February 2007 Archives

Part of Yahoo! announcing they have added support for a No Yahoo Directory tag, Yahoo! has issued a weather report saying they need to do an index update for this NOYDIR to work.

Before the weather report was issued there was some recent chatter in a WebmasterWorld thread this morning on a Yahoo! Search update taking place.

I definitely see some major changes. The rankings seem to go back to the old results from late 2006. Which is good for the categories I watch. The update in January definitely had some spammy sites getting rewarded. So this new update is fine with me.

Yahoo! said:

We are re-indexing content on the web to launch this change, and you should immediately begin to see the changes on Yahoo! US, Yahoo! Japan and Yahoo! Korea. (Other regions will roll-out in the future.) This will be accompanied by the usual ranking changes and page shuffling that is typical of weather updates.

This is probably why it took so long for NOYDIR tag to be released, it seems to have required a global update to all of Yahoo! Search properties.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo! has finally added support for SEOs and Webmasters to specify that they do not want their Yahoo! Directory title to be displayed in the Yahoo! Search results. They promised they would do this October 2006 and then promised it for us in January, so just a month late - we have it. So if you want to tell Yahoo! not to use your Yahoo! Directory tag, just add one of the following pieces of code to your site:

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOYDIR">

OR

<META NAME="Slurp" CONTENT="NOYDIR">

Then next time Yahoo! Search crawls and indexes those changes (can be days or weeks or months) you will not longer see the Yahoo! Directory tag in the Yahoo! Search results.

Currently, my RustyBrick Yahoo! Search listing looks like this:

But my title tag reads:

Web Design, Web Development & Web Services New York, NY

Will I add this tag to my listing, I may or may not. I am in no rush.

Thank you Yahoo!

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

The twenty-first edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download. To kick off the show we had some discussion on our new design here at the Search Engine Roundtable. We then got into the Google Presidents Day update, followed by a Google patent application discussion. Microsoft had a large adCenter bug, and Yahoo! Search Marketing also had a PPC bug. We discussed the Google AdWords algorithm and many more topics. The topics we covered are listed below, in order of priority (based on search community buzz). You can download the MP3 file here and listen at your convenience

Topics We Covered:

1. Version 3 Of The Search Engine Roundtable with Design Update For Search Engine Roundtable
   
2. Presidents Day Google Algorithm Update?
   
3. Google Patent Application On Personalization & Removing Documents From Google.com
   
4. Microsoft adCenter CPC Costs Spike: Known Bug with Microsoft Refunds adCenter Advertisers Over Weekend
   
5. Technical Glitch Charges Yahoo! Advertisers 42 Times
   
6. Google AdWords Quality Score Algorithm Update Now Live with Advertisers Speak On New AdWords Quality Score Algorithm
   
7. How Long Do You Spend "Training" A Client After SEO or Design Work Is Done?
   
8. Does Google Use Click Data For Ranking Purposes?
   
9. Google To Show AdWords Advertisers Where Contextual Ads Are Displayed
   
10. Google Not To Include Quality Score In AdWords API
    
11. Yahoo! Search Now Highlighting Keywords In Cache Results
    

Lightening Round:

Continue reading "Search Pulse 21: Design, Google Update, Patent Apps, AdWords Algorithm, Yahoo! Search, Microsoft adCenter, SEO Training & More"

Digg members may despise or ban SEO's, but SEO's will get the last laugh. Digg is but a pebble in a large social media pond. Marketing and optimizing web sites utilizing social sites as tools and popularity injections requires knowledge of who the players are, the rules and policies for each one, finding logical matches and expertly manuvering many demographic groups at once.

Social media is a hot bed of debate and exploration, as evidenced by the first topics presented in the new Social Media and Tagging, forum, at Cre8asiteforums. Is YouTube breathing its last breaths? Are traffic bursts worth it? G-man asks:

Anyone got any good scripts for automating the social media and tagging process?

Thread: Automation?

New moderators, Chris Winfield and Liana Evans, host the new forum, where lively discussions have already begun.

I spotted an interesting thread at Google Groups asking how can one take over a group, when the original and only Group administrator has passed away?

The owner/administrator of our sailing group died a few weeks ago. We have a new webmaster for the website, but we need to switch over the discussion group administration. Contact info, website URL etc. has changed as well.

