I finished listening to the nearly hour-and-a-quarter archived session Todd (Oilman) and Greg (Webguerrilla) gave on WebmasterRadio.com last night. There are a few tidbits of information that I think, when taken in the context of what Matt Cutts has previously said and how he likes to avoid getting specific, provide some value.
- Sandbox - There's clearly something Google is identifying as "sandbox" that has to do with age - Matt doesn't try to deny it, but merely says that "something else" is going on with Todd's example of LinkCondom.com.
_ - In Matt's reasoning for why linkcondom.com doesn't rank for its own name, he clearly looks at the link profile of the site (who's linking in, when, etc.) and makes the excuse that those elements are what are algorithmically taking it out of the results. So, who's linking there? Well, a bunch of folks in the SEO community who found it amusing - natural, organically built incoming links that, while "spiky" in when they linked, certainly aren't "unnatural", "manipulative" or "spammy." What can we glean from this - the SEO neighborhood may not be the best place to start your link development.
_ - BigDaddy - it's rolling out a datacenter a week for the next month or two. THe algorithmic changes are not the big factors here, and most of those are visible in the normal Google SERPs anyway. Look for URL handling, 301s, 302s and DNS issues to be the bigger pieces to BigDaddy.
_ - Matt likes linkbait in general - he thinks that posting creative, funny, informative or controversial content is a fine way to attract natural links and, by and large, an effective whitehat methodology. That's a good thing, because dealing with linkbait as spam would ruin some great SERPs.
_ - The v7ndotcom contest - Matt barely cares about it (or is lying through his teeth - also possible) and doesn't think that many folks will be exposing their link networks. Greg is of a different mind and thinks there are some fun links to go wading through pointing to some top rankers for the query. I'd believe him over Matt on this issue.
All in all a worthwhile hour and change - I laughed out loud a few times, particularly when Matt joked about Greg and Todd having to deal with blog spammers. If you're an insider in the SEO world and the conference circuit, this has more value than for just the standard webmaster - kinda like SNL in the '80's.
UPDATE: Graywolf notes possible discrepencies regarding the use of the URL removal tool for WebmasterWorld.
Matt - oops, yeah - that's a good idea... changing now - does "possible discrepencies" sound a bit better?
If that's the case, randfish, would you mind changing your post update not to say that I "lied outright"?
Graywolf asserts that he submitted a removal for WMW (and that several other people did), but I only see one entry in the url removal database, and it doesn't belong to Graywolf. It's a little thing, but I'd rather not have the post calling me an liar, since the facts aren't known and I've offered to do more detective work if I get an email address to check against. :)
Behold the power of conversation. At this point I'm satisfied to chalk this up to a technical glitch or malfunction, and not something more sinister.
I ended up back here after reading Michael's "Lies, Damned Lies, and Matt Cutts" article. :) Thanks for making the change, randfish. Discrepancy is definitely an accurate statement. :)
FWIW, I believe graywolf when he says that he submitted WMW too, so I'm not sure why only one entry showed up in the url removal database. If I see something like this happen again, maybe I'll sign up for the url removal tool and submit a few directories off my site just to see how it comes through in the database. That sounds about as entertaing as flossing while I do my income taxes, so I probably won't dig too much deeper unless it pops up again for some reason.
Michael - you should feature me in your next article - "Kids, Damn Kids and Randfish" (goes to check what's on SciFi on Friday night...)
Matt - Glad it's all resolved. If we're lucky, maybe you'll come back and comment on other blog entries while you're flossing :)
As for income taxes, doesn't Google have an in-house H&R Block or some such near the lunchroom?
I was sure that Matt was just kidding about me being the only one to submit it. I know for sure of more folks that did. Maybe the system only retains the most recent submission.
Oh well - no big deal really. I know that Brett didn't mind ;)
Yeah - it's clear to me that whatever the actuals of the situation, nobody had the intent to deceieve (although, since there was no motive, I admit I suspected as much)
GW - That (a joke) certainly wasn't the tone of the banter at that point, but there could be something we're missing, I suppose.
Back when webmasterworld blocked the googlebot using the robots.txt file someone decided to use the URL removal tool on the site, and Oilman blogged about it. Since this was an excellent opportunity to see what actually goes on I did the same myself. So I know for a fact that I submitted a URL removal request, as did several other people. Matt said only one person submitted the request. As I said I hope it was just really a joke that I missed.
Michael - I think you should give the offending piece a listen. This isn't a mistake, it's a flat out denial, even after Todd and Greg tried to say that Matt was inaccurate. What's possible is that Matt has inaccurate data or misread it and believes what he's saying, but it's such a trivial piece of information to falsify that it doesn't make sense to be an outright deception...
Here's what I said over at graywolf's site:
"The point that I tried to make (perhaps not well) is that someone in the SEO world has made a statement like "I knew it didn't hurt to submit WMW because someone else already had." In fact, that person was the first (and only, when I checked a while ago) that had done the submission. [added: at least according to my understanding of the url removal database.]
Someone else could have done another submit later after I checked, or perhaps the url removal database just logs the first successful entry (although I don't think that's true) or maybe I got the database query wrong (although I don't think that's true either).
Okay, I just went back and checked my database query. One entry. It could be that the url removal database only tracks the first successful submission, although I haven't seen that happen before."
If anyone wants to claim that they also submitted WMW for removal and tell me the email address that they used to sign up for the url removal tool, I'm happy to check into it in more detail. But right now for whatever reason, I only see one submission (technically, two submissions, but both by the same person).
I'll certainly be happy to check. It's possible that the code looks for a url removal pattern and if it's identical, goes ahead and drops it, but that isn't my experience based on looking at the database.
graywolf, do you mind if I ask what email you used to sign up for the url removal tool?
To be honest I really don't remember, and no I'm not being a ding-dong about it either. I use one email for adsense, another for adwords, and yet another for gmail so it could have been any of them, and I use roboform so I don't have to remember usernames and passwords.
Hey Rand!
I listened to this live yesterday, but I was also trying to work at the same time. Thanks for summing up the important parts!
Have you gotten to see this yet?
https://www.monkeypics.co.uk/
Hilarious!