August 2006 Archives

Finally, Finally, since wanting to do this since April of 2005, we will be launching our PodCast! In conjunction with WebmasterRadio.FM, we will be starting our show this Tuesday, on September 5th at 5PM (EST). The name of the show, by popular request, is "The Search Pulse."

The Search Pulse will have Ben, Chris and myself chatting about the most popular search topics covered over the past week at the Search Engine Roundtable. It will be unique in that we won't cover any search news. We only cover news and search topics that deemed important by the search community, which we figure out from the search marketing forums. Also, the show will differ from other shows in that, the method of discussion will be a lot like one of those political round tables shows or news shows. Where you have a moderator asking experts (in our case, Ben and Chris) their thoughts on the topic at hand. Kinda like Bill O'Reilly's show but only on search.

After the show airs and is archived, I will post a link to the podcast and I will also provide links to the topics we covered during the show. Much like how Danny Sullivan does the Daily Search Cast recaps.

Finally, we currently do not have the final artwork for the show, nor do we have the official show opener, as of yet. I am told this will all be finalized prior to this Tuesday.

Any comments, suggestions, questions about the Search Pulse? Feel free to comment below or post in Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Update: Posted archive podcast here.

A WebmasterWorld has a beginner to Google's AdWords program asking for folks to share their "most valueable links" to resources that will help a beginner get off the ground. Thought it may help to share that here.

• 15 tips for AdWords Beginners - WebmasterWorld
• AdWordsAdvisors Informational Posts - WebmasterWorld
• Jumpstart links for those new to the AdWords - WebmasterWorld
• The last 6 Months of AdWords Info - WebmasterWorld
• AdWords Library - WebmasterWorld
• AdWords Demos and Guides - Google
• AdWords Learning Center - Google

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

TrueLocal, the owner is a very well known forum personality from WebmasterWorld, bakedjake, has launched a Canadian version of TrueLocal at http://www.truelocal.ca/. As an FYI, Jake lives in Canada.

The article Brett Tabke linked to from the WebmasterWorld thread says;

The site offers a localized search engine in English and French that consumers can use to track down more than 1.3 million Canadian brick-and-mortar businesses, ranging from nearby dentists or contractors to car dealers or golf courses.

The website asks what you're searching for and where. It then displays a list of businesses matching the search term, along with contact information and driving directions.

To access the English version go here and for the French version go here. If you get stuck, use the links at the top to get back to your localized language of choice.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

An excellent WebmasterWorld thread named Top 3 PPC: Where does AdWords Rank for You ranks the three top players, Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing & Microsoft adCenter against each other. The ratings are broken out by (1) Traffic Volume, (2) Quality of Click, (3) Ease of Use, (4) Lowest Cost per Conversion, (5) Technical Support, (6) Has the Options for Your Needs, (7) Versatile and (8) Overall Rank. We have a nice amount of responses so far, but I would love to see more, currently, here is how they rank.

G = Google, Y = Yahoo and M = Microsoft. Each letter represents a vote for that slot. Ties are represented /.

(1) Traffic Volume:
#1 G G G G G G M G G
#2 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
#3 M M M M M M G M M
(2) Quality of Click:
#1 M M M M M M M Y G
#2 G G G Y G G G G M
#3 Y Y M G Y Y Y M Y
(3) Ease of Use:
#1 M Y G G G G G G G
#2 Y G Y Y Y M Y/M Y M
#3 G M M M M Y X M Y
(4) Lowest Cost per Conversion:
#1 M M M M M M M G G
#2 G Y/G G Y Y G G Y M
#3 Y X Y G G Y Y M Y
(5) Technical Support:
#1 M Y G Y M Y M G Y
#2 G M/G Y M Y M Y Y M
#3 Y X M G G G G M G
(6) Has the Options for Your Needs:
#1 G Y/G G G G G G G G
#2 Y M Y Y M M M Y M
#3 M X M M Y Y Y M Y
(7) Versatile:
#1 G Y G G M G G G G
#2 Y G Y Y G M M Y M
#3 M M M M Y Y Y M Y
(8) Overall Rank:
#1 G M M G M G M G G
#2 M Y/G G Y Y M Y Y M
#3 Y X Y M G Y G M Y

