SEO Tip #114: How Do We Report A Problem With Our Search Results Listings?

Matt Cutts: Let me give you the general answer, which might seem a little unsatisfactory but is the correct answer is to go the forum mentioned at Linked to called Google.com/webmasters. If you have something that is really visible like that where you can take a picture and say, “Hey this is being treated as if it’s a video result and it’s a regular webpage” and you can click through to verify that that’s the sort of thing that people tend to notice pretty quickly.

Whether it’s a super user who is very helpfully posting there or whether it’s someone like John Muller who often keeps an eye on that forum, you know those people will tend to escalate those. So I don’t have the exact place to where I would forward that and you didn’t mention the exact name of your site so there is nothing concrete that I can do just from that question but that’s a perfect example of something that is visually really off where people can go and leave a question in the webmaster forum.

I know of at least one person who had reported that Google did not have a title for some snippets for example and it turns out that it was actually an ad block extension that they had installed which was doing unpredictable stuff to their results. But normally if you post to the webmaster forum there people can help you identify what’s going on or they will give you a little bit more coaching like, “Oh this is interesting” and that can escalated a little more quickly.

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About the Author

Andy Johnson

Andy Johnson has been on the Internet since the its dawn(ie his first computer program was recorded on cassette tape) and his first hard drive cost about as much his current MacBook. His first byline was in 1993 for a local newspaper rag he eventually helmed, and his last “real job” was at a computer start up which ended when it ended. Throughout it all he’s freelanced and blogged. Now he is mesmerized by Search Engine Optimization forever trying to “rise to the top” for the right reasons. He’s been married to his wife Julia for as long as he can remember and has two lovely, wonderful children. He looks forward to sharing the latest in the technical best for all the online entrepreneurs.