The pulse of the search community

This is very very early and I don't have evidence of this myself, since I don't monitor rankings, but a single post at WebmasterWorld suggested there is a Bing update taking place.

textex, someone I trust at the forum, who has been a member of WebmasterWorld for almost ten years now, said:

Looks like an update....

So if there is a Bing update, there is a Yahoo update in the US and Canada.

Did you notice major changes in your Bing rankings?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday I reported Google is testing "sponsored map icons" in the US. They are basically enhanced point of interest icons using the company's logo, instead of the basic POI (point of interest) icon Google uses on the map views.

Here you can see some POI icons, also known as "labels." They include a doctor icon, a bed and breakfast icon, a synagogue icon, a lawyer office icon and them some generic squares.

Clearly, when you define your business category in Google Places, Google knows which icon to show for your business. But why are only these businesses showing? There are literally dozens of businesses near mine, which is RustyBrick. I work in an office building, so why is RustyBrick shown and not the 100 or so other businesses here?

Google has a help document that explains:

The place labels shown on Google Maps are determined algorithmically based on a large number of factors, so there is no way to guarantee placement of your business on the map as a place label. One factor these algorithms consider is the accuracy of the business listing and the richness of the content associated with the listing, so you can improve the chances that your business will receive a place label if you claim it in Google Places.

Right, that doesn't say much, does it? But when I spoke with Google Product Manager, Matthew Leske yesterday, he dropped some hints as to how Google decides which icons to show at what level. He told me the following factors go into making this up:

Google looks at the listings:

• Quantity of citations
• Is there Wikipedia entry (he specifically mentioned that)
• Search volume for business
• and "other relevant information"

He explained it is more like a web search relevancy algorithm than anything else.

Forum discussion at Google Places Help.

I doubt you missed the big SEO community news from yesterday. Danny Sullivan announced in a Sphinn thread that Sphinn will be going the editorial route and be removing voting. Instead, editors will decide what should be on the front page and not users.

Users can still submit content, but editors have the final say on what makes it to the front page of Sphinn. The goal is to have hand picked content that the community can discuss, as opposed to have users vote on content submitted by anyone. Read Danny's full explanation for more details.

The community, at least the ones upset with the decision, were extremely vocal about their dislike of this decision. Some are saying that the moderators will only allow their "friends" content on the front page. Some are saying that taking away voting removes the core of the Sphinn site. Some are saying that this just makes it one more discussion forum. Personally, I have no idea - but I'd like to see how this model works.

What do you think? Here is an anonymous poll:

There are many threads and blog posts about it, most linked to in the primary Sphinn thread.

Forum discussion at several Sphinn threads.

Some users have recently been having difficultly removing verified users in Google Webmaster Tools. Google allows you to give multiple users access to view your Google Webmaster Tools reports and data.

Sometimes you want to revoke access to some of those users. To do that, you go "Add or remove owners" on the Webmaster Tools homepage and click "unverify."

But that was not working for the past couple days. Google admitted the bug and said it was fixed last night in a Google Webmaster Help thread. Dennis G. from Google said:

We had a bug in our server that blocked follow-up "unverify" requests, so it was impossible to remove that "Unverification pending" warning. It should be fixed now, so just click that "unverify" link one last time. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

The obsessed (in a cool geeky way) webmasters at WebmasterWorld are discussing recent patterns they noticed with how Google's spider, GoogleBot has been accessing their site recently.

One said GoogleBot is crawling 50% less than it normally does. Others are saying they are just seeing GoogleBot crawl differently, but not less, per say. In addition, another person said Google stop crawling almost completely, but that is likely another issue.

Tedster explained what he has recently seen:

The sites I work with have been showing a changed crawling pattern since June, but it's not really a reduced crawl. On average more pages are being spidered over any extended period, but the whole pattern contains more spikes - occurring on about a 7-8 day cycle.

Have you noticed new or different GoogleBot crawling behavior?

We did report GoogleBot crawling from multiple locations at the same time, them having new crawling issues and acting all weird recently. Remember, this may all be caffeine related, so keep that in mind.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Sheara Goldenthal pinged me with a question yesterday about why the Google Keyword Tool shows different search volume data for the same keyword phrase, when she is logged in versus not logged into her AdWords account.

It is a great question, a question I thought I knew the solid answer for. I am sure I read it somewhere, so I dug a bit deeper. It seems like this is a popular question asked in several forums, including HighRankings Forums, Warrior Forums and several Google AdWords Help forum.

There is a help document that answers this question:

Why do traffic estimates for my ad group differ from those given by the standalone tool?

The results yielded by the Traffic Estimator in your ad group and the standalone Traffic Estimator may differ for two reasons:

(1) Performance Data: The past performance of an ad group will influence the Quality Score of all the keywords in that ad group. Your ad group's Traffic Estimator considers the ad group's performance details when making estimates about your keywords. The standalone tool, on the other hand, does not. For the most accurate results, use the Traffic Estimator in your ad group.

