In an interesting post on GitHub, the user tkrotoff has apparently contacted Bing Webmaster Support with questions about why Bing Webmaster Tools will not accept his website’s sitemap file. He is trying to tell Bing’s Webmaster Tools about his sitemap file and it give him an error when he submits the file. His website, https://osteo15.com/, uses HTTPs SNI (Server Name Indication). [Read more…]
Google Removing Domain Names From Search Results Increases Internet User Vulnerability
On Thursday, April 16, 2015, Google announced that they are beginning to remove the domain name from the mobile search results. Rather than displaying a URL in the search results or a domain name, Google has begun to display a website name or a website name and a breadcrumb of the website’s page. Domain names generally have been removed from the mobile search results. This move by Google is wrong, and ultimately increases internet user vulnerability to potential fraud and deception. Furthermore, it undermines the whole entire Domain Name System as we know it. [Read more…]
Small Business Owner: Google Crushed Me
An interesting post was written by a small business owner, sharing his experience about being crushed by Google. In the article, he claims that after working hard for 12 years building his online business, Google reduced the site’s traffic from 2000 visitors a day to a few hundred a day: all without warning. [Read more…]
ZDNet Buys Domain Name: Immediately Gets 2 Year Old Trusted Site Banned in Google
ZDNet bought a new domain name from the domain name aftermarket (a domain name auction), and almost immediately got their trusted, authoritative, 2 year old website banned in Google. ZDNet wrote a scathing article on their site, blaming Google for the error, claiming that Google got it all wrong. But, that’s not the case. Google absolutely got it right, and was correct in banning the site in Google. Here’s how ZDNet bought a domain name, redirected their trusted, authoritative site to this new domain name, and then got their website banned in Google. [Read more…]
Google Shows Bing Search Results URLs as Links in Google Webmaster Tools
In Google Webmaster Tools, Google is reporting Bing’s search result URLs as actual backlinks to a website. Google has as history of sometimes making a mistake and indexing Bing’s search results, like I found a while back. But this is the first time that I have seen that Google is actually telling webmasters that there is a link to their website: and that link is a Bing search result URL. Google shows Bing search results URLs. Definitely something that I don’t think Google planned on. [Read more…]
Matt Cutts Comments on My April Fool’s Prank
By now, you probably heard about the April Fool’s prank that I came up with this year–and with the help of Jeff and Amanda on our Globe Runner team, I think we pulled it off. So much so that we had trouble keeping the website up and running that weekend. And on April 1st, we followed up with another post, welcoming the other team members who recently joined Globe Runner, Darth Vader and Elvis Presley. By the way, if you haven’t seen the post, it’s titled “Globe Runner Welcomes Matt Cutts as Director of Search“.
On the April 8, 2015 “This Week at Google” Twit.tv show with Leo Laporte and Jeff Jarvis, Matt Cutts commented my our April Fool’s prank. I’ve edited the video to pull out Matt Cutts’ comments so you don’t to have to listen to the whole entire hour-long show. [Read more…]