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Google Sitemaps is another way for webmasters to inform and direct Google's crawlers. Google Sitemaps does not help you to improve your rankings on Google. It is just another way to invite Google's spider.

You can find further information about the basic features of this service in the Google Sitemaps article we published in June.

What's new in Google Sitemaps?

Last week, Google added new features to its Sitemaps service. After verifying that you are really the webmaster of a site, you can access some statistics about the information Google has about your site.

Among other things, you can find out if Google's spider has problems with HTTP errors, redirection errors or DNS errors when trying to index your site. This kind of information can help you to spot possible reasons when Google doesn't index your site.

A security hole allowed people to access statistics of other sites

Unfortunately, Google overlooked a security hole when releasing the new features. For example, the moderator of the SEW webmaster forum checked the stats of the White House. Others could access the statistics of AOL.com, eBay.com and a variety of other sites.

While this information is not very private, it shows that the information Google has about you is not necessarily secure. Another security hole in Google's new Google Base service allowed hackers to access emails in Gmail (see news below). Both security holes have been fixed in the meantime.

The new tools in Google Sitemaps can help you to find out why your web site does not get spidered by Google.

In contrast to Google Analytics, we recommend this service because you don't have to reveal additional information about your site and your revenue when using Google Sitemaps.

Before submitting your web pages to Google via Google Sitemaps (or Google's normal submission feature) you have to optimize your web pages for Google. If your web pages aren't optimized, your web site might not be listed for your best search terms.

Search use still soaring, researchers find

"Sixty million U.S. adults use search engines on any given day, up from 38 million in June 2004, according to research released yesterday by Pew Internet & American Life and comScore Media Metrix. [...]

ComScore's latest data found that Google was the most heavily used engine in October with 89.8 million unique visitors; followed by Yahoo, 68 million; MSN Search, 49.7 million; Ask Jeeves, 43.7 million; and AOL Search, 36.1 million."

More Google security failures

"Google Base arrived recently, sharing the same domain as Gmail, so cross site security holes in Google Base will allow access to all the Gmail emails, as well as XSS phishing attacks using the google brand. [...]

Like the Gmail security flaw Google appear to have a complete silence approach to security, I guess they think what the public don’t know can’t worry them. I can’t understand the motivations behind not acknowledging and thanking a reporter of a security flaw, the alternative for the people who find these flaws are to get rich abusing them, or publicising them allowing other people to get rich abusing them."

Google Analytics stops at 234,725 accounts

"Google Analytics has experienced extremely strong demand, and as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. In the meantime, please submit your name and email address and we will notify you as soon as we are ready to add new accounts."

Google allows separate bidding on search, contextual ads

"Ever since Google launched its contextual network, marketers have wanted to bid for those placements separately from the ones that appear on search results pages. Now, they've finally got their wish. [...] To set separate bids for ads targeted on content, AdWords users must edit their settings on each individual campaign."

Internet ad revenues exceed $3B/quarter

"The third-quarter numbers were a $3.1 billion, a 33.9 percent increase over the year-ago period, when revenues totaled $2.3 billion. The quarter was also up sequentially, coming in 4.7 percent over the second-quarter's $2.9 billion total."

 

Search engine newslets

• Google News is now available for Brazil and Portugal.
• Highly critical flaw found in Google Mini Search appliance.
• MSN to power Times Online search.
• TrueLocal.com is a new local search engine.
• Google Print renamed Google Book Search.
  (Editor's note: visit ebrary for an alternative service.)
• Yahoo plans to apply for about 20 times more U.S. patents next year than it did in 2002.
• Take a look at photos of the new Googleplex in London.
• Google down more often lately.
• Ask Jeeves and GoFish have signed a content licensing agreement.
  

Matt Cutts, Google's gadgets guy (interview)

"Matt Cutts works at the Googleplex and at his blog writes about Google, search engine optimization traps and whatever comes to his mind [...] I interviewed Matt on his work, interests and blog."

Google saves millions in taxes thanks to Irish subsidiary

"The Irish Times reports that Google, the US internet search engine company, is using a network of Irish companies to save millions in taxes. The paper says that documents lodged with US regulatory authorities by the company reveal that it has 'significantly lowered' its tax bill for the first three quarters of 2005 thanks to its Irish operation."

"IBP is outstanding!" - Get top 10 rankings on Google and Yahoo!

Internet Business Promoter (IBP) has received another top rating from a software download site, the "5 out of 5 - Outstanding" rating from Soft45.com:

"IBP offers the "Top 10 Ranking Optimizer" tool which compares your web page with the top 10 ranked web pages for any keyword on any search engine.

Then it creates a report in plain English that tells you how you must change your web site to get a similar top ranking. IBP also offers a keyword density analyzer and a search engine ranking reporter.

It creates customizable PDF, HTML or text reports that you can give or sell to your clients."

If you want to have top 10 rankings on Google, Yahoo, MSN Search and other important search engines, take a look at IBP's Top 10 Optimizer.

IBP is now available in three languages: English, German and Dutch

When you download IBP you can switch the language in the "File" menu in IBP. English and German are included in the download. If you want to have a Dutch IBP version, download this file.

• Google Analytics - Is it worth its real price?
• Google's ranking algorithm update continues
• Are you ready for local search?
• Google's current ranking algorithm update
• How to succeed with search engine optimization.
• The Google-Sun deal and its impact on search
• The importance of being first
• View all past issues...