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I am surprised I missed this. JenSense reported on this Wordpress plugin that makes your AdSense ads more attractive, hence noticeable, hence clickable back on June 27, 2006. She explains that it is not clear if the plugin would be in accordance or not with the AdSense TOS, so it is best to ask Google prior to placing them on your site. Below is a static image of what the plugin does from the plugin page itself at supriyadisw.

Yes, those are really beautiful.

There is an older and now newer thread at DigitalPoint Forums on the topic. Again, I would show the ads to a representative at Google, to get written permission. If they don't give it to you, then, I don't know. It is clear that the images, IMO, are separated enough from the ads - but who knows.

Steven Bryant wrote that Google Sued for AdSense Fraud. In short, Theresa B. Bradley, owner of bravacorp.com has sued Google for being terminated from the program after allegedly spending a hundred hours placing the Google AdSense code on her site.

Hold on a sec....

(1) 100 Hours to place ads on a site? I can attest that it can take less than 3 minutes to place AdSense code on millions of pages of a dynamic site. But it looks like her 24 page (or so) site is pure HTML, so let's say it took 3 minutes per page, to add the code? 72 minutes of work? What about economies of scale? :)

(2) She admittedly clicked on her own ads and as Jen clearly points out, it is "against the AdSense terms & policies, which states "Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited, to avoid potential inflation of advertiser costs." So she is in violation of the agreement she signed.

JenSense and eWeek have great coverage of this.

Both WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums have long threads on the topic, even though the news was broke late last night. It is honestly a shame that this woman sued Google. She is destroying her name, in my opinion. Just look at all of the comments in the forums. They read all of the tone as;

Funniest damn thing I've seen in awhile.

Perhaps it is time for Google to file a counter-suit seeking damages for:
a) Damaging the good name of Google by implicating them in a frivolous suit
b) Breach of contract (the TOS)
c) Fraud (clicking ads herself)

Wow... honestly what a stupid woman. I can't wait for Google to own her in court.

It appears the 100 hours includes the time taken to review the ads, so she's suing google for the time she spent clicking her own ads :)

Some comments are worse. Everyone has Google's back on this and that is rare. :)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

After tons of speculation, Microsoft has finally come out to say that Microsoft adCenter Content Ads program is expected to be launched early Fall. As an FYI - I have asked to beta test it, so I hope to hear back soon on that and share the ads with you, like I have done with AdSense and YPN. Here is the official email sent out to the press and bloggers;

On behalf of everyone on the Microsoft adCenter team, I’m excited to announce that we will be starting our pilot of Microsoft adCenter Content Ads early this fall. Content Ads is Microsoft’s next product that allows advertisers to place content-targeted, text-based advertisements primarily on Microsoft-owned properties including MSN Money, Real Estate, and many others within the www.msn.com portal. Like our search advertising product, it will also utilize our demographic targeting, geo-targeting and incremental bidding tools to help our advertisers reach the audience they want. Our Content Ads pilot will start as an invitation-only pilot, limited to selected current adCenter advertisers.

If you are interested in participating, please reply back and I will send you additional information. This is your opportunity to drive change and improvement in our Content Ads product, and we hope you’re as excited about it as we are.

Also, adCenter411, the Ad Center rep, posted in WebmasterWorld thread saying, "I can't comment a lot about this, except to say later this fall, adCenter will be running a pilot for our contextual-based advertising option. Stay tuned. :)" Also, JenSense has some more insight into this announcement.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread is at the beginning of people sharing their ICR, invalid click rates, reported by Google since they released "Invalid Clicks" in AdWords Reports.

