Smackdown!

Google Tries Too Hard To Appear Useful, Starts Making Up New Words

Michael VanDeMar — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:16:33 +0000

The Google Search feature that Google calls “Spell Checker” can be very handy at times. You know the one I mean… you type something hastily in the box, manage to inadvertently slip in a typo or two, and Google, very helpfully, asks you “Did you mean: {some other word}”. Aside from putting a dent in [...]

Yet Another Link Test - Single Source Page, Multiple Links, Nofollowed Middle

Michael VanDeMar — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 05:13:30 +0000

Last year I performed a couple of tests on what happens if you have multiple links pointing to the same page all from the same source page. Today a reader left a comment from one of the follow-up posts, which had to do with answering the question of what happens if the first link is [...]

How To Remove Your Website From Linkscape Without An SEOmoz Meta Tag

Michael VanDeMar — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 07:55:50 +0000

Over the past couple of weeks, one of the biggest concerns about SEOmoz’s new Linkscape tool (which I recently blogged about in reference to the bots that Rand refuses to identify, and then again due to suspicious additions of a phantom 7 billion pages to one of his index sources) has been the complete [...]

How To Add 7 Billion Pages To Your Index Overnight

Michael VanDeMar — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:22:00 +0000

A couple of days ago I posted my assertion that Rand Fishkin had lied about the details of the new Linkscape tool on SEOmoz. During the discussion that followed, Rand continued to maintain that they owned the bots that collected the data that powered the tool, despite several points on that being very unclear, and [...]

My Friend Donna Fontenot Sure Is, Well… Different…

Michael VanDeMar — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:18:58 +0000

Donna is definitely one of my bestest friends. She gets me, we think alike, and when I get stuck on an issue she’s always there to help me, even if it’s just moral support (although usually it’s in the form of information I need when my brain is just plain overloaded). I love her [...]

How To Block The Bots SEOmoz Isn’t Telling You About

Michael VanDeMar — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:05:54 +0000

Ok, so, looks like Rand and gang finally decided to reveal their top-secret recipe about how they gathered all that information on everybody’s websites without anyone noticing what they were doing. There was quite a bit of hoopla over the fact that when they announced their new index of 30 billion web pages (and [...]

Google Allows Ads Mocking Suicide

Michael VanDeMar — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:40:16 +0000

During the Great Depression, the suicide rate jumped over 21.4%. It was a sad time for all, and the unemployment rate skyrocketed. Many people lost their homes and farms. The shame of not being able to provide for their families was simply too much for some. Last June, “Good Morning America” did a segment [...]

Sorry Google Webmaster Team, But I Gotta Call Bullshit On This One

Michael VanDeMar — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:49:21 +0000

Yesterday a couple of people on the Google Search Quality Team, Juliane Stiller and Kaspar Szymanski, wrote a blog post titled, Dynamic URLs vs. static URLs. In it they address several concepts people in the webmastering community have about whether or not Google has trouble with dynamic urls, and whether or not webmasters should [...]

Quick Anatomy Of A Minor Google Bug

Michael VanDeMar — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:49:56 +0000

Ok, I know most of the people who read my blog won’t really care about this one, but since it’s much easier for me to explain it with screenshots, and just a tad too long for Twitter, I figured I would go ahead and just blog it. John Mueller, this is in reference to the [...]

Google Fundamentally Changes The Way They Handle 302 Redirects (Welcome Back 302 Hijack!)

Michael VanDeMar — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:00:52 +0000

For years now, on an on-again/off-again basis, Google has had issues with the way that they treat 302 Temporary Redirects. Going back at least as far as 2004, you can find discussions about websites getting hijacked in the serps, all due to problems arising from the way that 302’s were treated. The issue was [...]