I can't believe it's already April. After our own Search Engine Squaretable pranks and after several great April Fool's jokes around the search industry (including Yahoo's search ad for Butterfinger), things are starting to go back to normal.
Well, some things.
Dewey Update
The big stir in search forums is the "Dewey" update. People are seeing a lot of shuffling in datacenters and Matt Cutts is asking for you to submit a form to get help. If you're impacted, tell Matt. Don't be shy.
Earth Hour
In observance of Earth Hour, Google went dark on Saturday night. In the literal sense, Google turned its background from white to black. The goal of this initiative was to raise awareness about energy conservation. It's 5AM as I write this and the lights are on. I guess I should turn them off...
Google Sells Performics
Google has sold the SEM division of DoubleClick which will come as a relief to many in the search industry. They're maintaining their affiliate marketing division, but they're shedding their responsibility (and an obvious conflict of interest) by parting ways with the SEO/PPC company. Best of luck to you guys.
Microsoft Publisher? Sign up for ContentAds
If you're aching to join the Microsoft ContentAds pilot program, you now can sign up if you're a publisher. Fill out the form and get information about new developments, special focus groups, and consideration for inclusion into the program.
Adderall for Yahoo, Please
It looks like Yahoo Slurp was suffering from ADHD earlier this week as webmasters reported hundreds of crawling reports daily in comparison to Google's activity (which, as one puts it, is at "1 or 2.") Eventually, Yahoo acknowledged and fixed the problem.
Yahoo Site Explorer Available in the UK and Ireland
Living in Great Britain? You now have your own special Yahoo! Site Explorer which is giving preference to UK links but is also showing some other links as well.
Google AdWords UK Trademark Policy Changing
Google UK has revised its trademark policy so that you can bid on trademark terms as keywords but those terms cannot show up in your ad. This is the same as the US policy and goes into effect on May 5.
Get Google News Ranking Updates
If you wanted to know the truths and myths about Google News rankings, your wait is over. Google posted about it and we reported on it. Now write some killer newsworthy content and maybe you'll get indexed.
Blending is Permitted
In terms of blending your Google AdSense ads, it's permissable as long as you don't deceive your users. Makes sense.
Scrolling Arrows on Google AdSense Ads are Here to Stay
Google has confirmed earlier this week that scrolling arrows on AdSense ads are a new feature that gives users more control over the ads they can choose to read or ignore.
Google Webmaster Tools Verification Bugs Fixed and Broke Again
After we reported that Google is having difficulty verifying sites in Webmaster Tools, we were told that a bug fix is out. For most of you. If you're hosting on an .asia domain name, you're out of luck. At least, for now.
Toolbar PageRank = Regular PageRank
Google has finally updated the directory PageRank to match toolbar PageRank, Barry notes.
Google Quotation Search Results Refined
If you've done a search on Google with quotations and Google has not found any results, it will now suggest alternative searches for you without the quotes. By the way, you can't do the query Barry suggests in our announcement post because there are at least 3 pages that show that phrase. But you can try it on another phrase that makes zero sense and you'll see exactly what he means.
Google.de Mirrors Results...a Lot
If you applied a nifty little trick to your Google search query, you may have noticed that Google showed the same result in positions 20 through 120. Yeah, that's a lot. But it's only impacting Google.de.
Google Webmaster Chat = Success FTW!
Barry listened in on last week's Google Webmaster Live help session and called the event a success. If you missed it, there are audio clips and transcripts available. He notes that Google will also be holding more of these in the future, which is great for you because it really connects webmasters to the Google Webmaster Central team. There was great representation at the first one, and I can imagine we'd continue to see that in future sessions. Nice.
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