As you well know, in the Webmasters Guidelines it says to avoid hidden text. Is a <whitespace> considered as invisible text and does it penalize you site?
> Thought I'd try something new here, and the team's backing me up on it > (brave souls!)
> Got questions? We've got answers: at least five (5) substantive > responses to your picks on webmaster'y topics over the next two weeks.
> We invite you to ask questions in this thread that: > - don't deal with a specific site or sites > - are likely to be of interest to a great many webmasters around the > world > - aren't already covered in one of our recent blog posts or in our > Help Center
> And in turn we will do one of the following for each response: > - Start a thread in this group with a detailed answer. > - Add new Help Center documentation or substantially revise an > existing doc to cover your question. > - Do a blog post on the topic.
> Some ground rules: > - Please don't get into in-depth discussion on each question in this > thread; instead, kindly start a separate thread (and feel free to > point there from this thread!) > - Understand that -- unless we inexplicably get fewer than five > questions here -- we're not going to be able to answer everything/ > everyone in this thread. > - Webmaster'y questions or specific suggestions on topics to explore > are welcomed... but not wish lists, okay? (e.g., "I wish Webmaster > Tools stats were updated hourly!" and "Can we see more photos of > Matt's Cats please?" do not count!)
> We'll continue to answer site-specific questions in other threads, but > we thought it'd be interesting to tackle some broader/more-general > themes separately. And we'll see how this works out. If it bombs, > well, we tried. If it rocks, then we'll consider doing it again!
> Have a great week everyone, and we'll look forward to seeing your > questions here.
Adam, I'd be curious to know what Google plans on doing with legitimate websites that have come online a little later on in the game that cannot gain a competitive ground in the SERPs for targeted keywords simply (or apparently) because other competitors have been around for years prior.
I'm not talking about sites that have been around for only three months or even under a year. I'm talking about sites that have been around for at least two years while competitors have been around for like five years. (as an example)
How does a 'newbie' get a leg up on competition if seniority is considered?
"What are the acceptable boundaries of cloaking? Is AJAX considered a form of cloaking? What about geotargetted content? Is there a way that I can safely use server side code to redirect visitors to genuine 'localised' content on the basis of IP without tripping a 'cloaking' penalty?"
> Thought I'd try something new here, and the team's backing me up on it > (brave souls!)
> Got questions? We've got answers: at least five (5) substantive > responses to your picks on webmaster'y topics over the next two weeks.
> We invite you to ask questions in this thread that: > - don't deal with a specific site or sites > - are likely to be of interest to a great many webmasters around the > world > - aren't already covered in one of our recent blog posts or in our > Help Center
> And in turn we will do one of the following for each response: > - Start a thread in this group with a detailed answer. > - Add new Help Center documentation or substantially revise an > existing doc to cover your question. > - Do a blog post on the topic.
> Some ground rules: > - Please don't get into in-depth discussion on each question in this > thread; instead, kindly start a separate thread (and feel free to > point there from this thread!) > - Understand that -- unless we inexplicably get fewer than five > questions here -- we're not going to be able to answer everything/ > everyone in this thread. > - Webmaster'y questions or specific suggestions on topics to explore > are welcomed... but not wish lists, okay? (e.g., "I wish Webmaster > Tools stats were updated hourly!" and "Can we see more photos of > Matt's Cats please?" do not count!)
> We'll continue to answer site-specific questions in other threads, but > we thought it'd be interesting to tackle some broader/more-general > themes separately. And we'll see how this works out. If it bombs, > well, we tried. If it rocks, then we'll consider doing it again!
> Have a great week everyone, and we'll look forward to seeing your > questions here.
I think we all know that duplicate content hurts our ranking. I, for one, would like to know what exactly is duplicate content?
If I have a paragraph or two duplicated on my site, does that hurt my position? Obviously, an entire site or whole page would be a problem, but how about just a tidbit from one page to another? Also, how about having the same links and header information on each page - does that constitute duplicate content too?
> Thought I'd try something new here, and the team's backing me up on it > (brave souls!)
> Got questions? We've got answers: at least five (5) substantive > responses to your picks on webmaster'y topics over the next two weeks.
> We invite you to ask questions in this thread that: > - don't deal with a specific site or sites > - are likely to be of interest to a great many webmasters around the > world > - aren't already covered in one of our recent blog posts or in our > Help Center
> And in turn we will do one of the following for each response: > - Start a thread in this group with a detailed answer. > - Add new Help Center documentation or substantially revise an > existing doc to cover your question. > - Do a blog post on the topic.
