Nine By Blue » Collected Writings

Knowledge is a mashup

Heather — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:19:59 +0000

hese days, we hear a lot about open data, open government, and Gov 2.0. President Obama’s Open Government directive has given us access to huge data sets through avenues such as data.gov. But we have a lot more assets as a country than just digital 0s and 1s in CSV files. We also have artifacts and science and history and experts. Can open government apply to those assets as well?

AdWords Cloaks Its Help Pages, Gets Banned By Google

Heather — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:39:59 +0000

Search for [google adwords help] or [adwords help] this morning on Google and the AdWords help center is nowhere to be found. Search for the URL itself, and it doesn’t appear to be in the index. What’s going on?

Read the whole article at Search Engine Land

Yahoo Publishes Online Style Guide As Printed Book, Gives SEO Advice

Heather — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:35:37 +0000

On July 6th, you’ll be able to purchase a printed book written by Yahoo called The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World. Putting aside for a moment the irony of providing an online style guide as a printed book, what’s this style guide all about?

Read the entire article at Search Engine Land

Google XML Sitemaps Now Supports Multiple Types: Is the Sitemaps Alliance Over?

Heather — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:36:32 +0000

Since Google launched XML Sitemaps back in 2005, they’ve added specialized formats to enable site owners to submit content other than web pages. Until now, site owners have had to create separate Sitemaps for each content type:

Read the article at Search Engine Land

Google’s New Indexing Infrastructure “Caffeine” Now Live

Heather — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:13:28 +0000

Google first mentioned their new indexing infrastructure, Caffeine, back in August 2009 in order to solicit feedback, then launched it at one data center in November. Finally, it’s live everywhere. The Google blog calls it a “whole new web indexing system” that’s “more than 50 percent fresher than our last index and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered”.

Read more at Search Engine Land

Google Confirms “Mayday” Update Impacts Long Tail Traffic

Heather — Thu, 27 May 2010 20:18:34 +0000

Google made between 350 and 550 changes in its organic search algorithms in 2009. This is one of the reasons I recommend that site owners not get too fixated on specific ranking factors. If you tie construction of your site to any one perceived algorithm signal, you’re at the mercy of Google’s constant tweaks. These frequent changes are one reason Google itself downplays algorithm updates. Focus on what Google is trying to accomplish as it refines things (the most relevant, useful results possible for searchers) and you’ll generally avoid too much turbulence in your organic search traffic.

Google Webmaster Central Adds Even More Query Data

Heather — Fri, 07 May 2010 17:20:48 +0000

I love data. Part of what’s so great about the web is that the data available brings amazing insights about our audience and how they are engaging with our organizations to enable us to improve that experience. In mid-April, Google Webmaster Tools significantly expanded the information they provide about the search queries that lead to impressions and clicks from the search results page. Now, they’ve made these new features easier to use by adding an average position column and a way to “star” the queries that are most important to you for handy access.

Read more at Search Engine Land

How Do Americans Access Government Data? Search Engines.

Heather — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:37:49 +0000

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has issued a new report about how Americans access government information. They found that 82% of online adults in the United States have been to a government website within the last 12 months, and that 44% started at a major search engine. While social media has become increasingly important (31% of online Americans have used blogs, social networking sites, video, and email to access government information and 23% have participated in discussion about government issues online in some way), search is still the primary entry point. This aligns with Pew’s earlier findings that the majority of Americans prefer searching online when looking for government information.

Read more at Search Engine Land

Google Expands Rich Snippet Support Internationally

Heather — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:35:45 +0000

Nearly a year ago, Google announced that they had begun extracting metadata from microformat and RDFa markup on pages to display “rich snippets” in search results. They recently expanded this support to include HTML5 microdata. They now use this markup to enhance results for people profiles, reviews, videos, events, and recipes. Rich snippets provide additional information to searchers beyond the typical title and description (such as star ratings, address information, and social network connection details).

Read more at Search Engine Land

Google Out To Hurt Companies That Issue Press Releases, At Least According to Reuters

Heather — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:32:12 +0000

Last week, Google made a bold move that some worry may block audiences from information and harm individuals. This move sent controversial shockwaves through the investment community and mainstream media! It was unorthodox and raised many questions!

Or maybe not.

Read the entire article at Search Engine Land