Google is looking to improve upon its own internal SEO efforts. The company has created what it calls an "SEO Report Card," designed to improve the user experience and visibility of some of its own properties. The company says it aims to identify potential areas for improvement in Google’s product pages, which could help users find them more easily in search engines, and fix bugs that annoy visitors and hurt the pages’ performance in search engines.

Google is making this report card publicly available though, and that means other businesses and webmasters can study it themselves, and use what they learn to improve their own sites. It may come as a surprise to some, but Google appears to have a great deal of improvement to do when it comes to search engine optimization, the irony of course coming from the fact that Google operates the world’s most dominant search engine.

"Simple steps such as fixing 404s and broken links, simplifying URL choice, and providing easier-to-understand titles and snippets for our pages can benefit both users and search engines," says Google’s Search Quality team. "From the start of the project we also wanted to release the report card publicly so other companies and webmasters could learn from the report, which is filled with dozens of examples taken straight from our products’ pages."

Here’s a quick look at their scoring:

The whole document is about 50 pages (though much of that is graphical), and is available to download in PDF format. Google began by reviewing the main pages of 100 of its different products across a number of common SEO topics, and says it will go deeper into the sites in future versions of the report card.

What do you think about Google’s SEO scores? Do you find the information within the report card helpful?

Google is going to start letting webmasters know when the software they run on their site is outdated. Through Webmater Tools, Google will begin alerting users of new versions of software when they are released.

"One of the great things about working at Google is that we get to take advantage of an enormous amount of computing power to do some really cool things," says Patrick Chapman of Google’s Search Quality Team. "One idea we tried out was to let webmasters know about their potentially hackable websites. The initial effort was successful enough that we thought we would take it one step further by expanding our efforts to cover other types of web applications—for example, more content management systems (CMSs), forum/bulletin-board applications, stat-trackers, and so on."

"This time, however, our goal is not just to isolate vulnerable or hackable software packages, but to also notify webmasters about newer versions of the software packages or plugins they’re running on their website," he continues. "For example, there might be a Drupal module or Joomla extension update available but some folks might not have upgraded."

One way Google identifies sites that need to be notified is by parsing source code of web pages that it crawls. Content management systems usually include generator meta tags that specify the version number. This helps Google figure out when sites aren’t running the latest version.

The company is encouraging developers to use such generator meta tags in their software if they are not already doing so. This, along with Google’s efforts, should theoretically keep their users using the most recent versions. That is Google’s goal, anyway.

Google says they will begin sending out notifications soon, but doesn’t give a more specific time. Do you think this is a good idea?

Related Articles:

> Google Ditches PageRank in Webmaster Tools

> Google Alters Site Verification in Webmaster Tools

> Microsoft Takes Users Behind Bing

We often take for granted the results we get for any given web search. When we search, we expect to find what we are looking for. That’s the way it should be. The average user doesn’t normally consider what it takes for a search engine to deliver those results, but there are so many factors at play, working behind the scenes and coming together to (hopefully) deliver the user the information they seek.

"Spiffy features are great, but if they’re wrong or don’t trigger in some reasonable way that your mind can predict, the failure is worse somehow," says Google’s Cutts on his blog. "The same holds true with the organic search results: a catastrophic search failure can stick in your mind much more than the 200 searches that worked well. Search quality evaluation is tricky because you need to take that factor plus hundreds more into account. It’s taken years for Google to really evaluate our quality well, and we still continue to learn important new things."

Are you more likely to remember searches that worked well or ones that didn’t? Comment here.

Searchers expect greatness. It’s not even something they consider. They just expect to get what they want. It’s only when they don’t get it that they really notice. But what does it take for a search engine to keep a user from noticing a flaw? What goes into providing quality results?

The search quality team for the most widely used search engine in the world has given a tremendous amount of insight in a series of lengthy interviews with the publication BusinessWeek.

Cutts says Google’s strategy for search quality is a balance of the analytical and serendipity. This comes from a cross between a lot of evaluation metrics and a lot of feedback from both the inside and the outside. Google gets tons of feedback from users, but the search quality team also gets tons of feedback right from within the company. Cutts says they have a mailing list comprised of about 20,000 Google employees who are always complaining and leaving feedback.

The human element steps in in a variety of ways. Cutts says that when he is just out and about on his own time, he will come across places, things, and sites that he will look up to find out what kind of results Google delivers for them, and looks for ways to improve this. He says that Google has gotten better at things like spelling, morphology, synonyms, stemming ("where somebody types in ‘runners’ and maybe they meant ‘runner,’ or ‘running’"), etc.

"We ran over 5,000 experiments last year," Google’s Udi Mamber told BusinessWeek. "Probably 10 experiments for every successful launch. We launch on the order of 100 to 120 a quarter. We have dozens of people working just on the measurement part. We have statisticians who know how to analyze data, we have engineers to build the tools. We have at least five or 10 tools where I can go and see here are five bad things that happened."

Google may rely on the human element to some extent, but don’t take that to mean that more emphasis is placed on this than the machine element. Cutts says Google certainly relies much more on computers and algorithms than any other major search engine (at least historically). He does reiterate a point he has made in the past, however, and that is that Google has become more willing to listen to feedback.

