Link Building Blog, News and Articles - Textlinkbrokers.com/blog

Check out the following servers:
216.239.57.105
216.239.57.104
216.239.57.99
216.239.57.98
www.google.com
Just click on one of the IP links and add your domain to the end of the URL in the address field or in the search field after the link: text.  Remember the number of backlinks and then do the same with the google.com link.  After the BL update is finished they will all report the same numbers. 

Related Link: Check out my PageRank Update List History

It is still in a speculation stage, no confirmation yet.

Recently a lot of people have reported in WebmasterWorld.com that their ranks have been hit by Google after adding new pages in a bulk (about 20% and above). Typically, people who have added pages between 2 indexing cycles have reportedly lost ranks of their well placed old pages, that were ranked high for a long time. This development is worth noticing since, addition of new pages in bulk was the only change for most sites before losing ranks.

You can read this thread here

NOTE:  You must be logged in to webmasterworld to see the thread

Seems like the Google rep at the Search Engine Strategies 2004 Conference & Expo in Stockholm yesterday noted the following.
Q: How are internal links weighted?
A: Google says that it wont get you more “PageRank” but that doesn’t mean its not useful, he says. Google said its good because people can navigate to your site, and more accessible to the pages.
You can read this over at the http://www.seroundtable.com blog. Check out Oct 27th and the entry called Link Building Basics.
This puts some doubt to the idea of adding PR to your site by adding pages.

Seems like the Google rep at the Search Engine Strategies 2004 Conference & Expo in Stockholm yesterday noted the following.
Q: What is up with the Google link: command?
A: Google says they are not reporting all your links back to your site. So think before using it.
You can read this over at the http://www.seroundtable.com blog. Check out Oct 27th and the entry called Link Building Basics.
Of course this is nothing new, but this is the first time I have seen a report of Google addressing or commenting on this issue.

If you don’t have time to go though all the fluff to get to the meat in the SEO Forums you may want to check out the following blogs.

Search Engine Roundtable (Forum Round Up)
Threadwatch - Nick W (Forum Round Up)
Abakus SEO Blog - Alan Webb (SEO Blog)
Cre8asite - Peabody (Web Design, Development, Site Promotion)
Cre8pc.com - Kimberly Krause (Usability, SEO & Web Design)
High Search Engine Ranking - Kalena Jordan (SE News Blog)
Searchblog - John Battelle (Search, Media, Technology)
TopRankResults.com - Lee Odden (SEO/SEW News & Resources)
Sage Rock - Sage Lewis (Up To Date Web Marketing Info)

Related Link: Check my list of 29 of the top SEO Forums & Blogs

I have done quite a bit of research into Reciprocal Links Managers over the past 6 months and have come up with what I consider the better setup that is available on the internet commercially.  Arelis by Axandra.com and ReciprocalManager (RM) by ReciprocalManager.com .

A flaw that might have put users of Google’s Web site and desktop search tool at risk, particularly those who do so in conjunction with Internet Explorer, has been closed, according to the search giant

See Article

With a BL update on Oct 16th and its roll back on the 18th, it seems like Google stuck a Google directory PR update right in the middle just to confuse us.  Backlinks are “broken” (read don’t display the real values), the last toolbar PR BL took 106 days (used to be once a month), it kind of gets you wondering whats next.

Well so much for my Oct 29th prediction.  Anyway, Google backlink numbers have “aimlessly and ineptly moved around again” as Steveb put it over over at WebmasterWorld. There was a Oct 16th “Backlink Update” and on the 18th it was reported the update was rolled back.  To put it mildly Google’s link: command has not been reporting the correct numbers since July and even earlier.

Related Sites: Check out my PageRank Update List, I have made some major changes.

This Keyword Competition Analyzer tool displays the number of web pages on Google, Yahoo, MSN & HotBot that contain the keyword you enter.  Nice tool that gives you all the numbers in one shot!

Related Sites: 68 hand-picked internal based Free SEO Tools

The Yahoo-Google Search tool gives you the top 100 Yahoo results and notes the Google position on the side of each of the Yahoo results.  After the top 100 Yahoo results it displays the Google results.
I thought it was quite interesting the author of the tool notes that only 15% of the top 100 Yahoo results will be in the top 100 Google results.  I pluged in “seo tools” gave the tool a run and there was 22% overlap.  Interesting tool for Yahoo Google watchers!

I have using FireFox since version 0.6 (back when it was FireBird) for browser compatibility testing on my Inventory Listing Web Application for Car Dealers.  I am not sure what version that I started using Mozilla.  While I like IE just fine I have all the major browsers installed on my system.  I upgraded to FireFox 1.0 and Mozilla 1.7.3 today and install the mozdev.org Mozdev GoogleBar 0.8 and the NickStallman.net PRGoogleBar 2.0 on both browsers.  Works great!  If you don’t have the green bar on your FireFox or Mozilla check these links out!

