SEO/SEM News

Update: MSN/Live is now passing the HTTP_REFERER server variable from Mozilla Firefox users. This seems to be fixed since September 21, 2006 as observed by users. The story below is no longer valid.

Before I start, I just wanted to share that I have just joined Webmaster World and all I can say is, this forum is no nonsense at all. After listening to all the podcast on WebmasterRadio.fm, and always hearing in the different shows, the different people talking about them, I just told myself there really must be good information there. True enough, after reading post after post, I could not stop until I was really super sleepy to understand what I was reading. Information is just so much, you do not know where to start. No nonsense people and no ads, no long signatures with a bunch of links. Just very good discussions and sharing of information.

Now about this post, this was discussed by Cymbal saying that MSN is not passing HTTP Referers when on Firefox on Webmaster World that was raised in the forum just 2 days ago, and I decided to check it out too. So I added to my Wordpress Template the browser and referer using the PHP server variables HTTP_USER_AGENT and HTTP_REFERER and displayed them on top.

And to confirm if what they were saying was true I checked my site on Google, Yahoo and MSN, using both MS Internet Explore and Firefox. You can test it too, by visiting the links below and click on page going back to this site and notice the referer is missing when you come from MSN and using Firefox.

• http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aisulongseoph.com.ph
• http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fisulongseoph.com.ph
• http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=site%3Aisulongseoph.com.ph

If this is the case, then it means our analytics software or whatever web statistics software you use is not really reporting the right data and may lack the numbers from MSN that are Firefox users. And if you see in your stats you get traffic from MSN, then that means that these are MS Internet Explorer users. And since no referer is given back for MSN traffic from Firefox users, then I guess the stats will be reported as a direct visit or bookmarked by the browser.

Although I am not really worried about this. Since most Firefox users, are also the non-MSN users IMHO

Google Philippines has not be moving since August 26, 2006 for the search terms Isulong SEOph except for small occasional switching of the 10th and 11th spot by Blog4Charity.com/isulong-seoph and Isulong-SEOph.org and the rest pretty much have been in the same positions since the last Google dance of August 24 to August 26.

When Google decided to stop moving, specifically for Google Philippines, since Google.com and other Google datacenters seems to be moving fluidly, I already had the thought maybe Google is pretty much aware of the contest. Maybe Isulong SEOph contestants are spamming Matt Cutts, but I checked it out, mostly Isulong Girl’s comments and didn’t seem to be spammy in any matter. And I guess most contestants should know by now that the rel=”nofollow” will make blog spamming ineffective after Aaron Wall talked about Isulong SEOph blog spamming, and Jim Westergren offered a free page because of the Isulong SEOph spammers and was giving the contestants a free link. And I was thinking maybe Google really made Google.com.ph not move that fluidly to avoid major spammin’ and jammin’ by everyone as we come nearer the final awarding date, everyone is watching each others moves. And as each site goes above the other, the one under can simply work harder and harder as the Internet gets the term Isulong SEOph all over the place, just before the last few days of Isulong SEOph.

And after a long period of stagnancy… only minor changes in the 10 to 12 spot, Whin’s BBD moves into striking position under Gio’s site. Is this the start of Google starting to move again?

After the crazy up and down of ranking that was changing every hour last August 24 to August 26, 2006. The current rankings of Isulong SEOph has barely changed since then. It has been 9 days of stagnant Isulong SEOph rank changes. Compared to the last 3 weeks of August where SERP changes were happening everyday. The only thing changing right now everyday is the number of SERPs. Although I believe many of the competitors are expecting changes to be fluid again sometime within the final month of September. No one just seems to know when. And when Google does start to become fluid again, it might just surprise us all since it would be harder to see patterns in changing if we do not see the changes occuring everyday.