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Google’s Blogger has had some issues where new posts on custom domains aren’t being indexed by Google.

Bloggers have been complaining about it, understandably, on Google’s Webmaster Help forum (via Barry Schwartz).

Apparently, Google initially thought it was happening as the result of normal updating, but Google’s John Mueller chimed in to say, “We hear from your posts here that these fluctuations haven’t settled down for some of you, so we’re definitely still looking into those details.”

“Fluctuations in crawling and indexing can be normal, and are to be expected,” he added. “While we work hard to make the processes as stable as possible, temporary changes can occur over time. In this case, it looks like we may have reduced crawling of some sites temporarily (this should be back to normal since several days though). You can see our crawling activity in your server logs, or in the Webmaster Tools “Crawl stats” section. If you have seen fluctuations like that in this time, keep in mind that it may take a bit of time for things to settle back down again.”

“Generally speaking, one possible way to make sure that technical fluctuations like these are resolved as quickly as possible is to make sure that you have a fantastic website,” he continued. “While the quality of your website won’t keep technical issues away completely, it can help to make sure that our algorithms are happy to spend a significant part of their time/resources on crawling and indexing your content in an optimal way. While I haven’t reviewed all of the sites that posted here, some of them do look like they could be somewhat improved. If you’re unsure what that could involve, I’d recommend starting a new thread here, listing your site’s URL, the goals of your site, and asking for honest & open feedback from the community at large. A good rule of thumb is to try to be the absolute best, by far, website in your niche — don’t focus on other websites that are ‘just as bad’ or ‘doing the same thing.’”

Earlier this month, Google revealed that it was redirecting Blogger blogs to country-specific URLs. So, for example, people in India trying to navigate to a Blogger.com blog, would be redirected to the country-code top level domain (blogger.in).

See original here:
Google Stops Indexing Blogger Blogs On Custom Domains

An exhaust fan inside a dryer caused the blaze at a multi-family Bible Street home Thursday night, a fire official said Friday.

Acting Fire Marshal Jim McDonald said fire crews acted quickly in containing the fire in a third-floor kitchen of 25 Bible St. in Cos Cob. The fire started a little after 9 p.m.

"Damage was limited to the dryer itself," he said, explaining that the department ruled out the possibility that the fire started in the dryer drum.

The fire department removed the damaged appliance from the household after extinguishing the blaze.

McDonald could not elaborate on what caused the fan to spark the fire.

"Who knows what was in that fan?" he said.

Deputy Chief Thomas Zack said Thursday night the damage could have been significantly worse if the fire department had not received a quick phone call from one of the tenants. A man who lives on the second and third floors of the home with his wife and three children reported the fire at 9:25 p.m.

"All in all, it was initiating a 911 call quickly that really helped a lot, because if that tenant weren't home it would have been a much, much worse circumstance, especially in an old wood-frame house like that," Zack said.

Smoke was visible from the back of the house when firefighters arrived on the scene, Zack said.

There were no injuries in the incident and only minor smoke damage, he said.

Firefighters safely evacuated the residents of the household while the fire was extinguished, he said.

The house is habitable and the residents stayed there Thursday night, McDonald said.

The crews were on the scene for about 40 minutes, leaving after a cat that had been missing "for a while" was located, Zack said.

Nine vehicles responded from the Cos Cob, central, Sound Beach and North Street stations, McDonald said.

david.hennessey@scni.com; 203-625-4428

See the rest here:
Firefighters contain Bible Street dryer fire

A WebmasterWorld thread has one webmaster who is interested in just removing their XML sitemap completely from Webmaster tools. He is concerned that by doing so, his rankings will be impacted and is having second thoughts about removing the sitemap.

First, his reason for removing the sitemap file seems concerning to me but that is secondary to this topic. He wants to remove the sitemap because he is adding a forum and thus "won't be able to keep up with the sitemap." So he manages his sitemap manually? Really?

Anyway, if he does remove it, will it impact his rankings? Most likely not.

Googler, John Mueller, told us in May 2010 that removing URLs from a sitemap won't hurt your rankings. He said:

We use Sitemap files for discovering new URLs and recognizing when existing ones have changed; we don't remove URLs from the index that aren't in a Sitemap file.

So removing a sitemap won't necessarily hurt pages that are ranking well.

Moderator, GoodROI added:

I have rarely seen adding or removing sitemaps to dramatically impact a website. Just make sure your internal link structure is good and the site has no big technical issues.

You may want to keep the sitemap as a way to gather intelligence on which pages Google has indexed via Webmaster Central.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Original post:
Removing A Sitemap File Likely Won't Hurt Your Rankings

A Google Webmaster Help thread has bloggers who run off the Blogger Custom Domain set up that their new blog posts are not being indexed and ranked in the Google search results.

