Up to 999 links is generally no problem for sitemaps, although it can be unsightly.

Can content, especially dynamic content be good for a directory? It indicates a lifeblood that might be lacking of other directories. This could turn them into just a “collection of links”. Without the human element, no directory can ever truly prosper.

That behavior seems strange. Why have a wildcard to remove dynamic pages and then show the pages in a very untidy looking manner? The other thing I’ve noticed is that they never drop pages naturally, only if you use the URL removal tool.

Many people also commented on how they no longer ranked for their company name. This would be understandable if there were an “exact anchor text penalty”. In any event, the importance of keyword research has never been greater. You need to make sure you website covers the myriad similar words that make up your subject. A “natural” website would contain many different incoming anchor text links, so a site attempting to look natural would do the same. It will be interesting to see how this plays itself out.

There are a great number of RSS aggregators out there. How effective they are, is unknown to me at this point. I’ve submitted to all of the larger ones, so we’ll see what happens. In all reality, it doesn’t seem like something that can hurt. Links, even low quality links generally add up when it comes to promotions, so I’m assuming this time will be no different.

This type of thing is getting to be quite common in Google. The fact that they test so many algos mean their SERPS are getting quite choppy. Sites that used to rank number 0ne for 4 years, are suddenly relegated to number 671. Oh well, this just proves the axiom: never put all your eggs in one basket.

The main problem when dealing with information from webmasters, is sorting through their bias. Of course they think of their sites as “clean, authority sites” that are leaders in their field, other reviews might not be so kind. However, it does appear that certain SEO practices have been clearly targeted, including Brett Tabke’s infamous “26 Steps to 15K in 12 Months” or whatever it’s titled. Even “white hat seos” are jumping out of buildings en masse, so this has been another rough one. I guess these 3 words apply: diversify, diversify, and diversify.

This is the reason everyone preaches patience when dealing with Google. Sometimes time heals all wounds in the SERPS.

The mantra these days is to get links from “diverse ip sources”. A few years back, the idea was to get links from sites that have high PageRank. The theories keep changing as the results keep changing and Google has realized that it’s much tougher to hit a moving target.

Now more than ever, the best thing most webmasters can do is make sure that their site is a high-quality resource, and do not get too focused on one search engine, and what they “want” from your site. Always build your websites for the users (while being search-engine friendly of course).

I notice that the Sitemap has really helped spread Toolbar PR quite well. More and more webmasters are realizing that the TBPR updates are just not that important. Does PR affect your SERPS still? Yes, but not nearly as dramatically as it used to.

Google has seemingly jumped to a huger than normal lead lately in the logs here. Why that is, I cannot say for sure, but the traffic is up in quantity.