WebProNews

Tag: Webmasters

  • Google Improved Index Coverage Report

    Google Improved Index Coverage Report

    Google has rolled out an update to its Index Coverage report, bringing some significant improvements based on user feedback.

    The Index Coverage report is part of the revamped Search Console. It provides valuable insights into how Google is indexing the various pages of a website. The information is especially helpful to webmasters, giving them a way to track down and identify potential issues.

    Google revamped Index Coverage report to make it even more useful.

    Based on the feedback we got from the community, today we are rolling out significant improvements to this report so you’re better informed on issues that might prevent Google from crawling and indexing your pages. The change is focused on providing a more accurate state to existing issues, which should help you solve them more easily.

    Specifically, the improvements include:

    Removal of the generic “crawl anomaly” issue type – all crawls errors should now be mapped to an issue with a finer resolution.

    Pages that were submitted but blocked by robots.txt and got indexed are now reported as “indexed but blocked” (warning) instead of “submitted but blocked” (error)

    Addition of a new issue: “indexed without content” (warning)

    Soft 404 reporting is now more accurate

    The changes should be a welcome improvement for website operators.

  • Google Will Show Users Warnings About Your Site If It Detects ‘Social Engineering’ Content

    Google Will Show Users Warnings About Your Site If It Detects ‘Social Engineering’ Content

    Google announced the expansion of the Safe Browsing protection efforts it discussed back in November. These involve protecting users from installing unwanted software or revealing personal info due to tactics like deceptive download buttons or images ads that falsely tell users their system is out of date.

    The efforts are being expanded to deceptive embedded content like “social engineering” ads. Social engineering is described as a broader category than phishing, encompassing more types of deceptive web content. Such attacks are when content emulates a trusted entity (like a bank or government) or when it tries to trick you into doing something you’d only do for a trusted entity (such as sharing a password or calling tech support).

    Here’s an example of a warning users might see when they visit a site that Google has flagged for containing social engineering content.

    Here, Google shares several examples of such deceptive content shown via ads. These include an image that claims software is out-of-date, one that mimics a dialogue from a software developer (but doesn’t originate from that developer), and fake “download” and “play” buttons.

    Google says if your site is flagged, you should troubleshoot with Search Console. There’a also a help center section for webmasters here.

    Image via Google

  • Google Unveils New Site For Webmasters

    Google Unveils New Site For Webmasters

    Google announced the launch of a new website for webmasters. There, you’ll find access (and an introduction) to Search Console, Webmaster support/help center, learning resources like Webmaster Academy and guidelines, community links, the webmaster blog, an event calendar, etc.

    “We spent a lot of time making this site right for you,” says Google Senior Webmaster Relations Specialist Mary Chen. “We took our own advice by analyzing visitor behavior and conducting user studies to organize the site into categories you’ll find most useful. Thanks to our awesome community and Top Contributors for the valuable feedback during the process!”

    “The site contains support resources to help you fix issues with your website, SEO learning materials to create a high-quality site and improve search rankings, and connection opportunities to stay up-to-date with our team and webmaster community,” Chen adds.

    Don’t forget to check out the Accelerated Mobile Pages project site as well. Google will begin sending search traffic to AMP pages next month. They’ve made some improvements to the documentation. More on that here.

    Images via Google

  • Google Webmaster Tools Changed To Google Search Console

    Google Webmaster Tools Changed To Google Search Console

    Recognizing that a lot of different types of people use Webmaster Tools beyond just traditional webmasters, Google has decided to rebrand its popular product to reflect that. From now on, Google Webmaster Tools will be known as Google Search Console. Here’s the logo:

    “For nearly ten years, Google Webmaster Tools has provided users with constantly evolving tools and metrics to help make fantastic websites that our systems love showing in Google Search,” wrote product manager Michael Fink in a blog post. “In the past year, we sought to learn more about you, the loyal users of Google Webmaster Tools: we wanted to understand your role and goals in order to make our product more useful to you.”