One Google AdWords advertiser shares;

In my case ICR's have tended to fluctuate between 5.5% and 9.0%, for campaigns where content bids are ~1/5th search bids and still accounting for ~40% of total clicks.

An other advertiser shares;

Depending on the global region, I'm anywhere from 2.5% to 7.5%... the US is near the low end of the range, Asian countries at the high end.

What is your ICR? And more importantly, do you think it is accurate? Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I am not going to give a review of the magazine, that had it's first release in Mid May, Philipp at Google Blogoscoped has his Search Marketing Standard (Review).

If you’re already an SEO expert, much of the advice won’t be new to you, but it’s a great overview for those starting out with SEO, or those experts still trying to expand their horizon.

The Search Marketing Standard second addition is also being discussed in the forums. Cre8asite Forums has positive things to say about the edition;

I recieved my copy several days ago. Although I have not finished reading it, I wanted to say how much I have enjoyed reading it. I love to get away from reading the computer screen and curl up with this magazine. I like holding something printed and reading it at my liesure.

I reviewed it in my blog and had to laugh. My "complaint" is also that its too thin. I love the chance to also curl up and read it. It's much lighter than my laptop, for starters. And way more colorful!

Many folks still not receive the second issue, but I suspect it will come soon.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Yahoo!, please enable a method of requesting that you do not display the Yahoo! Directory title in the search results. I mean, I know I like my title, because it is cute, but still, I rather the title listed in the search results pull from my title tag, or at least have an option to define that.

We won't think that you are being a copy cat, I am sure we will praise you like we praised Google and MSN. Your brothers each enabled the NOODP tag, that allows a Webmaster to tell the engines, no matter what, please do not use the ODP title in the search results. MSN implemented the tag on May 22, 2006, they were praised for it and Google implemented it on July 13, 2006 and they were praised for it.

We will praise you for implementing a NOYDIR tag or something like that.

It is the difference between showing:

Versus this:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

For those of you that use Google Analytics, you should be aware that if someone steals your source code and leaves your "UA" code, the unique identifier for Google to know what site the traffic is from, that your traffic may be inflated.

The code you place on your site looks like:
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-######-#";
urchinTracker();
</script>

Now, the ######-# is replaced by a unique number that tells Google Analytics who you are. Sometimes when scrapers pull your content, they pull everything.

So just keep this in mind...

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Two of my most favorite companies, Apple and Google are now a bit more intimate. Apple and Google announced that Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, has agreed to join Apple's Board of Directors.

“Eric is obviously doing a terrific job as CEO of Google, and we look forward to his contributions as a member of Apple’s board of directors,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Like Apple, Google is very focused on innovation and we think Eric’s insights and experience will be very valuable in helping to guide Apple in the years ahead.”

“Apple is one of the companies in the world that I most admire,” said Eric Schmidt. “I'm really looking forward to working with Steve and Apple’s board to help with all of the amazing things Apple is doing.”

People in the forums are both joking around and discussing the move from a futuristic perspective.

Maybe we'll get iAdsense accounts that run out of their CPC value and can't be restored without sending it back to GoogleApple HQ for a disablement of ismartpricing.

Maybe they'll add Google to Sherlock now

so what if Google buys Apple? that would turn microsoft upside down I think.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums and DigitalPoint Forums.

This morning I wrote that Danny Sullivan To Leave Search Engine Watch :: Search Industry Shocked (someone dug the story), I promised to let the search community digest this information and then summarizing that buzz. Below you will find a collection of blog, news and forum links to all the coverage I found on Danny's news. I have pulled select quotes and summarized the rest.

Danny, the Grandfather of Search Industry, will undoubtly remain a huge part of our every day lives. I, as does the whole community, wish Danny all the best and look forward to the future of our industry with Danny being a huge part of that. It was and remains to be an honor to have worked with Danny on a daily basis. I have learned an incredible amount both on search, diplomacy, and friendship.

