Weekly Search Buzz Recap - 06/20/08: Father’s Day, Google Robots.txt and Sitemaps Files & Long Tail Benefits for SEO :: Link Marketing News
Another Friday marks the end of another busy week. We celebrated Father’s Day and had a nice hot (and a bit rainy) week over here. And yourselves?
Father’s Day
Sunday marked Father’s Day in just about every country (which is so cool — I never knew this!) and search engines celebrated with all dads. We did a little unique design ourselves. What did you think?
Google Webmaster Chat Recordings Now Available
Were you not able to make it to the webmaster live event that was held earlier this week? No problems! There’s a recording of the event for your exploration and edification.
Your Google AdWords Quality Score Accounts for Page Load Time
Does your page load pretty slowly? Are you running Google AdWords on that account? Be advised that it may factor into your AdWords score, so get a fast server or something if that’s a problem.
Your Competitors Can’t Hurt You
…at least according to Google. JohnMu says that in his experience working at Google, he’s never seen anyone hurt their competitors due to bad linking practices. It’s possible in theory, but it’s never actually been observed by someone at the big G.
How Stupid Can You Be?!
I like the comment on my post where I said that Matt Cutts discourages against lying on reconsideration requests. Hello, instead of peeving off Matt and co. so that you can be permanently banned from the index (that’d be nice for such folks, right?), why don’t you spend the time to fix your problems?
Set Up that Robots.txt File
It’s possible, according to what was reported earlier this week, that Google won’t crawl your site if your robots.txt file is unreachable. Make sure your server gives a normal response to Google before you assume you’ll get crawled!
Google Wants Your Sitemaps Too
Also, make sure to get a sitemap for Google to spider your site. I think this is good advice as it helps rather than hurts you. Barry says you should try it out and see what works for you. Personally, I think it works for me. 
Google.co.uk Explained
Google.co.uk is different than Google.com, but in a sense, there are some similarities. Regardless, webmasters have shared what they notice on Google.co.uk compared to the .com version and there are some notable differences, particularly with geotargeting.
Please Don’t Give Us Ugly Google AdSense Fonts
Google is testing fonts for AdSense ads, and they’ve considered Comic Sans, which I abhor (and I know I’m not alone). Bad idea, Google. Anything but Comic Sans, please. Better yet, keep it consistent with the text of everything else on the page. 
Never Fall for a Phish
We get phishing scams everyday, but this is just a reminder to beware of anything that smells phishy, and in this case, that’s Yahoo Search Marketing scams. (Oh, that typo was intended, by the way.) The best option is to just log into your accounts (any that require identifying information) and see if there’s a warning on the dashboard to update security information or whatnot. Never click on those links or respond to them. Identity theft runs rampant and it starts with negligence that usually comes from clicking on email.
Is Google Pay Per Action Going Anywhere?
It seems that the future of Google’s Pay Per Action is bleak, with Google stopping to invite users to the program and us not knowing if it has a long term future. I think it’s a good idea in concept, but it’d be nice to see that it benefits both Google and users who opt in. I guess they haven’t figured that part out yet. Maybe they need to open it up to more people?
The Long Tail Rocks
If you haven’t optimized for the long tail, this thread about the benefits of long tail traffic should make you reconsider. Webmasters are noticing in their logs that users aren’t looking for “cars” anymore. They’re searching for the specific make and model (”lexus es 350″). You want to make sure you’re targeting those terms or you’re going to be losing out on some valuable traffic.
That’s all for now. Have a wonderful weekend
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