    “It turns out that the traditional idea of the ‘webmaster’ reflects only some of you,” he added. “We have all kinds of Webmaster Tools fans: hobbyists, small business owners, SEO experts, marketers, programmers, designers, app developers, and, of course, webmasters as well. What you all share is a desire to make your work available online, and to make it findable through Google Search. So, to make sure that our product includes everyone who cares about Search, we’ve decided to rebrand Google Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console.”

    Google did not announce any new features beyond the rebranding.

    Google webmaster trends analyst John Muller had this to say on Google+:

    I remember … back when Google Webmaster Tools first launched as a way of submitting sitemap files. It’s had an awesome run, the teams have brought it a long way over the years. It turns out that the traditional idea of the “webmaster” reflects only some of you. We have all kinds of Webmaster Tools fans: hobbyists, small business owners, SEO experts, marketers, programmers, designers, app developers, and, of course, webmasters as well. So, to make sure that our product includes everyone who cares about Search, we’ve decided to rebrand Google Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console .

    The rebranding does seem much more user-friendly than the term Webmaster Tools, which some with limited web experience may have found a little intimidating. In an era where businesses must have and maintain a web presence, the offering is more important than ever, and the rebranding could just lead to more businesses utilizing the Webmaster Tools features.

    Image via Google

  • Google Wants Some Ideas For Webmaster Tools Again. Got Any?

    Google is once again calling on webmasters for ideas on how to improve Google Search and Webmaster Tools. The company put out a brief Google+ update early this morning:

    What would you like to see from Google Websearch & Webmaster Tools in 2015?

    We’d love to hear your feedback & collect your suggestions on the kinds of things you’d wish to see being added, improved, removed, or changed by the Webmaster Tools and websearch teams at Google.

    Google is offering a Google Moderator page where you can submit suggestions and vote one those that others have contributed. Of course there’s no guarantee that Google will act upon any of these suggestions, even if they’re voted the highest, but it’s interesting to see what people want, and at least this gives Google a good way to get a feel for that.

    “What can we do to make your life – as a webmaster, producer of great content, or SEO – easier this year?” Google asks on the page.

    As of the time of this writing, there are over a hundred suggestions with with over 1,100 votes. The top one right now is: “Show more than 1,000 entries for any error report. 5,000 or 10,000 would be helpful.”

    Other popular suggestions include:

    “An automated action viewer, so webmasters can see if they were impacted by an algorithm such as Panda or Penguin.”

    “I would like to see in WMT data from 12 months, not 3 as it is now :)”

    Along side the manual penalty notices, a message to say whether or not an algorithmic penalty is applied to a website, and if so, what type of penalty and what action might help resolve it.”

    “Year on year comparison by month for impressions and clicks query data.”

    “Moe to account structure so http, https, subdomains (even subfolders) of one site can all be accessed and managed easily.”

    “I would like to see a much more detailed link tool within WMT. It would be nice to see all links, especially the latest ones without having to click around and download a .csv. Show us who is linking to which pages using what anchor text natively.”

    “I would like to see all back links data with nofollow and dofollow declaration separately. If possible also provide bad links and quality links checker.”

    There are plenty more where those came from.

    This is your chance to let your voice be heard, so if you’ve been wanting something from Google in this area, you better let them know. There’s a good possibility you’ll have additional like-minded webmasters backing you up with votes, and who knows? Maybe it will make a difference.

    Before you tell Google what you want, we’d love to hear it too in the comments.

    Image via Google

  • Google Webmaster Academy Expands To More Languages

    Google launched Webmaster Academy in 2012 as a way to help small businesses improve their web and Google presence through education about various webmaster topics. It even added Panda update guidance at one point.

    Last year, Google expanded the offering to 20 additional languages, and has now expanded it to twenty-two more .

    Google said on Monday:

    Today, the new Webmaster Academy goes live in 22 languages! New or beginner webmasters speaking a multitude of languages can now learn the fundamentals of making a great site, providing an enjoyable user experience, and ranking well in search results. And if you think you’re already familiar with these topics, take the quizzes at the end of each module to prove it :).