How do we do this? He did not leave ID or password information.

Google Groups Guide replied that it is possible but they first need to look at "your group
and account details." He asked to take it offline, so that the details are not public, which makes sense.

So what do you do? Use the Google Groups Contact Us Form, select the "Report a technical problem" option and specify the following info:

• Group Name
• the owner's email address
• and the new owner's email address

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

A bug I reported almost two weeks ago now, Google Advertiser Charged For Paused Campaign in AdWords is still an issue. I have been getting messages left and right from AdWords advertisers who are still noticing this.

There is even a new WebmasterWorld thread with renewed complaints. Google has acknowledged this is a bug and has done so again.

On Feb 27, 2007 at 10:49 am AdWordsAdvisor said:

Confirmed - and my apology for the confusion and inconvenience.

AdWordsAdvisor did say that you will be refunded this information and she did make sure to giggle at a comment by heyday saying;

I guess you can look at it the other way......you get a refund....plus you got some free traffic.

So free traffic isn't bad, is it?

When will it be fixed? Who knows...

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has several examples of people who say they have submitted re-inclusion requests months ago and still have not heard back from Google.

A few things here, we know Google Moves Reinclusion Request Form To Webmaster Central months ago. Also, I have tested out the reinclusion request myself with Jennifer Convertibles when they were delisted. And they got back in within a few days. Later, I did a post named Time Line To Get Reincluded in Google With Reinclusion Request where I showed examples of unanswered reinclusion requests and answered ones.

The new WebmasterWorld shows many examples of unanswered requests. I have heard Google won't answer all requests, especially those that still have violations on their sites and those that have repeat infractions - but can all those examples in the recent thread be in violation of the above? I don't know.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Brett Tabke posted a thread at WebmasterWorld informing us that Yahoo! has "tweaked" their Yahoo Search Submit Basic program. The main change, he said, was that they added detailed analytics.

The new program seems to also have changed names from "express" to "basic." The new page at http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srchsb/ssb_pr.php shows slightly different information.

Here is the before:

Here is the after:

Some of the reaction is positive and some is negative overall of paid inclusion programs. But let me point out one specific one:

Wow, this is very big news Brett -- thanks for sharing! The analytics alone would make it worth the price of admission based on what I'm seeing. I was a big fan of the old PT subscriptions. Not that Yahoo's a bit bigger, I'm all for this.

...Never thought I'd actually welcome paid submissions again with open arms, but I guess that's where we're at these days...

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: YahooPete posted in the forum confirming this:

Thanks for featuring our new Search Submit program and your positive comments. Based on valuable customer feedback, we have launched a new program called Search Submit Basic. As stated in previous posts, through Search Submit Basic, customers can submit up to 5 URLs for inclusion in the Yahoo! index (of course assuming content meets Yahoo!’s Content Quality guidelines), receive essential insights and email support for a flat yearly fee of $49 per URL.

Just to clarify, Search Submit Express is still part of the Search Submit product family and will continue to be supported for existing customers who are currently in the program. We are working on enhancements to Search Submit Express, and will not be accepting new enrollments into Search Submit Express.

Yesterday at Search Engine Land I reported Search Engines Do Not Have To Display All Ads Says Court based on Eric Goldman's post named Search Engines Defeat "Must-Carry" Lawsuit--Langdon v. Google.

In short, a court ruled that Google and other search engines do not have to carry any ad submitted to them. Specifically, Christopher Langdon was upset with a company or two and wanted to buy ads to complain about them (i.e. a "griper") but Google denied him. They would not approve his ads. So he took Google to court, and the judge ruled in favor of Google saying, "some of his [Langdon] claims "specious" and "frivolous." Eric them noted three things we can pull from this case:

(1) The First Amendment gives search engines the right to reject any ad they want.
(2) "Search engine decisions to reject ads is protected by 47 USC 230(c)(2) as a legitimate decision to filter "otherwise objectionable" content."
(3) "Search engines aren't state actors and are not bound by the First Amendment, so they do not deprive advertisers (such as Langdon) of First Amendment rights by rejecting their advertising."

But these are ads, flip it around to the free/organic results and Google has often denied to remove such listings. Why? Because they want their algorithms to handle it. Heck, there is a profession to handle such organic results named reputation management.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a nice amount of discussion on the ruling, so here are a few quotes:

Seems logocal to me. Otherwise an accountancy search engine (or directory) could be sued for not listing a shoe shop. That would be absurd.