Continue reading "Reaction from the Search Community on Danny Sullivan's Departure"

Search engine optimization has become a legitimate industry, with companies spending thousands of dollars per year on consulting to effectively help climb search engine rankings. For the past few years, there have been rumblings in the community as to how SEO would deal with the increased use of personalized search, and for the most part, optimizers have maintained that adjusting to change is something that is already part of the game.

A recent thread at Search Engine Watch Forums discusses the concept of a special type of optimization geared towards Social Search and Networks, dubbed "SMO." The poster relates to the SEO industry, saying:

I think we SEOers need to take concrete steps to incorporate Social Media as a important element of WoM and SEO.

From an agency point of view, I can say that we in the SEO department are working together with Media and Paid Search teams to try to establish best practices in this growing area. Join the discussion and add your thoughts at Search Engine Watch Forums.

In case you are wondering, another thread at SEW attempts to answer the question: "What is Social Search?"

Google has added a new feature to AdWords, My Client Center now allows you to configure email alerts. So if you want to be notified of when an ad delivery is stopped, or if your credit card was declined, or if a cmapaign is near ending, or if an account budget is almost done, or if your budget is 80% empty, you can get these alerts prompted to you via email. What about RSS notifications? Well, not yet.

The AdWords help center says;

MCC alerts feature makes it easy to stay on top of important issues that may affect your managed client (sub-MCC) accounts. Based on your preference settings, alerts will appear on your MCC dashboard about account-specific issues such as stopped ad delivery, credit card declines and the approach of campaign and budget end-dates.

If you go to User Preferences section and click on the Edit under the Alerts section you can opt in to these alerts. It looks like this:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Part of the recent Google Update that was really not a full update, by any standards, was that the Google Related command has been updated. Back in mid-July we reported that Related Search Command Changes at Google.com and it looks like more changes have occurred to it.

The related command is when you type related:www.domain.com into Google or click on the "Similar pages" link in the search results.

How do you test the new results? Use the IP 64.233.187.104 and give it a shot. They seem much more on topic then they are now at Google.com. There is currently a nice result set for related:www.seroundtable.com.

Forum discussion WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday, I wrote about the news that eBay Signs International Paid Search Deal With Google at the SEW Blog. Since then, WebmasterWorld started discussing this.

eBay, the company that launched a competing contextual ad product named AdContext. eBay, the company that banned Google Checkout from use on eBay auctions and eBay store fronts.

That eBay has formed a partnership with Google to show Google ads on eBay international. Plus a click-to-call deal that is discussed here.

One WebmasterWorld member describes this deal as "It seems like they are playing on both sides of the fence."

But all in all, this relationship should be interesting. Yea, search on anything at Google and get an eBay ad. Go to eBay and now find a Google contextual ad. Oh, and yes, Yahoo also has an ad deal with eBay for the main US site. Fences.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Most forums have a feature that allow you to automate your signature at the end of each of your posts. So instead of signing off each post with, "All the best, my name here" you can place that in your signature file and it will automatically post that signature after each post. Today, people use it to put your slogan, their company info and links to sites they represent.

I just saw a DigitalPoint Forums thread which discusses some forums allowing members to place Google AdSense block ads within their signature file.

Is this legal, or in accordance with Google's terms of service for the AdSense program. I would think so. Is this use of a signature file what one would consider proper? I don't think so.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Danny just posted about him leaving Search Engine Watch and SES by this December. The specific reasons was contractual and that Incisive and Danny couldn't come to terms on (what I believe to be) some sort of equity stake in the future of SEW and SES. There are just so many questions buzzing through my head. I know the industry has not yet had time to react, so I plan on doing a follow up to this post with the industry response but first let me try to predict.

