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: February 8, 2010"

About a month ago, we ran a poll asking should Google censor non-adult search suggestions? This was based on all the religion based controversy and political controversy. So I specifically asked our readers, should Google censor these search suggestions or not.

We received 113 responses, where about 75% said, no, Google should not censor these results. 23% said they should and the rest said "other." Here is the break down of the few other responses:

• Should show only when safe search filter is off!
• Doing what the big companies want is taking away free speech
• They should censor what they choose, not what anyone tells them

So there you have it, a completely unscientific poll from our readers.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Since the devastating disaster in Haiti, companies and individuals are looking for creative ways to help. Several AdSense publishers asked via WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help if there are ways to donate their AdSense income.

Last Thursday, the Google AdSense blog announced a way to do just that. Google said, "you can donate a portion or all of your entire unpaid balance as of the end of January. Whether you have a balance of $0.10 or $100 in your account, we invite you to participate within the next week."

To do so, you need to fill out a donation form. The donation form, if you are logged into your AdSense account, will pre-fill your AdSense unique IDs.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help.

Back in December, I spotted a WebmasterWorld thread with a webmasters asking why Google is pulling in commands from 1e100.net, as opposed to Google.com. At first, I thought it was nothing and let the thread go.

But now, it appears that this is a significant domain. Back then, Tedster, the administrator at the forum said:

Some thoughts about the domain name itself. Google probably wanted to use 10e100, since that character string means 10 to the 100 power - in other words, a googol. Not sure why they settled for 1e100, because that only comes out to a measly 1.

The Register today reported that this domain, 1e100.net, "is now visited by nearly three per cent of all net users, making it the 44th most visited domain on the interwebs." The Register asked Google about this, and reported back:

Asked for comment, Google merely said the domain is used to "identify the servers on our network," and it hinted that such identification involves reverse DNS lookup - the process of determining which domain name is associated with a particular IP address. Reverse DNS is often used by anti-spam services to verify email senders, but it's also used a general means of ensuring a network is working as it should be working.

Might just be one of those geek factors, Google is so well for.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I reported this last week at Search Engine Land, that Microsoft furthered their search deal with Facebook. In short, Bing will now power global Facebook searches and include fuller search results.

Now that the search industry had some time to digest the news and here are some quotes from the WebmasterWorld thread:

Each page view with a search "powered by Bing" will be a tiny advertisement for Bing. Google will be hit hard by this. Finally, Google gets what it deserves, after having ignored important needs (like transparency and privacy) from publishers and webusers for so long. What joy!

I would have serious issues with FB if I knew Google had access to the FB data coupled with their famous virtually non-expiring, unique tracking cookie.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Since late January and early February, I have been seeing sporadic complaints about Google AdSense earnings and how they have plummeted for many publishers. I received these complaints via email mostly, but all I saw were random threads from disgruntled publishers.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a thread from over the weekend with tons of feedback from publishers on this issue. The thread creator said:

I would really like to know if anybody else has experienced collapse in CTR+ECPM+CPC-wise starting in February (Jan 31 was totally normal day).

Facts:
- Same traffic
- Same advertizers with the same budgets (small niche, everybody knows everybody)
- Everything was rock solid the last year
- Last minutes of January looks normal

... then... February starts and CTR drops 20%, eCPM 25% in one second and has stayed at the new level every since.

This is exactly the type of reports I heard via email and from several friends in the industry.

Most people in the thread are saying "me too" type of responses. But some are saying they are not seeing any drop at all. I am not sure exactly what is going on, because I have seen some examples sites that seem legit and should not have a reason to have a reduced eCPM from the looks of it.

Have your earnings with Google AdSense dropped significantly (as a percentage) in February from January?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In this weeks search recap, I cover the past month of Google SEO related topics, in the February Google Webmaster report. Bing spoke up on how important redirecting your canonical URLs are. Google is disapproving AdWords ads for "artificial ad traffic." Google is sending payment notifications to some AdSense publishers. Some publishers got paid double last month. Google may disclose the AdSense revenue split, and yes, most publishers want to know. AdSense has a reporting glitch with Blogger. Google is testing a new Google News home page and they also added a starring feature. Google Images previews now have a flip image feature for some. Finally, it was Groundhog day and only Bing and us had themes, Google, Yahoo and others did not. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

For the original iTunes version, click here or to see the YouTube version in higher quality, click play & hit "HD."

Search Topics of Discussion:

• February 2010 Google Webmaster Report
• Some Insight Into How Bing Handles WWW vs Non-WWW Canonical SEO Issues
• Google AdWords Disapproved For "Artificial Ad Traffic"
• Google Sending Emails Notifications to Publishers Regarding Payments
• Google Double Pays Publisher, Apologizes Via Email
• Google May Disclose AdSense Revenue Split, But Publishers Don't Care
• Most AdSense Publishers Want Google To Disclose Revenue Split
• Google AdSense Blogger Reporting Bug
• Google News Tests a New Design
• Blue Pale Stars on Google News Confuses Users?
• Google Images Preview Flip (Slider) Feature
• Groundhog Day: Bing Theme But Nothing From Google, Yahoo, AOL & Others

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

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: February 5, 2010"

Earlier this week, I ran a poll asking AdSense publishers should Google disclose the revenue ad split. Most people in the thread I covered then, did not want to know the revenue split. But I found that to be a bit odd. So I posted an anonymous poll asking publishers their thoughts on the topic.

