Atlanta Search Engine Marketing

Since we cover almost every little change that Google makes, why not cover this. I have been hearing reports both at WebmasterWorld and via email from Tom and on Twitter that Google is showing now a main listing with two (not one or five) indented results.

Here is one picture of what I mean:

Normally, Google will show a maximum of one indented results. More recently, Google was showing a single indented result with a plus box to five more.

I believe this double indented result is fairly new and more and more people will begin to see this.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and thanks to Tom and David.

~Google Now Indenting Two Results In Search Results~

A Google Webmaster Help thread has one webmaster who was trying to figure out why his site was not coming up for a search on its own name.

After some review, Googler, JohnMu, said the site has recently shown a placeholder page from a web hosting company or domain name registrar. These are also known as parked domains, where a domain is purchased but there is currently no web site on that domain. Many registrars or hosting companies place placeholder pages on those new domains.

Clearly, when a search engine finds such a domain is showing a placeholder page, they figure the site is being moved or changed drastically. JohnMu from Google said:

It looks like your site may have been showing a domain parking / hosting placeholder page (or something similar) for a short while there. In general, for the long term, this is not a problem. It can however confuse our systems a bit when we get something completely different like that, so it’s probably just a matter of a short while until things settle back down.

You can still see that in some places, for example with:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=site:the-silence.com/+godaddy

The next time Googlebot visits the site, it may figure out the issue was temporary and return the site’s rankings fairly quickly. So be careful with not letting your domain expire and try to understand how Google handles expired domains.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

~How Google Handles Parked Domain Placeholder Pages~

The Google Blog and Webmaster Central blog posted a blog post named Managing your reputation through search results. In this blog post, Susan from Google explains tips on how to manage your reputation online.

Basic advice from “think twice before putting your personal information online.” To tips on how to contact the source of the content you want removed. If that doesn’t work, Susan explains that you can try to create new pages that might outrank the negative pages in the search results. All of these tips are at the core of online reputation management.

What I found funny, maybe on a more personal level, was that every online reputation management company came out and piggy-backed off this Google blog post. Just scan some of the posts in the Google Web Search Help thread and see some of the blog posts referencing Google’s post.

Anyway, if you have a reputation management issue and you cannot buy your way out of it, then you likely want to read some of those tips and join the thread.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

~Google Shares Their Online Reputation Management Advice~

There is a really long thread at Google Webmaster Help on the topic of the .GB.COM TLD. Some are of the belief that Google is penalizing or banning these domains.

Of course, to you and me, that sounds ridiculous. There are thousands of .gb.com domains indexed in Google. But these webmasters are complaining that they are not ranking well.

One said:

I have tested over 100 gb.com domains I found in the DMOZ directory (one of the webs oldest directories), and could not find a single one on the first page of Google for EVEN their own company names. EVEN their own domain name, so I can assure you I know what I am talking about. Here are an example of some .gb.com domains in DMOZ: http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=gb.com

Pick any one you find at random.

The thread is pretty heated right now. No Google response has been made as of yet. Of course, when it comes to topics like this, you have to be very skeptical.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

~Google Penalizing .GB.COM Domains?~