Does Googlebot crawl videos:

Recently I have noticed surge in videos from YouTube ranking for competitive phrases. If you see YouTube page all you see is a video without proper text, few comments shown and all other are just junk data. So here are my questions?

1. How a video ranks on top of Google results when it doesn’t have any proper optimization done or it just has keywords in title.

2. How does Google determine the content of a video? Does it have a program that somehow analyzes the video and evaluates its content, even when there are no spoken or written words, as in this case. Or does a Google employee actually watch the video and personally evaluate its content?,

Doing a bit of more searches I feel Google will be seeing the popularity of the video, real backlinks coming to the video, no of instances the video has been embedded etc.

Google can also see the comments and valuate the quality of the video some videos attract 1000s of comments so I feel Google will have ability to crawl all the comments though many contents are hidden.

Also the quality of the domain itself matters youtube.com is PR 9 domain which signals very high level importance and popularity in Google’s eyes. You can expect pages under youtube.com to rank because of the quality of YouTube domain.

Video views can also signal Google that the video is important.

In fact only Google knows the algorithm behind ranking YouTube videos. I will leave it to them.

Removing advertising or not advertising will show credibility:

Advertising on a new site is self-defeating. Shouldn’t you be highlighting the quality of the content to show why your site is linkworthy? Removing ads shifts the focus to your content and why someone should link to the site.

In my experience it helps the link building process to remove advertising from a new site because webmasters like to link to quality information that is free. A lack of advertising presents a more positive face because some people tend to overlook the high quality of the content because of the ads, not even give the content a chance. Leaving out the ads puts your content front and center, there’s nothing to distract from it. Even Google didn’t have advertising when it first started.

New sites with advertising are a turnoff

I receive many requests to link to new sites. Number one reason I’ll decline is advertising. It’s poison. Advertising sends the message that the reason this person wants my link is so they can make a buck off my traffic. Why should I link to that?

What is the point of trying to monetize a new site with a trickle of traffic? Advertising revenue depends on traffic. Shouldn’t you focus on building traffic first then monetizing the site after it’s acquired?

Works for older sites with low traffic

Sites that have been around awhile but aren’t performing well should be considered candidates for removal of advertising. What you have to gain long term may outweigh what little earnings you’ll lose while you focus on building traffic to the site.
Works on established sites, too

Even established sites can benefit from temporarily removing advertising. If a sub-section is not performing well because of a lack of links/traffic, you may want to consider temporarily removing advertising in order to boost the success rate of your link building effort.

Personally I like sites which are ad-free, if you want to have a site link worthy don’t show your visitors that you are madly money minded. Looking to always make money through advertising will spoil the trend to attract backlinks to your website. If you want quality links you need to back off on strong advertising on your website.

Pagerank update – April 2009

Google is updating its toolbar pagerank data, its confirmed and we have PR data for almost all of our websites changed. You can check your altered pagerank here:

http://www.searchenginegenie.com/future-pagerank-checking.html

Wikipedia wins on the death of Microsoft Encarta:

Encarta encyclopedia the largest and most used before Wikipedia came into existence is now laid to rest. Microsoft had decided to put Encarta to rest after a long and exhausting battle with Wikipedia.

We can call this the death of one monster and the rise of another. According to MSN Encarta website:

“Encarta Web sites worldwide will be discontinued, with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will be discontinued on December 31, 2009. Additionally, Microsoft will cease to sell Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009. We understand that Encarta users may have questions regarding this announcement so we have prepared this list of questions and answers below. Please keep reading if you would like more information about these changes to Encarta.

Why are these Encarta Web sites and software products being discontinued?
Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past. As part of Microsoft’s goal to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today’s consumer, it has made the decision to exit the Encarta business.

Microsoft’s vision is that everyone around the world needs to have access to quality education, and we believe that we can use what we’ve learned and assets we’ve accrued with offerings like Encarta to develop future technology solutions. In doing so, we feel strongly that we are making the right investments that will help make our vision a reality.

http://encarta.msn.com/guide_page_FAQ/FAQ.html

I remember my school days when I used to run around to get a copy of Encarta, my cousin gifted an encyclopedia book to me and I still have it. We never had a great resource like Wikipedia. Today Wikipedia is the most dominant resource on the website. Its one of the most used website today and the content quality is great. Also big difference between Encarta and Wikipedia is the commercial option. Wikipedia is totally free but you need to subscribe for Encarta encyclopedia. I am happy that encyclopedia is laid to rest. There is no way it’s going to compete with Wikipedia and win the race.