Questions for GoogleGuy

[Brett_Tabke]

Post your best question you would like to ask GoogleGuy and at the end of the week, we'll pull out the top 10 requests and submit them to him in another thread:

Thread Rules:
-q's about Google operation. (not gg himself)
-one question only please.
-no noise or clarifying questions.
-no specifics about your site please.
-off topic stuff will be zapped (nffc is on duty!).
-Keep it short. Don't drone on for more than 2 sentences.

[rrl]

If I have a PR0 for no real discernable reason, would you recommend that I do a 301 redirect to a new domain name and let that get checked again by googlebot to see what happens?

[oLeon]

Is / will cloaking still be seen as bad, and furthermore is cloaking an issue for what webmaster will be punished without asking for reasons why they use it?

[waynet]

Will the Google toolbar be used to collect browsing data and give a popularity measure based on frequency of visits like the Alexa toolbar does?
If so, will this be publicly available and does/will this factor into the SERPS?

[sem4u]

Will data collected from the toolbar voting buttons be used?

[flowilu]

I can use * asterisk on Yahoo News search or Altavista for any letter in a word. Why not on Google?

[twilight47]

Does Google try to upload it's directory from ODP on a regular schedule?

[pshea]

What does Google see as the purpose / value / function of the cache?

[quotations]

Is Google buying listbot.com from Microsoft?

After being dead for almost two years, Google suddenly shows hundreds of listbot.com mailing lists with extremely high ranking in the SERPS.

Does this mean that Microsoft has agreed to sell the long-closed-down Listbot service to Google? This would put them competing head to head with both Microsoft and Yahoo.

[vdlddd8379]

Is Google's new algorithm designed to create a global shift in the way searchers use results, meaning that searchers should look at the left side of their screens (the free listings) for information sites and look at the right side (adwords paid listings) when they want to buy something? For big, consumer-oriented, single-word keywords, I am seeing mainly articles, product reviews, investor info, etc. now in the top results.

[Brett_Tabke]

Thread Rules:
-q's about Google operation. (not gg himself)
-one question only please.
-no noise or clarifying questions.
-no specifics about your site please.
-off topic stuff will be zapped (nffc is on duty!).
-Keep it short. Don't drone on for more than 2 sentences.

[Yidaki]

Wouldn't it be great to have themes as part of the search results?

[Cossack]

Is it true that the "automatic penalty" removed automatically after next crawl (if that minor problem(s) fixed)?

[steveb]

The March deepcrawl failed and presumably the April deepcrawl failed worse, so... for the near future (three/four months) will Google NOT be using the 216.* deepcrawler to deepcrawl the web?

[Dolemite]

Does Google monitor, record, or act on any "SEO-profile" data obtained from either direct web searches or the Google Toolbar?

For example, a daily check of allinurl:mydomain.com for a webmaster's domain, frequent backlink searches for various sites, etc. As I see it, 99.9% of users are unfamiliar with these commands, so those interested in SEO should be easy to identify through their searches and subsequently monitor through the Google Toolbar.

[copongcopong]

Is there a new technology being cook in the GoogleLab lately? A different page rank system or feature like the News Tab?

[erthworm]

Has Google thought of warning webmasters that their site is in danger of being penalized before dropping them from the index? Sending a warning and placing the site in limbo might be a better way to protect relevancy than just eliminating results from the index with no explanation, giving relevant sites a chance to remedy potential problems and remain in the index.

[pepeacosta2]

All questions about warning or generally letting webmasters know why their sites are banned are very interesting.

Also: when will the Google Toolbar be available for Mozilla/Linux?

[indigojo]

Will we ever find out what the smiley faces are used or intended to be used for?

[subotai]

Is Google going to be involved in the Semantic Web Initiative?

[panicbutton]

Where do you get your hair cut?

[pearl]

Would you consider a "User Rank/ Feedback" for each website/domain returned in SERP? Maybe with 1-5 GoogleStars. Users must register with one vote/ comment per User/IP.

(I believe Google would have a valuable User database in short order, plus Rankings would benefit searchers.)

[PatrickDeese]

Are you Larry or Sergey?

[dauction]

GG,

Is google considering using google.com as the feeder site for all ccTLDS. A well known employment agency uses this model extremely well.

Google.com
Lists the various country destinations for the surfers choosing.

Google.De
Google.It
Google.Jp
Gooogle.IE
Google.US

Brings about awarness of googles other destinations.. with more specific regional search results to millions on a daily basis.

[zylstra]

In this Dominic update, for particular keywords some domains seem to drop in ranking because Google lists the non-www domain, while others do not. For other keywords the www version of the same domain ranks highly.

Is there a particular penalty associated with www vs. non-www domains, and how would you suggest that a site direct Google to correctly rank the domain during Google's algorithm updates (with .htaccess redirects or some other, more involved method)?

[Alcogooglic]

flowilu (msg #95) asks:

I can use * asterisk on Yahoo News search or Altavista for any letter in a word. Why not on Google?

Answer: Because Google, as more global SE, already uses * asterisk for more global purpose - to replace any word in a sentence (query).

Ok, well... I've just answered a question addressed to GoogleGuy... It wasn't easy... now, may I ask two my questions instead of only one allowed?

[Kirby]

Will we see an increased emphasis on the relationship between semantic technology and theming manifested in the algo and serps in the coming months?

[coosblues]

Does Google take into account that catergories in the ODP are very seldom edited and that new, worthwhile sites are not being added to the index?

[Wired Suzanne]

Will Google keep encouraging webmasters to create sites for Google only?
In other words: When are the ugly, unreadable, spammy sites going to dissapear from the serps?

[Staza]

I have heard that it is always better to let Google FIND a site, rather than submit it. Does submitting a site directly to Google vs. letting Googlebot find it have any consequence in Google's algorithm?

[internetbrothers]

When are you going to answer all these question?