(1) What will happen with Danny?
Well, as he said, his last day at SEW is November 30th. He will be doing the SES Chicago event, but that is it. Will Danny start a new site? Work for a company? Do consulting? Well, these are all options. We know Danny won't leave the industry, he has had a huge impact on creating this industry - and I can't see Danny just getting up and walking away from it. I would expect to see a new blog/site come about, where Danny continues to write on search topics. Maybe the blog/site will act as an anchor for his book, that he has been eager to write. I would also expect Danny to get tons of offers from both SEM companies and the search companies themselves. You can expect him to get a few offers to write for an other search industry site. But I think Danny will initially start his own thing, do consulting on the side, and start getting his book underway.

(2) What will happen with Search Engine Watch?
On one hand, Search Engine Watch (SEW) is the site on search, it is the authority, it was the first source and remains to be the ultimate source on search topics to this day. On the other hand, the reason SEW is all of that is because of one man, Danny. Danny invented, created, built up, and made SEW into a success. Is SEW dependent on Danny? I thing very much so, in terms of the day to day management. I know a little of what goes on behind the scenes, and I know that the site runs because of Danny. So it is hard to say how this will impact the site. The site should remain an authority, but you can expect those close to the industry, those at the forefront will have some inward resentment towards Incisive and whomever takes Danny's role. But that can and most likely will be done diplomatically, to reduce the level of any resentment.

(3) Who will take over SEW?
Well, the next man in line is Chris Sherman. But Chris and Danny have been working together for five plus years. I doubt Chris needs SEW to be successful. I honestly have not spoken to Chris about it. But I am sure that if he wanted to take over, he would be able to. But for some reason, I think he may not. Just a feeling. So who will? I don't know, but I bet lots of people will be jumping at the opportunity to fill Danny's shoes.

(4) How will this affect the industry?
I feel there will be resentment towards this whole event, but that will die down by itself. Danny will continue to contribute to the industry, so much won't be lost there - I hope. SEW may lose some of its authoritative power, that it once held. The industry will move on. The conferences, I suspect will continue to do well. The site will continue to get lots of traffic. But the industry, the community, will probably see less activity around the SEW brand and more around Danny and other names in the industry. A lot has to do with #3. More on this later today.

(5) What will happen with me?
Will I still work on the SEW blog? I have no idea. For now, yes. But I have no idea what will happen.

(6) My advice to Incisive?
If there is any way to keep Danny, do it. All in all, I believe the next year will be very rough. The site will suffer, the conferences will suffer, and the industry as a whole will suffer. Try, try, to do whatever you can, to keep Danny - if it is not too late.

If you have questions for Danny, there are instructions on how to communicate with him at http://daggle.com/060829-112950.html.

I did post a thread at SEW forums, but I don't expect many answers from Danny there. Use the methods above.

Friday we reported on a Back Link Update, and as suspected, it was not a major change that affected search results. Since then, WebmasterWorld has named the update, Pluto (kinda cute, don't you think?). Which reminds me, doesn't Ask.com have to update their Smart Answer for said (message # 3061576),

I agree this one isn't anything to write home about. Like Pluto, I think this would be a shrinking update; the SERPs aren't really changing. :)

Continues forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

If you go to Yahoo!, I bet you'll have a had time trying to use Yahoo!'s Blog Search feature today. Well, at least until it goes back online. Try doing a search at blog.news.search.yahoo.com, it is gone! Yes, it has also been removed from being embedded in Yahoo! News, and has been replaced by Yahoo! Images, for now. A search on google.com at Yahoo! News would typically show both a Yahoo! News listing and Yahoo! Blog Search listing for this site, now we only see a Yahoo! News listing.

Is it gone forever? Nope. At least that is what Greg Jarboe finds from a Yahoo! spokesman, Brian Nelson.

In an email sent a short while later, he added, “Maybe this goes without saying, (but) blog content remains an important part of our overall news and news search strategy. It’s worth mentioning again because I’ve read speculation in the blogosphere about what Y! might be thinking bigger picture when it comes to blog content.”

What is interesting is that the forums are pretty dead on this topic. I was not able to find a WebmasterWorld thread on this, but I did find a Search Engine Watch Forums thread with some limited discussion.