I'm not constitutional scholar, but doesn't the first amendment keep the Government from preventing free speach? I don't think it applies to individuals or business.

First amendment is clearly a restriction/limitation on government powers. Google, despite all their power, is not the government.

This case, OTOH, is quite different to the questions about whether the SE's should censor listings out of their organic SERP's. The bar for censorship should be (and is) much, much higher in that arena. Though personally, I don't think it's high enough, given the arbitrary nauture of some of the decisions from the major SE's WRT listings they are unwilling to display, relating to both content and region.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Ever have a question about Google AdSense? Ever need advice on the best strategy to use for your ads? Ever want to know if you should use one ad style over another? If the answer is yes, where do you go for that information?

A DigitalPoint Forum thread asks, "What's your best source for AdSense advice?" Here are some of the replies in the forums:

• DigitalPoint AdSense Forum
• Inside AdSense Blog
• SitePoint AdSense Forum
• JenSense.com
• Adsense-support[at]google.com
• AdSense Help Group
• Problogger

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

The Search Engine People Blog reports that now Canadian companies can be Google AdWords Professionals as well. That is right, in the past Canadians were not welcome in Google Advertising Professionals Program but now they are.

How does a Canadian firm qualify?

• Have a billing and mailing address in a country where company qualification is available.


• Employ at least two Qualified Individuals in the program. Individuals must be qualified under the main company-registered My Client Center account and not their own account. See the requirements for becoming a Qualified Individual.


• Build and maintain the minimum 90-day required total client spend ($1,000 US) for the company's My Client Center account.

So this is good news for those Canadian AdWords pros that want to be verified as AdWord Pro companies.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums and Cre8asite Forums.

Google Maps and the quality and accuracy has come up quite a few times over the past year or so. So what can you do if you need to report an issue with Google Maps?

A Google Groups thread has advice from Maps Guide Jen about how to fix map errors.

Jen explains that "map data errors - such as misspellings of town names, missing streets, etc - are often not the same as your business being located incorrectly." To suggest fixes for town names, missing streets, etc - Google uses both NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas for these things. So if you report the issues to them, Google will update the maps when they are released to them.

How do you report issues to them?
NAVTEQ
http://mapreporter.navteq.com/
TeleAtlas
http://www.teleatlas.com/MapInsight/

What if there are other issues?

Google has a Google Maps Contact Form where you can report issues with Search Quality, Feedback and Suggestions, How do I?, Report a problem, I'm a Business Owner, and Maps API Feedback.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Last Tuesday night Google announced that the Google AdWords Quality Score Algorithm Update Now Live. They said it would take 3 to 4 days for people to see the full impact. I have let enough time elapse and I figured I analyze a thread to see what happened.

In all honesty, the most active thread, I have found, is the WebmasterWorld thread. The thread is not all that active based, as one would expect with a large algorithm change. Similar to my thoughts on the the feedback on Yahoo!'s quality score change.

I will put out some quotes from those who replied:

Just got another round of QSing, raising minium bids on certain words yet again. This time from 50 cents to $1. Or in another words from barely profitable to wholely unprofitable.

Yes, it's purely a money grab. I have an account with 1250 keywords. Before the update, 700 were great, the rest ok. Most of the 700 were under 5 cents. Now, about 750 are great but the minimums have risen to 5 cents, so our QS improved overall but so did the cost. About half the oks have dropped to poor. Also, you will notice that the increments start at 5 cents. We no longer have minimum bid at price in between 5 cent increments. So greats are at 5 cents, ok, are 10,15,20,25,30 and poors are at 40,50,1.00,2.00,5.00. So maybe the algorithm does work better at identifying relevance but the minimums have been cranked up. They will keep doing this until they see a significant move away from adwords and then pull back. They are trying to find the advertiser base gouge limit.

15% of keywords went 'inactive' with a doubling of min bid. QS still 'ok'. However, ad still shows in #3 slot. I can't tell anything anymore about the state of my campaign keywords.

No reason to up min bid from $1 to $5 when the keyword is totally relevant to ad, landing page and website topic.

And these are keywords that convert the best... and no wonder!