    So give Webmaster Academy a read in your preferred language and let us know in the comments or help forum what you think. We’ve gotten such great and helpful feedback after the English version launched this past March so we hope this straightforward and easy-to-read guide can be helpful (and fun!) to everyone.

    You may be wondering why they said they launched the English version this past March, when I already noted that it was launched in 2012. That’s because in March, they launched the “new” Webmaster Academy, which included new and expanded content. You can learn more about that here.

    For some reason, Google didn’t specify which languages the offering is now available in.

    Image via Google

  • Bing Is Shutting Down Its Webmaster Forums

    Microsoft announced that it is shutting down Bing’s Webmaster Forums as they have apparently not grown in a meaningful way.

    As of the end of this month or early next month, the Bing Webmaster Community Forum will be no more.

    Senior product manager Duane Forrester wrote on the Bing webmaster blog, “Over the last few years, we’ve had our Webmaster forums up and running. They’ve been around a while now in a few iterations, and like any community, the goal is to grow it to be vibrant and engaging. To foster the deep involvement of experts who help others, creating a community that contributes to improvements and makes its own gravity. There comes a time, however, when you sometimes need to re-evaluate, and once in a while, regroup.”

    Bing will be directing users to its Help & How To section and its webmaster blog, which will have weekly posts with open comments.

    Those simply having issues with Webmaster Tools are told to use email support.

    For everything else, Forrester directs people to WebmasterWorld and similar forums. Bing itself participates at WMW, so that’s probably your best bet for Bing-related threads.

    Image via Bing

  • Google Tells You How To Serve Your Homepage To International Users

    Google is offering some new guidance on creating homepages for international users. The company took to its Webmaster Central blog on Monday morning to discuss the topic.

    Specifically, it looks at three ways to configure your homepage (or landing page) – show everyone the same content, let users choose, or serve content depending on their location and language. Any of these options are fine, but Google has recommendations for each method.

    When it comes to showing everyone the same content, Google says all countries and languages should be accessible on their own unique URLs, and recommends including a banner to suggest a different version to users from other locations or with different language settings, like so:

    While technically, this is kind of letting users choose, the actual second option Google refers to means serving a country selector page on your homepage, and letting them choose which content they want depending on country and language. All users would see the same page with the same options.

    “If you implement this scenario on your international site, remember to use the x-default rel-alternate-hreflang annotation for the country selector page, which was specifically created for these kinds of pages,” Google’s Zineb Ait Bahajji and Gary Illyes write on the blog. “The x-default value helps us recognize pages that are not specific to one language or region.”

    Or you can just automatically serve the appropriate HTML content to your users depending on their location and language settings. Google says to do this by using server-side 302 redirects or by dynamically serving the right HTML content.

    “Remember to use x-default rel-alternate-hreflang annotation on the homepage / generic page even if the latter is a redirect page that is not accessible directly for users,” the two write. “Note: Think about redirecting users for whom you do not have a specific version. For instance, French-speaking users on a website that has English, Spanish and Chinese versions. Show them the content that you consider the most appropriate.”

    They elaborate a bit more on this and discuss rel-alternate-hreflang annotations in the post.

    This certainly isn’t the first time Google has talked about optimizing for international users. About a year ago, the topic was discussed on the same blog.

    That time Google gave six practical “quick tips,” including making pages I18N-ready in the markup, as opposed to the style sheets, using one style sheet for all locales, using the [dir=’rtl’] attribute selector, using the :lang() pseudo class, mirroring left- and right-related values, and keeping an eye on the details.

    More on that here.

    Image via Google

  • Google Updates Guidance On ‘Sneaky’ Redirects

    Google announced that it has updated its guidance for webmasters on “sneaky redirects”. It has updated the relevant section in its quality guidelines.

    It now includes examples that illustrate violations.

