There are currently close to 400 videos on Google Webmaster Central YouTube channel featuring Matt Cutts who answers questions posted to the Webmaster Help Forum or to the Twitter handle @googlewmc. Occasionally, some Google secrets slip out in these videos. You can also pick up some tips & tricks on SEO by watching these typically 2-minute videos.
If you are SEO inclined, the videos have some interesting titles that draw you to find out the answers. I track updates through their YouTube channel RSS feed. I sometimes wish the answer was part of the intro that comes with the feed so that I can find the answer immediately. For future reference, I plan to jot down summaries of these videos while I watch a few of them every week. Here goes the list -
* Do spelling and grammar matter when evaluating content and site quality? (Aug 17, 2011)
No.
Reputable sites tend to spell better and the sites that are lower page rank tend not to spell as well, so "that's the sort of content analysis that would be pretty interesting to explore as a potential quality signal"
* Why do Amazon.com pages tend to rank well for product queries? (May 25, 2011)
If there's an official homepage for a product, it will rank very well & sometimes number one. Not every book or product has an home page. Amazon has a relatively good user experience in general and lots of links to it due to which it tops the result list.
* How does Google handle pages with content that changes on each page load? (asked on Apr 22, 2011)
If you really want Googlebot to see & follow, make sure that the important links are always on your root page.
* Can I tell Google about links to my site? (Apr 19, 2011)
Better let Google find the links. You can upload a sitemap which is a list of all URLs on your site but Google doesn't guarantee that uploading a sitemap will get all of your pages indexed.
* Can coding errors affect how a page is indexed? (asked on Apr 19, 2011)
Check the web page in a text browser or the popular browsers, if you can see the text. "If all that text is visible, then it should, for the most part, be able to be indexed by Google."
* How can I make sure that Google knows my content is original? Apr 4, 2011
Google tries hard but is not perfect at identifying who is the original author of an article. To let Google index your original article faster before a deceptive site like a scraper, claims it is its own (by showing a manipulated timestamp), let the world know about it by, for example, tweeting about it or hook up thinks like Pub Subhubhub which will ping various places to asynchronously say that there's a new article or blog post.
Alternatively, you can do a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) notice or a spam report
* Is serving Googlebot a transcript in place of a video considered to be cloaking? (asked on May 5, 2011)
Yes, that would be considered cloaking and is not recommended. Show the video & transcript as well.
* How do you rate links from sites like Twitter and Facebook? (asked on Jan 14, 2010)
Google treats links the same. It looks at how reputable the links are. It doesn't matter whether they come from a .gov or .edu or Twitter or Facebook...they don't automatically carry weight.
* How much weight does the number of years a domain is registered for have on your ranking? (asked on May 7, 2009)
Don't "worry about that very much"
* How can new pages get indexed quickly (besides using Google Webmaster Tools)? (May 27, 2009)
Get more links. Google can index a page within seconds.
* Does the position of keywords in the URL affect ranking? (Mar 5, 2009) Is example.com/keyword/London is better than example.com/London/keyword?
Not a lot. Having four or five keywords maybe good
All videos have a transcript (hidden by default) but they may not work every time (the trouble could be with the JavaScript to show-hide the panel). To view transcript, click on the button to the right of the flag below the video (if you hover over it it, it will say "Interactive Transcript") and it will open up the transcript.
If you are SEO inclined, the videos have some interesting titles that draw you to find out the answers. I track updates through their YouTube channel RSS feed. I sometimes wish the answer was part of the intro that comes with the feed so that I can find the answer immediately. For future reference, I plan to jot down summaries of these videos while I watch a few of them every week. Here goes the list -
* Do spelling and grammar matter when evaluating content and site quality? (Aug 17, 2011)
No.
Reputable sites tend to spell better and the sites that are lower page rank tend not to spell as well, so "that's the sort of content analysis that would be pretty interesting to explore as a potential quality signal"
If there's an official homepage for a product, it will rank very well & sometimes number one. Not every book or product has an home page. Amazon has a relatively good user experience in general and lots of links to it due to which it tops the result list.
* How does Google handle pages with content that changes on each page load? (asked on Apr 22, 2011)
If you really want Googlebot to see & follow, make sure that the important links are always on your root page.
* Can I tell Google about links to my site? (Apr 19, 2011)
Better let Google find the links. You can upload a sitemap which is a list of all URLs on your site but Google doesn't guarantee that uploading a sitemap will get all of your pages indexed.
* Can coding errors affect how a page is indexed? (asked on Apr 19, 2011)
Check the web page in a text browser or the popular browsers, if you can see the text. "If all that text is visible, then it should, for the most part, be able to be indexed by Google."
* How can I make sure that Google knows my content is original? Apr 4, 2011
Google tries hard but is not perfect at identifying who is the original author of an article. To let Google index your original article faster before a deceptive site like a scraper, claims it is its own (by showing a manipulated timestamp), let the world know about it by, for example, tweeting about it or hook up thinks like Pub Subhubhub which will ping various places to asynchronously say that there's a new article or blog post.
Alternatively, you can do a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) notice or a spam report
* Is serving Googlebot a transcript in place of a video considered to be cloaking? (asked on May 5, 2011)
Yes, that would be considered cloaking and is not recommended. Show the video & transcript as well.
* How do you rate links from sites like Twitter and Facebook? (asked on Jan 14, 2010)
Google treats links the same. It looks at how reputable the links are. It doesn't matter whether they come from a .gov or .edu or Twitter or Facebook...they don't automatically carry weight.
* How much weight does the number of years a domain is registered for have on your ranking? (asked on May 7, 2009)
Don't "worry about that very much"
* How can new pages get indexed quickly (besides using Google Webmaster Tools)? (May 27, 2009)
Get more links. Google can index a page within seconds.
* Does the position of keywords in the URL affect ranking? (Mar 5, 2009) Is example.com/keyword/London is better than example.com/London/keyword?
Not a lot. Having four or five keywords maybe good
All videos have a transcript (hidden by default) but they may not work every time (the trouble could be with the JavaScript to show-hide the panel). To view transcript, click on the button to the right of the flag below the video (if you hover over it it, it will say "Interactive Transcript") and it will open up the transcript.
