Axandra news archive: 4 April 2006

• Facts of the week
• Search engine news of the week
• Articles of the week
• Preview of the next ARELIS version - part 9
• Recommended resources
• Previous articles

Every few months, webmaster forums discuss if search engines penalize duplicate content.

Duplicate content can happen if web pages publish the same articles, if different domains point to the same web space or if webmasters steal the content of other pages. If two shops sell the same item and use similar shop systems, some product pages can also look like duplicated web pages.

Is there really a penalty for duplicate content?

There are many opinions in the discussion forums but there's no proof that search engines really penalize duplicate content.

If there really was a duplicate content filter then many news web sites that publish AP or Reuters news would be banned from search engines. For example, you can find many web pages with exactly the same article here. All pages can be found on Google.

However, many people insist that a duplicate content filter exists.

Why do people think that there's a duplicate content penalty?

Some people think that there is a duplicate content penalty because a web page that shows a special article might have a Google PageRank 0 and another web page with the same article might have a Google PageRank 5.

Not all web pages with the same content have the same search engine rankings. If a web site is older than another, if it has better inbound links and if that site has more content than it's likely that it will get better rankings than another page that lists the same article.

That doesn't mean that the web site with the worse ranking has been penalized. It just means that the other web site probably has more links and that the page is more trustworthy to search engines.

Some people think that there must be a duplicate content filter because additional domain names that point to the same web space as the main domain name are usually not listed on search engines.

This is not due to a duplicate content filter. It's an issue with canonical URLs. Google has addressed that problem with their latest ranking algorithm update.

Whether there is a duplicate content penalty or not has yet to be proved. If you want to outperform your competition on search engines, make sure that your web site has unique content that cannot be found on other sites.

If your web site has unique content, you don't have to worry about potential duplicate content penalties. Optimize that content for search engines and make sure that your web site has good inbound links.

It's hard to beat a web site with great optimized content and many good inbound links.

Baidu and Google dominate search engine market in China

"Baidu.com is the leader with 56.6 percent, while Google comes next a share of only 32.8 percent, despite its efforts to dominate the online Chinese market. However, their about 90 percents held together surpass every other engines, such as Yahoo! which has less than 5 percent."

"Google received 48.5 per cent of all web searches, according to tracking firm Nielsen Media Research.

Yahoo was second with a 22.5 per cent share, followed by MSN with 10.7 per cent, AOL with 6.6 per cent and My Way Search with 2.7 per cent."

Yahoo! Search index update

"We completed an index update over the weekend. As a result, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index. You might also be seeing a temporary spike in crawler activity. As these things go, all this should stabilize in the near future."

Yahoo! outnumbers Google

"Despite Google's reputation, Yahoo! ranks as top search engine and Yahoo Mail grabs the top telecom/internet services site spot week ending March 19."

Search engine newslets

• Google offers a related links box for some web sites.
• Yahoo brings user ratings to Finance postings.
• Live.com adds search macros.
• Indian Army Chief concerned on Google satellite images.
• Google adds feeds for their personalized home page.
• Google to issue 5,300,000 shares of class A common stock.
• Google nearing music service launch?

Firms told to spread their search engine bets

"New research has highlighted the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO) and paid search-engine links for firms looking to boost their online presence. [...]

The survey also found that most people search using three or four keywords, highlighting that they are probably looking for deep links into content, so web managers must be sure they provide navigation tools for users to return to a site's homepage, he added. It also underscores the need for SEO efforts to look beyond two-word or single-word search terms."

Editor's note: Use IBP's keyword generator tool to find the best keywords for your web site, then optimize your site with IBP's Top 10 Optimizer and IBP's Website Optimization Editor for high rankings. The free SEO book tells you step-by-step how to get your web site to the top of the result lists.

Ask.com's new look scores big points against search rivals

"Ask Jeeves, a largely failed search service, has been overhauled and renamed Ask.com. I've been testing the new Ask.com against the search champ, Google. I've found that in terms of relevant results and ease of use, Ask holds its own with Google, and even beats the champ on some searches."

Google has multimedia on its mind

"Internet search provider Google appears more serious than ever about preparing features for home electronics.

In the past few weeks, the Mountain View, Calif.-based firm has begun looking for employees to make Google TV and radio products compatible with televisions, stereos, radios and cell phones."

Google's not worth $109 billion

"The search giant is priced to perfection. The market, unable to value its disruptive potential, has overestimated the shares' worth, and with no room for error, numerous issues threaten to derail Google's ascent."

We're currently working on a new ARELIS version. The new ARELIS version will have many new features and many improvements.

We think that it will be the best and most complete link exchange, link popularity and off-site web promotion solution. In the next few weeks, we'll show a preview of some of the new ARELIS features in this newsletter.

Part 9: Quickly upload your link pages to your web server

The new ARELIS version will have a built-in FTP client that allows you to quickly upload your custom link pages to your web server:

Just click a few buttons and ARELIS will quickly create content rich link pages in your web site design and upload these pages to your server.

Of course, the new ARELIS version will be a free update for registered ARELIS 4 users. A limited preview of the new ARELIS version has been released to selected users.

"A great program that performs."

"I have had AxROI installed for about a week now and can already see an immediate benefit in maximizing the return on my ad expenses and tracking my conversions to inquiries and sales.

The program was easy to set up and is easy to administer. AxROI will pay for itself in no time. Thanks for a great program that performs!"
Ron Castle, www.roncastle.com

Another 5 out of 5 rating for IBP

"IBP is the multi award winning web site promotion tool that helps you to get more revenue with high search engine rankings in Google, Yahoo and all other major search engines.

The suite of 10 professional website promotion tools includes a search engine submission tool, a search engine ranking checker, a top 10 optimizer and a keyword generator. IBP creates professional reports in PDF, HTML and Microsoft Word format."
Review on Download45.com

• How to get links from .gov sites with high PageRank
• Google, your web site and CSS spam
• Google's Big Daddy update - Is your site supplemental?
• What search engines plan for the future
• What can you do if your rankings have dropped?
• Google's hypertext matching analysis and search engine optimization
• View all past issues...