We've heard feedback from members of this Help Group that some of you want to hear more about what goes on at the conferences we attend. Well, I was at an AMA Search Marketing conference in Chicago last week, and thought I'd share some of the questions that were asked at the conference (as well as some answers!):
Q: How many keywords should I put in the meta keywords tag? I heard the limit was 25, but then my web guy told me you should only put 3 - 5.
A: Not all search engines take the meta keywords tag seriously these days, since its potential for abuse is so great. If you're using it because you think it's a great way to send Google a signal about your site's topic, your time would probably be better-spent creating great content rather than carefully tailoring your meta keywords (since site content is one of the signals we use to determine what a site is about).
Filling the meta keywords tag with hundreds of keywords tends to look like spam, so I'd keep the numbers reasonable; but if you want to use keywords, there's no exact limit on how many you're "allowed". I've heard several people say they use the meta keywords tag as a reference for themselves, so that when they come back to a page they can remember which keywords they were targeting or what the main focus of the page was (this is particularly helpful if you're managing a large site with many pages). Using the number and type of keywords that would be useful for *you* is a pretty good rule of thumb for the meta keywords tag.
~ ~ ~
Q: My site's robots.txt file includes the following:
User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /subfolder/
User-agent: * Disallow: /
Is Googlebot going to be able to crawl the site, or will it be blocked by the second rule (disallow all)?
A: We used the robots.txt analysis tool in webmaster tools to test this scenario. (Yes, Googlebot will be able to crawl all of the site except the /subfolder/ folder.)
Q: If your site only has a few sitelinks and you use the new feature in webmaster tools to block one of those sitelinks, your site will show one less sitelink in search results. But if you have the maximum possible number of sitelinks and you block one of them, will you get a new one to fill its place, or do you just go down to [max-1] sitelinks?
A: Every time you block a sitelink, you'll have one less sitelink displayed in search results, regardless of whether you were at the "max" number of sitelinks or not.
~ ~ ~
Q: If you've submitted your content to Google and then you create some new content or redo your site, should you submit the new content? Do you need to "remove" the submission of the old content?
A: The purpose of submitting your content to Google (via http://www.google.com/addurl/ ) is to make sure we know about the existence of your site. It can be useful, for example, if no other sites link to you (in which case we wouldn't be able to discover your site during our normal crawl). Once we know about your site, however, we'll come back and crawl it periodically, and when we do we'll see that you have new content; so there's no need to resubmit your URL.
If you're interested in giving us more data about your site's URLs, such as when they were last updated or how often your content changes, you can submit an XML Sitemap which includes this type of information:
Q: Is there a backlog for submission of new sites? I heard there was a 6 month backlog.
A: Nope, not true. I've seen sites get crawled within days of our first hearing about them. How frequently we crawl your site, however, can vary a lot depending on factors like how popular/important it is, and how often your content changes. But you don't have to worry about any "backlog", and certainly not a 6 month backlog. Go ahead and let us know about as much content as you want!
~ ~ ~
Q: Would you recommend using cookies, or would you consider that "forcing" something on the user? (This question was asked in the context of a discussion about giving users choices about how they can use your site.)
A (from Mike Moran): Cookies are fine, because a) it's opt-in, so you're giving people a choice; and b) the cookie rejection rate is going down every year, so whatever you're trying to accomplish with those cookies is more likely to be successful.
(Note that you should also make sure your site still functions if the cookies get rejected, since some visitors--including search engine crawlers--don't accept cookies.)
~ ~ ~
Q: Would you recommend a deep or shallow navigation structure?
A (from Mike Moran): Studies show that narrow-and-deep hierarchies tend to be less successful because you're asking people to make too many choices (and they may not know what a particular category means, so if they make the wrong decision they've just clicked themselves farther away from what they really want).
~ ~ ~
Q: There's so much information going around in the SEO/SEM industry, and often a lot of it conflicts; what's your response (as a Googler) when you attend these conferences and hear all this conflicting information?
A: If I hear a speaker say something in their presentation that I know is flat-out wrong, I'll mention it to them after the session (and tell them where they can find the correct information). But a lot of this industry deals with questions that don't have a simple black-or-white answer; there are shades of gray, hundreds of influencing factors, and what worked great for one person or one website may not be effective for someone else. Or there may be multiple ways to achieve the same result.
