Atlanta Search Engine Marketing

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

~Daily Search Forum Recap: October 20, 2009~

Five days ago, we alluded to a possible Bing search index update when Microsoft fixed the issues with the Bing Webmaster Tools and blamed the issue on an “update to the search index.” But no Webmasters really made a big stink about an update, so I did not write a single post on that alone.

Now I see WebmasterWorld thread with confirmed reports from real webmasters taking notice of an update on Microsoft’s search engine, Bing.

Two senior members noticed the update. Billy S. said:

As I hit the enter key, I’m seeing two completely different SERPS on Bing – almost alternating. Anyone else seeing this?

Textex confirmed Billy’s findings saying, “I am seeing different results too. Looks like an update.”

The last Bing search index update was some time in August 2009, at least the last one we noticed.

Do you notice a change in your rankings and/or traffic from Bing?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

~Bing October 2009 Search Index Update~

Five days ago, we alluded to a possible Bing search index update when Microsoft fixed the issues with the Bing Webmaster Tools and blamed the issue on an “update to the search index.” But no Webmasters really made a big stink about an update, so I did not write a single post on that alone.

Now I see WebmasterWorld thread with confirmed reports from real webmasters taking notice of an update on Microsoft’s search engine, Bing.

Two senior members noticed the update. Billy S. said:

As I hit the enter key, I’m seeing two completely different SERPS on Bing – almost alternating. Anyone else seeing this?

Textex confirmed Billy’s findings saying, “I am seeing different results too. Looks like an update.”

The last Bing search index update was some time in August 2009, at least the last one we noticed.

Do you notice a change in your rankings and/or traffic from Bing?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

~Bing October 2009 Search Index Update~

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~