It seems like this is happening to a large number of those on the Blogger platform - although it is not happening to everyone.

The reports date back to the 8th of February and continue almost 10 days later.

John Mueller from Google first thought it might just be normal Google fluctuations but came back in this morning and said maybe something is up. He wrote:

We hear from your posts here that these fluctuations haven't settled down for some of you, so we're definitely still looking into those details.

Of course, this might be nothing and just a delay on crawling for some sites. Or it may be something bigger. John explains in more detail:

Fluctuations in crawling and indexing can be normal, and are to be expected. While we work hard to make the processes as stable as possible, temporary changes can occur over time. In this case, it looks like we may have reduced crawling of some sites temporarily (this should be back to normal since several days though). You can see our crawling activity in your server logs, or in the Webmaster Tools "Crawl stats" section. If you have seen fluctuations like that in this time, keep in mind that it may take a bit of time for things to settle back down again.

Generally speaking, one possible way to make sure that technical fluctuations like these are resolved as quickly as possible is to make sure that you have a fantastic website. While the quality of your website won't keep technical issues away completely, it can help to make sure that our algorithms are happy to spend a significant part of their time/resources on crawling and indexing your content in an optimal way. While I haven't reviewed all of the sites that posted here, some of them do look like they could be somewhat improved. If you're unsure what that could involve, I'd recommend starting a new thread here, listing your site's URL, the goals of your site, and asking for honest & open feedback from the community at large. A good rule of thumb is to try to be the absolute best, by far, website in your niche -- don't focus on other websites that are "just as bad" or "doing the same thing."

Is your custom Blogger domain indexing new posts fine in Google?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Read the original post:
Google Indexing Issue With Custom Blogger Domains?

LESE MAJESTE

The Criminal Court will give a verdict for lese majeste defendant Chiranuch Premchaiyaporn on April 30, three years after her arrest in March 2009.

Chiranuch: Preparing for verdict

The court yesterday set the date to deliver the verdict after three consecutive days of hearing.

Ms Chiranuch, webmaster of the independent prachatai.com news website, was charged under the Computer Crime Act (CCA) and the Criminal Code's Section 112, better known as the lese majeste law, following postings of messages found on the website's web board deemed to be insulting to the monarchy.

Court officials yesterday said the court has been fair in allowing as many hearings, in-depth testimonies, and cross-examinations as possible.

All sides should also trust the integrity and knowledge of the court in the coming verdict, they said.

The defence lawyer team would have to submit its closing statement within 30 days.

Ms Chiranuch said she would discuss with her lawyers how to prepare the closing statements. She was relieved the hearing was over, but said the verdict has yet to come. "On one hand, it has ended, but on the other hand, we also have to prepare for whatever [verdict] will be delivered," Ms Chiranuch said.

"This is a significant court case. It is unprecedented, so it's imperative that we do our best in mounting our defence, including presenting loopholes or inadequacies in the [CCA] guidelines for web operators."

Representatives of the diplomatic community, activists, and academics showed up during the hearing.

Among them, representatives from the European Commission, the embassies of Switzerland, Sweden, the US and the Office of the UN Human Rights presented their views.

The defence's five witnesses have given testimony, consisting of the website's censorship volunteer, a law lecturer, computer engineering expert, a website owner, and a mass communication expert.

Dr Kitipumi Chutasmit, director of Phusing Hospital, testified on behalf of the censorship volunteers.

He told the court a few dozen volunteers monitored inappropriate content on prachatai.com's web board.

General readers could also inform the webmaster if they found undesirable content there, Dr Kitipumi said.

Sawatree Suksri, Thammasat University's law lecturer, told the court that internet freedom was a fundamental human right.

She cited a UN report in May last year that intermediaries should not be held liable for any offence committed by a third party unless they collaborated or knew about it.

The authorities have not issued guidelines or regulations to understand and expedite the law, she told the court.

Jittat Fakcharoenphol, Kasetsart University's computer engineering lecturer, said he was approached to be a director and treasurer of prachatai.com in 2008 following the webmaster's increasing concerns that the volunteers were not enough to screen out inappropriate contents.

"We thought about developing a computer programme to help screen and alert us for inappropriate words and content so the webmaster would be able to delete it in time," Mr Jittat said.

However, he said, the ideas were not put in place since the webmaster had decided to close down the web board as she faced more problems, Mr Jittat said.

During cross-examination, the prosecutor asked if it was the duty of the webmaster to take full responsibility for supervising the web board administration. Mr Jittat said that was the case in principle.

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Court sets date to decide webmaster Chiranuch's fate