But honestly, I thought I see a rush of posts this Monday, with tons of complaints. I have not seen that.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Ever since the launch of Google AdSense, AdWords advertisers always wondered which sites their ads were running on. Google added opt out methods; to opt out of the content network and later to opt out of specific sites. But they never showed you a list of sites your ad would appear on.

That appears to be changing. Jennifer Slegg wrote Google AdWords To Show Advertisers Exactly Where Their Contextual Ads Are Displayed at Search Engine Land and has more details at her blog JenSense.

She explains that a New York Times article from Kim Malone says "Google will begin listing all publisher websites where AdWords advertiser's ads are being run."

In the next few months, Google’s advertiser reports will begin listing the sites where each ad runs, Ms. Malone said. She added that advertisers on the Google networks would soon be able to bid on contextual ads on particular Web sites rather than simply buying keywords that appeared across Google’s entire network.

Very cool!

Overall, most AdWords advertisers are thrilled. I suspect some AdSense publishers are not.

But I think this is a great move by Google. Who knows, maybe some of the large competitors will beat Google to implementing this?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Via a DigitalPoint Forums thread a user points to his blog post that says he spotted an ad on this page for Gmail that is in the form of a video ad.

As you can see from the screen capture, there is an embedded Google Video a Gmail logo, a video link, a secrets tip link, and previous and next video links.

Amit Agarwal explains more about the ad he saw:

» The Adsense gadget has an embedded Youtube player that serves the four videos of GMail Theater Ads directly from Youtube.

» The YouTube player is 250x200 pixels while the Adsense Ad size is 300x250 pixels.

» The Adsense Flash widget is actually served by Lab Pixies, a company that also creates gadgets or widgets for personalized pages like PageFlakes, Google Personalized Homepage and Microsoft Live.com.

» Though the images in the ad are served by LabPixies, they are redirected via gmodules.com/ - a Google owned site.

» Clicking the Tips Tab on the Ad will show the following tips:
(1) "Is any chat really complete without a flying monkey? Spice up your messages with these Gmail emoticons.",
(2) "You can make any endless email thread invisible, but just a quick search away if you ever need to catch up.",
(3) "Choose any photo as your Gmail pic and it will pop up next to your name on people's inbox and Contact lists.",
(4) "Keep your social life hopping by easily adding event info from your Gmail messages to your Google Calendar.",
(5) "To find all emails from a certain someone, type from: and their first or last name into the Gmail search box.

I personally saw several ads there on refresh, yes, one for Gmail, but not a video ad. I did see an animated ad, so I believe this screen shot above. When I clicked on the gmail ad, it took me to the Welcome To Gmail page (screen capture here).

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Cre8asite Forums launched a new forum last night named Social Media And Tagging. Kim Krause-Berg, founder of Cre8asite Forums, explains the new forum:

In light of the addition of social media and tagging as tools and methodology for SEO/M practiices, we have added a new forum on the topic of social media.

We're in the process of putting together a team of people to moderate it and provide answers to your questions, as well as educate the community on all aspects of this exploding area of the Internet.

Our first confirmed new Moderator is Liana Evans, (aka Storyspinner), who many of you know.

We look forward to some lively discussions and learning from those who are passionate about social media

Li Evans, aka storyspinner, will be the new moderator for this forum. Liana Evans runs Search Marketing Gurus and has been known to pull off some nice social media tactics in the past. Li's welcome thread is over here.

In other SEO forum news, last week, WebmasterWorld Launches SMO Forum Named Social Media Tagging & Bookmarking Optimization.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Yahoo! has added a dedicated representative in the search forums to respond to Yahoo! Search Marketing questions. The new representative was introduced by YahooSarah in both DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

YahooSarah, who has been managing both Yahoo! Search Marketing threads and Yahoo! Publisher Network threads has enlisted YahooPete to focus pretty much on the Yahoo! Search Marketing side of things. Now, YahooSarah will be able to focus most of her efforts to the Yahoo! Publisher Network side of things.

YahooSarah said:

All, I’ve got some good news to share and wanted to start a thread here. Since we’ve rolled out our new advertising system, my goal was to be even more engaged in message board discussions to help you with questions or concerns. I think this community embraced that goal, because I’ve been pretty busy keeping up with posts and private emails- thanks ;-)

To help grow our involvement on the boards even more, I’ve recruited a colleague of mine to serve as a new rep for the boards, YahooPete. He will have more time to dedicate to issues specifically about Yahoo! Search Marketing, while I start to focus more on threads about the Yahoo! Publisher Network (doing both took quite a bit of time, and this is only a part of what I do for Yahoo!). I’m still around though, so you may see me chime in from time to time.