(2) Double-Serving: In accordance with our double-serving policy, we will only show one of your ads on a search for a particular keyword, even if that keyword appears multiple times in your account. The Traffic Estimator in your ad group accounts for double serving among your keywords when making estimates, whereas the standalone tool does not. Therefore, the standalone tool may yield higher estimates when it evaluates a keyword that appears multiple times within your account.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forums, Warrior Forums and several 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: September 1, 2010"

So Yahoo web search, the organic results, are now powered by Bing, Microsoft search. The next to fall is the paid search side of things.

Yahoo announced yesterday that the beginning of the end for Panama, Yahoo's Search Marketing platform. It is the beginning end of Yahoo powering their own search ads on their own search interface.

Folks at WebmasterWorld are calling it a "merge." The big paid search merge? Well, not really, more like the "big dig" for Yahoo. Yahoo isn't necessarily merging their technology with Microsoft, they are telling their advertisers to get their campaigns set up in Microsoft adCenter because Yahoo is burying their software likely by the end of October (in the US and Canada).

Yahoo laid out the three stages to this transition:

There are three stages to completing your transition:

1) Prepare your account for transition to adCenter
When you log into your Yahoo! Search Marketing account, you’ll automatically be taken to a new tab labeled “adCenter.” We recommend that you review your Compatibility Report, and fix incompatibilities between your current Yahoo! campaigns and the adCenter platform before starting the transition to adCenter.

2) Transition your account to adCenter
When you begin your transition, you’ll be able to create a new adCenter account, or indicate that you have an existing adCenter account that you want to continue to use. If you choose, you can use the transition tool to copy your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns over to adCenter. Please note that your campaigns will retain the same status (active or paused) as they have within your Yahoo! account, so you may start incurring click charges for Bing traffic right away.

3) Continue to manage your Yahoo! Search Marketing account
The last stage in the transition process will occur when Yahoo! Search ad serving moves to adCenter, which we expect to begin in mid-October and be completed by the end of October. During this period, you should expect traffic from your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to decrease, and increase in your adCenter account. But until this process is complete, you’ll still need to actively manage your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to have your ads displayed on Yahoo! and our partner sites.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google showing maps and local listings in the pure organic web search results is nothing new. For example, the image below shows a search for [plumber 10010], NYC plumbers. Now, if you are not in that local listing and you are in the web search results, what are the chances of you getting clicked on? Slim, no?

A WebmasterWorld thread is asking webmasters and SEOs to estimate the degradation of having the local listings mixed into the web search results. The estimates of the loss range anywhere from 10% to 65% depending on who you ask and where the map location is. I'd assume the example above would be closer to 65% but when the maps show up in the middle of the page, maybe closer to 20%?

Tedster of WebmasterWorld said, "I've seen more like 35% to 60% loss." The site references some studies done in the past as well.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Honestly, this is one topic I really don't know too much about. Google lets your Geographic target for your web site in Google Webmaster Tools. But what if you have a ccTLD, a country specific top level domain such as .fr (France), and you want to not target a specific country?

The Google help document on this topic says:

You can only use this feature for sites with a generic top-level domain, such as .com or .org. Sites with country-coded top-level domains (such as .ie) are already associated with a geographic region, in this case Ireland.

I checked one site I have in my Webmaster Tools account, the only site with a ccTLD and it didn't let me specify a different country. So I assume only certain ccTLDs or TLDs can set "unlisted" as an option to target all countries? Or am I missing something?

Google said, "If you want to ensure that your site is not associated with any country or region, select Unlisted."

It does appear that only certain ccTLDs let you change the geographic target, like a .co TLD. And you can change it to unlisted in order to not set a geographic target.

There are a couple threads asking how long does it take once you set the "unlisted" marker. The threads are at WebmasterWorld and Google Webmaster Help.

The WebmasterWorld thread has Tedster saying:

I've only heard one practical report about this and the recovery took many months for them, but they say it did happen eventually.

I am not sure if anyone else has experience here, but I'd love to know how quickly Google picks up the geographic target change, specifically for using "unlisted" as an option.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Webmaster Help.

Update: Google's JohnMu did point out a solid distinction between setting unlisted or not:

There's actually a subtle difference between not activating Webmaster Tools owner-specified geotargeting and selecting "Unlisted". Not selecting to do geotargeting through Webmaster Tools results in Google doing geotargeting automatically (generally based on the server location), activating geotargeting and selecting "Unlisted" in Webmaster Tools results in Google not doing geotargeting.

There is a weird Google bug with the cache feature. It seems to only impact home pages. For example, a search for this site in Google returns a Google search result of the home page (we aren't penalized yet):

But when you click on the cache link, it takes you to a dead page:

This does not appear to impact inside pages, but rather only the root page (aka home page). Why?