In general I like to listen to the evidence that people present for or against particular theories or techniques, because *how* they arrived at their conclusions is often more useful (did they run tests? What factors did they control for? Is this just anecdotal evidence?) than the actual conclusion itself.
Also, please let me know if you find this format (posting all the questions in one post) helpful, or if it would be better to break each question off into its own thread (or to do it some other way). I wanted to give a snapshot of the conference as a whole, but it's true this post is a bit long... :-s Your thoughts appreciated!
Susan, first off, I am so happy to see this that there is a little tear in my eye. Thank you for this post and the effort. Not everyone has the time or resources to meet at conferences or even the need for that matter. Documentation like this helps a lot of people.
Breaking the post into separate subjects may be easier to refer others to. As an example, sending someone to the FAQ section doesn't work so well because they need to read the whole page to find what section pertains to their inquiry. On the other hand, short of bookmarking the thread, if you try to use the groups interface of favorites it gets quite cluttered and hard to find previous posts to reference. So there ya go, waffling at it's best, I should run for office.
> Also, please let me know if you find this format (posting all the > questions in one post) helpful, or if it would be better to break each > question off into its own thread (or to do it some other way). I > wanted to give a snapshot of the conference as a whole, but it's true > this post is a bit long... :-s > Your thoughts appreciated!
What is really lacking on this site is a wiki or some similar means of organization so different topics (hidden text, duplicate content, meta tags, canonaliztion, etc.) actually have a home and the collective wisdom is accessible without reading a multitude of threads. To find anything now, I have to do a search which is OK for regular readers who remember what to search for but is not very effective for new or occasional visitors who would have to read through all the threads.
Many of the replies to inquiries are duplicative because the same topics keep coming up but the accuracy, usefulness, and completeness of responses varies conderably by person and inquiry. If some of the more common topics were set up in an organized fashion, volunteers providing assistance on this site could direct the inquiring party to the appropriate section and inquiries would receive more consistent guidance based on the collective wisdom of the group rather relying on the specific knowledge of whichever person happens to respond to an inquiry.
> Susan, first off, I am so happy to see this that there is a little > tear in my eye. Thank you for this post and the effort. Not everyone > has the time or resources to meet at conferences or even the need for > that matter. Documentation like this helps a lot of people.
> Breaking the post into separate subjects may be easier to refer others > to. As an example, sending someone to the FAQ section doesn't work so > well because they need to read the whole page to find what section > pertains to their inquiry. On the other hand, short of bookmarking > the thread, if you try to use the groups interface of favorites it > gets quite cluttered and hard to find previous posts to reference. So > there ya go, waffling at it's best, I should run for office.
> On Nov 8, 12:28 pm, Susan Moskwa wrote:
> > Also, please let me know if you find this format (posting all the > > questions in one post) helpful, or if it would be better to break each > > question off into its own thread (or to do it some other way). I > > wanted to give a snapshot of the conference as a whole, but it's true > > this post is a bit long... :-s > > Your thoughts appreciated!- Hide quoted text -
Just copy each Q to its corresponding item on a FAQ page and make sure the items come with a meaningful DOM-ID (and possibly a visible deep link URL) so that we can link to the fragment with faq-url#item URLs.
> What is really lacking on this site is a wiki or some similar means of > organization so different topics (hidden text, duplicate content, meta > tags, canonaliztion, etc.) actually have a home and the collective > wisdom is accessible without reading a multitude of threads. To find > anything now, I have to do a search which is OK for regular readers > who remember what to search for but is not very effective for new or > occasional visitors who would have to read through all the threads.
> Many of the replies to inquiries are duplicative because the same > topics keep coming up but the accuracy, usefulness, and completeness > of responses varies conderably by person and inquiry. If some of the > more common topics were set up in an organized fashion, volunteers > providing assistance on this site could direct the inquiring party to > the appropriate section and inquiries would receive more consistent > guidance based on the collective wisdom of the group rather relying on > the specific knowledge of whichever person happens to respond to an > inquiry.
> On Nov 8, 12:56 pm, JLH wrote:
> > Susan, first off, I am so happy to see this that there is a little > > tear in my eye. Thank you for this post and the effort. Not everyone > > has the time or resources to meet at conferences or even the need for > > that matter. Documentation like this helps a lot of people.
