Below is the current Google “site:” style search which returns the number of results found – in other words the page count for that site.

Current Google Site: Count

The new 3 column Google interface appears to drop the number of results found when conducting the same type of search.

The New 3-Column Google Interface Site: Count

However, conducting a normal search without the “site:” operator in the new layout, Google still displays the number of total results.

A normal search will still display the number of total results

I may have missed it, but I haven’t seen anyone mention this notable change. This has been a consistent pattern I’ve seen so far, but share your thoughts if you are or are not seeing the same thing.

I’d like to hear from Google on this, as I still consider this search feature useful even today in diagnosing site issues.

Update: Recently, I noticed that Google IS now listing site counts on the new look (although not before our article got a fair number of Sphinns). I’m not sure if this was a change of mind of simply a mistake on Google’s part.

A blog would be a logical place to find information on new styles, trends, and up to date information on shoes. Perhaps you are doing research, looking for a contact, or simply trying to add some reading material to your blog reader.

So how does Google blog search stack up in finding authoritative blogs? Not so good. Apparently, it doesn’t quite know how to define a blog, as the example below shoes shows. Journeys, Converse, and all of the others simply aren’t blogs. 

Google Blog Search Results for Shoes

This is a particularly bad example, but I’ve tried a variety of searches in the past and often gotten poor results. For now, Technorati may still be the best blog search.

With the push for real-time search integration, it will be interesting to see how well search engines do with identifying real-time sources, like Twitter. Considering the length of time blogs have been around, it may be a while before we see great results.

For SEO, if you’re already using it as a secondary or even primary tracking tool, you’ll want to consider adding a few of these items:

• Want to know exactly where your natural search listings rank? Here’s a settings hack that lets you capture this information when Google includes it – http://yoast.com/track-seo-rankings-and-sitelinks-with-google-analytics-ii/
• Are people clicking on your video or image thumbnails in the normal Google web results? Use this code to find out – http://www.searchcowboys.com/seo/256
• Find out if your content is making it into Digg, Reddit, and other social media sites with this Firefox plugin (in beta) – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9393
• Create a quick list of keywords that are suddenly driving you new traffic with another Firefox plugin (in beta) – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11120

Those are just some of the options you might want to look into. In fact, you might even develop a custom solution to your specific needs. The possibilities are wide open with SEO and Google Analytics.

To make your way through this future of shiny metal and emotionless automatons, an important but under-appreciated page on a website is the “robots.txt” page. It serves as a guide for robots on how to behave on a site. Other robots besides search engines, including some nefarious robots (kind of like Decepticons) can sometimes be managed by this file as well.

Some tips for ensuring your site is prepared for search engine robots include:

• List all of your XML sitemaps. An XML sitemap is an easy source for robots to find all of your pages, videos, and other files. By including the sitemap URLs here, you are ensuring search engines can send traffic to any of your pages.
• Tell the robots which areas are off-limits. This doesn’t involve Asimov’s Three Laws, but you can prohibit access to files and directories that shouldn’t be found in search engines. Additionally, you can keep robots focused on crawling only important pages and keep them from spending all their time on unimportant content.
• Always serve the same content to robots as users. Otherwise you can be hit with a penalty for misleading the search engines.
• Avoid crawl delay for search engines. In rare cases, a robot can take up a lot of your server’s resources. You can add code to slow the robot down in these cases, but slowing a major search engine down can cause a traffic loss.
• Test your file! Once you’re all done, use the free tools from Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Center to make sure everything is working properly.

This page can always be found at www.YourGreatSite.com/robots.txt. Don’t be surprised if it hasn’t been created – even some major sites like Yahoo haven’t made one.

You’ve no doubt seen this application, but it does more than finish your sentences. Not only does Google toss out common searches based on your typing, a URL might even appear for the first listing or in a sponsored ad at the bottom. Such is the case in the screen capture below, where all one has to do is type “flic” before a link to flickr.com is shown.

Google search for Flic

Fancy and convenient. But how does this look in your web analytics? The good news is that the click will still appear as a natural search or paid search visit in most services. However, the associated keyword in the case above is simply “flic.” All of a sudden, many sites are going to notice an uptick in misspelled words similar to their brand from Google, and likely a drop in the proper spelling “Flickr.” Take a look for yourself and see if this explains why people might be searching for your “websit.”

Because of its mysterious nature, people draw a lot of false conclusions about how a web page can rank. For one, there is no magic bullet to ranking. In fact, Google has over a hundred data points it factors into rankings. They usually deliver good results, too, which keep getting better. What that means is that you should focus as much on creating what a visitor would like to see highly ranked, as well as working on SEO tactics.

Some other common misconceptions are:

• You can’t have a flash(y) site and rank well. Not so, in fact, you can have a great looking site with graphics and even Flash movies widely used with careful planning. Using CSS techniques and font alternatives you can remove many unnecessary images. Those images that are kept can be thoroughly optimized. Flash movies can also be better optimized and integrated. With that in mind though, stick with text first and add in these elements when they add to the user experience.
• Traffic is the measure of an SEO campaign. While it’s true that a good SEO campaign will drive more traffic, the traffic needs to be qualified. Search phrases with low conversion rates, low bounce rates, and low visitor loyalty rates should be lower priorities than well performing phrases. Additionally, landing pages need to be well designed for conversions as well as capturing search traffic.
• A lot of sites assumed an XML sitemap wasn’t important, so long as you have an HTML sitemap on your site. In fact, Google discovers new pages on a site much faster when an XML sitemap is present and updated frequently. That means your new products start getting traffic quicker.
• Ranking well is your goal. Yes, ranking highly in Yahoo is nice, but is anyone clicking on your listing? Search visitors won’t simply click on the first listing, they will quickly scan some listing before clicking. Your title, description, and URL need to convince a user to click.
• SEO just affects your site pages. While the HTML pages of a site are a huge part of SEO, pages are not the only content appearing in search engine results. Videos, images, PDFs, RSS feeds, Flash movies, and more appear sprinkled throughout search engine results. Including elements like these in your site, and ensuring they are optimized, means more opportunities for your site to appear.