Job Board SEO Digest #1

Search Engine Optimization, PPC and marketing news & tips for job board owners

SEO News

New “canonical” tag solves the problem of having multiple URLs pointing to the same page

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have announced a new tag in web-page header. It is placed on duplicate content pages and advises spiders on original content link. This solves the issue of having multiple URLs with duplicate content. How to: add the tag: on all duplicate pages headers. More on new tag by Vanessa Fox Search Engine Land.

SE clarified, how it works:
• only inside on web-site (does not work for different domains);
• on the principle of 301-redirection;
• not all SE are recognizing as yet.

On the topic googler JohnMu said the following:
“…Here are some examples where this could be used: – Web-shops (multiple URLs depending on how you got to a page) – Sites that work with Session-IDs within the URL – Ad-tracking URLs (e.g. using AdWords + Analytics) – Affiliate tracking URLs – News sites with multiple URLs per article – Forums with multiple URLs per thread/page (e.g. “&highlight=”, etc)…”

For more info: Techmeme, Google Webmaster Help, Cre8asite Forums, WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.

Google has updated PR and Alexa updated its rank on the first of April

Google has updated Page Rank recently, which benefited most web-masters, but caused fluctuations in search results / positions for a few days. Alexa updated its data and most of web-sites raised ranks.

Google differentiates underscores and hyphens

Initial rumours stating: Google doesn’t make any difference between underscore and hyphens, were disproved by Matt Cutts who announced that Google processes them in different ways: underscores (domains.com/file_name.html) are viewed as one word, but hyphens (domains.com/file-name.html) as two words (file and name) . To prove this there is an example by a web-master at WebmasterWorld.

Google Analytics API released

Google announced the public availability of the Google Analytics API.

Job Board SEO Tips

SEO Trends 2008-2009

• Google becomes transparent to webmasters (Webmaster Tools, Groups, etc.)
• PR is no longer major identifier of the quality of the external link
• Search Engines improved duplicate content identification
• Google differentiates dynamic and static pages better
• Search engines now recognize Flash and Javascript
• Website trust rank depends on actual user experiences
• Search Engines changed the attitude towards social networks for external linking

Google Searchlogy 2009

Google just finished its Searchology 2009 event. In previous years, Google has used Searchology to introduce Universal Search and Personalized Search. What’s new this year? Several things:
• Google Search Options
• Google Squared
• Rich Snippets
• Google SkyMap

More info: BlogoScoped

How long does it take to transfer PageRank to a new domain / URLs?

WebmasterWorld showcased the URLs PageRank transfer process. Old URLs PR was transferred to new URLs by using 301 redirect.

Timeline: 3 months
2 Oct: site URLs migrated, 301 redirects installed
10 Oct: new URLs PR – n/a
30 Oct: PR changed to PR0
29 Dec: PR recovered initial setting

The traffic picked up earlier than that. Consider also a number of such redirects, popularity of a website, sitemap.xml utilization. Sometimes PR can recover in 2 weeks.

Subdomains vs folders: Google’s attitude

Last year googler Matt Cutts explained Google’s behavior towards sub-domains: it’s the same as for directories, more info in his blog. Some of the webmasters have recently commented on subdomains actually doing worse than folders. More info: WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums. JobMount advice: main job board will benefit more from folders whilst subdomains would not provide for main URL, but only benefit from it.

How to use headings?

WebmasterWorld on quantities of headings: the discussion was reopened after Matt Cutts posted his video named “More than one H1 on a page: good or bad?”. Matt’s adviсe: 1. Don’t put the whole paragraph in one heading; 2. You can use headings a few times but you should place them straight above the paragraphs. The main point… don’t abuse!

GEO-targeting for web-sites

How would one geo target a job board? Consider 4 main factors:
1. Country-based domain (i.e. .co.uk for UK)
2. Hosting server IP located in target country
3. Geo-location of websites linking to your web-site
4. Geo option in Google Webmaster Tools

Google shattered the fable “100 links per page indexing limit”

A myth on Google’s inability to index more than 100 links from one webpage was dispelled recently. Google Webmaster Guidelines recommended to refrain from placing of more than 100 links, but only for the sake of usability. More from a Googler JohnMu on Google Groups.

More tips on our blog:

• Jobs Broadcasting To Indeed vs. Your SEO
• Improving Jobs Indexing
• SEO Tip for New Domains: Coming Soon Page

Search Engine Marketing News

Users of Ad-Sense blame Google for increasing its per click-profit

There is a topic on Google AdSense Help where owners of web-sites who placed AdSense adv. on their pages are accusing Google for increasing their profit and decreasing the share paid to the AdSense site owner. Earlier, if somebody would have clicked on AdSense advertisement, Google would have taken a smaller share of income, giving the rest to the publisher. As some people recon (more than 150 similar messages) that recently Google is getting about 90%. Google hasn’t made any comments on this situation yet. Details at Google AdSense Help.

Yahoo has decreased minimal bids

As per WebmasterWorld some of the advertisers advised on Yahoo reducing mimimal bids. The change was made to non active keywords bringing little profits.

Banned hyperlinks could cost $11,000 in Australia

According to an article in the “Sydney Morning Herald”, you can be fined for a link to any of the web-sites in the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s black list. The irony is that no one, except them, has ever seen this list.

More on: smh.com.au

Google testing favicons and SearchWiki in Ad-Words

A while ago Google tested favicons in Ad-Words, as well as in common search results snippets. Also SearchWiki service was implemented into Ad-Words for testing. A web-master posted a screenshot
on WebmasterWorld with “X” button near the advert that can delete an unwanted one from your list. This seems interesting as these adverts have been paid for. Google made comments on this saying that this was just for testing only for a minority of users as they are planning to improve quality of adverts service.

More info: WebmasterWorld.

Microsoft’s yet another attempt of creating new search system – Bing

Microsoft started internal testing of a new search system – Bing. Webmasters are very skeptical though.

Fraud: Google Money System or Google Kit

Spam is being sent out as from Google with offers to use its paid services.

JobMount SEO:

– Optimizing your job board using JobMount software
https://www.jobboardmount.com/tasks-to-configure-your-job-site-seo/seo

More on Job Board SEO from JobMount job board software team:
– Job board SEO guide
– Job board SEO technology