Back to our newsletter archive
| The
Axandra newsletter archive
- 24 May 2005 |
Welcome
to the latest issue of the Search Engine
Facts newsletter.
This week, we're telling you
how your firewall can destroy
your search engine rankings.
In the news: Google launches
a service similar to My Yahoo,
Ask Jeeves buys Excite Europe
and more.
Table of contents:
We hope that you enjoy this
newsletter and that it helps
you to get more out of your web
site. Please pass this newsletter
on to your friends.
Best regards,
|
| 1.
How your firewall can destroy your
search engine rankings |
Some
webmasters recently experienced a
delisting from the search engines
without any good reason. The webmasters
had not done anything wrong and their
web sites were optimized for search
engines. Nevertheless, the web sites
had been removed from search engines.
Poorly configured firewalls
can block search engine spiders
It turned out that the delisted
web sites were all hosted by the
same hosting company. More precisely,
the web sites were all hosted by
a hosting company that used a special
firewall software by SonicWALL
Inc.
That firewall stopped the search
engine spiders from accessing their
web sites. Google, Yahoo, MSN and
all other search engines that request
the robots.txt file
couldn't index the web site anymore
because the firewall didn't allow
that:
"An attacker could retrieve
robots.txt from the server,
then use the contents of this
file to discover the path of
an unprotected administration
interface for the server. The
attacker may gain control of
the webserver using this interface.
The information gathered
from robots.txt could be used
for system compromise and control
of the web server." (source)
This is the standard security
settings of the SonicWALL firewall
and it basically means that your
web site won't be spidered by search
engines if you use this firewall
without customizing it.
A firewall with these settings
will drop the connection to anyone
requesting the robots.txt file
so that it looks as if the web
site is offline. From an SEO point
of view, this is very bad for your
web site because all good search
engine spiders request the robots.txt
file before indexing your web site.
What does this mean to you?
If your web site is not listed
on search engines although it has
many good
incoming links and optimized
web page content, you should
ask your web host if their firewall
blocks search engines that request
the robots.txt file. Your web host
might not be aware of the problem.
Further information:
|
| 2.
Search engine news of the week |
Google
introduces personalised home
pages
"In what appears to be
a broadside aimed at MyYahoo,
Google rolled out a new feature
on Thursday that lets people
set up a personalised
Google home page.
The feature [...] lets people
with Gmail and other Google accounts
create a home page with different
modules that they can drag and
drop across their page, giving
them one place to go for e-mail,
headlines, weather reports, maps,
movie schedules and, of course,
Web search."
Ask Jeeves Buys Excite Europe
"The acquisition of Excite
Europe will give [Ask Jeeves]
ownership of Excite's Internet
domains throughout Europe as
well as control of existing portal
offerings in several major European
markets including Spain, Italy,
France, Britain, Germany, Austria
and the Netherlands.
Ask Jeeves will also have the
ability to extend its search
technology to Excite Europe users."
Espotting wins deals with Lycos in Scandinavia
"Espotting Media, a leading
European paid listings provider,
today announces that it has renewed
its agreement with 2 major sites
in Scandinavia - Spray in Sweden
and Jubii in Denmark, both of
which are owned by Lycos."
Seekport UK-specific search engine moves out of beta phase
"[Seekport returns] UK-relevant content from nine out of every ten searches.
This contrasts significantly with the ‘three out of ten’ performance
from US search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN Search."
Search engine newslets
|
Google
CEO defends privacy policies
"Google Chief Executive
Eric Schmidt acknowledged that
his company's search engine can
ruffle privacy feathers [...]
Many people are disturbed to
find their home phone number.
But we found it because it was
a public piece of information."
Attorneys seek advertisers for click fraud class action
"The attorneys have a pending class action suit in the circuit court of
Miller County, Arkansas. Plaintiffs in the case are Lane's Gifts and Collectibles
and Caulfield Investigations, while the named defendants include Google, Yahoo!,
Lycos, AskJeeves, FindWhat.com, Buena Vista Internet Group, LookSmart, America
Online, Netscape and Time Warner."
A Google project pains publishers
"The major presses are raising thorny legal issues with the search giant's
initiative to digitize the books of the world's great libraries."
Google searches its soul
"The Web search king wants to offer portal-like features without cluttering
its site. Can it pull it off? Despite claims to the contrary, over the past couple
of years Google Inc. has evolved from a simple search engine to a full-featured
Internet portal, offering news headlines, maps, e-mail, and more."
Non-traditional sources cloud
Google News results
"Additional research suggests that the search engine's selection of online-only
news sources to include in Google News skews its search results toward political
extremes."
Back to table
of contents - Visit
Axandra.com
|
Get
top positions on Google, Yahoo,
MSN Search and other major search
engines!
The new
IBP 8 helps you to get
more visitors, more customers
and more sales. Marketing experts
and webmasters recommend IBP.
Just take a look at the free
demo version.
Another 5 out of 5 rating for IBP
 IBP has
received another top rating.
This time it is an 5 out of 5
rating from MaxxDownload.com.
IBP has received many editor's
choice and 5 out of 5 ratings.
Reviewers love IBP.
Download
your copy now and find out
why .
Get better results with your Google Adwords
If your AdWords pay
per click campaigns don't return
a positive return on investment
(ROI) or if you're paying too
much for your PPC ads, take a
look at our new
Google AdWords eBook.
Find out how to lower your
advertising costs while increasing your
profit.
Want to be mentioned in this
newsletter?
Just send us some words about
your successes with IBP or ARELIS and you might get featured in this
newsletter along with your web site address.
Back to table
of contents - Visit
Axandra.com
|
The Search Engine Facts newsletter is free. Please recommend it to someone you know.
You may publish one of the articles above on your Web site. However, you must not change the contents in any way. Also, you must keep all links and you must add the following two lines with a link to www.Axandra.com: "Copyright by Axandra.com. Web site promotion software."
All product names, copyrights and trademarks mentioned in this newsletter are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.
Back issues:
http://www.free-seo-news.com
Copyright © 2005 Axandra / Voget Selbach Enterprises GmbH
Back to our newsletter archive 
|