Why didn't Yahoo! post something about this? Why pull it without telling anyone? Heck, the blog community is almost in an uproar about this, as you can imagine. Take a look at Zawodny's recent links section and how he quotes, Steve Rubel;

To me this is a sure sign that Yahoo is gearing up to launch an integrated feed reader/search engine the way Ask.com/Bloglines did in June. This is the second piece of evidence in the puzzle.

Of course Jeremy can't say anything or he would have. Quoting someone else... Well, let's see.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

What if you are a US based SEM and manage PPC campaigns for a company that is targeting UK consumers? How do you view the ads, as if you were in the UK, so that you can see what needs to be tweaked? That is the question of a Search Engine Watch Forums thread.

What is suggested in the thread is to add this extra variable to the end of the URL (&gl=uk). What that does is tell Google that you want to see UK results. For a complete list of country names, visit here.

Sometimes then you can get stuck with the localized results. I talked about how to get back to your default setting here.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Honestly, all this is, is a combination of products they have been testing for a while. The press release, Google Launches Hosted Communications Services with the Gmail for your domain product not just applied to gmail, but also Talk, Calendar, and Page Creator.

Google Apps for Your Domain, an expansion of the Gmail for Your Domain service that launched in February 2006, currently includes Gmail web email, the Google Talk instant messaging and voice calling service, collaborative calendaring through Google Calendar, and web page design, publishing and hosting via Google Page Creator. Domain administrators use a simple web-based control panel to manage their user account list, set up aliases and distribution lists, and enable the services they want for their domain. End users with accounts that have been set up by their administrator simply browse to customized login pages on any web-connected computer. The service scales easily to accommodate growing user bases and storage needs while drastically reducing maintenance costs.

Yea, it is cool to host these apps on your own domain, that is for sure - and it is free, for now. But there are signs that Google will be offering paid, permium services tied to this program.

Is there a premium version of this service?
Not at this time. However, if your organization has advanced needs not met by this free service, let us know and we'll get in touch when a premium service is available for your organization.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and Search Engine Watch Forums.

Friday, we reported that Microsoft released an MSN Search update. It caused some obvious and surprisingly weird bugs at MSN.

It turns out that MSN has rolled back that update Friday evening. MSNdude says;

We rolled back the recent update, so we're back to the status quo ante. All of your complaints may be accurate :-) but they shouldn't be any worse than they were a few days ago.

This is not the first time MSN has done a roll back.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Google is unquestionably the number one search engine today. The numbers don't lie. But is there a trend developing of people giving up their Google habit? According to the second chart in the example above, the G line does seem to be slightly dropping during August per projections, with the others rising. So, what other engines are people using to quell the urge to google? (Apologies to G for using "it" as a verb)

There is an lengthy thread going on at WebMasterWorld Forums asking "Does anyone here still use Google to actually 'search'?" The premise of the original poster is that

for a few months now I've been Google-free. The time I waste desperately hacking at the Advanced Search options on Google to try and get some sort of answer to my query is just too much and I'd rather wait the extra milliseconds for Yahoo/MSN pages to load.

Join the thread at WebMasterWorld Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that back links are being updates at some of Google's data centers. The data centers documented with the updated back links are at 64.233.187.104 and 64.233.187.99.

What does this mean for SEOs and your rankings? Um, not much, in my opinion.

Just keep watching your traffic and see what resolves.

Also, this may be a sign of a PageRank update happening shortly. But again, that Toolbar PageRank doesn't show much.

Oh, there are also MSN Search Update and Yahoo! Search Update taking place now. Funny that it is all happening at once.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

There are some early reports of a Yahoo! Search update or algorithmic change. A WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums thread have reports of shifts taking place. Of course, you see that those posting, currently at least, are unhappy with the result sets.

To me the results seem fairly static from where they were last week. But that is only for the few keyword phrases I looked at.

