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Search engine forums have been around for years.  One of the more popular of late is the Searchenginewatch.com forum.

In this article I take a look at even more of the more popular forum topics.

So, you’ve gotten through my last article highlighting the top Searchenginewatch forums and are hungry for more.

And by now, most of the Turkey dinners are over and you are onto leftovers.  Just gotta love Thanksgiving leftovers.

In light of that, I thought I’d provide you with some more light reading in the form of the most active topics that can be found today on Searchenginewatch.

Oct. 2005 Google Update “Jagger”

Of course the most active one of recent is the thread dealing with the most recent Google update called Jagger.

In it, people provide speculation and clues as to what has happened during the update. 

The interesting thing about this post is that it spans some time – from just before the update began to just after it ended – about three weeks.  And it is interesting to read comments from SEO and SEM types as the update is happening.

One thing is for sure – people are much more comfortable with updates nowadays.  It’s not like the old Google Dance days when people would drink excessively and rant endlessly when their site dropped from 2 to 3.

New Middle Of The Page “More Results” Experiment On Google

Then there’s the thread started by yours truly.

In it, I started talking about how I’d come across new SERP’s pages and how Google was experimenting with new results.

Since then I’ve seen many variations on the pages including a new one that I posted earlier this week.

It is interesting to see how much interest this post has generated.  Primarily because Google hasn’t really touched their results page since they’ve launched, other than adding ads a while back.  So this is the first real effort on Google’s part to make a change.

But, if you look at the survey results at the beginning of the thread you see most people are annoyed with them.  I’m not sure if that means they are truly annoyed with the results, or just annoyed at the fact that Google is making changes.

Urchin Now Google Analytics, Now FREE

As Jarrod pointed out in an earlier article Google has re-released Urchin on demand as a free analytics solution for small to medium sized websites.

The only problem was that there was so much demand for the product that Google quickly turned off the free sign up.  I would expect this will be off until Google expands the capacity of the product.

I must say I’m glad to see this happen. I have clients who have been using Urchin on Demand and I’ve got to tell you that I find it to be an exceptional analytics package.  It was exceptional at $199 per month (or whatever the cost was) and it’s even more exceptional now that it’s free.

I highly recommend that when you can actually sign up for it you should, and do with AWStats or whatever other free tool you are using.  Because there just isn’t any other free analytics that can compare to this.

Further, there aren’t too many paid ones that can either.

Is SEO Getting More Gray?

This is one of my favorite topics, so it was good to see Danny Sullivan (no relation that I know of) set it up.

I particularly like this topic because I feel that any SEO or SEM is at least gray hat.  You can not manipulate a website to get rankings and call yourself white hat.  There just is no way, in my mind, that white hat can mean anything other than leaving a site to fend for itself without any form of manipulation.

And I like to call white hatters out on occasion.  Mostly because I feel that there can be no such thing as white hat SEO.

Let’s face it, when you are in SEO you are manipulating search results.  You can’t not manipulate results and call yourself an SEO.  Therefore if you are in SEO the best you can do is gray hat.  But is that so bad?

Reciprocal Linking – Dead or Alive?

In the heels of the Jagger update many started to speculate that the target of the update was reciprocal linking.

You will find tons of SEO blogs out there proclaiming that this is the case.

And while it may appear that way, I don’t really believe that Google wiped out reciprocal linking.  It may have done some good damage to it, but every site that was involved in it didn’t get wiped out.

And even if true reciprocal linking was wiped, there are still other forms of legitimate link building out there.

After all if that wasn’t the case then companies like this one would be out of business.

So here’s my plug for TLB – if you do think your site was targeted by Google’s reciprocal linking police, why not check out the other link building options Text Link Brokers can offer you.

Mike Grehan: Google is done

Finally today I thought I’d throw in one of my favorites.  Not because of the topic per se but because of who it’s about – Mike Grehan.

This is because I’ve heard him speak at many trade shows and I have to tell you that he is one of the most entertaining speakers out there that you can actually learn something from.

I remember sitting through a linking seminar (I think it was) in either Chicago or New York and he was on the panel.  I almost fell asleep during it because the other speakers were less than entertaining (to put it mildly).  Once he started to talk, however, things picked up and I managed to stay awake for the rest of it.

So when you see something like this you wonder – Does Mr. Grehan really feel that way? 

The truth sounds like he was badly misquoted at an event where there was more alcohol than ink flowing.

While it wouldn’t surprise me to here him say something like this (because that’s the type of guy he is – one to make bold statements) I found this to be an entertaining read.

So there you have it – some more light reading while you’re chowing down on your Turkey leftovers.

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com