    “Redirects are often used by webmasters to help forward visitors from one page to another,” says Google’s Aaseesh Marina. “They are a normal part of how the web operates, and are very valuable when well used. However, some redirects are designed to manipulate or deceive search engines or to display different content to human users than to search engines. Our quality guidelines strictly forbid these kinds of redirects.”

    The specific examples gives in the section are as follows:

    “Search engines shown one type of content while users are redirected to something significantly different.”

    “Desktop users receive a normal page, while mobile users are redirected to a completely different spam domain.”

    Google reminds webmasters that it may take manual action, including removal from the index, in reaction to any violation of guidelines. Don’t find out the hard way.

    The company has also updated its hacked content guidelines to include redirects and compromised websites.

    Here’s some advice from Google on dealing with a hacked site:

    Image via YouTube

  • Google Launches Official Google+ Page For Webmasters

    There is now an official Google+ page for Google Webmasters. Matt Cutts tweeted a link to it, and the page made its first post last night:


    So far, that’s all that it has to offer, but we can probably expect similar (if not the same) posts as what we see from the Google Webmasters Twitter account:


    That means links to Webmaster Central blog posts, links to Google Webmaster Help videos and various other updates that webmasters should know about.

    If you’re a Google+ junkie, you now have another way to keep up with all this stuff.

    The Google+ page only has 3,700 followers so far. That’s compared to the 111,000 on Twitter.

    Image via Google+

  • Google Adds Smartphone Crawl Errors To Webmaster Tools (This Is Important Considering Recent Ranking Changes)

    Google announced that it has expanded the Crawl Errors feature in Webmaster Tools to help webmasters identify pages on their sites that show smartphone crawl errors.

    This is going to be of particular importance because Google recently made several ranking changes for sites not configured for smartphone users.

    “Some smartphone-optimized websites are misconfigured in that they don’t show searchers the information they were seeking,” says Google Webmaster Trends analyst Pierre Far. “For example, smartphone users are shown an error page or get redirected to an irrelevant page, but desktop users are shown the content they wanted. Some of these problems, detected by Googlebot as crawl errors, significantly hurt your website’s user experience and are the basis of some of our recently-announced ranking changes for smartphone search results.”

    The feature will include server errors, “not found” errors and soft 404s, faulty redirects and blocked URLs.

    Mobile crawl errors

    “Fixing any issues shown in Webmaster Tools can make your site better for users and help our algorithms better index your content,” says Far.

    Google’s Matt Cutts recently asked what users would like to see Google add to Webmaster Tools in the coming year. Some will no doubt be able to cross one thing off their list now.

    Image: Google

  • Google Launches ‘In-Depth Articles’ Section In Search Results, Highlights Eric Schmidt Article

    Google announced that it will start showing a new “In-depth articles” section in search results when users search for some “broad topics”.

    We wrote about the feature when Google was testing it a couple months ago, but now Google is making it a real feature. Here’s what it looks like:

    In depth articles

    Interestingly, Google says only 10% of people’s daily info needs “fit this category” of needing more than a “quick answer”. That seems like a pretty low number, particularly after the Panda update.

    “If you care about censorship, you’ll find a thought-provoking article by Salman Rushdie in The New Yorker, a piece by our very own Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen in the Guardian, and another great article about Iran. If you’re in the mood for something lighter, search for [lego], you’ll find great in-depth articles about many different facets of the topic from gender to engineering to art. For some more examples, check out new search results for population growth, capital punishment and e-waste.”

    While I don’t think that this necessarily means that Google is going to be giving special treatment to content written by Googlers, it’s interesting that they would highlight the Eric Schmidt example, given how often the search engine is criticized for displaying its own results.

    Google’s Pandu Nayak, who announced the feature on the Inside Search blog does at least note that it will also surface content from lesser-known publications and blogs. It will be interesting to see how often this really occurs.

