Matt Cutts has provided some useful information for webmasters in the last few videos that have been uploaded to Google’s Webmaster Central YouTube channel. It should be noted that this channel is designed to answer questions and provide useful tips for webmasters regarding their site’s performance in Google. The topics are not always breaking news. Some you may know, but there are always other people out there that don’t know the information. Google recently announced that the channel had received its millionth video view.
1. In the first clip, Cutts discusses the topic of obfuscating email addresses. A common way to display email addresses for contact purposes on the wab has been to include “mailto:” link. This has of course been exploited by spammers, so people have turned to other ways to keep this from happening.
One way people have tried to get around this is by using javascript. This has generally worked well in the past, but Cutts talks about how Google is getting smarter, and may now execute the javascript, leading to email addresses being shown in search results. Cutts says you may want to find another way to do it.
2. In the next clip, Cutts answers a question about the relationship between the size of a site and the authority Google gives it. Basically, according to Matt, there is no relationship. It’s more about links. It’s not about the size of a site. If you have a million pages, but only a couple links, you’re not going to be considered an authoritative site in Google’s eyes. If Google awarded a site for having a lot of pages, there would be people cranking out pages just for the sake of gaining authority, and this would essentially contribute to the web being a “cesspool.”
3. In the third one, Matt answers a question about Google showing local results for generic terms even when a town is not specified. They ask, “Is Google going to tart displaying different results based on location of the IP (even when logged out)?”
Cutts says that he wouldn’t be surprised, and that if Google finds something that’s nearby and thinks it would be a helpful result, it will probably show it.
4. Finally, somebody asks if a link back to a press article about a company will be perceived as a “reciprocal link” and therefore give less weight to the inbound link.
If two sites link to each other, they are by definition reciprocal links, as Matt says, but if you link to everyone that links to you, you’re basically just “tooting your own horn.”
Some people have criticized the clarity of Matt’s answers in some of the above clips in the comments on their YouTube video pages. Do you feel like the questions have been answered? Do you find Google’s Webmaster Central YouTube channel to be a valuable source of information?
Related Articles:
> Matt Cutts Head Shaving Footage Revealed
> Geo-Targeting for Google with Webmaster Tools
> Where Google Stands on the “Keywords” Meta Tag
