beu blog

JohnMu aka Googler John Mueller, confirmed Google’s use of sitemaps on Sunday and suggests using only quality meta data in xml sitemaps.

In his Google Groups post, John Mueller goes on to mention specifics as to how Google uses meta data in xml sitemaps submitted via Google Webmaster Tools :

URL - According to Mueller, it’s best to list only working URLs in xml sitemaps and only the correct version for canonical URLs. For canonical URLs, he suggests providing the “/” version and not “index.html” in his example. He goes on to point out the importance of using the same URL found in the site’s navigation and if necessary to use 301 redirects to that same URL when necessary. The navigation issue if important especially if something other than a crawler creates your sitemap. Either way, it’s worth testing to be sure your Sitemap URLs are identical to those in the user path (I’ve actually had near knock down drag outs over this issue). JohnMu suggest only including URLs to indexable content like (X)HTML pages and other documents. In addition he points out, it’s best to only include URLs webmastes want indexed.

Last modification date - In his post Mueller points out the difficulty Google can have with determining a “Last modification date” for dynamic sites due to their dynamic nature. He suggests either using the correct time or none at all. John suggests using a “Last modification date” but not “Change frequency” unless webmasters can establish a consistent frequency.

Change frequency - Like “Last modification date”, Mueller suggests not using a date/time if the actual one isn’t available.

Priority - Mueller suggests not including “Priority” meta data in xml sitemaps unless webmasters feel they can provide accurate data.

In summary, JohnMu suggests sitemap.org XML files that contain URLs for inclusion in Google’s index and only those found in the site’s navigation. He suggests “Date or change frequency” and “Priority” as optional meta data.

UPDATE: JohnMu has posted additional information over at Search Engine Roundtable in response to Barry’s post.

- beu

Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and to make it accessible to anyone. As it turns out, making the internet accessible is almost as difficult as organizing the information. For that reason, Google’s Founder Larry Page is in Washington, DC talking with folks at New America. Google wants to make wifi broadband available to everyone not just in the US but, around the world. To do this, Google has proposed using vacant TV channels as well as unused closed cellular networks. Before using either one, Google needs authorization.

Opening these already existing virtual “lines of communication”, is still just one step in providing wifi broadband to the world’s population. The next step involves the placement of hardware as well as infrastructure that is capable of supporting broadband WiFi even in remote locations. That may sound like a daunting task in and of itself in theory but actually it isn’t. In their recent white paper “On Geolocation“, Google concludes that none of the issues involved in creating such a network are “particularly challenging”.

Google already owns vast amounts of bandwidth in the form of unused, ultra high-speed, fiber-optic or “dark cable”. This “dark cable” could easily be used to connect users to “Google ISP” via transmitters broadcasting WiFi. As far as the transmitters are concerned, Google has a number of options ranging from boxes mounted on existing phone poles to vehicles and even airborne transmitters suspended from weather balloons. Under conditions where fiber-optic broadcast range exceeds transmitter capacity, the system switches to communicate via satellite. This type of network could be partially solar powered, easily made redundant and wouldn’t depend on infrastructure. In addition to “normal use”, this type of network could provide immediate and advanced point to point communications anywhere in the world during disasters. All this, assuming Google is allowed to use a few empty TV channels!

Why is this important to search marketers? In addition to making information available, ads will also be available and in some areas of the world that means for the first time. By providing internet access, Google will be able to provide more relevant results based on the users exact geo-location.

- beu

A few weeks ago Google launched a new feature intended to provide users with whois data in Google’s main SERPs. By entering a query like “whois google.com” users are returned new whois data including creation and expiration dates in Google’s main results. In addition to the new feature, Google provides users the option for more information via “Whois record for google.com” link which resolves to domaintools.com. After linking directly from Google’s main search results to domaintools.com, users are greeted with various details about the domain including website title, description and even an “SEO Score” provided by domaintoools.com.

After linking from Google’s main SERP to domaintools.com you might notice, there are lots of ads provided by Google. If you look closely, right along side those Google ads you’ll find paid links passing PageRank at domaintools.com. Paid links passing PageRank are a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and grounds for being banned from Google. In this case Google is linking to pages with paid links passing PageRank!

Here is an example using the cached text version of the domaintools.com landing page linked to by Google for the query “whois google.com” http://209.85.165.104/search?…. In it you’ll notice http://vpslink.com… is a paid link passing PageRank. As I mentioned at SearchEngineWatch.com the paid link domain ranks #1 for the keyword term used in it’s ALT anchor text at domaintools.com and linked to by the Google Whois feature.

If you would like more information about paid ads at domaintools.com and have $10k per month, click on the “Sponsor us” link to the right of the Google search box. I’ve not seen many banner ad landing pages with a PR of 6!

- beu

UPDATE: - In response to this post being picked up by blogoscoped.com, Matt Cutts (Head of Google Web Spam Team) confirmed earlier today that DomainTools.com is now in compliance with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. DomainTools is now blocking ads with paid links passing PageRank via robots.txt. Sincere and special thanks to Matt, Google and DomainTools.com for swiftly resolving this issue!

- beu