I have been receiving emails reporting this, as well as spotted several threads in the forums about this. Threads come from Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

I should note that this isn't uncommon and I wouldn't worry about this impacting your Google rankings.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld& HighRanking Forums.

A Google Places Help thread has a story of a person who bought a business from someone else.

The issue is, that business has pretty bad reviews in Google Maps and since there will be new management, he wants to know how to remove the bad reviews.

A fair question, that is why you often see the "under new management" signs outside of businesses. People want to know when new businesses have new owners and thus maybe better customer service (or maybe not).

The business owner said:

I am buying a local small buisness in a few weeks. The current owner has some pretty nasty reviews about him that currently come up when people search the biz name. I want to know if there is a way to have those reviews removed once I take ownership - I don't want people avoiding me because of his past mistakes.

Andrew in the forums suggested he request that the current owner to delete his Google Places account. Then the reviews should go as well. He also suggests renaming the business, just because of the possible bad karma associated with the business.

Do you agree?

Forum discussion at Google Places 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: August 31, 2010"

There is an outstanding thread by Tedster, Ted Ulle, at WebmasterWorld. The topic is on too many newbie SEOs taking the SEO advice given on forums, blogs, news sites and here at face value. He is concerned that a new SEO will read something and not understand the true meaning of what is really being said.

Let me quote a piece of his concern:

Recent years have seen a flood of interest in SEO. Unfortunately, a lot of recent entries into SEO have no sense of perspective and no idea of how to evaluate advice that they read or hear. And still they write blog articles ;( There's a lot of regurgitated second and third hand learning being spread today - and it's even being sold to clients.

SEO began in the 90s, back before the acronym itself was even created. Most of the pioneers were early affiliate marketers who personally reverse-engineered the search engine algorithms of the day. What they learned was privately shared, until it stopped working so well. At that point, the tidbits began to bleed into the wider pool of knowledge.

Why do I bring up this old time stuff? The same pattern still holds. And taking anyone's SEO advice at face value is a dangerous practice. Anyone who is not doing their own testing and measurement is at a disadvantage. They may be buying into advice that's outdated by many years - and some of it may even come from back in the 90s!

Truth be told, I am a culprit of spreading information that is not explained in detail each time I write it. Personally, I don't have patience, I don't have patience listening or reading something that needs to be explained in detail. I tend to get things quickly, at least I think I do, so listening to someone go on and on to make sure everyone is on the same page - well, it drives me nuts. So since that is my personality, I often don't have the patience to explain things that I already know. It isn't the best characteristic of myself, but we all have flaws, and this is one of mine.

Those who read this site every day, know this flaw in my writing and know how to read beyond what I write. If I make a comment that most people would likely break out into more detail and I don't, my reader knows why. I try my best to write concisely and get to the point without repeating myself, unlike what I am doing here. But sometimes without reviewing stuff and explaining it in detail, some new people to the industry that read my stuff won't get it fully and take it at face value.

I would say 50% of my posts, specifically when I offer SEO specific advice, don't go into enough detail for new SEOs to fully understand what to practice. That is a fault I have and you need to know that.

I have a recent example and I hope this person doesn't get upset with me using him as an example, but the content is out there in the public and thus complies with my blogging code of ethics.

Here is the tweets sent to me a few days ago:

Most experienced SEOs know that social media typically doesn't have a direct impact on your link building. It typically does not directly impact your Google rankings. What it does do it get people to become aware of your web site and the awareness may drive more links and the more links may drive better rankings in Google. So if I ever say that social media helps your Google rankings, that is what I may mean. I may skip over the details as to why and understanding why is important.

I am not the only SEO blogger who is guilty of taking this short cuts, so keep it in mind. And honestly, it is much worse in the forums. Then what you have is what Tedster described, new SEOs preaching half truths to other new SEOs and their clients and we got a problem. I apologize, but it is a bad habit I doubt will ever change. So please keep this in mind when reading what I write.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google announced they added a new filter that helps you find "specialized blogs" on any topic you can imagine.

Here is how it works. Go to Google, search for a topic, then click on the "blogs" filter on the left side (note: it might be hidden under a "more" link). Then when the page filters to blogs, click again on the left side, this time where it says "homepages." That filter will show the most important and relevant blogs on the search query you entered.

Here is a screen shot:

How is this useful? Well, for a searcher it is obvious, but what about an SEO? Finding blogs in a niche can sometimes be hard. Google has just made it so much easier. You can now find blogs in the aerospace engineering field or duck hunting field with ease. Form a relationship with those bloggers and garner links from them over time.

Tedster said in a forum thread, "This is pretty handy. I've already found a few sources I didn't know existed in various verticals I watch."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.