> > Breaking the post into separate subjects may be easier to refer others > > to. As an example, sending someone to the FAQ section doesn't work so > > well because they need to read the whole page to find what section > > pertains to their inquiry. On the other hand, short of bookmarking > > the thread, if you try to use the groups interface of favorites it > > gets quite cluttered and hard to find previous posts to reference. So > > there ya go, waffling at it's best, I should run for office.
> > On Nov 8, 12:28 pm, Susan Moskwa wrote:
> > > Also, please let me know if you find this format (posting all the > > > questions in one post) helpful, or if it would be better to break each > > > question off into its own thread (or to do it some other way). I > > > wanted to give a snapshot of the conference as a whole, but it's true > > > this post is a bit long... :-s > > > Your thoughts appreciated!- Hide quoted text -
"But a lot of this industry deals with questions that don't have a simple black-or-white answer; there are shades of grey, hundreds of influencing factors....."
Oddly enough, someone just forwarded me an entertaining email with a different view "No visitors......hardly surprised but that's not a great problem..... I'm already working on a new flash banner and changing the header fonts." Think I'll stick with your version.
Thanks also to the others who added their useful ideas. I'm going to go slightly against the grain and say I prefer the Q & As in one post, as this is more likely to collate fresh information. I equally understand that infrequent visitors may prefer other options.
Regarding the FAQs, how practical do you feel it would be to add "You might like to read......." accompanied by a few thread URLs.
I appreciate this would incorporate outside opinion into Google FAQs but that could be covered in a brief disclaimer. Equally, someone has to spend time doing this but that could reduce effort in other directions. If a small number of outstanding threads were chosen, this could not only answer the question but give others a feel for how the forum can work and for the Google community.
> We've heard feedback from members of this Help Group that some of you > want to hear more about what goes on at the conferences we attend. > Well, I was at an AMA Search Marketing conference in Chicago last > week, and thought I'd share some of the questions that were asked at > the conference (as well as some answers!):
> Q: How many keywords should I put in the meta keywords tag? I heard > the limit was 25, but then my web guy told me you should only put 3 - > 5.
> A: Not all search engines take the meta keywords tag seriously these > days, since its potential for abuse is so great. If you're using it > because you think it's a great way to send Google a signal about your > site's topic, your time would probably be better-spent creating great > content rather than carefully tailoring your meta keywords (since site > content is one of the signals we use to determine what a site is > about).
> Filling the meta keywords tag with hundreds of keywords tends to look > like spam, so I'd keep the numbers reasonable; but if you want to use > keywords, there's no exact limit on how many you're "allowed". I've > heard several people say they use the meta keywords tag as a reference > for themselves, so that when they come back to a page they can > remember which keywords they were targeting or what the main focus of > the page was (this is particularly helpful if you're managing a large > site with many pages). Using the number and type of keywords that > would be useful for *you* is a pretty good rule of thumb for the meta > keywords tag.
> ~ ~ ~
> Q: My site's robots.txt file includes the following:
> User-agent: Googlebot > Disallow: /subfolder/
> User-agent: * > Disallow: /
> Is Googlebot going to be able to crawl the site, or will it be blocked > by the second rule (disallow all)?
> A: We used the robots.txt analysis tool in webmaster tools to test > this scenario. (Yes, Googlebot will be able to crawl all of the site > except the /subfolder/ folder.)
> Q: If your site only has a few sitelinks and you use the new feature > in webmaster tools to block one of those sitelinks, your site will > show one less sitelink in search results. But if you have the maximum > possible number of sitelinks and you block one of them, will you get a > new one to fill its place, or do you just go down to [max-1] > sitelinks?
> A: Every time you block a sitelink, you'll have one less sitelink > displayed in search results, regardless of whether you were at the > "max" number of sitelinks or not.
> ~ ~ ~
> Q: If you've submitted your content to Google and then you create some > new content or redo your site, should you submit the new content? Do > you need to "remove" the submission of the old content?
> A: The purpose of submitting your content to Google (viahttp://www.google.com/addurl/) is to make sure we know about the > existence of your site. It can be useful, for example, if no other > sites link to you (in which case we wouldn't be able to discover your > site during our normal crawl). Once we know about your site, however, > we'll come back and crawl it periodically, and when we do we'll see > that you have new content; so there's no need to resubmit your URL.