Google’s strategy for improving search results consists of a mixture of humans, formulas, and experiments. These are the elements that it takes to deliver what Cutts says are fresher and more comprehensive results than those from other search engines.

Do you agree with Cutts that Google delivers "fresher and more comprehensive" results? Share your thoughts.

While Google’s Matt Cutts has certainly provided a wealth of helpful tips via the company’s Webmaster Central YouTube channel, he is not the only one to do so. Greg Grothaus of the Search Quality Team has posted a video (along with a presentation on the Webmaster Central Blog) covering duplicate content and multiple site issues that webmasters continue to face when trying to rank well in Google.

Greg begins by clearing up a popular myth about duplicate content, and that is that Google penalizes sites for having duplicate content. This is not the case. That’s not to say that duplicate content can’t have a negative impact on your rankings, but Google itself is not penalizing you for it.

Have you believed that Google penalizes sites for having duplicate content? Comment here.

Greg says people see messages like the one below and think their content is getting omitted from Google’s results, when in fact it really may just be being omitted for that particular query. Greg stresses that duplicate content is simply a factor on a "by query" basis.

"What’s actually happening, is that we’re looking at the query that the user’s doing, and we’re saying that we want diversity in the results we’re going to show a user," says Grothaus. He says those who think their content is being omitted because it is duplicate, will likely find that if they adjust their query to more specifically reflect the missing piece, they may just find that it shows up in results after all.

Google recognizes that most duplicate content is not created to be deceptive. There are of course exceptions, which are considered spam. Grothaus says even spam sites aren’t being penalized for having duplicate content though. They’re being penalized for being spam. Just like some spammers use bold tags, he says. They don’t penalize people just for using them. And they don’t penalize people just for having duplicate content.

Duplicate Content:

• example.com/
• example.com/?
• example.com/index.html
• example.com/Home.aspx
• www.example.com/ 
• www.example.com/?
• www.example.com/index.html
• www.example.com/Home.aspx

The above list from Grothaus’s presentation shows examples of URLs that are different, but show the same content. Google will recognize that they’re the same, and will try to pick the right one, (although sometimes they pick the wrong one). Greg says Webmasters are the best people to know which one is best, so it helps to only use one.

You will not be penalized for using more than one, but there are some issues that can arise that may negatively affect your rankings. For one, your link popularity will be diluted. Backlinks pointing to several different URL versions of the same content, will make it harder to accumulate link juice for one URL. Greg says that user-unfriendly URLs in search results may offset branding efforts and decrease usability as well. Plus, with multiple versions of the same thing, Google will spend more time crawling the same content, meaning it will have less time to go deeper into your site, and you run the risk of having content not get indexed.

Fixing the Issues

To avoid such issues, Grothaus suggests using a "canonical" version of the URL, meaning the simplest, most significant form. He says to pick one for each page and link consistently within your site. You can also use the rel="canonical" link element as explained by Matt Cutts in the following clip:

More WebProNews Videos

Rules for rel="canonical"

There are rules for the rel="canonical" link element to consider. For one, it should be used between pages that are on the same domain. It works across different hosts. For example, blog.webpronews.com could suggest www.webpronews.com as a canonical URL, but it doesn’t work across domains. So www.webpronews.com couldn’t suggest www.smallbusinessnewz.com.

You can use the element for protocols, such as http:// vs. https://, and you can use it for ports. Pages don’t have to be identical, but they should be similar. Slight differences are ok. You don’t have to use the rel="canonical" link element. It is just another option, or "another tool in your arsenal," as Grothaus says.

Another option is to make all non-canonical URLs do a permanent (301) redirect to the canonical (or preferred) URL. In addition, in Google’s Webmaster Tools, you can specify www. vs. non-www. 301 redirects are commonly used when moving sites.

Multiple Domains

Lastly, Grothaus discusses multiple domains. This is in reference to when you have content for different audiences, such as by country, language, etc.

There are concerns here. You have to consider your reputation being distributed across multiple domains, and Google will only show what it perceives to be the best page for a particular query.

One interesting factor of this to also consider, that may often go overlooked, is that with multiple domains, you’re potentially losing the advantage Google’s tabbed user interface. You know how sometimes search results are expandable and point you to different links within the site? If your content is spread out across multiple domains, you may be missing extra clicks, because Google can’t link to another domain here.

Grothaus explains all of the above and elaborates on each point in the following fifteen -minute video. The information is based on his presentation from the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose.

See our own interview from SES with Grothaus here as well:

More WebProNews Videos

Did this information clear up any misconceptions you had about duplicate content? Let us know.

The way of the web has become very social, as you are more than likely aware. Fortunately, this makes for more widespread conversations about any and all issues that are deemed worthy of discussion by anyone on the Internet.

Unfortunately, it also opens up many pathways for abuse including spam, which can quickly turn a positive user experience into an ugly one.