    Google also has a post up about the feature on its Webmaster Central blog, where Nayak says, “These results are ranked algorithmically based on many signals that look for high-quality, in-depth content. ”

    Webmaters are encouraged to provide schea.org article markup, authorship markup, rel=next and rel=prev for paginated articles (as well as looking out for rel-canonical mistakes), provide info about their organization’s logo and obviously create in-depth content. Links to more info on all of this stuff are available in the post. More info is also available in Google’s help center.

    The feature is only available on Google.com in English for now.

  • Google Launches Website Satisfaction Surveys For Webmasters

    Google announced the launch of a new tool for webmasters called Website Satisfaction Surveys, which can be used to collect feedback from website visitors.

    When the webmaster pastes a snippet of code provided by Google into their HTML, the page will load a “discreet” satisfaction survey in the lower right-hand corner of the page.

    “Google automatically aggregates and analyzes responses, providing the data back to you through a simple online interface,” explains Google’s Marisa Currie-Rose.

    “Users will be asked to complete a four-question satisfaction survey,” says Currie-Rose. “Surveys will run until they have received 500 responses and will start again after 30 days so you can track responses over time. This is currently limited to US English visitors on non-mobile devices. The default questions are free and you can customize questions for just $0.01 per response or $5.00 for 500 responses.”

    To get the code, sign in here, enter the site name and URL, survey timing, and survey frequency, and click the “Activate survey” button. Then, simply paste it into your HTML before the closing head tag.

  • Google Kills ‘Links’ In Its Ranking Message To Webmasters

    Google has a help center article in Webmaster Tools specifically about “ranking”. It’s not incredibly informative, and certainly doesn’t walk you through Google’s over 200 signals. It’s just a few sentences of advice, including links to Google’s Webmaster Academy and the “How Google Search Works” page.

    Internet marketer Erik Baemlisberger spotted in a change (via Search Engine Land) in what little wording there is, however, and it’s actually somewhat noteworthy.

    As you can see, the wording use to be: “In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.”

    Now, it says, “In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share.”

    Google has removed he word “link,” presumably to play down the importance of links in its algorithm. This doesn’t mean that links are less important. High quality links are likely still a major signal, but by de-emphasizing the word link (or removing it altogether), Google probably hopes to cut down on people engaging in link schemes and paid links – things Google has been cracking down on more than ever over the past year or so.

  • Google Shares International Optimization Tips

    Google took to its Webmaster Central blog on Friday to share some tips for international sites. This comes at a time when an increasing number of online marketing professionals are viewing international SEO as gaining importance.

    “Many websites exist in more than one language, and more and more websites are made available for more than one language,” Google’s Web Studio team writes. “Yet, building a website for more than one language doesn’t simply mean translation, or localization (L10N), and that’s it. It requires a few more things, all of which are related to internationalization (I18N).”

    First and foremost, Google says you should always use markup, rather than stylesheets, for international purposes, when it comes to language and directionality. You should avoid coming up solutions like special classes or ID, Google says, and use @lang and @dir, at least on the html element (<html lang=”ar” dir=”rtl”>).

    Google says you should use just one style sheet for all locales, make use of the [dir=’rtl’] attribute selector and the :lang() pseudo class, as well as mirror left- and right-related values.

    Google goes into further detail on all of this and more in the post, which you should definitely read if this concerns you.

    According to a recent report from BrightEdge, six out of ten search marketers believe ranking in global search engines will become either “more” or “much more” important this year (compared to last year).

  • Google Offers Webmasters Tools To Get Content In Knowledge Graph, Google Now

    Google has launched two new tools for webmasters to provide the search engine with structured data from their sites.

    For one, Google’s Data Highlighter now supports eight types of structured data, including: events, products, local businesses, articles, software applications, movies, restaurants, and TV episodes.

    “With Data Highlighter, webmasters don’t even need to change their site’s HTML,” explains product manager Justin Boyan. “Instead, they can just point and click with their mouse to ‘tag’ the key fields on a few sample pages of their site. Google learns the pattern of the fields and applies it to similar pages on the site, so all their information can be understood.”

    More on Data Highlighter here.

    The other tool is the Structured Data Markup Helper.

