Corporate SEO news update (13th Oct 09)
This regular post will provide you with the latest news highlights from the SEO industry, with a emphasis on news stories related to corporate search engine optimization.
I manage enterprise level SEO, and I found these stories interesting and relevant to my work, so if you are also interested in search engine optimisation for large sites, I think you will find these latest news headlines useful to know. . .
StumbleUpon launches new site included updated search functionality…
StumbleUpon is a popular social bookmarking website which allows users to bookmark sites they ‘stumble upon’ and share the bookmarks with their friends, or the rest of the community of StumbleUpon.com users.
The site recently released an upgraded experience which includes the ability to be able to search the huge database of links they have stored (both within your network, and within the wider public community).
The links search results are ordered based on relevance to the keywords, as well as the number of views from StumbleUpon users (tracked via a StumbleUpon toolbar which can be installed in a web browser).
This example search for ‘Windows 7’ shows a variety of links, covering reviews, product guides, wallpapers and a lot more.
The results from StumbleUpon are all based on user submission and activity, so they are likely to differ from traditional search engine results. It seems that user generate content (blog posts, reviews, etc…) is ranking higher than corporate website landing pages and product pages.
Have you tried searching for your content on StumbleUpon yet?
Got problems with duplicate content?
A new parameter handling function in Google Webmaster tools allows you to specify parameters which should be ignored in your urls. This page provides a description of how this feature helps with removing duplicate content from the index.
Mobile search suggestions synced with desktop
Google announced the extension of personalised search on the mobile version of the site. The Google suggest function which suggests searches based on your previous searches will be synced between your desktop and mobile device. You will need to be signed in with the same account on both devices for this feature to work.
Google announced a proposal for making AJAX crawlable
AJAX enabled websites provide a richer in browser experience than a standard website. A great example of this can been by logging in to https://mail.live.com, and seeing how the browser application acts like a desktop app, allowing you to drag and drop, right click and perform other advanced user interface actions.
The problem with AJAX websites is that they do not fit very well with requirements for search engines to be able to crawl effectively e.g…
Most AJAX sites have a single URL, where all of the content updates without changing the URL in the address bar. Search engines will only reference a page if there is a URL which can be used to access it, so they will only ever index the first ‘page’ of an AJAX application
Google have come up with a proposal to make AJAX content crawlable. The details can be found here. This idea is still being developed, so it not yet implemented by the Google crawler. It is not yet clear if Bing will support the proposal, or something similar.