Oct
25
Yahoo Update, October 24, 2006: Check your snippets!
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It looked like the index had been updated when I happened to look a little while ago, and sure enough there’s a “Weather Report” at the Yahoo Search Blog:
Yahoo! Search Weather Update and Support for ‘NOODP’
Some of us have grown to expect that the snippets shown in the SERPs will include the search term we’ve used, but there may be a surprise in store. The snippet shown for the first site I checked that indicated there had been an update does NOT include either of the words in the two-word search phrase, but the singular version of the “primary” word which was searched for in the plural, and not the “qualifying” word that’s descriptive of the main word, but a synonym for it. And the snippet was taken from the last part of the meta description.
There’s no conclusion that can be drawn other than that there’s some kind of semantic analysis involved with pulling the snippets.
Off to check more, will add any additional observations. This was just a first look, but an interesting one.
Added:
Just checking that same site for another search term, the interior page does have the exact phrase on the page and in the snippet, and is ranking at #7 for the 2-word phrase. But the homepage of the site is ranking at #9 and while the “modifying” word is on the page and is highlighted in the cache, the “main” word for the phrase isn’t on the homepage at all, yet it’s ranking for the two word phrase that pertains to an interior page.
Added October 27:
Checking listings for pages coming up for searches since this update, there’s no snippet showing for the some pages - only the page title and URL. Checking the code, those pages have no meta description on them, so it’s time to add them and see how long it takes for some kind of snippet to show up at Yahoo and where it’s pulled from.
Oct
17
Yahoo Search Marketing rolling out Panama
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The rollout was expected after the first of the year, but there have been some emails sent to some customers and it’s possible to request invitations to participate
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/upgrade.php
Discussion starting at Search Engine Watch Forums:
There was also some discussion about it earlier this month:
And a nice write-up by Barry Schwartz, who participated in testing this week,
on the SEW Blog.
Oct
4
Toolbar glitch or did Brad Fallon take a PR0 dive?
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Wow this is something! Either there’s a toolbar glitch with the just recent Google backlink and Toolbar PageRank update, or Brad Fallon’s flagship site, My Wedding Favors has been hit with a PR0, according to a forum post linked to by TrustNo1 in a thread at ABestWeb Affiliate Forums.
As far as I understand, if it’s real and not just a Toolbar or technical glitch, it would have more than likely have had to be a hand applied penalty. If there were a widely applied penalty or a serious Toolbar problem, there would have been webmasters hollering all over the SEO forums this week that they got hit with a PR0 penalty, like what happened a few years back - or more of the “Google is broke” whining, neither of which seems to have happened.
Gee, just look at the timing for such a thing to happen! There have been numerous links posted at forums recently to the videos on his SEO site, and according to a Google Search for stompernet, there have been press releases via PRWeb and elsewhere, and according to an email I just got promoting the event, it looks like there’s been some “As seen on TV coverage.”
IF it’s indeed actually a penalty and not just a toolbar glitch, this really is interesting timing, given the exposure lately by word spreading virally about the videos, and a glob of well designed publicity about the upcoming series which according to the post at AbestWeb is $797 per month, per head and is currently suspected of being sold out.
That is a LOT of revenue for teaching folks how to do SEO, and it’s ironic that the target market would be one that diligently watches the Toolbar, and just about the primary selling point is the phenomenal success of My Wedding Favors, which is undeniably an impressive achievement.
But regardless of what the situation actually is, once people notice the PR0 and word gets around, and folks get curious, being who they are and what most of them do, they’ll probably start heading over to Yahoo! Site Explorer to check out the backlinks.
What a fine kettle of fish that is to fry, isn’t it? If it’s actually a reality and not a technical situation, not unlikely since the MWF blog seems to be down right now, it would be incredibly interesting timing on Google’s part.
Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Does Google really have that much of a flair for the dramatic?
Oct
1
Google Toolbar and Bookmarks: Is the sky falling yet?
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So people were worrying for no reason like Chicken Little running around yelling “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” when the patent on Historical Data was issued and publicly released.
Google’s Software Principles, the New Google Patent and Chicken Little
Silly paranoia! How could Google possibly know what’s in anyone’s bookmarks? Easy-peasy now, there’s a feature to import and save bookmarks right on the new Toolbar just released sometime these past couple of weeks, with a pretty blue star next to it.
Now I’ll have to dig around and find that paper on search engines using “profiling” that’s out there someplace.