The pulse of the search community

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 6, 2009"

Google shows about ten Sesame Streets logos over three days for their 40th anniversary. Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL and others dressed up for Halloween. Google's home page fade adds "this space left blank," and it is ridiculous. AdSense is testing out a new interface. AdWords keeps banning advertisers. We got the detailed November 2009 Google webmaster report. AdWords now officially has Sitelinks. Publishers need to update their Sitemaps for Google News within six months. Google Maps updated the business listing quality guidelines. Google created a single dashboard. Google adds page previews to search options. MSN previews a new design. Matt Cutts drops WebmasterWorld cold. Sphinn leaves beta and adds premium features. PubCon is next week, we will have live real time coverage of the sessions. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

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Some Of The Topics Discussed:

• Google Celebrates Anniversaries For Sesame Street, Wallace & Gromit & Many Others
• Google Really Likes, Really Likes, Sesame Street: Adds Cookie Monster and Ernie & Bert
• Halloween Logos from Search Engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo & Many More
• Google's Home Page Instructs: "This Space Intentionally Left Blank"
• Google's New Beta AdSense Interface Looks Slick
• Google Keeps Banning AdWords Advertisers
• November 2009 Google Webmaster Report
• Google AdWords Ad Sitelinks, Now Official
• Publishers: Google News To Require A New Sitemaps File
• Google Maps Updates Business Listing Quality Guidelines
• Google Finally Creates a Dashboard to Manage Your Google Life
• Google Finally Tries Page Previews
• MSN Home Page Gets a Major Face Lift
• Google's Matt Cutts Goes a Year Without Posting at WebmasterWorld
• Sphinn Comes Out of Beta
• PubCon 2009 In Vegas Live Blogging Schedule

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A Google Webmaster Help thread reports that because .UA domains are currently not considered "root domains" by Google, the change of address tool doesn't work for them.

I am not sure if Google did not consider them root domains or didn't allow the change of address tool to work with those domains. But Google said, whatever the issue is, it will be fixed soon.

Jonathan Simon from Google replied to the thread confirming the issue:

I've alerted the team to this issue. .UA domains should soon be supported by the Change of Address tool.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Back in late September, Google began mass banning AdWords advertisers. A couple days later, after pushing Google for a response, they offered somewhat of a lame response. I was hoping to see Google come back to the thread and answer more questions, but they did not and it sat. That is until now.

A new thread at WebmasterWorld did spark a comment from AdWordsAdvisor. This was about a "one million dollar advertiser" who was banned. So Google replied saying:

I know the comments in the previous thread have been taken seriously and that your comments here will be taken seriously as well - and we are exploring what changes can be made to the way this is handled.

Okay, so Google is taking this issue "seriously." Additionally, Google is "exploring what changes can be made to the way this is handled." Interesting... So it appears Google will continue to ban, but possibly better handle how they ban advertisers? I am of the understanding that Google is looking to better communicate how and why the bans are happening? But I am not sure.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In the past few days, many users of the iPhone and Gmail Push service through active sync have been reporting that it is not working. A large Google Mobile Help thread has dozens of posts from unhappy Gmail users.

Google confirmed the issue and blamed the iPhone OS 3.1.2 build, which was out just about a month ago. So I am not sure why people are beginning to complain now.

Robin from the Google Mobile team confirmed the issue and wrote a few responses in the thread. They include:

We're aware of some issues with Gmail sync and are working to resolve them. OS v. 3.1.2 has broken a few things on our build, and we've also had a bug with certain formatting characters in email that has caused sync to stop altogether. We're working on to get a fix out for these items first, and can then start troubleshooting other possible causes.

While 3.1.2 has been a source of problems, there are a few issues across other platforms and OS version as well that we're working on. A number of bugs have been fixed over the past month, so it's unlikely that the source of your problems then is the same as it is now. Also, many folks have been able to sync just fine - sometimes it's a matter of sorting out setup issues and other device-specific variables. We're trying to fix the main bugs that we know about first and then can dive into the 1:1 troubleshooting.

Andrew554321, I did want to address your question about Google Apps. Push email is not currently covered by the Google Apps Premier Edition SLA: http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/sla.html

While we do apologize for any disruption, please keep in mind that this is a Beta product that was just recently released; you are of course welcome to go back to IMAP or however you were checking your Gmail before implementing Google Sync. Otherwise, we hope you'll stick with us as we are actively trying to resolve these issues!

Yes, Google Sync uses Microsoft's Mail for Exchange, which is a separate protocol from IMAP and will thus behave differently. There's no link between these services, other than the fact that they can both access your Gmail and that Google doesn't control the protocal for either of them :P

So, if you pay for the Google Apps premier, you are out of luck. Gmail push for the iPhone is a beta product and is thus not covered.

Forum discussion at Google Mobile Help.

Are you getting a message from the Google AdWords console that reads, "The keyword phrase doesn't currently trigger any of your ads"? If so, that might be a sign that your account is under review and you may be banned soon or currently.

A Google AdWords Help thread has an advertiser reporting this issue, where AdWordsPro Sarah said:

If this message does not clear up in a few hours, it may be that your account is under review. If this is the case, the best thing to do is to contact support using the process outlined below. If you go through the 'Cant see ad' category, you should get to someone on our support team who can help you sort things out.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Google has seven different doodles (logos) on the day of Sesame Street's 40th anniversary. Then yesterday and today, they had two different logos, celebrating the same anniversary.

November 5th was Cookie Monster:

Today, November 6th is Ernie & Bert:

What is Google's obsession with these lovable Sesame Street characters?

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help and Google Webmaster Help.

The Google AdWords Help thread has an advertising asking why the Ads Diagnostic tool within the AdWords console is giving off this message:

To test this keyword, your campaign must be opted in to the search network.

