Google & Bing See Canonical Tags Differently

Nick Roshon has an excellent post on the difference between how Google & Bing handle the canonical tag, something non of us really noticed before until he pointed it out.

The key differences are two fold:

(1) Mass use of the canonical tag and

(2) Canonical tag pointing to itself.

How does each engine differ?

(1) Google doesn't care if you use the canonical tag on hundreds or thousands of pages, where Bing says they will trust the tag less if you do.

(2) Google doesn't care if you link a canonical tag to the same page (i.e. a redirect back to the redirect), but Bing does and says don't do it.

Nick quotes Bing's Duane who wrote, "the rel=canonical is that it was never intended to appear across large numbers of pages" and "Its best to leave them [canonical tags] blank rather than point them at themselves."

Nick then quotes Google's Cutts and Ohye who say, "it doesn’t hurt to have this on every page of your site," and "it's absolutely okay to have a self-referential rel="canonical". "

These are very interesting distinctions between Bing.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

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Links Increase In Google Webmaster Tools

There are many webmasters reporting a huge increase in the number of links reported within Google Webmaster Tools, "links to this site" report.

There are reports at WebmasterWorld and Google Webmaster Help with webmasters asking why.

Here is a screen shot of this site's links, showing a screen shot from November 2010 till now:

I rarely look at my link counts, so I am glad I captured a screen shot back in November.

Did you see a massive increase in the number of links reported by Google Webmaster Tools?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Webmaster Help.

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Google Definitions Asking Users To Email error@google.com

There are many reports in the Google Web Search Helpforums that Google Definitions feature is not working on some browsers for some people.

I cannot replicate it, but when you search for things like [what is toast], Google will provide this definition at the top:

Instead, users are getting errors that read:

server error comes up...

Please email error@google.com

I couldn't replicate the issue myself, but here is an old screen shot of such an error:

Thing is, that email address is no long valid. Try emailing it and you will get a "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)" due to the "User unknown" or the user not being a real email account.

Kelly from Google said "Thanks for the info. We're looking into it now."

I am not sure if it is fixed or if they are still working on it at this point.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

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Where's The Google Logo For Steve Jobs?

Last night, the world heard the sad news that Steve Jobs has died. Apple and the world has lost one of the most visionary people to ever live. Most of you know, I grew up on Apples and am one of the largest Apple users out there - people think I am a bit cultish. So yea, the news was very sad for me personally.

There is no doubt the impact Steve Jobs had on the world. But yea, he lead Apple, a company that he directed in changing the world. That company and his leadership also shaped Google, Yahoo, Microsoft in many ways.

Larry Page posted a message on Gogle + as did Sergey Brin on Google + on just how much of an impact Apple and Steve Jobs had on Google:

From the earliest days of Google, whenever Larry and I sought inspiration for vision and leadership, we needed to look no farther than Cupertino. Steve, your passion for excellence is felt by anyone who has ever touched an Apple product (including the macbook I am writing this on right now). And I have witnessed it in person the few times we have met.

Apple.com has an iconic image of Jobs on the home page leading to a message atapple.com/stevejobs, here are pictures:

Google rushed last night to put up a small text link under the Google search box that links Steve Jobs to Apple. Here is a picture:

But Google users want and expected more - they wanted a logo that honored and remembered his legacy. I have no doubt there will be one on October 5, 2012 - but for now, Google did not want to do a logo. They don't like doing logos for sad occasions and instead, they used the plain text link approach - which works for me but not for many.

There is a petition in the Google Web Search Help forums to make a Google logo. I doubt we will see one today, but I'd be surprised if we didn't see one next year.

Anyway, I sit with many of the world in mourning the loss.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help , Google Blogoscoped Forums andWebmasterWorld.

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Hosted On A CDN? You May Get A Special GoogleBot Crawl Rate

Gary Illyes from Google responded to a question in theGoogle Webmaster Help forums about hosting your content on a CDN, content delivery network.

The question was why did Google assign a special crawl rate to his site.

Gary from Google said, Google may assign content hosted on a CDN with a special crawl rate. He specifically said you should most likely never increase the crawl rate manually if you are on a CDN, at best, leave it for Google to decide. You can lower the crawl rate, but do not increase it.

Gary from Google explained:

When you're using a CDN, we may assign a special crawl rate for your site so that we can crawl as much as possible without affecting negatively others who're using the same service. It's best to not tackle that setting, especially since we're already accessing your site more than 4000 times a day.

If you want to lower your crawling rate, let me know, but I definitely not recommend increasing it. I'd rather focus on posting unique and compelling content and on user experience.

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Google's Latest Ad Format: Circulars

Bloomberg reports Google is starting to test a new search ad format that looks like web based online circulars.

The ads will be a new search ad format that supposedly will open up an interactive online circular for the store, instead of a standard ad that simply takes you to the seller's web site.

Nick Fox, Google's vice president of product management, told Bloomberg:

Retail in general is a large category for us. They're trying to understand what the answer is in the digital age to the offline print circular. They're trying to understand how to get their online visitors into their stores. And this is our answer to that.

How will it work? Bloomberg explained, "Web surfers will find the circular-style advertising, which shows multiple pictures and large type, by clicking on search ads. The service will automatically craft the promotions based on factors such as query topics and the location of users."

Google said the click through rate will increase from 15 percent to more than 50 percent on some of the ads.

Some advertisers are a bit skeptical in the WebmasterWorld.

I have not seen these ads live yet, if you do, please share a screen capture.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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Google Panda 2.5 Update

Earlier last week, Google pushed out an update to theGoogle Panda algorithm.

I didn't see it before going offline for the holiday but Google confirmed the update based on a WebProNewsstory featuring DaniWeb getting hit again by the update.

In fact, Dani from DaniWeb posted in the Google Webmaster Help forums complaining:

However, we were hit again on Wednesday, September 28th, once again losing more than half of our traffic. I think this might even be a bigger hit than last time. I am still investigating whether or not this was another iteration of Panda that just went out or something different?

Wow, lost half their traffic again, after all that work to get back in!

SearchMetrics released their stats on who was hit the hardest by this update and Danny has a good summary of that at Search Engine Land.

Google said this update hit sometime on Tuesday and people started to take notice on Wednesday. Google confirmed it on Thursday.

Here is the update history:

• Panda 2.5 on September 28th
• Panda 2.4 in August
• Panda 2.3 on around July 22nd.
• Panda 2.2 on June 18th or so.
• Panda 2.1 on May 9th or so.
• Panda 2.0 on April 11th or so.
• Panda 1.0 on February 24th

For more on the Google Panda update, see our Google Panda category.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums, WebmasterWorld, Sphinn, and Google Webmaster Help.

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