I finally got around to getting the statistics for September 2007 for the Google Webmaster Help Groups finished up. I have to admit the numbers for September aren’t the best, especially the counts for the posts by Googlers. Getting started at Google took quite some time and a lot of learning . And wow – look at the Googlers post in October (great work, everyone!).

On a slightly sader note, I don’t think I can continue to provide these statistics here. I hope I can work something out as a replacement though, we’ll see.. or maybe I would be better off just posting in the group instead .

Without further ado, here are …

The numbers

• Number of new threads = 1157
• Number of new posts = 5902
• Average number posts/new thread = 4.81
• Number of posts by new users = 915 (15.5%)
• Number of threads by new users = 696 (60.2%)
• Average number of posts in threads by new users = 4.8
• Number of new threads started by Googlers = 2
• Number of new posts by Googlers = 35

Feel free to compare to August and July 2007. Comparing those numbers to the previous months there’s a visible drop, especially in the number of posts (-1774 or 23%) and threads (-172 or 13%). I hope we can push that back up soon (and answer more questions in the FAQs so that fewer threads are needed ).

Top posters

Thank you, top posters!! It’s great to have you in our community helping so many people to get their issues solved. You’re the best! Come on back, JLH, we’re missing you.

1. webado = 746
2. cass-hacks = 207
3. Phil Payne = 195
4. JLH = 178
5. cristina = 168
6. Admin Aaron = 163
7. Robbo = 157
8. abracadabra = 145
9. seo101 = 117
10. burchman519 = 94
11. IceGiant = 80
12. dockarl = 67
13. Red Cardinal = 53
14. Sam I Am = 51
15. Randy P. = 49

seo101 and Randy P. – feel free to give me a site to link to, even if it isn’t yours .
Continue reading ‘Google Webmaster Groups statistics for September 2007’ »

Untitled Document

We’ve all seen it – “untitled document” is a popular page name, probably the most popular one out there. I wonder who decided that “untitled document” was better than no title at all? There are a lot of those pages out there, do they even know that a good title can do wonders?

Being “untitled” doesn’t make your pages uncrawlable though. If you wanted to go all out, you could make sure that your page has no indexable content at all and heck, just use Flash to display the whole homepage while we’re at it.

Of course doing that, you would think that it would probably destroy your site’s chances of being shown in search results. I suppose it generally would, but imagine if your site was still #1 in the results for your niche.
Continue reading ‘Being #1 with “Untitled Document” and Flash’ »

So I went to visit Google in Mountain View …

… and learned that every second sentence has to be prefixed with “so”. Wait, that’s not all.

I’m sure you’re all just reading this to hear about the secret information they’ve been feeding me, heh. Sorry, you’ll have to join Google yourself to find out more about that part. It’s been really interesting so far, so many documents to read and digest, so many neat people to meet and chat with, so much good food to eat (good thing I’m only here for a week). The Google campus is really neat, but it’s also good to get out and do something else, like getting some neat toys for the kids (bribe my way back to getting them to recognize me when I’m home)…

Where are you in local search?

So I’m off to find a neat toy store that has more than the average plastic junk. Of course I’ll try to use Google local search to help me find one, I’m sure there are lots of really great stores around here…
Continue reading ‘Opportunities in Search’ »

Another month goes by, here are the statistics for August (and some comparisons to July in brackets) 2007.

The numbers

• Number of new threads = 1329 [+5.3%]
• Number of new posts = 7676 [-1.0%]
• Average number posts/new thread = 5.48 [-4.5%]
• Number of posts by new users = 1061 (13.8%) [+30.0%]
• Number of threads by new users = 813 (61.2%) [+13.4%]
• Average number of posts in threads by new users = 4.9 [-2.0%]
• Number of new threads started by Googlers = 4 [+33.3%]
• Number of new posts by Googlers = 54 [-36.5%]

More posts by new users is nice to see – I hope that’s because the “feel” of the Groups has improved and not just because of strange things going on in the index .
Continue reading ‘Google Webmaster Groups statistics for August 2007’ »

In response to the other statistics regarding the Google Webmaster Help groups, JLH asks:

I always wonder about a statistic, I call them Drive-by-posters. Those who come in and make a post, only to be never heard of again, even though their questions may be answered.

Let’s take a quick look at who posts in the groups (how long they’ve been active), who starts new threads and a short dissection of what first-time posters do on the group and how they evolve from there.
Continue reading ‘After the first post: should I stay or should I go now?’ »