As the web continues to become a more social animal, more and more webmasters find ways to make their own sites more social. Essentially, this makes for a web full of little social networks. A webmaster that is going this route may run into some of those spam issues right in the profile pages of his/her so-called users.

Jason Morrison of Google’s Search Quality Team has posted an interesting article on the company’s Webmaster Central Blog. Within this article are 8 tips for dealing with this social profile spam.

The tips are:

1. Make sure you have standard security features in place

2. Use a blacklist to prevent repetitive spamming attempts

3. Watch out for cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities

4. Consider nofollowing the links on untrusted user profile pages

5. Consider noindexing profile pages

6. Add a "report spam" feature to user profiles and friend invitations

7. Monitor your site for spammy pages

8. Watch for spikes in traffic from suspicious queries

Morrison elaborates on each of these, but I think you get the gist of it. "Google is constantly under attack by spammers trying to create fake accounts and generate spam profiles on our sites, and despite all of our efforts some have managed to slip through," he says, citing the tips as ways to make spammers’ lives more difficult.

It would appear that spam (in any form) just isn’t going to go away.  All you can do is use the tools and strategies that are at your disposal to minimize it and try to maintain a positive user experience. That’s what Google does.

Google announced today that its SEO Starter Guide is now available in 40 languages. This covers 98% of the global Internet audience according to the company.

"We hope that webmasters around the world can use the guide to improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing in search engines," says Brandon Falls of Google’s Search Quality Team.

If you are unfamiliar with Google’s SEO Starter Guide, it is a "compact guide" that lists best practices according to Google that both teams within the company and external webmasters can use to improve the indexing of their sites.

The guide was announced back in November, focusing on areas like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, etc.

Here’s the list of the languages it is now available in:

- Arabic
- Bulgarian
- Catalan
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Chinese (Traditional)
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- English (GB)
- Filipino
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese (BR)
- Portuguese (PT)
- Romanian
- Russian
- Serbian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Thai
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
- Vietnamese

You can get the download link for any of those languages here. If you want to make sure your site is ranking as well as it should be in Google, it’s probably not a bad idea to go over it and apply the advice to your site – particularly if you are new to the game.

Google announced today that its SEO Starter Guide is now available in 40 languages. This covers 98% of the global Internet audience according to the company.

"We hope that webmasters around the world can use the guide to improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing in search engines," says Brandon Falls of Google’s Search Quality Team.

If you are unfamiliar with Google’s SEO Starter Guide, it is a "compact guide" that lists best practices according to Google that both teams within the company and external webmasters can use to improve the indexing of their sites.

The guide was announced back in November, focusing on areas like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, etc.

Here’s the list of the languages it is now available in:

- Arabic
- Bulgarian
- Catalan
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Chinese (Traditional)
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- English (GB)
- Filipino
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese (BR)
- Portuguese (PT)
- Romanian
- Russian
- Serbian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Thai
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
- Vietnamese

You can get the download link for any of those languages here. If you want to make sure your site is ranking as well as it should be in Google, it’s probably not a bad idea to go over it and apply the advice to your site – particularly if you are new to the game.

Google announced today that its SEO Starter Guide is now available in 40 languages. This covers 98% of the global Internet audience according to the company.

"We hope that webmasters around the world can use the guide to improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing in search engines," says Brandon Falls of Google’s Search Quality Team.

If you are unfamiliar with Google’s SEO Starter Guide, it is a "compact guide" that lists best practices according to Google that both teams within the company and external webmasters can use to improve the indexing of their sites.

The guide was announced back in November, focusing on areas like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, etc.

Here’s the list of the languages it is now available in:

- Arabic
- Bulgarian
- Catalan
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Chinese (Traditional)
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- English (GB)
- Filipino
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese (BR)
- Portuguese (PT)
- Romanian
- Russian
- Serbian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Thai
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
- Vietnamese

You can get the download link for any of those languages here. If you want to make sure your site is ranking as well as it should be in Google, it’s probably not a bad idea to go over it and apply the advice to your site – particularly if you are new to the game.

Google Blog Search has – in theory, at least – gotten better.  A slight overhaul was performed yesterday, with changes in both the engine’s algorithm and the site’s appearance being implemented. 

Have you ever searched for, say, "wanda sykes obama" and then seen some results about the comedian’s new kids instead of a certain recent performance?  Well, that sort of mix-up may still occur, but Google’s Jeremy Hylton, who leads a search quality team in New York, told Matt McGee, "We’re doing a better job of choosing the blog posts to include in clusters."

Hylton also said, in case you’ve come to feel that not enough results are presented or the same old blogs are always front and center, that his team’s increasing the number of posts eligible for clustering.

And Hylton’s group has taken into account whether Google Blog Search highlights original reports as much as it should, too.  "One important [change] is that we’re processing new links much faster, so the post that breaks a story and gets a lot of links is more likely to become the lead story," he stated.

It may take a few days to sort out whether all of this (and a new, more barebones layout) really represents a tangible improvement over the old Google Blog Search.  In the meantime, just keep your fingers crossed that the site remains accessible at all, as its close relative, Google News, went down again this morning.