Bing's webmaster forum has a number of posts where people are complaining that Bing will not index their content. Some people, however, are having the opposite problem. Content that they do not want indexed by Bing is being indexed by Bing, despite the webmaster's efforts to keep it out of the search engine. Are search engines ignoring your NoIndex/Nofollow attributes? Let us know.
One person posted about this, and a Microsoft employee responded, admitting that this is an issue on Bing's side. Here's how the conversation goes:
Webmaster:
I have a site containing pages that I don't want their content being indexed by search engines so all of those pages have
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW" />
in their header and it has been like this for a while now.
Both Google and Yahoo respected the tag and those pages are not being indexed by them but today I checked and found all those pages even recent ones are indexed and cached on Bing.
Program Manager, Bing Webmaster Center:
This is a known issue we are working quickly to resolve. If you have pages you would like permanently removed from our index, please send me a mail to bwmc@microsoft.com with your domain name and "MSNBot ignoring robots tags" in the subject line. Please also include the URLs in the body of the message. You may use an * wildcard for any directories such as:
http:example.com/ wrongdirectory/*
Normally, I would request that you fill out a content removal request, however, since this is a problem on our side, I'll do the leg work for you.
Others have complained recently that Bing and (in some cases) even Yahoo have been ignoring NoIndex and Nofollow in meta tags. Have you experienced any similar issues? Please share.
Posts Tagged ‘Yahoo’
Bing Indexing NoIndex/Nofollow Content
Saturday, August 8th, 2009Bartz Claims Yahoo’s “Never Been A Search Company”
Friday, August 7th, 2009This isn't, to be honest, breaking news in the sense that the Microsoft-Yahoo deal was. But neither is it a "man bites dog" bit of Friday fluff. We just have a quote from Carol Bartz claiming that Yahoo's "never been a search company."
Bartz told Ashlee Vance in simple terms, "We have never been a search company. It is, 'I am on Yahoo. I am going to do a search.'"
Those few statements could give away a fair amount of information. Let's start with the first sentence. By saying that Yahoo's never been all about search, Bartz is perhaps trying to downplay the fact that Microsoft will more or less take over Yahoo's search efforts. It's like a kid who, after losing a favorite toy, professes not to have liked it, anyway.
Then there's her splitting of semantic hairs to consider. Although Bartz's "I am on Yahoo. I am going to do a search" observation is correct, it brings to mind the company's loss to a search competitor. Does anyone doubt that Bartz would rather have people "Yahoo" things rather than Google (or even Bing) them?
So the "I am on Yahoo" comment might also emphasize the idea of Yahoo being done with search.
It's something to think about, anyway. And here's one last note that may reflect Bartz's credibility with shareholders: Yahoo's stock is down 0.81 percent right now, while the Dow and Nasdaq are up 1.73 percent and 1.77 percent, respectively.
Delicious Shows Off New Search Features
Thursday, August 6th, 2009This week Delicious launched a new redesign along with some new search features. They have now elaborated on what all is new when it comes to search.
Time Filters
One new feature is the time filter. This lets the user limit the time frame of a search so they can narrow down results on time-sensitive subjects. "For example, a search for the term tour de france will bring up bookmarks about the race in general," explains Delicious. "By limiting these results to the last month, you will display more results related to the 2009 tour, and by limiting the results to just one day you’ll find the most up-to-date news in our system."
The feature can be used by opening the panel beneath the search box on results pages and choosing "bookmarks saved From".
Trends Graph
The trends graph shows you when bookmarks in your results were saved.
Tag Filters
This simply lets you filter results by specifying only bookmarks that have been saved with or without specific tags. This can be used by opening the panel beneath the search box on a results page, and clicking a tag filter once to limit results to those bookmarks saved with that tag. You can also click it twice to limit the results to bookmarks saved without the tag.
Enhanced Results
Delicious now uses Yahoo's SearchMonkey to display some enhanced thumbnails (playable for video) for Wikipedia, YouTube, Yelp, Yahoo Local, and CitySearch results.
Suggestions
With this feature, Delicious simply incorporates search suggestions just like Yahoo Search into the search box. Start typing a query, and you will get a drop down menu of suggested queries.
There are more new features to Delicious than just search. The biggest new factor is freshness. You can read more about new features of the homepage here.
Online Video Driving User Engagement
Thursday, August 6th, 2009Nearly three-quarters (70%) of Internet users view online video during the day and night with similar spikes occurring both at home and at work.
This is according to a new study by Yahoo, Interpret, Havas Digital, Warner Bros. Media Research and PHD that looked at how people interact with online video, and how marketers can use this information to drive engagement.
Jason Kramer
Interpret
“Unlike television consumption, which mostly happens during the primetime hours of 8 p.m. – 11 p.m., people across all demographics are watching online videos consistently throughout the day and night, with the exception of dinnertime,” said Jason Kramer, Chief Strategy Officer at Interpret LLC.
“This fundamental shift in consumer behavior opens up opportunities for publishers, advertisers, agencies and marketers. For example, rather than advertisers only vying for spots on hot television shows that appear during primetime, they can leverage online video to reach target audiences more often than just once per week.”
The study showed spikes in online video viewing among men, women, students and full-time employees during the hours of 12 p.m.-3 p.m., and then again between 9 p.m.-1 a.m. The lowest was around dinnertime from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Regardless of time of day, one third of people who watch a video share it with friends, family members and co-workers.
Radha Subramanyam
Yahoo
“Online video has experienced dramatic growth among consumers, but publishers still have questions about what works, and advertisers have been slow to move dollars online because there are no established metrics,” said Radha Subramanyam, head of corporate and media research for Yahoo!.
“We plan to use this new engagement model to help publishers, including Yahoo!, better identify which videos should be shown online, as well as how they can be effectively measured and monetized. It’s our hope that marketers will find this information helpful as they consider launching advertising campaigns in video-rich environments .
The model is based on the following variables:
Completion of the Video – Completion is a strong indicator of engagement because online videos are generally a self-selected experience where the viewer has to first decide to start watching a video and then decide to leave that page once they are done.
Attention to Content – This variable refers to the amount of attention someone gives to a video experience, compared to the amount of attention they give to the other people or tasks in their environment at that moment. Attention paid is a strong indicator of passion and the potential opportunity to make an ad impression.
Actions Taken – This variable refers to the actions viewers might have taken before, during, or after watching the streaming video (e.g. posting a comment, rating the video, sharing the video).
According to the study:
- 27 percent of respondents who remembered seeing an ad searched for more information about the product featured after watching high engagement videos, versus only 13 percent for low engagement videos.
- 28 percent visited an advertised brand or product’s website after viewing a high engagement video versus only 10 percent for low engagement videos.
- High engagement videos account for nearly half (47 percent) of ad recall.