Daily Search Forum Recap: November 29, 2007

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.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Sitelinks Update on November 29, 2007
Gabs reported Google has done a Sitelinks update. He is indeed correct. The first Sitelinks update was in February 2007 and then we had a new recent one where Google expanded them to 8 sitelinks per result. Here is the new set of Sitelinks for the Search Engine Roundtable: This is what they looked like on October 19, 2007: So it does appear that some Sitelinks have been updated. Forum discussion at the Search Engine
Search Engine Roundtable Conference Coverage: December 2007 Package (SES Chicago and Las Vegas Pubcon)
This is the first time in our history of conference coverage where we are going to attempt to provide coverage of two different search marketing conferences that are overlapping on the same week. If you did not know, Search Engine Strategies Chicago is the same week as WebmasterWorld's PubCon. And yes, we will be covering both in great depth - thanks to our wonderful volunteers. First let's thank our volunteers, who include Carolyn Shelby, Dave
Pubcon's Wednesday Night Activity: Werewolves
SEOmoz is holding a Werewolf parlor game event next week in Pubcon where registrants are able to score cool playing cards (including the one of Barry, pictured). If you don't know how to play, you can read the rules. The event will be held on Wednesday night, Decmeber 5, from 8-10PM in the South Hall during Pubcon. Registration is limited to 200 participants and you can sign up here if you're interested. Looks nice. Those
Are You a Blogger Going to Pubcon? Show Tickets Available!
If you're a videoblogger or a blogger who might be able to write a review about some Vegas shows, you might be interested in the 500 tickets that Joe Morin scored for you. You will need to meet some criteria, however: To participate you must be a WebmasterWorld PubCon attendee, and an active editorial or video blogger. You may attend more than one show provided that you write a separate review (i.e. separate blog post)
Al Gore's Website Hacked by Spammers
According to recent reports, Al Gore's website was hacked by spammers who were trying to manipulate the SERPs. The article states that deep within the code, links to "bogus pharmaceuticals" were added and brought those companies much higher in the search results than they should have been. Barry adds over at Search Engine Land that search spam has worsened over the last few months. And unfortunately it's nothing new. One forum member believes that it's
Make Money From Your PDFs: Yahoo Teams up with Adobe
Adobe has announced Ads for PDF, a system they launched with Yahoo which will allow PDF owners to monetize for their content much like Google AdSense. The CNet News blog goes into detail on the partnership, explaining that it's a PPC program for contextually relevant ads that are displayed to the right of the PDF article. The ads look like Yahoo Publisher Network ads. (Credit: Adobe Labs) Currently, the program is in beta and only
What is the Best Format for an Ampersand in the Title Tag?
When you have a title tag with an & (ampersand), how should you best structure it? My thought would be to use "and," but some people say that the & works. The W3C validator will not approve of the & sign itself. Additionally, you should consider that if you're doing a search, you're likely not going to be pressing the & key. If you're doing exact match, you'll likely type in "and." For the ease
Google Says AdWords Diagnostic Tool Bug Now Fixed
On November 7th we reported a major Google AdWords Diagnostic Tool Bug, where advertisers were noticing Google reporting their ads were not active, but in reality they were. Yes, it was simply a reporting issue. Yesterday, AdWordsAdvisor, has posted in the WebmasterWorld thread that the bug has been fixed. I heard from the tech team yesterday - about an hour or so before Rehan's "It's fixed now" post - that the issue with the Ads
Fake .CN Google Spam "A Huge" Malware Problem
Remember back in September we reported about Chinese-like .CN TLDs spamming the heck out of Google's search results? Well, it appears that a study was done by Sunbelt Software that showed "27 different domains, each with up to 1,499 [malicious] pages" found in Google for hundreds of legitimate search queries. It appears that the .CN (which were really not .CN TLDs but masked as such) are directly related to this report. Subverted search sites lead
Google Selling PageRank 7 Links on Google.com Domain
With all the debate and discussion around paid links these days, some DigitalPoint Forums members are wondering how Google can get away with selling links that are not nofollowed. That is right, if you want a PageRank 7 link directly form Google.com, all you need to do is buy a Google Mini Search Appliance for $1,995 per year (or $166 per month) and you can get a link on this page. Should Google slap on
Google Spam Patent Explorer: "Identifying Manipulated Articles"
What SEO doesn't like talking about spam? Now add a newly granted Google patent that talks about spam and an SEO is in heaven! Bill at created a Cre8asite Forums thread about a new granted patent named Methods and systems for identifying manipulated articles. Here is the abstract: Systems and methods that identify manipulated articles are described. In one embodiment, a search engine implements a method comprising determining at least one cluster comprising a plurality