Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

Today's post is a rushed hodge-podge of topics. A lot is going on and yet - time is short. I'm rushing through last-minute stuff to make sure I'm ready to head to Chicago tomorrow morning for SES. SES Chicago is already underway but I only get to be there for the two days I'm speaking. Fly in Tuesday, fly out after Jim and I host our radio show on Thursday afternoon (it's going to be a great show so be sure to listen to WebmasterRadio.fm). :)

If you want to keep posted on my sessions, the session I attend, eta. you can do so on our website at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/ses/sesch07/.

Blogger has now stripped links from comments. It appears that Blogger-run blogs no longer accept you to post a link to your site as a comment. As a move to combat blog sp@m this is going to be highly effective. An incidental victim of the move are people who use blogs heavily and comment legitimately. They will lose some of their links and they likely deserve some of them however I'd say that those spanked with just cause will outweight the innocent bystanders.

And putting their money where their mouth is, Google has dropped paid listings for text link ads. My question to them would be however, why are you advertising them on my site?

If you look at the add that appears just today on our site:

Now I'll admit that I'm not particularly offended by displaying the ads. We don't buy text links but I don't have any special vendetta against people that do (Google seems to be taking care of that themselves) but if the folks at Google feel it is unethical to advertise paid links on their own site, why are they OK with pushing the ads onto mine?

Labels: blogger, google, paid links, ses ch 2007

I love RSS and I love the Firefox Extension RSS Ticker. Firefox is an excellent browser and combined, these two make it easy to keep updated on the latest going-on effortlessly by scrolling my favorite RSS feeds across the bottom of my browser window. And that's how I found this latest tid-bit of info on the Marketing Pilgrim blog.

For those who have blogs through Blogger (like this one) and who have converted to the new system recently, take a look at your code. It appears that there are some *minor* issues. Actually, just one but wow - is it a doozy.

Blogger blogs, by default, include the following generic code: <$BlogMetaData$>

Well this doesn't look so bad. It tells Blogger to insert the meta data specified for the site through the Blogger control panel, how helpful. The control panel allows you to set your blog as listed or unlisted. If it's listed then it will be crawlable, if it's unlisted then it will not be. Unfortunately for some unfortunates who have recently switched, this tag is producing the following:

<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true">
<meta name="generator" content="Blogger">
<link rel="service.feed" type="application/atom+xml" title="DanoTestMule" href="http://testmule.blogspot.com/atom.xml">
<link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="DanoTestMule" href="http://www.blogger.com/atom/6602135">
<link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="http://www.blogger.com/rsd.pyra?blogID=6602135">
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">

Hmmm, looks OK, looks OK, WAIT!!! <meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW"> Huston, we have a problem.

So, if you've recently converted to the new version of Blogger, be sure to check your code. You might find something a bit, well, let's use the word "hindering" shall we?

As an additional note, and on an unrelated topic, please accept my apologies for the lack of posts of late. I've been busy ransacking and preparing to write about Google Personalization which involves tearing through 6 patents (now THAT's fun reading) and then taking the time to understand what they actually mean. SiteProNews editor Jim Hedger and I will be publishing a white paper in the next couple weeks on the subject. I will be posting some patent info in the next couple days on this blog so keep watching.

And to be fair to the source of the Blogger info, here's your link Andy. :)

Labels: blog, blogger, google, jim hedger, nofollow, noindex, personalization, white paper