Our Voice to Google | Call to Action

I was reading the recent post in the Google Webmasters Blog regarding data freshness with relationship to our own data within the Webmaster Tools. The post makes perfect sense to me. Google has always been very savvy with regard to their server space and bandwidth, why use unnecessary resources. I can totally get behind this. So here is how it boils down...If you are not adding data in some form, backlinks or content. Or in other words, not giving Google a reason to crawl your site more often, then your information within the tool set will not be as fresh..Duh. They have stated in the post that they have kicked up the crawl rates a notch for verified sites, but once again....Nothing new for any sustained length of time will bring the crawl rate back down, and thus your data within the tool set will once again not be up to date. Like a dog chasing it's tail? << Isn't that the definition of SEO? =-) I will tell you for example, the link reporting between Yahoo and Google for this Blog (which is posted everyday) is still lacking over 1100 links in Google. That's still not very helpful for any SEO campaign, but in fact improving.

Within the post was a clear invitation for webmasters to continue to post suggestions and feature requests. Now, I cannot say how or when...If ever they use this information, but if you have that great idea...Get it in there. I was trolling through the posts, and I thought I would share some of the ideas with you folks. There are some very interesting thoughts going on in the Webmaster Help Group. Whether you are a webmaster with one site, or an SEO with many clients...These things matter to you. I would not think Google would openly solicit input they have no intention of at least reading, so get in there.

1. Suggestion to list a referring page for 404 crawl errors. Nice, but shouldn't we already be doing this?
2. Drop down lists for the dashboard instead of the regular list. Nice idea, but then sitemaps and verification have to move to another page...Ugh redesign.
3. Directory removals in addition to url removals...Good idea, but dangerous tool.
4. Displaying ALL of our backlinks. Matt Cutts has told us in the past this has gotten better, but it is done to conserve space. Will Google continue to let Yahoo out do them here?
5. Re-submit option for removed urls. I don't know about this. I suspect it would be abused, as it would most certainly by design have weaknesses to be exploited.
6. Alternate means to verify free hosted sites/blogs that cannot upload the html file, nor edit their template code. Hmmmmm, then MySpace profiles will be verified...I am quite sure!
7. A suggestion to let us see the dates on the crawl rate tool graph. For sites like this one that would certainly be convenient in many SEO applications.
8. LOL...A request for Google to get Xenu and tell us where to find our broken links. Same as above, but cute.
9. Categorization of inbound links...I think this one is a bit much to ask of Google.
10. Put the Google Bot last visit on the dashboard list. Hey I like this one!
11. Suggestion to rewrite dynamic urls such as Yahoo. I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand I feel it is the webmaster's responsibility, on the other there are many sites that cannot effect these parameters within their hosting environment. Hmmmm.
12. Downloading link data tables not working. Mine works...So is either fixed or user error.

OK my suggestions........I will add them to the blog / thread in a few, but here first...As I am on a roll.

I would very much like to see some type of duplication reporting in webmasters tools, even if it is just canonical information. With the removal of the supplemental operators, it can be very challenging to determine the nature of a supplemental page. With the widespread problem and inherent concern, if it was only offered to verified sites I would think it would increase the number of verified sites and thus enhance and strengthen the community as a whole.

I would also like to see Google offer some sort of "first publication" or "content" rights to verified site owners for their unique content. This doesn't even have to be a legal issue. Give webmasters the ability to properly label or sign their content to avoid the supplemental problems caused by a site republishing which has greater PageRank and or Authority, thus plummeting the original owner and author in to the supplemental index. Like a V-Key or similar, that would ensure the proper page's ability to survive in the serps (search engine results pages), even if it was just weighted or delivered authority or links (votes or credit forward) to the verified page supplying the "original" content. Yes, I agree this would be difficult..But do the filters not already exist?

Peace and SEO

Melanie Prough
"Baby"


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