Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories Of 2007

Below are
Search Engine Land’s 25 most popular
stories, in terms of pageviews, during the 2007 calendar year.

1) Google Kills
Bush’s Miserable Failure Search & Other Google Bombs – After just over
two years, Google has finally defused the "Google Bomb" that has returned US
President George W. Bush at the top of its results in a search on miserable
failure. The move wasn’t a post-State Of The Union Address gift for Bush.
Instead, it’s part of an overall algorithm change designed to stop such mass
link pranks from working. (Published January 2007: 130,153 pageviews)

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2) Google
2.0: Google Universal Search – Google is undertaking the most radical
change to its search results ever, introducing a "Universal Search" system that
will blend listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines
among those it gathers from crawling web pages. (Published May 2007: 129,701
pageviews)

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3) Mapping
The Southern California Fires – I’m back home (my original home) in
Southern California for vacation, and to welcome me back, the Southland is on
fire. Ah, just like old times. As I was keeping up with the news, I came across
some maps online from Google Earth, Google Maps, Virtual Earth, and elsewhere
that I thought I’d share with others. (Published October 2007: 101,235 pageviews)

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4) Google
Universal Search Means Looking For Raccoons Is No Longer Family Friendly
– A reader tipped me off to this. Search for raccoon, and Google Universal
Search puts some pictures up at the top of the page: See it? Third one over? I
didn’t know a dog and a raccoon could, well… (Published August 2007: 99,830
pageviews)

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5) Billboard
Showdown: Google 411 Takes On Ask’s Algorithm – I’m in the Bay Area this
week, and driving down Lombard Street, I brought the car to a halt when I saw
the two billboards above. Yes, that’s one of the Goog411 billboards for Google
Voice Search sitting on top of an Ask.com "The Algorithm" one. Sadly, there’s
doesn’t seem to be room to squeeze in ones from Yahoo and Microsoft. Want to see
them for yourself? Go down Lombard, just up from Gough. I’ve got another shot
here, as well. (Published October 2007: 99,358 pageviews)

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6) Google Declares
Stephen Colbert As Greatest Living American – It’s official. Stephen
Colbert is the Greatest Living American, or at least now ranks tops for that
phrase at Google. It’s all come from the latest Google bombing campaign sparked
off in part by Stephen himself. The backstory on this, plus the "I thought
Google bombing didn’t work anymore" angle, in this story. (Published April 2007:
70,405 pageviews)

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7) George W. Bush:
A Failure Once Again, According To Google – Remember how Google
introduced a link bomb fix in January that, among other things, finally got US
President George W. Bush out of first page of results for searches on miserable
failure and failure at Google? Bush is back, at least for failure, and the White
House has only itself to blame. (Published April 2007: 50,651 pageviews)

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8) Google Maps
Causes US Navy To Change Its Swastika Building – You have to feel a bit
sorry for the US Navy. They have a building in California that looks like a
swastika from the air. But who looks at buildings from the air? Until Google
Maps popularized easy access to aerial views, only the occasional bored air
traveler. But thanks to Google Maps, the swastika building got known, discussed,
and now is being camouflaged. (Published September 2007: 47,363 pageviews)

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9) Goodbye Froogle,
Hello Google Product Search! – Back in December 2002, Google launched
its long expected product and shopping search engine. It was called Froogle, a
combination of "frugal" and "Google." Just over four years later, Froogle is
finally loses its cutesy name for something more descriptive — to become Google
Product Search. It also gains a cleaner interface, as well. (Published April
2007: 44,062 pageviews)

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10) Google
Birthday Logo: Nine Years Old – The Google home page is sporting the
special logo celebrating the company’s ninth birthday. But wait? Didn’t Google
just turn 10? Google’s domain name turned 10 years old on September 15, but the
company itself celebrates its incorporation date in September 1998. But when is
that incorporation date: Sept. 7 or Sept. 27? (Published September 2007: 41,202
pageviews)

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11) Google Maps
Adds Terrain View, Replaces Hybrid View – If you load up Google Maps,
you may notice that they have removed the "Hybrid" button and replaced it with
"Terrain" and a simulated view of cities or terrain. Here is a live frame of the
Google Terrain view of New York City 10010. (Published November 2007: 40,473
pageviews)

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12) Ask Relaunches:
Now "Ask 3D" – Ask.com is touting the release of "Ask3D" as a "major
leap forward" for search. A bold three-panel interface (taken from the
experimental Ask X) integrates more multimedia content, including images,
videos, music files, as well as more structured text-based content. It also
offers a battery of impressive features – new and existing – to bring more
context and help to search results. (Published June 2007: 35,674 pageviews)

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13) Larryos,
Raisin Brin, Porn Flakes & Other Google Cereals – I was at Google last
month and did a double-take at the wall art up near one of the mini-kitchens. It
featured familiar cereal brands morphed with Google personalities like Larry
Page (Larryos) and Sergey Brin (Raisin Brin). I shot a few pictures, below, plus
here’s some of the backstory. (Published September 2007: 30,681 pageviews)

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14) Google Search
History Expands, Becomes Web History – Google’s Search History feature,
which was switched on as a default option for many Google searchers in February,
has now been renamed Web History to reflect how it has expanded to track what
Google users do as they surf the web. It’s a huge move for Google and raises
anew privacy issues. A detailed look at how the system works, how to pause or
delete logging if you want, the impact on search results and more. (Published
April 2007: 30,606 pageviews)