    “As with Data Highlighter, one simply points and clicks on a sample web page to indicate its key data fields,” says Boyan. “Structured Data Markup Helper then shows exactly what microdata annotations to add to the page’s HTML code. We hope this helps give HTML authors a running start with adding structured data to their sites, in turn making search results more meaningful.”

    These tools should help webmasters stay current with the evolution of Google into products like Knowledge Graph and Google Now, while also potentially improving these Google offerings themselves.

    “When Google understands a website’s content in a structured way, we can present that content more accurately and more attractively in search,” says Boyan “For example, our algorithms can enhance search results with ‘rich snippets’ when we understand that a page contains an event, recipe, product, review, or similar. We can also feature a page’s data as part of answers in search from the Knowledge Graph or in Google Now cards, helping you find the right information at just the right time.”

    You might also be interested in this recent Google talk about integrating Google’s Knowledge Graph data into your own apps.

  • Google Introduces ‘x-default hreflang’ Annotation For Webmasters

    Google introduced a new rel-alternate-hreflang annotation for webmasters to specify international landing pages. It’s called “x-default hreflang,” and it signals to Google’s algorithms that a page doesn’t target a specific language or location.

    “The homepages of multinational and multilingual websites are sometimes configured to point visitors to localized pages, either via redirects or by changing the content to reflect the user’s language,” explains Google Webmaster Trends analyst Pierre Far. “Today we’ll introduce a new rel-alternate-hreflang annotation that the webmaster can use to specify such homepages that is supported by both Google and Yandex.”

    “The new x-default hreflang attribute value signals to our algorithms that this page doesn’t target any specific language or locale and is the default page when no other page is better suited,” says Far. “For example, it would be the page our algorithms try to show French-speaking searchers worldwide or English-speaking searchers on google.ca.”

    If example.com/en-gb targets English-speaking users in the UK, example.com/en-us targets English-speaking users in the US, example.com/en-au targets English-speaking users in Australia, and exmaple.com/ tshows users a country selector and is the default page worldwide, then the annotation would something like this:

    <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-gb" hreflang="en-gb" /> 
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-us" hreflang="en-us" /> 
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-au" hreflang="en-au" /> 
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/" hreflang="x-default" />

    The annotation can also be used for homepages that dynamically alter their contents based on users’ geolocation or the Accept-Language headers.

  • Google Offers ‘First Steps’ Cheat Sheet for Beginning Webmasters

    Google has just released a new single-page guide for beginning webmasters that features information on looking good in Google search results through page titles, proper domain names and sub-pages, and meta descriptions. It also offers a brief primer on images and links to additional info and support.

    The cheat sheet is a single page, “short how-to list with basic tips on search engine-friendly design, that can help Google and others better understand the content and increase your site’s visibility.”

    And it’s available in 13 languages.

    “We hope this content will help those who are just about to start their webmaster adventure or have so far not paid too much attention to search engine-friendly design,” says Google.

    You can grab the pdf today.

  • Google Talks Site Verification In New Video

    Google has released a new Webmaster Help video. This one comes from Maile Ohye from Google’s webmaster support team, who talks about verifying ownership of your site in Webmaster Tools. The goal of the video is to help webmasters choose the verification method that is easiest for them.

    Possibilities include: domain name provider, HTML file upload, HTML meta tag and Google Analytics.

    “Verifying ownership of your site in Webmaster Tools provides you and Google a secure channel for giving and receiving information,” says Ohye. “For example, Google can show you more confidential information, such as the search queries that bring visitors to your site, and by verifying ownership, you’ll have privileges to do things like adjust targeting settings to associate your site with the audience of a particular country.”

    “Verification doesn’t affect your site’s performance in Google search results,” she notes.

  • Google Talks About Optimizing For Tablets

    If your site isn’t optimized for different devices that people are using, it’s not going to look good for Google when they point users to your site. This is something to keep in mind, when you’re considering optimizing for mobile search and searches from tablets.