AdWordsPro Sarah, from the Google AdWords team had an interesting response. Let me quote the whole response:

I think you are getting this messaging because some of our Tools only work for keywords that are targeted to the Search Network. From what you are describing, it sounds like you moused over the Ads Diagnostic Tool (one of our Tools that only can pull signals for ads on Search) and so you got a message basically saying, the Ads Diagnostic Tool won't work for your keywords. This is not to say that your ads are not working, it just means the tool can not tell you if your ads are working.

To determine if your ads are running, all you need to do is check your 'Content Network total' row on your ad group page. If you are accruing impressions- good news, your ad is up and running. If not, you can post again here with a few more details on the type of ad you are running and the targeting you are using and people here may be able to help you sort things out.

I still don't understand why you would need to turn on the content network to see this data on the keyword level. Maybe I am misunderstanding the issue here. Maybe this advertiser is trying to look for the content network stats on a keyword and doesn't know it?

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 5, 2009"

Big news for publishers in the Google News index. Inbal from Google announced in a Google News Help thread that in six months, Google will stop supporting the old News Sitemaps format and require you to switch over to the new format.

Inbal said:

Although we will support your current Google News Sitemap during the transition period of six months, you should re-submit it under the new format as soon as possible. For more details on how to submit your Sitemap using the new format (including how to add new tags to each entry in your Sitemap, to provide more information about individual articles), please visit the Sitemaps section of our Help Center.

Once the transition period is over, we will no longer accept News Sitemaps created using the old format and any old News Sitemaps in your Webmaster Tools account will be rejected.

We encourage you to make these changes as soon as possible in order to avoid interrupting your content's inclusion in Google News. To get started, please visit the FAQ.

The new format looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
        xmlns:n="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-news/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>http://www.example.org/business/article55.html</loc>
    <n:news>
      <n:publication>
        <n:name>The Example Times</n:name>
        <n:language>en</n:language>
      </n:publication>
      <n:access>subscription</n:access>
      <n:genres>pressrelease, blog</n:genres>
      <n:publication_date>2008-12-23</n:publication_date>
      <n:title>Companies A, B in Merger Talks</n:title>
      <n:keywords>business, merger, acquisition, A, B</n:keywords>
      <n:stock_tickers>NASDAQ:A, NASDAQ:B</n:stock_tickers>
    </n:news>
  </url>
</urlset>

For more details on this new sitemap format over here.

Again, you have six months to make this change, but the sooner you do it, the better. ALso, there is a learning benefit to the new sitemap file. Any questions, join the forum.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Update: The Google News blog just added more information about this important update.

There is currently no AdSense publisher that would say they like the AdSense management console. Yes, Google knows that and they have finally announced a limited beta for the new AdSense console interface. And let me tell you, it looks incredibly sweet - compared to what we have now.

Here is a picture:

As I reported at Search Engine Land, here are the new features:

• More detailed performance reports
• Enables you to view daily stats in graphical formats
• Additional metrics such as the amount you've earned from various ad, targeting and bid types
• More options to manage the ads that appear on your site
• cleaner interface that makes it easier to find and review them within the Ad Review Center
• A streamlined AdSense interface to simplify common tasks, such as making a change to several ad units simultaneously
• Added more relevant help on every page, a message inbox for tips from our team, and alerts with important account related notices

When will you and I get it? Well, hopefully most of us will have this beta interface within three weeks. The others? Well, there is no eta.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help, DigitalPoint Forums, and WebmasterWorld.

One of the more obvious complaints about Google is not about their products but rather how to find all their products and manage how you have access to those products. Google just launched the Google Dashboard which brings many - not all - of this in one place.

The Dashboard includes over "20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude and many more." Here is a video demo on how it works:

A WebmasterWorld thread has early discussion around this topic. Right now, the feedback includes "it's about time" and "Well, it is a start..."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google's Matt Cutts, the man who is incredibly responsible the idea of webmaster and search engine communication, has gone over a year without posting anything at WebmasterWorld.

His last post was on November 2, 2008 in a thread named Google.com SERP Changes - November 2008. His last post was in response to changes at Google, where Matt said "Nope, it wasn't a test, whitenight." Since then, we have covered monthly WebmasterWorld Google related threads on these topics, including the November 2009 report.

Of course, Matt is incredibly involved in webmaster communication. He is active on his blog, he publishes daily videos over here, writes at the Google Webmaster Blog and lives at conferences all year round.

Speaking of which, GoogleGuy's last post at WebmasterWorld was on July 24, 2008.

We miss the Google search folks at WebmasterWorld - I believe that is where this concept mostly got its start?

There are two threads at Google Web Search Help where there are two search suggestions that Google has listened to as a possible addition to Google's advanced search.

The first thread talks about how some searchers want a NEAR operator to search for phrases on web pages, but to specific that those pages be near each other. Specifically, the searcher said:

I would like Google to be able to check for relevance based on physical proximity of words to each other - invariably when I search for a phrtase containing several key words, most results I get have at least one of the key words located far away from the others on that website & thus the result is usually not relevant to the concept I am searching for, which is described using ALL key words TOGETHER.

Googler, Jem said:

There isn't a NEAR operator in Google, so it's true that this exact kind of search isn't available. I'll kick the idea around with the team, though. In the meantime, I think the * (wildcard) operator will be helpful. It does dictate word order, but you could try a couple searches with different orders.

There is also a image search suggestion where someone wants the ability to exclude certain image filters. Currently there are filters to filter image filters for news, face, clip art, line drawings and photos, but no way to say, I want to exclude any of those specific types. For example, I want all images for a query except for images that are faces. Googler, Jem said:

Thanks for the post, Eric. There isn't actually way to exclude faces, but I like the idea -- I'm going to share this with the team :)

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 4, 2009"