SEO Now Issue 46 - Search Engine News

Search Engine News

Google Toolbar
PageRank Update

Google updated their toolbar PageRank recently, as well as the data shown for the link:, related: and info: queries.

The PageRank you see in the Google toolbar is only a very general approximation of a site's actual PageRank, and was usually calculated several weeks (if not months) ago.

PageRank also has little impact on your site's actual rankings. So don't be overly concerned with it.

Accompanying this PageRank update, Google also announced a few changes to the way they crawl pages, including:

Pages in the supplemental index will be updated more often.

Main index updates will happen more frequently, which could result in more frequently changing search results.

Google Expands Site Search

Google updated their site search command to include results from a site's subdomains.

Previously, a search for site:yourdomain.com only showed results for that specific domain, ignoring subdomains.

AdWords Site Exclusion
Now Unlimited

Google AdWords has now given advertisers the ability to exclude ads from showing up on particular sites or even specific sections of sites. In order to exclude sites or sections of sites, use the Site Exclusion Tool

AdSense Offers Ad Placement Options

Google has introduced a new ad placement option for publishers allowing them to

describe and define specific sections of their site that advertisers can target their ads to.

The new channel option might be something that publishers want to experiment with to increase advertiser bids for specific sections and/or pages on their site.

Advertisers using site targeting will start to see these options showing up as sections they can target specifically.

However, they still have to compete against other ads not specifically targeting those sections.