    Google wants to provide a good experience to users, and users will not benefit from a site that doesn’t cater to the device they are using, even if the content is there. Google recognizes this, and it seems fairly likely that they will take measures to keep your site from showing up if it’s not optimized. Maybe not your site specifically, but this seems like they kind of thing they’d want to improve upon algorithmically.

    Google suggests using responsive design as a way to ensure that your site looks good across devices. They don’t say it will actually help you in search rankings, but considering Googe’s emphasis on user experience, and the fact that they’re even suggesting it, seems to indicate that this is something they’re paying attention to.

    Google has talked about this a number of times in the past. Here are some steps they provided earlier this year, for example. The next month, they shared more advice. Now, they’re talking about making sure you give tablet users the full-sized web, emphasizing that you should not be showing these users a mobile-specific site.

    “When considering your site’s visitors using tablets, it’s important to think about both the devices and what users expect, say Google’s Pierre Far and Scott Main in a joint blog post. “Compared to smartphones, tablets have larger touch screens and are typically used on Wi-Fi connections. Tablets offer a browsing experience that can be as rich as any desktop or laptop machine, in a more mobile, lightweight, and generally more convenient package. This means that, unless you offer tablet-optimized content, users expect to see your desktop site rather than your site’s smartphone site.”

    “Our recommendation for smartphone-optimized sites is to use responsive web design, which means you have one site to serve all devices,” they write. “If your website uses responsive web design as recommended, be sure to test your website on a variety of tablets to make sure it serves them well too. Remember, just like for smartphones, there are a variety of device sizes and screen resolutions to test.”

    They also note that another approach is to have separate sites for desktops and smartphones, and just to redirect users to the relevant version. Just make sure you’re sending tablet users to the desktop version.

    Still, tablets are coming in a variety of sizes these days. Some of them are getting quite small. Responsive design might be the best bet.

    The two note that they “do not have specific recommendations for building search engine friendly tablet-optimized websites.”

  • Google Is Experimenting With Ways To Make Reconsideration Requests Better

    Google has been experimenting with how to make the reconsideration request process better for webmasters who have been dealt a manual action penalty by Google.

    Google’s head of webspam, Matt Cutts, put out a new Webmaster Help video discussing reconsideration requests and whether or not they’re actually read by humans. The video was a response to the following user-submitted question:

    Right now, when a webmaster sends a reconsideration request, how many chances does it have to be read by a real human? Do you plan to make it possible for webmasters to answer when they get a result back from Google?

    “Whenever you do a reconsideration request, if you don’t have any manual action by the webspam team, so there’s no way we could do anything, in essence, because it’s algorithmically determining where you’re ranking, those are automatically closed out,” says Cutts. “Those aren’t looked at by a human being, but 100% of all the other reconsideration requests are looked at by a real person.”

    “We don’t have the time to individually reply with a ton of detail, and so we do think about ways to be more scalable, and so I understand it might not be as satisfying to get, ‘Yeah, we think you’re okay,’ or ‘No, you still have issues,’ but that is a real human that is looking at that and generating the response that you read back,” he says.

    He goes on to say that if Google still thinks you have issues with your site, you should take the time to investigate and figure out some things you can do before submitting another request. If you just submit it again without doing anything, Google will likely consider you to be “hard headed” and find it “unproductive to continue that conversation.”

    “We’ve actually been trying a very experimental program where when we see someone who’s done a reconsideration request more than once, we’ll sample a small number of those and send those to other people to sort of say, ‘Okay, let’s do a deeper dig here.’ You know, maybe we need to send a little bit more info or investigate in a little bit more detail,” continues Cutts. “It’s just one of the ways we’ve been experimenting. We’ve actually been doing it for quite a while to try to figure out, ‘Okay, are there other ways that we can improve our process? Other ways that we can communicate more?’ So it’s the kind of thing where we don’t guarantee that if you appeal a couple times that you’ll get any sort of more detailed of an answer, but there are people reading all those reconsideration requests.”