WebProNews

Love Letters from Googlebot

In a mildly weird fashion, Google answered some questions regarding HTTP status codes and "if-modified-since" from users who were either made up or had their names changed to protect their anonymity. Names like Little Jimmy, Temp O'Rary, Janet Crinklenose, and Frankie O'Fore (my apologies to any Janet Crinklenoses who may be out there, but I think I'm safe in my assumption that the name is fictitious).

Expect Google Webmaster Tools Makeover

The official Google Webmaster Central Blog says within 6 weeks, an overall overhauled Webmaster central – both its Content and Organization will be unveiled.

AOL Needs To Shine Its Shoes

This article will be part tutorial, part sweating the small stuff. The tutorial is much, much shorter and more basic than the rest, so we'll get to it first. AOL needs to hear it.

Map Those URL Redirects To Profit

There are right ways to do URL redirection that will make a big difference in one's site performance, as shown in a recent case study about a plumbing website that made their URLs more readable.

301 Redirects Resolve in 2 Weeks in Google

A thread over in the Google Webmaster Groups talks about the Google Sandbox, and about 301 redirects. In this thread, Adam Lasnik jumps in and sets some expectations on the handling of 301 redirects, and also does some myth breaking. Here is what Adam has to say:

301 Redirects Pass Google PageRank In 2 Weeks

Search Engine Roundtable reports that 301 Redirects Pass Google PageRank & Signals in a "Couple Weeks". SEOs and Webmasters have always queried about the time taken for a site to pass along a PageRank value from one URL to another via a 301 redirect.

PubCon: The Duplicate Content Zone

A PubCon session entered a place beyond indexing and search traffic: The Duplicate Content Zone, where websites sometimes go and are never seen again. WebProNews tagged along as the session hosts played the Rod Serling role for the audience.

Yahoo Redirects Webmaster Queries

Webmasters on the hunt for certain information through Yahoo Search will begin seeing their queries redirected to Site Explorer, which just received a significant update.

Strumpette Sends Unsolicited Email, Then Redirects

I have stayed away from the Strumpette fray. It struck me as a lose-lose proposition.

Dynamic URL Optimization

Recently I fielded a question about making dynamic urls more search engine friendly.