New Update in Google Webmaster Tools: Submit URL Parameters to Ignore

I think this is definitely a good initiative by Google, allowing the webmasters to let the Googlebot know which URL parameters to ignore while crawling or indexing the site web pages.

1. Log in to your Google Webmaster tools account
2. Click on the ‘Site Configuration’ link on the left and then on ‘Settings’
3. At the bottom you will find ‘Parameter Handling’ to adjust the parameter settings.

Dynamic parameters (for example, session IDs, source, or language) in your URLs can result in many different URLs all pointing to essentially the same content. For example: http://www.example.com/product?pid=123 might point to the same content as http://www.example.com/product. You can specify whether you want Google to ignore up to 15 specific parameters in your URL.

Also, Google lists the parameters they have identified in the URLs of your site and suggests if the parameters are vague for them. You can confirm your choice to ignore or not to ignore. You can also add parameters that Googlebot was unable to identify and list them.

The reasons why I find this useful are:

1. This will really help Google in identifying the duplicate content pages and help them in proper indexing with fewer duplicate URLs.
2. This can result in more efficient crawling of Googlebot.
3. Googlebot can crawl more pages and index them, as the crawler efficiency is increased.
4. This can reduce the PageRank dilution as external website may be linking to various versions of your URLs and this will help Google understand that all these pages are same. Thus, providing the proper PageRank credit to the page.
5. Simple way to indicate the parameters to ignore or consider, instead of using the canonical option.

Yahoo Site Explorer has a similar feature and Bing is yet to include this. If you want to opt this method then you will be ignoring Bing and other search engines which do have the parameter suggestion option.

Related posts: Duplicate Content Issues and Probable Solutions

Caffeine Update: Google Asks Webmasters to Test the Next-Gen Search Infrastructure

Today in Google Webmaster Central blog, Google confirmed that for the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: next-generation architecture for Google's web search.

This process will help Google search with indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits "under the hood" of Google's search engine, which means that most users won't notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so to get the feedback from web developers they are collecting the feedback.

The web developer preview of Google’s new infrastructure is available at - http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ . To provide feedback on the current search results and new one can be provided through the link at the bottom of the search results page that says “Dissatisfied? Help us to improve.”

I am yet to identify significant changes in the rankings but, few other experts did notice the changes as

1. This change has effected to rankings related to keywords used in social media
2. This will affect the long-tail keywords
3. Keyword suggestion is popping bit faster
4. Not indexing as many web pages as the normal one
5. Providing the search results faster – may be the load is too less on Caffeine
6. May impact SEO rankings and/or traffic
7. May impact PPC search strategy
8. Link structures will not be the only one to decide the ranking
9. Indexing of social media, news sites and micro-blogging sites as immediate as possible
10. Improving of accuracy of results

Do comment on this if you have noticed something important about this.

Control the Site Links Now Through Google Webmaster

Google announced today in its Webmaster Central blog about a new update named “Summer Sunshine”. The main highlight was you can edit the site links using your webmaster account.

1. You can block the other links from the site links apart from the home page. Site links are generated automatically by Google, but now you can suggest which links you do not want to list in site links.
   
2. The Google site selector now lists all verified sites and allows you to search as you type.

3. It also provides a clear distinction between verified and non-verified sites.

These improvements are really cool. Mostly the #1 and it really helps a webmaster to restrict any links which should not be there.

Google Signs Up on Twitter

YES! This is no spam account and Google has very much officially signed up to Twitter – http://twitter.com/Google. I guess Google will use account to post the announcements similar to the Google Official Blog and may be relatively more frequent and quicker than their blog. Matt Cutts of Google himself confirmed that this Google Twitter is real Googler.

The first post was bit confusing and in fact was a binary message.

Later I was able to know that it is – I’m Feeling Lucky.

It more or less signifies that Google agrees Twitter as a form of mass communication in the same way that Google was interested in Blogger. Prior to the launch of Google Official Blog, Google relied on Google Groups and various webmaster forums to communicate with its users, webmasters, publishers and other target audiences for regular updates and issues. And now, Google has a blog for everything. The Official Google Webmaster Central Blog, Official GMail Blog, Google LatLong, Google Analytics Blog, Official Google Enterprise Blog, Offcial Google Mobile Blog and may be more. May be later, they will have Twitter accounts for everything for instant communication and updates.

Here are few Googlers who are already on Twitter - Matt Cutts, John Mueller, Adam Lasnik, Brian White, YouTube, Sarah, Adwords Helper.

Other pertinent Twitters you will love to follow are – Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Danny Sullivan, Greg Sterling, Matt Mcgee, Vanessa Fox, Elisabeth Osmeloski.

Let me know the missed ones...

Update: Danny from SearchEngineLand provides a exausthistive list of SE/Google/Yahoo/MSN folks on Twitter.