Google’s Double Standards, Canonical URLs & SES London

I spent some time last week looking into the whole Google Japan penalty issue with Ben.  I find this fascinating, for a number of different reasons.

  1. If Google don’t know the rules, how can they expect the general public to know them?
  2. Why is the penalty applied to Google.co.jp different to other penalties?
  3. How might this affect Google.co.jp?

Google are still being eerily quiet about it – I know Matt Cutts has been busy at SMX, but I still would’ve expected some formal announcement from the guys in the US.

While I’m talking SEO, it’s good to see that the the major search engines are taking action to resolve canonical URL issues.  This makes all the useragent detection, robots exclusion, and 301 redirecting to deal with duplicate content a thing of the past.  I’m going to try to find some time to have a think about all the ways you could use this for better or worse.  Will knock up a post as soon as I’ve done that.

UPDATE
Canonical presentation from Matt Cutts.

And finally, I’m just putting some final touches to my SES London presentation.  I’m talking on Wednesday, on the Link Building Basics panel and  I’m feeling strangely excited about it.  I’ve been to a few SES’s before – London and San Jose, both in 2007, so I’ve got a good idea as to what to expect, but I’ve never been there from a speakers point of view.  Come and say hello if you see me – I look forward to meeting you on Wednesday!

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Sunday, February 15th, 2009 SEO, Uncategorized

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