v7ndotcom elursrebmem - Is Google Pulling the Plug?
Or is Google really that much slower than Yahoo when it comes to indexing new content? It has been close to 24 hourse since the v7ndotcom elursrebmem contest started, yet Google still doesn’t return any organic results. (But there are some clever AdWords running.)
However, Yahoo has managed to find 130 pages containing the phrase v7ndotcom elursrebmem.
The clock is ticking…..
And the Keywords Are….. v7ndotcom elursrebmem
John Scott announced today that the keyword phrase for our little contest is "v7ndotcom elursrebmem." He also announced amended rules that allow contestants to use non-linked banners instead of a link to v7n.
Yahoo #2 Update
Yesterday, I posted about some crappy Yahoo SERPS I was getting.
I did mention in the post that it was more than likely a temporary glitch. But I didn’t include a screen cap of what I was seeing. (That would have helped the post to make sense even after the problem was fixed.)
So for the record, I thought I would quickly explain exactly what was happening.
Normally, when you search for a term on Yahoo you will never get more than two listings from the same site in the results. However, that clustering feature wasn’t working yesterday. If you searched for a word that appeared on dozens of pages from a single site, Yahoo would show all of them before listing any pages from additional domains.
Lack of clustering makes SERPS virtually worthless. And I can’t think of any other glitches that will cause people to think your results suck quicker than lack of clustering.
But the good news is the problem appears to be fixed. (Hopefully, it will stay that way).
Yahoo is #1 at being #2
I will admit up front that I am one of Yahoo’s bigger fans. I root for them because I think they are close enough to getting it. (in terms of search) Strong competition among a handful of top players combined with evenly distributed market share is a search marketer’s wet dream.
But everytime I start feeling like they are gaining some ground, I stumble upon crap like this.
Clustering multiple results from the same domain was probably the very first improvement ever made to algorithmic search engines back in 1996. Now, all of a sudded, 10 years later, Yahoo has forgotten how to cluster results. Yes, I know it is probably just a temporary "testing bug." The same kind of bug that causes the "cache" and "more pages" links to come and go at random.
But how is it that a company like Yahoo decides that it’s ok to let that kind of stuff go live? The only conclusion I can come to is that they have decided their ultimate goal is to be the very best at being #2. Afterall, which requires more work? Producing search results that are clearly better than Google’s, or simply doing enough to stay ahead of MSN, who can’t even find threadwatch.org?
WordPress Redirection Plugin
After installing the subdomain plugin, I realized that we would have plenty of urls that need to be redirected. Objection Redirection gives you an interface where you can setup redirects (301, 302 and 307) based on url, referer, or useragent. (IP address isn’t included yet, but I think we’ll add it).
I deleted the download page
Todd mentioned today that he found what he thought was a newer tool on our download page. It had actually been there for quite sometime. I posted the browser app in this category and everyone seemed to find it ok, so I figured I would go ahead and ditch the static page and just post new tools here. That way, they’ll get picked up in the feed and everyone will be able to find them easier.
We should be posting a couple of new WP plugins in the morning. In the meantime, here is a link to the Tattler. (The site explorer tool Todd was talking about.
Another SEO Contest Part 2
Update 1-16-06: The keyword phrase for this contest has been announced. It is v7ndotcom elursrebmem
Now that I’m back from vacation, I’ve had some time to read through all the responses (both on my blog as well as v7n) to my offer to pay prize money to anyone who wanted to compete in the V7N SEO contest, but didn’t want to link to v7n.
The majority of the v7n posts are just a bunch of whiny name-calling, but there are a few recurring points worth addressing.
Why GoDaddy Sucks
In my last post on competitive sabotage, I mentioned that using GoDaddy wasn’t a smart idea because of their asinine stance on spam reports. That brief comment caused several GoDaddy users to email me asking for some more information regarding GoDaddy’s spam policies
Here’s a current example. (via ThreadWatch)
I’d also suggest taking the time to read an older TW post on GoDaddy.
Then, once you’re done, get off your butt and start moving your domains somewhere else.