> If you're interested in giving us more data about your site's URLs, > such as when they were last updated or how often your content changes, > you can submit an XML Sitemap which includes this type of information:
> Q: Is there a backlog for submission of new sites? I heard there was a > 6 month backlog.
> A: Nope, not true. I've seen sites get crawled within days of our > first hearing about them. How frequently we crawl your site, however, > can vary a lot depending on factors like how popular/important it is, > and how often your content changes. But you don't have to worry about > any "backlog", and certainly not a 6 month backlog. Go ahead and let > us know about as much content as you want!
> ~ ~ ~
> Q: Would you recommend using cookies, or would you consider that > "forcing" something on the user? > (This question was asked in the context of a discussion about giving > users choices about how they can use your site.)
> A (from Mike Moran): Cookies are fine, because > a) it's opt-in, so you're giving people a choice; and > b) the cookie rejection rate is going down every year, so whatever > you're trying to accomplish with those cookies is more likely to be > successful.
> (Note that you should also make sure your site still functions if the > cookies get rejected, since some visitors--including search engine > crawlers--don't accept cookies.)
> ~ ~ ~
> Q: Would you recommend a deep or shallow navigation structure?
> A (from Mike Moran): Studies show that narrow-and-deep hierarchies > tend to be less successful because you're asking people to make too > many choices (and they may not know what a particular category means, > so if they make the wrong decision they've just clicked themselves > farther away from what they really want).
> ~ ~ ~
> Q: There's so much information going around in the SEO/SEM industry, > and often a lot of it conflicts; what's your response (as a Googler) > when you attend these conferences and hear all this conflicting > information?
> A: If I hear a speaker say something in their presentation that I know > is flat-out wrong, I'll mention it to them after the session (and tell > them where they can find the correct information). But a lot of this > industry deals with questions that don't have a simple black-or-white > answer; there are shades of gray, hundreds of influencing factors, and > what worked great for one person or one website may not be effective > for someone else. Or there may be multiple ways to achieve the same > result.
> In general I like to listen to the evidence that people present for or > against particular theories or techniques, because *how* they arrived > at their conclusions is often more useful (did they run tests? What > factors did they control for? Is this just anecdotal evidence?) than > the actual conclusion itself.
> We've heard feedback from members of this Help Group that some of you > want to hear more about what goes on at the conferences we attend. > Well, I was at an AMA Search Marketing conference in Chicago last > week, and thought I'd share some of the questions that were asked at > the conference (as well as some answers!):
> Q: How many keywords should I put in the meta keywords tag? I heard > the limit was 25, but then my web guy told me you should only put 3 - > 5.
> A: Not all search engines take the meta keywords tag seriously these > days, since its potential for abuse is so great. If you're using it > because you think it's a great way to send Google a signal about your > site's topic, your time would probably be better-spent creating great > content rather than carefully tailoring your meta keywords (since site > content is one of the signals we use to determine what a site is > about).
> Filling the meta keywords tag with hundreds of keywords tends to look > like spam, so I'd keep the numbers reasonable; but if you want to use > keywords, there's no exact limit on how many you're "allowed". I've > heard several people say they use the meta keywords tag as a reference > for themselves, so that when they come back to a page they can > remember which keywords they were targeting or what the main focus of > the page was (this is particularly helpful if you're managing a large > site with many pages). Using the number and type of keywords that > would be useful for *you* is a pretty good rule of thumb for the meta > keywords tag.
> ~ ~ ~
> Q: My site's robots.txt file includes the following:
> User-agent: Googlebot > Disallow: /subfolder/
> User-agent: * > Disallow: /
> Is Googlebot going to be able to crawl the site, or will it be blocked > by the second rule (disallow all)?
> A: We used the robots.txt analysis tool in webmaster tools to test > this scenario. (Yes, Googlebot will be able to crawl all of the site > except the /subfolder/ folder.)
> Q: If your site only has a few sitelinks and you use the new feature > in webmaster tools to block one of those sitelinks, your site will > show one less sitelink in search results. But if you have the maximum > possible number of sitelinks and you block one of them, will you get a > new one to fill its place, or do you just go down to [max-1] > sitelinks?
