Google Redefines Internal, External Links

Google has mad a small yet significant change in how it defines internal and external links.

What we previously know before as external links are no longer classified that way. Links coming from subdomains used to be known as external are no longer grouped as such.

Based on its Google Webmaster blog post

Most people think of example.com and www.example.com as the same site these days, so we’re changing it such that now, if you add either example.com or www.example.com as a site, links from both the www and non-www versions of the domain will be categorized as internal links. We’ve also extended this idea to include other subdomains, since many people who own a domain also own its subdomains—so links from cats.example.com or pets.example.com will also be categorized as internal links for www.example.com.

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‘Gmail’ Search Query Returns Unexpected Results in Photo Results

For some reason, typing ‘gmail’ as search query will yield unexpected results, Barry Schwartz discovered in his article at Search Engine Land.

Google’s Photo search, unlike the more prominent Image search, displays results culled from Picasa Web Album, a photo sharing website similar to Flickr. Picasa allows free 1 GB storage Google Account users. Google’s default image result is extracted from Google Images, a sophisticated search tool that allows users to fine-tune search results based on image dimensions, color, or type (clipart, photo, etc).

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Bing Improves Search Share Very Slowly

Based on data shared by Experian, Bing exhibited gains in search engine usage share recently. Bing-powered search improved its share to 28.99 per cent in four weeks ending August 27th from 28.05 per cent in July, representing a 3% improvement. Searches from Bing.com also improved from 12.98 per cent to 13.10 per cent during the same period.

It has been reported that the volume of longer search queries — those that average between five to eight words — increased by 3 per cent. Perhaps more people realized that by using longer search queries, they feed Google with more specific queries and are provided with more accurate results.

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5 Benefits of Google Sitelinks

Google Sitelinks has been a longstanding feature on search engine results, mostly on brand-related queries. Sitelinks offer multiple opportunities to reach your site, in addition to the homepage, oftentimes the designated default page.

In the earlier days, I discussed about Sitelinks, including tips on generating one for your brand. As I have been asked by clients on how to create them, I’ll also say here in the blog: Google determines sitelinks, and we SEO consultants only provide guidance on how to achieve them.

As sitelinks have evolved, often generating buzz in the search marketing space, and with recent changes that further promote a wider coverage of internal links and inclusion of Meta description, having Sitelinks on one’s site becomes really important.

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Google Webmaster Reports + Google Analytics = Awesomeness

Search Engine Roundtable has released screenshots of an apparent update in Google Analytics. The new addition to the ever-growing arsenal of Google Analytics reporting tools is similar to those we see at Google Webmaster Tools. Without switching from one application to another, the screen grab below shows a Google Analytics report similar to Search Queries report found at Google Webmaster Tools.

This report indicates how many times a website appears as search result within a specific country and how many percent of total impressions came from a certain country. Number of impressions could be influenced by volume of relevant queries or visibility of website within search results in a country via local search. All the other screen grabs represent a similar idea of that found in Google Webmaster Tools. It doesn’t present a new set of reports other than what we’ve seen in GWT. However, one power of Google Analytics is the ability to use dimensions to slice and dice data presented as impressions or clicks per country, query or landing page.