> Some ground rules: > - Please don't get into in-depth discussion on each question in this > thread; instead, kindly start a separate thread (and feel free to > point there from this thread!) > - Understand that -- unless we inexplicably get fewer than five > questions here -- we're not going to be able to answer everything/ > everyone in this thread. > - Webmaster'y questions or specific suggestions on topics to explore > are welcomed... but not wish lists, okay? (e.g., "I wish Webmaster > Tools stats were updated hourly!" and "Can we see more photos of > Matt's Cats please?" do not count!)
> We'll continue to answer site-specific questions in other threads, but > we thought it'd be interesting to tackle some broader/more-general > themes separately. And we'll see how this works out. If it bombs, > well, we tried. If it rocks, then we'll consider doing it again!
> Have a great week everyone, and we'll look forward to seeing your > questions here.
> Can one assume if a URL that is 301 redirected and it is not cached, > is that site penalized? (Even though googlebot has crawled it for > several months according to the logfiles.)
> On Sep 24, 2:12 am, Adam Lasnik wrote:
> > Thought I'd try something new here, and the team's backing me up on it > > (brave souls!)
> > Got questions? We've got answers: at least five (5) substantive > > responses to your picks on webmaster'y topics over the next two weeks.
> > We invite you to ask questions in this thread that: > > - don't deal with a specific site or sites > > - are likely to be of interest to a great many webmasters around the > > world > > - aren't already covered in one of our recent blog posts or in our > > Help Center
> > And in turn we will do one of the following for each response: > > - Start a thread in this group with a detailed answer. > > - Add new Help Center documentation or substantially revise an > > existing doc to cover your question. > > - Do a blog post on the topic.
> > Some ground rules: > > - Please don't get into in-depth discussion on each question in this > > thread; instead, kindly start a separate thread (and feel free to > > point there from this thread!) > > - Understand that -- unless we inexplicably get fewer than five > > questions here -- we're not going to be able to answer everything/ > > everyone in this thread. > > - Webmaster'y questions or specific suggestions on topics to explore > > are welcomed... but not wish lists, okay? (e.g., "I wish Webmaster > > Tools stats were updated hourly!" and "Can we see more photos of > > Matt's Cats please?" do not count!)
> > We'll continue to answer site-specific questions in other threads, but > > we thought it'd be interesting to tackle some broader/more-general > > themes separately. And we'll see how this works out. If it bombs, > > well, we tried. If it rocks, then we'll consider doing it again!
> > Have a great week everyone, and we'll look forward to seeing your > > questions here.
> Thought I'd try something new here, and the team's backing me up on it > (brave souls!) > Got questions? We've got answers: at least five (5) substantive > responses to your picks on webmaster'y topics over the next two weeks.
Well, Adam - you have a tame and expectant audience. One of your two weeks has gone and I think many of us would like to know your thoughts on the direction this discussion should now take. Have our ideas been useful, or does the Google team need more input? Do the terms of reference need refining? We'd all like to have a more content-rich interaction with Google, but we also realise that there are constraints.
Personally, I'd prefer to take the time and get proper rules in place rather than squander an opportunity to establish a useful forward- looking dialogue.
Will Google improve geotargeting so that (a) sites hosted in regions outside their target audience and (b) not using a country-specific top level domain (ccTLD) are correctly localised?
e.g. If www.british-widgets.com is targeting a UK market but has its pages hosted in the USA it will not appear in Google's 'pages from the UK' index.
> e.g. Ifwww.british-widgets.comis targeting a UK market but has its > pages hosted in the USA it will not appear in Google's 'pages from the > UK' index.
I think that falls more in the category of "suggestions" rather than requests for information from Google, though it would indeed be nice to know Google's intentions regarding geolocation.
As implemented at present, the algorithm appears to be illegal, at least as regards discrimination between hosting countries in the EU. As I've posted before, Article 85 of the Treaty of Rome _explicitly_ forbids what Google appears to be doing:
Article 85.
The following shall be prohibited as incompatible with the common market; all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which have as their object or effect the prevention restriction or distortion of competition within the common market, and in particular those which: (a) directly or indirectly fix purchase or selling prices or any other trading conditions; (b) limit or control production, markets, technical development, or investment; (c) share markets or sources of supply; (d) apply dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage; (e) make the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts.
Google's geolocation algorithm is exactly such a "concerted practice" and it does distort trade between member states because it effectively prevents me from selecting a German ISP to host my .co.uk domains. Google needs to be very, very careful.