> A: Every time you block a sitelink, you'll have one less sitelink > displayed in search results, regardless of whether you were at the > "max" number of sitelinks or not.
> ~ ~ ~
> Q: If you've submitted your content to Google and then you create some > new content or redo your site, should you submit the new content? Do > you need to "remove" the submission of the old content?
> A: The purpose of submitting your content to Google (viahttp://www.google.com/addurl/) is to make sure we know about the > existence of your site. It can be useful, for example, if no other > sites link to you (in which case we wouldn't be able to discover your > site during our normal crawl). Once we know about your site, however, > we'll come back and crawl it periodically, and when we do we'll see > that you have new content; so there's no need to resubmit your URL.
> If you're interested in giving us more data about your site's URLs, > such as when they were last updated or how often your content changes, > you can submit an XML Sitemap which includes this type of information:
> Q: Is there a backlog for submission of new sites? I heard there was a > 6 month backlog.
> A: Nope, not true. I've seen sites get crawled within days of our > first hearing about them. How frequently we crawl your site, however, > can vary a lot depending on factors like how popular/important it is, > and how often your content changes. But you don't have to worry about > any "backlog", and certainly not a 6 month backlog. Go ahead and let > us know about as much content as you want!
> ~ ~ ~
> Q: Would you recommend using cookies, or would you consider that > "forcing" something on the user? > (This question was asked in the context of a discussion about giving > users choices about how they can use your site.)
> A (from Mike Moran): Cookies are fine, because > a) it's opt-in, so you're giving people a choice; and > b) the cookie rejection rate is going down every year, so whatever > you're trying to accomplish with those cookies is more likely to be > successful.
> (Note that you should also make sure your site still functions if the > cookies get rejected, since some visitors--including search engine > crawlers--don't accept cookies.)
> ~ ~ ~
> Q: Would you recommend a deep or shallow navigation structure?
> A (from Mike Moran): Studies show that narrow-and-deep hierarchies > tend to be less successful because you're asking people to make too > many choices (and they may not know what a particular category means, > so if they make the wrong decision they've just clicked themselves > farther away from what they really want).
> ~ ~ ~
> Q: There's so much information going around in the SEO/SEM industry, > and often a lot of it conflicts; what's your response (as a Googler) > when you attend these conferences and hear all this conflicting > information?
> A: If I hear a speaker say something in their presentation that I know > is flat-out wrong, I'll mention it to them after the session (and tell > them where they can find the correct information). But a lot of this > industry deals with questions that don't have a simple black-or-white > answer; there are shades of gray, hundreds of influencing factors, and > what worked great for one person or one website may not be effective > for someone else. Or there may be multiple ways to achieve the same > result.
> In general I like to listen to the evidence that people present for or > against particular theories or techniques, because *how* they arrived > at their conclusions is often more useful (did they run tests? What > factors did they control for? Is this just anecdotal evidence?) than > the actual conclusion itself.
Craig, I think she was trying show is that Google will take the Googlebot user-agent directive over the wildcard "*" as its direction. Had the specific Googlebot user-agent directive not been there, then the site would have been blocked from Google as well. I could be wrong.
> First, Google blogs linking to threads here for discussions and now > this, besides all the other increased involvement lately.
> One might almost possibly perhaps become convinced you Googlers > actually wub us! :-()
> But, am I mistaken or does :
> User-agent: * > Disallow: /
> actually mean the entire site will be disallowed?
> Or, am I only mistaken in understanding what you wrote?
> I'm easily confused so please take pity on me. :-( ;-)
> Craig
> On Nov 9, 3:25 am, Susan Moskwa wrote:
> > Hey all--
> > We've heard feedback from members of this Help Group that some of you > > want to hear more about what goes on at the conferences we attend. > > Well, I was at an AMA Search Marketing conference in Chicago last > > week, and thought I'd share some of the questions that were asked at > > the conference (as well as some answers!):
> > Q: How many keywords should I put in the meta keywords tag? I heard > > the limit was 25, but then my web guy told me you should only put 3 - > > 5.
> > A: Not all search engines take the meta keywords tag seriously these > > days, since its potential for abuse is so great. If you're using it > > because you think it's a great way to send Google a signal about your > > site's topic, your time would probably be better-spent creating great > > content rather than carefully tailoring your meta keywords (since site > > content is one of the signals we use to determine what a site is > > about).
