Steve Johnston
The Google Blog of a Google Consultant

The new MSN search is live across the UK now. Can't say I am terribly impressed with the results. When it comes to looking for a Google Consultant in a UK search I have the top ten to myself. Despite appearances! Those other sites are not competitors, really.

Google has created a new tag to reduce the impact of comment spam. Comment spam is an effect particular to blogs, and other public areas that invite comments, and the subsequent abuse of this facility by site owners trying to get inbound links without merit from influential sites. The new tag allows site managers to identify links as being contributed without editorial contol and hence are potentially suspect. When Google finds this new tag ('rel'), that has the attribute "nofollow", it will discount any potential credit the link would otherwise provide.

Interestingly, Wikipedia has implemented this tag already, which is visible in the source code of any external links. This won't affect the link from here to the Google Consultant entry, but it will have a bearing on any external links provided on that and any other page.

The word on the street is that the new Microsoft Search Engine is imminent. http://search.msn.com/ is where you will find it. Some suggest a full live index on Feb 1st.

If you have been following my obsession with the SERPs for my own key target expression (please bear with me here, as I am not permitted to talk much about my client work, so talking about me will have to do) then I believe I have arrived at the best possible scenario - and long may it stay this way. My independent role as a Google Consultant sits atop the appropriate Google search, as it has done for 12 months, but is now followed, not by a competitor, but by the Wikipedia definition of what I actually do.

You may recall my anxiety about the Wikipedia entry actually supplanting me, but I think I have managed this by removing the link and anchor text to the Wikipedia entry from my higher rated home page (a Google PR5) and just retaining it here (see my December 9 2004 post) on my PR4 ranked Blog page.

This state of affairs can naturally not be expected to stay still for any amount of time, but I will enjoy it while it lasts :-)

Whilst we are on the theme of interrogation, Netcraft's records for *.google.com are kind of intriguing. Thanks to David Orban's Memetica blog for bringing this to our attention. I have always had a soft spot for the unassuming Netcraft believing for a long time, in their early years, that they had to be a US firm. Kind of funny to now discover them tucked away in my new home town of Bradford-on-Avon in the beautiful English county of Wiltshire.