Netscape turned 10 years old on Thursday with out to much noice or ado.  You may want to check out the News.Com collection of articles on where Netscape is and where it going, where the Netscape pioneers are now, and a number of interesting articles on the latest in the browser wars.

This AdSense Ad Display tool allows you to enter an URL and see what AdSense Ads Google would display for your URL.  You have seen these ads on many sites, perhaps you want to take a peek and see what Google would serve up for your site.

Related Sites: 67 hand-picked internal based Free SEO Tools

Google has come out with its much awaited desktop search utility. Used it for a while and guess it is time I stopped opening Windows Explorer on my computer :) With a similar interface as Google search, it is pretty exciting to use.

http://www.reuters.com/audi/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=6502519

RankPulse tracks the 5 month Ranking history for 1000 selected Keywords in Google.  They also provide a RankPulse Index for the same 1000 Keywords.  This index helps you to see when there are large fluctuations in the Google index. 
This tool can be useful to explain fluctuations you are seeing in your own Rankings.  Check it out!

Related Sites: 67 hand-picked internal based Free SEO Tools

I am getting my list together for new PR10 sites and pages. Google Picked up 12 PR10 pages, NFS 2 PR10 pages and W3C.org 1 PR10 page and one new site .  So 37 PR10 pages dropped down to PR9’s and there are 15 new PR10 pages.  I expecting to find a few more but this is all that my first scan came up with.

Google SMS (Short Message Service) enables you to easily get precise answers to specialized queries from your mobile phone or device. Send your query as a text message and get phone book listings, dictionary definitions, product prices and more. Just text. No links. No web pages. Simply the answers you’re looking to find.

http://www.google.com/sms/

When there is a toolbar PR update lots of things change.  The Search Engine forums discuss these changes and post their findings and theories and the SEO community lookings over all the changes and theorize why the different things have happened.
I keep a list of all the PR 10 Pages and Page Rank 10 Sites on the internet.  This Oct 6th PR update saw 37 out of 152 PR10 pages drop to PR9’s.  This post takes a look at one of the theories why this has happened.

The following are the PR10s that moved to PR9s for each company. Adobe 4/51 pages, Apple 7/27 pages, Google 7/35 pages, MicroSoft 5/6 pages, w3.org 2/4 and nsf.org 1/2 pages. Beside these pages there were 11/28 sites that had their only PR10 page drop to a PR9.

A poster Phil_AM at webmasterworld.com had this to say on 28th of September.

“It would seem to me that Google is doing bi-monthly updates. Now the real question is are they updating PR or tweaking their algo?

Perhaps both, maybe their twekaing algo’s on the 22 - 24th of every month and changing PR’s on the 5 - 7th.

I’m willing to take bets that their is another wave of volatility around the 6th of OCT.”

Lot of people have hinted at Google resorting to quarterly PR updates. Only the time ahead will tell us what will be the PR update frequency. Now that it is confirmed Google isn’t going to abandon the toolbar PR atleast for now.

The first PR update in over 100 days is going on now - Discuss the update on our forum and let us know how you feel about it.

Rob Sullivan from http://www.enquiro.com thinks so - and makes a case for it in this article on content vs. context bublished by Portal Partner Press

Well people said it was dead.  They said it didn’t matter any more.  But we have just had a toolbar displayed PR update folks.  There is going to be lots of changes.  I am monitoring the buzz now in the numerous SEO forums I am a member and will make further posts on all the happenings.  What this means to you is PR is still on!

There is a wealth of free information on the internet and the following post shows you where some of it is.  This post contains a list of 18 SEO forums where you can post questions about optimizing your website. Whether you are wanting to know the best way to get higher Search Engine results position, why your Rankings have dropped or the status of PageRank—SEO forums can be a good place to start.  SEO forums are also a good place to do a search on SEO issues.  You are sure to find several threads on just about any subject related to SEO. 

If you want a review of what is being discussed in the top SEO forums stop by Search Engine Roundtable.  Their mission is to provide a single source to help you locate the most important search engine marketing threads on the Internet.

MOJAVE DESERT, California (CNN)—SpaceShipOne achieved its most spectacular flight yet, climbing to an altitude of 377,591 feet (71 1/2 miles) to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize on Monday.CNN News Story
You may have noticed Google space oriented logo today. This marks a dawn of a new era in private space travel and is a great leap forward for space travel overall.
To see Google’s Logos from past holidays and events, visit http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html

Soople makes it easier to use some of Googles advanced functions. The author of the site orginally make the site for his mother but has expanded it to include 5 pages of Google advanced functions.

Google’s backlinks command stopped showing the whole story earlier this year and now shows just a small sample of backlinks, conspicuously omitting most links from high-PR pages and homepages. While this does make it much harder use google’s link: command to reverse engineer their algorithm (how long did you think they’d keep letting us do that?), it does have a side-benefit: its now much harder for your competitors to figure out where you’re getting your best backlinks.

For example: http://www.cnn.com links to http://www.novell.com/products directly from their homepage and it doesnt show in backlinks at all. Read on for more examples. Anyone have some more to add?