> > Filling the meta keywords tag with hundreds of keywords tends to look > > like spam, so I'd keep the numbers reasonable; but if you want to use > > keywords, there's no exact limit on how many you're "allowed". I've > > heard several people say they use the meta keywords tag as a reference > > for themselves, so that when they come back to a page they can > > remember which keywords they were targeting or what the main focus of > > the page was (this is particularly helpful if you're managing a large > > site with many pages). Using the number and type of keywords that > > would be useful for *you* is a pretty good rule of thumb for the meta > > keywords tag.
> > ~ ~ ~
> > Q: My site's robots.txt file includes the following:
> > Is Googlebot going to be able to crawl the site, or will it be blocked > > by the second rule (disallow all)?
> > A: We used the robots.txt analysis tool in webmaster tools to test > > this scenario. (Yes, Googlebot will be able to crawl all of the site > > except the /subfolder/ folder.)
> > Q: If your site only has a few sitelinks and you use the new feature > > in webmaster tools to block one of those sitelinks, your site will > > show one less sitelink in search results. But if you have the maximum > > possible number of sitelinks and you block one of them, will you get a > > new one to fill its place, or do you just go down to [max-1] > > sitelinks?
> > A: Every time you block a sitelink, you'll have one less sitelink > > displayed in search results, regardless of whether you were at the > > "max" number of sitelinks or not.
> > ~ ~ ~
> > Q: If you've submitted your content to Google and then you create some > > new content or redo your site, should you submit the new content? Do > > you need to "remove" the submission of the old content?
> > A: The purpose of submitting your content to Google (viahttp://www.google.com/addurl/) is to make sure we know about the > > existence of your site. It can be useful, for example, if no other > > sites link to you (in which case we wouldn't be able to discover your > > site during our normal crawl). Once we know about your site, however, > > we'll come back and crawl it periodically, and when we do we'll see > > that you have new content; so there's no need to resubmit your URL.
> > If you're interested in giving us more data about your site's URLs, > > such as when they were last updated or how often your content changes, > > you can submit an XML Sitemap which includes this type of information:
> > Q: Is there a backlog for submission of new sites? I heard there was a > > 6 month backlog.
> > A: Nope, not true. I've seen sites get crawled within days of our > > first hearing about them. How frequently we crawl your site, however, > > can vary a lot depending on factors like how popular/important it is, > > and how often your content changes. But you don't have to worry about > > any "backlog", and certainly not a 6 month backlog. Go ahead and let > > us know about as much content as you want!
> > ~ ~ ~
> > Q: Would you recommend using cookies, or would you consider that > > "forcing" something on the user? > > (This question was asked in the context of a discussion about giving > > users choices about how they can use your site.)
> > A (from Mike Moran): Cookies are fine, because > > a) it's opt-in, so you're giving people a choice; and > > b) the cookie rejection rate is going down every year, so whatever > > you're trying to accomplish with those cookies is more likely to be > > successful.
> > (Note that you should also make sure your site still functions if the > > cookies get rejected, since some visitors--including search engine > > crawlers--don't accept cookies.)
> > ~ ~ ~
> > Q: Would you recommend a deep or shallow navigation structure?
> > A (from Mike Moran): Studies show that narrow-and-deep hierarchies > > tend to be less successful because you're asking people to make too > > many choices (and they may not know what a particular category means, > > so if they make the wrong decision they've just clicked themselves > > farther away from what they really want).
> > ~ ~ ~
> > Q: There's so much information going around in the SEO/SEM industry, > > and often a lot of it conflicts; what's your response (as a Googler) > > when you attend these conferences and hear all this conflicting > > information?
> > A: If I hear a speaker say something in their presentation that I know > > is flat-out wrong, I'll mention it to them after the session (and tell > > them where they can find the correct information). But a lot of this > > industry deals with questions that don't have a simple black-or-white > > answer; there are shades of gray, hundreds of influencing factors, and > > what worked great for one person or one website may not be effective > > for someone else. Or there may be multiple ways to achieve the same > > result.
> > In general I like to listen to the evidence that people present for or > > against particular theories or techniques, because *how* they arrived > > at their conclusions is often more useful (did they run tests? What > > factors did they control for? Is this just anecdotal evidence?) than > > the actual conclusion itself.
