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 20, 2009"

In this week's search video recap, I try a new format, breaking the news up in segments - do let me know if you like it. I am sorry the video is so long, just lots of information to cover. We start with Google's new user interface that is now being seen by some searchers - it is pretty jazzy. Google is showing breadcrumbs instead of URLs in the search results on occasion. Google is testing Image Swirl, it is pretty tasty. Google Social Search labs is now back in action after going offline. Page load time will be a ranking factor in 2010. Is Google's Caffeine index live in a data center? Why did FeedBurner ruin the search engine friendly web? Did Google preform a hand change to the index for Michelle Obama? Microsoft Bing is updating now. Bing UK when out of beta, was it too soon? AdWords goes on another banning spree - but they now have an appeals process. Check out all that Polish Google ad spam. Google no longer allows exceptions to their 35 character display URL limit. Google expanded their product ads beta. AdSense places gold stars near featured ads. I now have access to the new AdSense beta interface. Publishers are being banned over using Tamper Data as a Firefox plugin. Yahoo added a developing news box to some search results. Finally, Danny took us back to the first ever search marketing conference. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

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Search Topics of Discussion:
Google Search:

• Google Jazz User Interface Out In The Wild
• Google URL Search Results Snippets Showing Breadcrumb Navigation
• Tasty: Google Image Swirl
• Google Social Search Temporarily Goes Offline, To Return Soon

• Page Load Time & Speed Will Likely Be a Ranking Factor in Google
• Is Google Caffeine At 216.239.59.103 Data Center?
• Google's FeedBurner Tagging URLs : Duplicate Content Issue

• Google Removed Negative Search Result Michelle Obama, Should They Have?

• Microsoft Bing November 2009 Search Update?
• Bing UK Out of Beta, But Too Soon?

• Get Ready, Here Come More Google AdWords Account Bans
• Google Poland: Scam Ads in Polish AdWords
• Google Now Enforcing 35 Character Display URL Policy
• Google Expands Product Listing Ads CPA Model Test

• Google AdSense Ads Get Special "Featured Ads" With Stars
• More Screen Shots of Google's New Beta AdSense Interface
• Google Disabling AdSense Accounts For Using Tamper Data Firefox Plugin

• Yahoo Adds Tweets In New Developing News Box

• Danny Sullivan Looks Back at Starting Search Marketing Conferences

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Yesterday, Danny covered a new user interface Google is testing on about 2% of their users right now. The interface is known internally (actually, it is not named this internally, but the name is catchy, so maybe we should use it?) as the Jazz UI and is much more colorful, has streamlined search options and kind of looks like the the old Ask 3D interface, just a bit. This new UI might be launched after the holiday season to everyone, so be ready.

Danny wrote (but read the all the details, if you will):

Sometime later today, a small number of Google users will see a new look to Google’s Search Options feature. If all goes well, the cleaner display may be launched across Google after the New Year. And it’s all because Google’s vice president of search product and user experience Marissa Mayer doesn’t like jazz.

There are some people who actually see the new interface. There are two thread at Google Web Search Help, one with screen captures, which prove to me they see it. Here are those screen captures:

This person simply asked, "can anyone help me get Google's regular look back?" The other comment reads:

I did a search a couple minutes ago and it seems like they changed their user interface to look more like a Bing or Yahoo search. For me this is a major fail because the beauty of Google was not only did it feel comfortable, it gave me a wide variety of options like the site links at the side of the page and the sposored links at the top of my search. I think Google should remain the way it was, maybe some minor tweaks but making it look sterile and utterly boring like Bing won't win fans. No other search engine has ever managed to knock Google off the top, so why are they downgrading to a less popular model?

Can't make everyone happy, now can you?

Forum discussion at Sphinn and Google Web Search Help.

There is some early discussion over at WebmasterWorld that Microsoft Bing has updated their search index. Many webmasters are discussing changes in rankings in this and other forums (which are hard to link to).

Here is what WebmasterWorld moderator, martinibuster wrote:

Bing engineers may need to refine their trust algos. I'm seeing a SERP where Bing is giving a poor quality subdomain a pass because the main domain has a high amount of inbound links (nearly a million). I think Bings method for determining sites likely to be authoritative needs tweaking.

Interestingly, Bing produces another result not seen in the other search engines that is actually pretty good.

For this site, I can tell you Bing sends up more traffic than Yahoo.