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15) Gphone? The
Google Phone Timeline – Rumor after rumor after rumor keeps appearing
that Google is to release its own mobile phone, the Gphone. In April 2007, we
originally compiled all these Google Phone rumors into a timeline view. Since
then, we’ve continued to update the list, so that the confused, perplexed or
just plain curious can keep track of what’s come out when. Enjoy! NOTE (Nov. 5,
2007): Google’s Android Arrives: Not Gphone But An Open Source Mobile Platform
covers the actually announcement that all these rumors have led up to.
(Published April 2007: 26,945 pageviews)

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16) The Right Way
To Fix Inaccurate Wikipedia Articles – Suppose your company, boss or
political candidate discovers that their Wikipedia article is wrong, or has
subtle inaccuracies that nonetheless paint them in an unfavorable light? Most
people unfamiliar with how Wikipedia works consider only two solutions: edit the
article or sit on their hands. Unfortunately, neither approach typically results
in the optimal outcome: a factually accurate profile containing trustworthy
information. Search marketers and reputation management professionals should
know that there are legitimate ways to correct errors in Wikipedia. Knowing the
right way to fix things is even more important now that Wikipedia results
frequently appear in the top listings of Google search results. The good news is
that Wikipedia actually offers a broad range of options for correcting
inaccurate or negative entries, and even better, all are easy to use and take
little time to implement. (Published August 2007: 25,899 pageviews)

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17) Google’s New
Navigational Links: An Illustrated Guide – After months of testing,
Google is rolling out new ways to navigate within its search results and between
different Google properties. Here’s an illustrated guide to the old and new.
(Published May 2007: 25,107 pageviews)

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18)
Official: Selling Paid Links Can Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings On Google
– More and more, I’ve been seeing people wondering if they’ve lost traffic on
Google because they were detected to be selling paid links. However, Google’s
generally never penalized sites for link selling. If spotted, in most cases all
Google would do is prevent links from a site or pages in a site from passing
PageRank. Now that’s changing. If you sell links, Google might indeed penalize
your site plus drop the PageRank score that shows for it. (Published October
2007: 24,573 pageviews)

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19) iGoogle,
Personalized Search And You – Yesterday was "Google Personalization
Day." We spent roughly two hours touring the history of personalized search at
Google, the genesis of these products and getting a glimpse of where it all
might be going. (Published May 2007: 20,715 pageviews)

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20) Google
Releases New Link Reporting Tools – For years, Google’s link: command
has deliberately failed to show all the links to a website. This came out of
Google’s fear that site owners simply wanted the data to try and manipulate
rankings — which was pretty true. Instead, they only provided a sampling of
backlinks. Today, that changes. Google Webmaster Central is rolling out new
support allowing you to view and even download thousands of links to your site.
(Published February 2007: 19,715 pageviews)

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21) Google Says
Stephen Colbert Is No Longer The Greatest Living American – Sadness,
Colbert fans! Last month, I reported in Google Declares Stephen Colbert As
Greatest Living American how Stephen Colbert had defied Google’s link bombing
defenses and rose to be the greatest living American, according to a search for
those words at Google. Today, it is no longer so. Google has dissed Colbert.
(Published February 2007: 19,714 pageviews)

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22) Instructions
On Tracking Santa With NORAD & Google: The 2007 Edition – I’m a serious
Santa Claus tracker. When I was a kid, I used to get Santa updates from NORAD
(the US missile tracking people) via the radio. As an adult, I’ve long used the
NORAD Tracks Santa web site to keep up with St. Nick, Father Christmas, or
whatever your local name is for the jolly red suited man. This year, Google
officially partnered with NORAD, bringing the NORAD Santa tracking site some of
its most substantial changes in years. Some of the changes I like, and some make
me think I wish Google had stayed out of it. Here’s how to use the site, what’s
different, and what’s cool. (Published December 2007: 18,838 pageviews)

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23) What Is Google
PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters – Several times in the past
few months, I’ve written about new Google features where PageRank was involved.
Unfortunately, Google itself has very poor information about PageRank that I
could use for those wanting to learn more about it. To solve that, here’s a
guide to PageRank, designed for searchers and site owners alike. (Published
April 2007: 18,820 pageviews)

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24) Wikipedia
Enters Top Ten Most Visited Sites – Impressive. Scanning the latest top
web sites rankings from comScore for January 2007 , Wikipedia sites are
highlighted for just entering the top ten most visited. OK, technically —
they’re in the top ten for having the most unique visitors. In December 2006,
Wikipedia sites were ranked 13th of all US web properties, with 39 million
unique visitors. (Published February 2007: 18,528 pageviews)

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25) How To Win
Friends And Influence People In Social News Networks – Still wondering
why you submit an article on Digg or Reddit and it goes nowhere? The key, as
with most things in life, is who you know. But as with links, clients or
affiliates: you want quality over quantity. You want people who are active and
have strong profiles. So how do you go about building your network? Here are
eleven ways to get started. (Published February 2007: 17,998 pageviews)

To see all of our most popular stories over time, especially on a
month-by-month basis, visit our
Most
Popular Stories page.