> Craig, I think she was trying show is that Google will take the > Googlebot user-agent directive over the wildcard "*" as its > direction. Had the specific Googlebot user-agent directive not been > there, then the site would have been blocked from Google as well. I > could be wrong.
"Craig, I think she was trying show is that Google will take the Googlebot user-agent directive over the wildcard "*" as its direction. "
Matt Cutts confirmed this behavior a year ago on WMW, as JLH mentioned. I think there's either a answer? page or a webmastercentral post about it somewhere.
Anyway, Susan, thank you very much for posting this.
> First, Google blogs linking to threads here for discussions and now > this, besides all the other increased involvement lately.
> One might almost possibly perhaps become convinced you Googlers > actually wub us! :-()
> But, am I mistaken or does :
> User-agent: * > Disallow: /
> actually mean the entire site will be disallowed?
> Or, am I only mistaken in understanding what you wrote?
> I'm easily confused so please take pity on me. :-( ;-)
> Craig
> On Nov 9, 3:25 am, Susan Moskwa wrote:
> > Hey all--
> > We've heard feedback from members of this Help Group that some of you > > want to hear more about what goes on at the conferences we attend. > > Well, I was at an AMA Search Marketing conference in Chicago last > > week, and thought I'd share some of the questions that were asked at > > the conference (as well as some answers!):
> > Q: How many keywords should I put in the meta keywords tag? I heard > > the limit was 25, but then my web guy told me you should only put 3 - > > 5.
> > A: Not all search engines take the meta keywords tag seriously these > > days, since its potential for abuse is so great. If you're using it > > because you think it's a great way to send Google a signal about your > > site's topic, your time would probably be better-spent creating great > > content rather than carefully tailoring your meta keywords (since site > > content is one of the signals we use to determine what a site is > > about).
> > Filling the meta keywords tag with hundreds of keywords tends to look > > like spam, so I'd keep the numbers reasonable; but if you want to use > > keywords, there's no exact limit on how many you're "allowed". I've > > heard several people say they use the meta keywords tag as a reference > > for themselves, so that when they come back to a page they can > > remember which keywords they were targeting or what the main focus of > > the page was (this is particularly helpful if you're managing a large > > site with many pages). Using the number and type of keywords that > > would be useful for *you* is a pretty good rule of thumb for the meta > > keywords tag.
> > ~ ~ ~
> > Q: My site's robots.txt file includes the following:
> > Is Googlebot going to be able to crawl the site, or will it be blocked > > by the second rule (disallow all)?
> > A: We used the robots.txt analysis tool in webmaster tools to test > > this scenario. (Yes, Googlebot will be able to crawl all of the site > > except the /subfolder/ folder.)
> > Q: If your site only has a few sitelinks and you use the new feature > > in webmaster tools to block one of those sitelinks, your site will > > show one less sitelink in search results. But if you have the maximum > > possible number of sitelinks and you block one of them, will you get a > > new one to fill its place, or do you just go down to [max-1] > > sitelinks?
> > A: Every time you block a sitelink, you'll have one less sitelink > > displayed in search results, regardless of whether you were at the > > "max" number of sitelinks or not.
> > ~ ~ ~
> > Q: If you've submitted your content to Google and then you create some > > new content or redo your site, should you submit the new content? Do > > you need to "remove" the submission of the old content?
> > A: The purpose of submitting your content to Google (viahttp://www.google.com/addurl/) is to make sure we know about the > > existence of your site. It can be useful, for example, if no other > > sites link to you (in which case we wouldn't be able to discover your > > site during our normal crawl). Once we know about your site, however, > > we'll come back and crawl it periodically, and when we do we'll see > > that you have new content; so there's no need to resubmit your URL.
> > If you're interested in giving us more data about your site's URLs, > > such as when they were last updated or how often your content changes, > > you can submit an XML Sitemap which includes this type of information:
> > Q: Is there a backlog for submission of new sites? I heard there was a > > 6 month backlog.
> > A: Nope, not true. I've seen sites get crawled within days of our > > first hearing about them. How frequently we crawl your site, however, > > can vary a lot depending on factors like how popular/important it is, > > and how often your content changes. But you don't have to worry about > > any "backlog", and certainly not a 6 month backlog. Go ahead and let > > us know about as much content as you want!