The last Bing update we reported was in late October.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The other day, I noticed a thread at Google Webmaster Help where a person was complaining that they were being hit hard by GoogleBot. In short, Google's spider was crawling his site in a very aggressive manner. He said:

After setting a custom crawl rate using webmaster tools (and robots.txt for good measure) GoogleBot's crawl rate slowed to the specified 1 request per (approx.) 60 seconds. However, as of a few hours ago the crawl rate has increased to an inexplicable 1 request every 2 to 3 seconds which is unacceptable - I've had to take the drastic response of adding a site wide disallow until I can get this resolved. Why would the crawl rate increase in speed so and how can I get it to return to the values specified?

Googler, Jonathan Simon, replied and said there was a temporary bug that cause the issue. He apologized and said it was now resolved. Jonathan said:

I took a look into what you've reported and it turns out that there was a temporary issue in the processing pipeline of the crawl rate settings which caused them to not take effect. This issue is now resolved so crawl rate settings should once again behave as expected.

I often give Microsoft a hard time about MSNBot being too aggressive and not listening to webmaster directives. So this time, I felt I point out an issue with GoogleBot.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

First spotted by Kim at AdWords Help Experts Blog, a Google AdWords Help thread has reports that Google is now enforcing the 35 character display URL limit set on AdWords ads.

One advertiser asked for an exception, which Google did allow advertisers to do in the past, and received a reply that read:

Initially for URLs exceeding character limit we used to give exception on a case-by-case basis. However, please note we've revised our guideline on short display URL exception and sorry to inform you that we no longer provide exceptions to the display URL policy for domains that exceed the character space, which is limited to 35 characters for text ads and 20 characters for mobile ads.

There also use to be a way to use dynamic keyword inserting techniques to trick Google into giving you a longer title, but that no longer seems to work for the keywords I have tested. Yes, display URL and ad title are different, I just noticed this as well, when looking back at the history on this topic.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Yahoo announced they have added a developing news box that includes news articles, pictures, videos and also tweets.

Starting today, you can see relevant photos, videos, and tweets about a breaking news story on the Yahoo! News Shortcut. Many of you are already familiar with the existing Yahoo! News Shortcut, which displays headlines on our Web search results page when you look for news stories. The enhanced shortcut with these new tabs will now display for many breaking or major news searches.

Here are some screen captures:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Gone mostly unnoticed, Google has updated their Gmail and Google Calendar interface on iPhone and Android mobile devices. Google did announce a new mobile news look for these devices, but no word on the Gmail interface.

I spotted this update via the Google Mobile Help forums, where Googler, Ethan, confirmed the update. He said:

Gmail updated its look & feel in the browser on Android and iPhone devices today. Some of Google's other mobile apps, like Calendar, have also gotten the new look. Other than the 're-skinning,' features are unchanged for now.

Here is what the new 'skin' looks like on the iPhone:

Here is the old one:

Small difference, but someone noticed.

Forum discussion at Google Mobile 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 19, 2009"

I have been seeing reports of Google banning and disabling AdSense accounts due to using a Firefox plugin named Tamper Data. Tamper Data allows people to view and modify HTTP/HTTPS headers and post parameters, which can be helpful, but also used for evil.

The emails being sent to these publishers read:

During a recent review of your account, our specialists found that tamper data was used to modify the country listed in your account. Changing your address in this manner is a violation of our policy guidelines.

What appears is happening is that publishers are signing up using Tamper Data to fake their location. You can read why and how this is done at this blog and this one.

In summary, certain countries are not allowed to sign up for AdSense so people fake where they are from. I am not sure why people would use this technique when they are in an approved location, unless I am missing something?

You can read the dozens of threads about this at Google AdSense Help or a thread at WebmasterWorld.

A Google Maps Help thread reports that at least one satellite image in South Africa has a weird posterization effect to it.

You can see it yourself at 33°55'7.79"S, 25°35'2.40"E, or Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Here is a picture:

This looks like a heavily posterized image to me, but I doubt that was the case. There must have been some type of interference when the image was captured?

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

About a week ago, Bing announced they have taken Bing UK (www.bing.co.uk) out of beta. They basically said, you can now get more relevant UK results when in the UK and searching in the UK. Here is a snippet from the blog post:

When you search for Football, what kind of answers do you expect to find. Well, I guess it depends on where you are doing the asking, if you are in the UK you probably don’t want to see NFL schedules. You probably mean what we in the US call soccer. Well today, millions of searchers in the UK can rest assured that Bing knows what they are talking about. We are excited to announce today that Bing in the UK is shedding its beta tag. We want to congratulate our pals over in the UK on a huge milestone.