There are no "weather reports" posted at the Yahoo! Search Blog.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a very interesting questions. Does Google, or any other search engine, associate link popularity to a portion of a page? For example, if I link to a page and anchor down to a specific portion of that page, would Google see that portion to be more important than the other portions?

Anchor Link, I use them all the time to link to specific posts, is defined here.

My thoughts are that Google and other engines do not point specific popularity to a specific portion of a page. It would be interesting if they did and how that would work exactly.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, but the topic is not exactly about that - more focused towards penalties on specific portions of pages.

At 5:20 AM (EST) yesterday morning a WebmasterWorld thread reported that valid credit cards were being rejected and denied by Google. Meaning those advertisers who had depleted budgets were unable to refund their accounts, and get their ads back online. Five hours later, AdWordsAdvisor posted that the issue has been resolved.

Early word has it that the issue with the processor has now been resolved, and re-entering your credit card at this point should get you running again.

Please note that a delay between the time one re-enters the card and the time the ads begin running again is normal - and will be the case here as well. So once you've re-entered your card, if you don't see your ads running immediately, there is no need to enter the card again. I'd say give it an hour - though it'll probably be quicker than that.

Through this fairly short period, AdWordsAdvisor was there providing insight into the issue.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The MSN Search bug we reported yesterday where MSN Listing Same Top Five Sites on 1st & 2nd Page Search Results seems to have been caused by an MSN update that took place the night before.

MSNdude confirmed last night that the update did indeed occur;

You guys are correct; there was an update last night. Somehow I had thought this would happen later. Apologies for giving you wrong information earlier.

In that thread, some reported similar issues to what I reported yesterday morning via DigitalPoint.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In the past we have heard about AdWords Account Size Limitation, where you are limited in the number of keywords your campaign can hold. We have even heard of remedies to this problem. But these, I believe, were all after the fact - after you have max'ed out your keyword list.

A Search Engine Watch Forums shows that one advertiser received an automated (looks automated) warning from Google that he soon will reach that limit. The alert said...

The keywords in your account are nearing an unmanageable size. We recommend that you reduce the number of keywords within your account. This will ensure that your account includes the most targeted and relevant keywords possible. Use our Find and Edit Keywords Tool to identify poor performing keywords within your account (such as keywords with few or zero impressions) and delete them.

I wonder if this is getting more wide scale.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

This is something weird I found at DigitalPoint Forums, where MSN Search is listing the same top five results (in terms of sites) on page one of the search results, when compared to page two.

Search on background check and notice that the first five listings are:
(1) www.background-check.info
(2) www.backgroundcheckgateway.com
(3) www.instantpeoplecheck.com
(4) www.easybackgrounds.com
(5) www.instant-background-check.com

Now click over to page two and notice the first five listings are:
(1) www.background-check.info
(2) www.backgroundcheckgateway.com
(3) www.instantpeoplecheck.com
(4) www.easybackgrounds.com
(5) www.instant-background-check.com

Never seen that before...

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Last week, I reported over at SEW blog that Googlers Only Have Sold GOOG Stock - Cause Of Drop In Stock Price? I wrote;

"Google's top executives have offloaded about $7.4 billion of stock, equal to about a third of the company's starting market value when it sold shares at $85 each in the August 2004 IPO," says Bloomberg columnist, Mark Gilbert. Not only that, he reports "not a single Google insider has bought a single share of the company in the 18 months since the IPO lock-ups expired." Can you believe that!

Danny adds to my coverage saying he is not surprised "that over the past 18 months that neither founders Larry Page or Sergey Brin have been selling. That's because they already said in 2004 that they'd spend the next 18 months diversifying their portfolios through planned sales."

The forums began talking about it recently and they are mostly with Danny on this. Heck, if it was them, they would keep selling...

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Conduct a search on five seo excuses and the top five five results in Google are listed excuses. Pretty cute SEO trick by this guy. I assume all it takes is a bit of linkage pointing for that anchor text to make this happen, but kudos for thinking the concept up.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.