> > ~ ~ ~
> > Q: Would you recommend using cookies, or would you consider that > > "forcing" something on the user? > > (This question was asked in the context of a discussion about giving > > users choices about how they can use your site.)
> > A (from Mike Moran): Cookies are fine, because > > a) it's opt-in, so you're giving people a choice; and > > b) the cookie rejection rate is going down every year, so whatever > > you're trying to accomplish with those cookies is more likely to be > > successful.
> > (Note that you should also make sure your site still functions if the > > cookies get rejected, since some visitors--including search engine > > crawlers--don't accept cookies.)
> > ~ ~ ~
> > Q: Would you recommend a deep or shallow navigation structure?
> > A (from Mike Moran): Studies show that narrow-and-deep hierarchies > > tend to be less successful because you're asking people to make too > > many choices (and they may not know what a particular category means, > > so if they make the wrong decision they've just clicked themselves > > farther away from what they really want).
> > ~ ~ ~
> > Q: There's so much information going around in the SEO/SEM industry, > > and often a lot of it conflicts; what's your response (as a Googler) > > when you attend these conferences and hear all this conflicting > > information?
> > A: If I hear a speaker say something in their presentation that I know > > is flat-out wrong, I'll mention it to them after the session (and tell > > them where they can find the correct information). But a lot of this > > industry deals with questions that don't have a simple black-or-white > > answer; there are shades of gray, hundreds of influencing factors, and > > what worked great for one person or one website may not be effective > > for someone else. Or there may be multiple ways to achieve the same > > result.
> > In general I like to listen to the evidence that people present for or > > against particular theories or techniques, because *how* they arrived > > at their conclusions is often more useful (did they run tests? What > > factors did they control for? Is this just anecdotal evidence?) than > > the actual conclusion itself.
> Also, please let me know if you find this format (posting all the > questions in one post) helpful, or if it would be better to break each > question off into its own thread (or to do it some other way). I > wanted to give a snapshot of the conference as a whole, but it's true > this post is a bit long... :-s > Your thoughts appreciated!
I prefer to have stuff like this thrown at me in one lump whilst it's still warm.
Err... I may just have painted the entirely wrong mental image... ;-)
Anyhoo... I think that for us regulars, this approach is perfect, whereas newbies/occasional users could probably do with having things presented a little differently.
Also, I thought Sebastian's point about the 'visible deep link' was excellent.
Yes... I'd like to also add my thanks to everyone else's for the time and effort that's gone into this, as well as the huge increase in official involvement in the group.
How do I create Site links for my site What are the guidelines or way I need to follow, Some one suggest me that it is can also done with help of Google webmaster tools, but not succeeded. Expecting Answer ASAP
> Also, please let me know if you find this format (posting all the > questions in one post) helpful, or if it would be better to break each > question off into its own thread (or to do it some other way). I > wanted to give a snapshot of the conference as a whole, but it's true > this post is a bit long... :-s > Your thoughts appreciated!
Sebastian, I've added anchors to the FAQ pages so now you can link to each question individually.
Chibcha & Richard, I'm working on an "Other useful threads..." page (that'll include threads like this one), which'll hopefully make it easier to re-find this stuff.
Please let me know if you have suggestions for how to make these optimally helpful.
The anchors will be really useful. Your plan for a separate threads page may well also be best but I wonder if these would be used more if they were integrated into specific FAQ topics.
I appreciate you can not go to far with this, or there is a danger of the whole section no longer being a Google document. Do you feel this would still apply if the same approach was taken as for the "popular picks" link at the foot of FAQs for other issues. If the thread links were at the foot of each FAQ page, with identifiable anchor text, maybe they would catch more people than on a separate page.
Alternatively, if they need to be on a separate page, for internal reasons, or sheer numbers, is it possible to group them and add a " Read useful threads on these topics." link at the foot of each FAQ page to that section of the threads page. This could reduce the percentage who might not go back to the FAQ index page and find the threads.
Whatever route you decide, thanks for looking at this.
> Sebastian, I've added anchors to the FAQ pages so now you can link to > each question individually.
> Chibcha & Richard, I'm working on an "Other useful threads..." page > (that'll include threads like this one), which'll hopefully make it > easier to re-find this stuff.
> Please let me know if you have suggestions for how to make these > optimally helpful.