A HighRankings Forum thread is taking issue with this. Two searchers from the UK were not satisfied with the localized version of Bing. They said:

I did a study yesterday and the example they provided (Football) still returns the NFL - something they said that the UK 'wouldn't be interested in'. The universal search results are even worse with US today results of 'American Football' being returned (and two images of an American Football).

You are certainly right, doesn't look like Bing UK has any UK inteligence, I just did a simple search for the word 'analyse' , and the no.1 result returned was spelt with a 'z' , looks like Bing has a long, long way to go yet eh Andy!

I personally tried a search for football in Bing.com and Bing.co.uk and I am seeing tailored results for each region. Yes, NFL.com comes up in the UK, but not in the top result. Since I am not from the UK, it is hard for me to judge.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

For years, email spammers have been looking for ways to encourage people to click on their links. And for years, Google has been a target. Why? Well, when someone sees a link that has google.com in it, people trust it. So over the years, Google URLs that redirect to other sites have been a target by spammers.

The most recent Google property targeted by such attacks is Google Reader.

A Google Reader Help thread has reports of such cases, with a Googler confirming it is an issue. Several people are reporting receiving email spam with URLs that look some thing like:

http://www.google.com/reader/item/tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/3c49b76cf8cb8ba0

Clicking on that URL would have redirected you to a non-Google site.

Googler, Roger said:

It looks like some spammers have taken a liking to Google Reader - we're currently trying to find the best way to limit this kind of automated abuse without impacting the experience of real users such as yourselves. Hopefully we'll have a solution that works for everyone soon. Thanks for your patience and understanding in the meantime-

So be on the look out.

Forum discussion at Google Reader Help.

Yesterday, Danny Sullivan wrote an article named 10 Years Ago: The First Search Marketing Conference, A Retrospective. The article is a must read for everyone who is a daily reader of this site.

In short, Danny talks about how the first search marketing conference came about. He also talks about the various sessions they hosted then. Including many of the panelists who still talk today at his conferences. Yes, the first conference in search marketing was in 1999 and Google's founders were on a panel as the "small search engine."

While the agenda listed Larry Page as speaking, Sergey was also there. He either joined Larry or replaced him at the last minute. Some conference veterans remember how Sergey rollerskated on stage. Actually, he did that a year later, joking about new Google technologies and demoing his shoes with pop-out wheels.

We didn't start covering search conferences until 2003, four years after the first search conference. Wow, has the time flown by and has this industry changed or has it?

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

A week or so ago, we reported that a search in Google images for Michelle Obama returned a racist image. The image was offensive, racist and has been removed from the search results - which is what I was hoping for. But Google responded to the thread and explained that they normally do not change the search results unless:

(1) It violates our Webmaster Guidelines
(2) If Google believes they are required to do so by law
(3) Or at the request of the webmaster who is responsible for the image

I am not sure if this image fell under any of those three conditions. Google was not clear if it did, nor did they specifically say which this case fell under. I don't think it violated the Webmaster Guidelines, I don't think the image was "illegal," and I doubt the webmaster asked to have the image taken down. I can be wrong on all of these points, but I am not sure.

Here is Google's full response:

If you recently used Google Images to search for the term [ Michelle Obama ], you may have seen results that were very disturbing. We assure you that the views expressed by the image in your results are not in any way endorsed by Google.

As with Google Web Search, ranking in Google Images results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query.

Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority. Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results, or images from our Google Images results, simply because the content is in very poor taste or because we receive complaints concerning it. We will, however, remove pages from our results if we believe the image, page (or its site) violates our Webmaster Guidelines, if we believe we are required to do so by law, or at the request of the webmaster who is responsible for the image.

We apologize for the upsetting nature of the experience you had using Google Images and appreciate your taking the time to inform us about it. We will continue to improve the product based on your feedback to make sure that users find the most useful, relevant images through Google Images.

-Jem

Am I missing something? Why did Google take it down? Did the White House force them to by making it a legal matter? Maybe the site was indeed in violation of the webmaster guidelines? The site itself is still live, so I am not sure.

Google is clear that they do not remove offensive, racist or anti-semitic from the search results. I am just confused in this case. Don't get me wrong, I am extremely happy the result was removed - but was this only done because she is the First Lady?

Forum discussion continued at Google Web Search Help.