

Mac Mozilla Chief Mike Pinkerton Joins Google Firefox Team

Via Dirson, news that Mike Pinkerton of the Mozilla Mac browser project is jumping over to Google's "Firefox" team. Pinkerton suggests it may mean more Mac love for Google users.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:42 AM | Permalink

August 10, 2005

Google's Matt Cutts Launches Blog Google software engineer Matt Cutts is well known to our readers, attendees of our SES shows to those who read up on search issues everywhere. Matt's now launched a new blog where he's sharing stories of being on the front lines of Google indexing and quality control issues, among other topics.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:34 PM | Permalink

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:34 PM | Permalink

March 30, 2005

Google Employee On 20 Percent Time

Many of you have heard about the "20 percent time" Google employees are allowed to spend on anything they want. In Google 20%, Google software developer Joe Beda blogs his personal views on how it works.

It's an interesting short read on how people may move between project teams in a "fluid" manner, how two teams might be allowed to work on similar projects in hopes things will ultimately be resolved, and how having 20 percent time isn't just a time to goof off. Do what you want, but do something interesting, Beda seems to say:

Heck, I don't have a good 20% project yet and I need one. If I don't come up with something I'm sure it could negatively impact my review.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

Google Employee On 20 Percent Time

Heck, I don't have a good 20% project yet and I need one. If I don't come up with something I'm sure it could negatively impact my review.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

Google Employee On 20 Percent Time

Heck, I don't have a good 20% project yet and I need one. If I don't come up with something I'm sure it could negatively impact my review.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

Google Employee On 20 Percent Time

Heck, I don't have a good 20% project yet and I need one. If I don't come up with something I'm sure it could negatively impact my review.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

March 8, 2005

Fired Google Blogger Gets a New Job

Mark Jen, the former Google employee who was fired for blogging, has a new job and it's also in Mountain View. According to Zawodny and News.com, Jen has landed a job at Plaxo, Plaxo, a contact management service. I wonder if one of Jen's responsibilities will be posting to the Plaxo blog? It hasn't been updated since December.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

Fired Google Blogger Gets a New Job

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

Fired Google Blogger Gets a New Job

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

Fired Google Blogger Gets a New Job

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

March 3, 2005

From Redmond to Mountain View: Top Windows Architect Joins Google

Microsoft Watch reports that Marc Lucovsky, a key Windows architect has left Microsoft after 16 years and is now a Googler. More in the article: Microsoft Loses Key Windows Architect to Google.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

From Redmond to Mountain View: Top Windows Architect Joins Google

Microsoft Watch reports that Marc Lucovsky, a key Windows architect has left Microsoft after 16 years and is now a Googler. More in the article: Microsoft Loses Key Windows Architect to Google.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

From Redmond to Mountain View: Top Windows Architect Joins Google

Microsoft Watch reports that Marc Lucovsky, a key Windows architect has left Microsoft after 16 years and is now a Googler. More in the article: Microsoft Loses Key Windows Architect to Google.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

From Redmond to Mountain View: Top Windows Architect Joins Google

Microsoft Watch reports that Marc Lucovsky, a key Windows architect has left Microsoft after 16 years and is now a Googler. More in the article: Microsoft Loses Key Windows Architect to Google.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

February 17, 2005

Fired Googler Mark Jen Speaks, Again

First, Mark Jen shared some thoughts about his firing from Google with Jeremy. Second, Jen posted his story on his ninteyninezeroes blog.

Yesterday, he engaged in a Q&A style interview with Juan Carlos Perez of the IDG News Service: Fired Google blogger reflects, moves on.

IDGNS: What did Google tell you about ending your employment there?

Jen: They've never given me a straight answer. I've requested an official statement or reason as far as why I was terminated, but I wasn't given any such reason. Of course, it's well within their rights to refuse to give me a reason. I was an at-will employee in the state of California, so they really don't need to give me a reason for terminating me. I definitely was surprised at being terminated. It's a shocking thing.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

Fired Googler Mark Jen Speaks, Again

First, Mark Jen shared some thoughts about his firing from Google with Jeremy. Second, Jen posted his story on his ninteyninezeroes blog.

Yesterday, he engaged in a Q&A style interview with Juan Carlos Perez of the IDG News Service: Fired Google blogger reflects, moves on.

IDGNS: What did Google tell you about ending your employment there?

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBack

Fired Googler Mark Jen Speaks, Again

First, Mark Jen shared some thoughts about his firing from Google with Jeremy. Second, Jen posted his story on his ninteyninezeroes blog.

Yesterday, he engaged in a Q&A style interview with Juan Carlos Perez of the IDG News Service: Fired Google blogger reflects, moves on.

IDGNS: What did Google tell you about ending your employment there?

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:55 AM | Permalink |