The majority of Google AdSense publishers do want to know the revenue split. Of the 80 responses, 66% said they want to know. Only 6% said they do not want to know. 27% said they do not care.

So clearly, only a small percentage of those who replied do not want to know. Whereas the majority do want to know.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

There are several threads at the Google News Help Forums with reports that Google News has updated their home page.

I personally do not see the new home page, and I can't track down a picture of it. If you see one, please post a comment with a link to a picture. Here is the best description of the new layout that I can find:

The format of news.google.com inexplicably changed on one of my PCs, and I don't like it. The version that I don't like focuses on only one category of news at a time, such as Top Stories. In order to get any news in other categories such as World, U.S., Sports, etc., you have to click on that category. The only other categories shown on this page are "Recent," "Spotlight," and "More News." I prefer the old format. I know that it's still available because when I load Google News on two other PCs, this old, familiar format appears. Here's a description of it: At the top left of the page is Top Stories with 3 headlines. Directly to the right of Top Stories are six or eight links to some of the top headlines from Google News; usually about nine links to names in the news; and lastly, links to Living Stories. Also appearing in the old format (underneath Top Stories) are the following categories with usually about three headlines per category: World, U.S., Business, Sci/Tech, Entertainment, Sports, Health, and Spotlight. At the bottom of the page is Google Fast Flip. In the old format, if you want to view more than the three top headlines highlighted in a given news category, all you have to do is click on the category name, and you are taken to another page with more news stories for that category. Can someone please tell me how to return to the old format? There must be some way of resetting or formatting the web page because, as I mentioned, I'm still able to use the old format on two other PCs.

I will keep looking for a picture, but Google basically confirmed the test is happening. Inbal from Google said:

At Google, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments at any given time on our websites all over the world. Right now, we are running a small test of a new Google News homepage design. More information about how Google runs experiments can be found at:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/search-experiments-large-and-small.html

We'd love to hear your feedback. Please let us know what you think at:

http://www.google.com/support/news/bin/request.py?contact_type=report_news&source=redesign

Regards,

The Google News Team

Forum discussion at Google News Help Forums.

Here is your monthly update on Google from an SEO's perspective. You can find last month's update at the January 2010 Google Webmaster Report. These updates are based mostly off the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread, jammed packed with SEOs and searchers obsessed with watching Google's every move.

The thread this month is pretty lacking. Most, if not all, the discussion is around Caffeine related questions. Some are saying it is live, some are saying it is live on some data centers and some don't see it. Outside of that, just normal ranking fluctuation complaints from SEOs.

Here are the important Google related topics we covered since our last report:

• More Google Caffeine Sightings Over Weekend
• Google Caffeine Results Now Going Live?
• What's The Hold Up With The Google Caffeine Index?
• Google "Answer Highlighting" Upsets Webmasters
• Google Launches Social Search
• Google Images Preview Flip (Slider) Feature
• Google Back Tracks a Bit on Dropping SEOs & Webmasters from Local Results
• Google Maps Can't Find Home After Adding Personalization
• Google UK Showing US Based Spelling Suggestions
• I Now See Favicons in Google Webmaster Tools
• Google Increases Sitemaps Limit to 50,000 from 1,000
• A Week Later, Google Fixes Webmaster Tools iGoogle Gadgets

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Canonical URLs and domains to most SEOs are a common issue they run across. How each search engine handles the various patterns of URLs that seem or are duplicate to each other, may differ.

In a Bing Community thread, there is a comment from Brett Yount, a Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center, on how Bing typically handles WWW vs non-WWW issues. By that I mean, if you both the http://example.com/ and http://www.example.com/ URLs return the same page, without redirection. Brett said:

It really doesn't matter if the site your link is residing on is www or non-www. More important is the structure of the URL they are using to link to you--especially if your site is not canonicalized using 301 redirects. When not redirected, we treat the non-www and the www version of your site as two different sites, so if you have links out there with and without the www, your whole site rank is affected. Canonicalizing your site to one or the other will automatically cause us to combine all the links and apply them to the chosen version of your site and may help increase your site rank.

Forum discussion at Bing 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: February 4, 2010"

A WebmasterWorld thread has a new conversation on an old topic. The topic is to link to your home page, off your home page, using keyword rich anchor text that you want to rank for. The example given by one member is:

So I put up a paragraph on the homepage talking about say 'red widgets in oklahoma'. Then I link those words (red widgets in oklahoma) right back to the homepage. In other words, my homepage links to itself, with some nice juicy text.

And guess what? Despite no other backlinks with text to do with oklahoma, my site ranks #1 or 2 for red widgets in oklahoma.

I actually see this fairly often on the web. Clearly done for SEO purposes. I am surprised it works so well. Of course, the topic of the first anchor text counting or not. But Matt Cutts of Google published a video just the other day on this topic, watch it below:

Anyway, the SEO discussion is interesting.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that many publishers have received an email recently from Google notifying them that they have been paid. Some, initially, felt the email was spam or a phishing attempt, but after closer review, the emails do appear to be coming from Google.

I personally did not receive such an email. Some reported the email being sent to their junk filter. Some reported not receiving it at all, like me. Some felt it was spam, like I said above. I do not have a copy of this email to share with you.

Google did not yet chime in about this email, but from what I am seeing, it does seem to be a new feature. It is nice that Google lets publishers know, via email, when they were paid - but they can give publishers a way to opt out of such notifications.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.