We really do appreciate all the feedback you have given us over the past few months and we look forward to continuing the dialogue. Welcome YahooPete- good luck!

YahooSarah

YahooPete said his introductory hello; saying,

Thanks so much for the kindness. I am looking forward to partcipating in the discussion threads. All my best, YahooPete

Welcome YahooPete, oh and trust me, I will be watching you very closely.

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

Greg Sterling reported at Search Engine Land a couple weeks ago about a Google Maps Sticker Spotted In London. Loren Baker also referenced this noting that no sightings of this sticker have been found in the US.

I finally found a thread with official confirmation from Google on this.

A Google Groups thread has Maps Guide Jen saying:

The stickers are part of a marketing campaign that Google did in the UK. There currently aren't any available for Google Maps in the US. I'll contact you individually with more information!

So I wonder if you comment in the thread, and if your in the US, can you get yourself a sticker. I will try.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread notes that a new version of Google's AdWords Editor is out. Version three has many new features including:

• Site targeting: AdWords Editor now provides full support for site-targeted campaigns.
• Negative sites: Add or edit negative sites for keyword- and site-targeted campaigns.
• Edit while you wait: If you manage multiple accounts with AdWords Editor, edit another account while your changes post.
• Count your selection: The status bar now displays the number of rows you've selected in the data view.
• Pause or resume ads, keywords, and sites: Use the Status menu in the edit panel to change the status of selected items.

And these "upload features":

• Export to HTML: Your HTML export will show or hide deleted campaigns, depending on how you've configured your preferences. The HTML export is ideal for showing your account to someone who doesn't use AdWords Editor.
• Export to CSV: In addition to account, campaign, and ad group snapshots, you can now export custom views. The CSV export is ideal for spreadsheets or other applications that can read structured data files.
• Paste to multiple ad groups: Select multiple destination ad groups via the Edit menu > Paste Special.

Well known AdWords forums guy, GuyFromChicago, said:

Go get it. It's good.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: Official Google blog post is now live at the AdWords Blog.

The huge adCenter overcharging bug this past Friday was patched towards the end of the day Friday. Microsoft promised to refund all the overcharging that occurred throughout the day in their blog post.

After reviewing the threads at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld it appears that everyone has been refunded their money.

I have actually received a refund for this already. It was automatic and happend sometime on Sunday. Support also just phoned me to say everything was sorted and back to normal, but those who still have the paused campaign problem should be fixed asap. Didn't affect me so didn't ask anything more about that.

I have to say that adcenter seemed to do a good job at fixing what seemed to me like a massive problem, and fixed it quite quickly.

Yeah my account averages like $40/day and then I log on a couple of days ago and it is at like $350.

This was realtime via a report so I couldnt see why it spiked but I figured it was just adcenter trying to hit my monthly budget (which they were not even getting me close to it) but then I logged in today to look over my account and it now shows like $61 for that day.

I guess they fixed it without notification. Im happy about that!

People still want to know why this happened in the first place.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread notes how a Google search on shoes returns a YouTube result.

The YouTube video can be found here and it shows a humorous movie on shoes.

The thread wonders why anyone searching on shoes would be interested in that. But others find the video entertaining and enjoyable.

However, people are beginning to worry if this is another conspiracy theory. Google is going to begin to rank YouTube in the top results, because they now own them.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

There was a lot of buzz last week with the launch of Google Apps Premier Edition and with that comes potential harm. Yes, Google Desktop has recently been reported to have two serious malicious holes, both, I believe, now patched. But what about Google Apps?

With any hack, one of the first steps is to locate vulnerable sites or computers. Google Apps requires sites to verify domain ownership within the first 30 days. They can do this one of two ways:

• Create a CNAME record
• Upload an HTML file to your server

A Cre8asite Forums thread shows how easy it is to use Google to search for sites that are potentially running Google Apps for Domains on their site. A search on inurl:googlehostedservice.html currently returns just about 700 sites. Now, I am sure many opt for the CNAME method, and I think that those can be easily discovered, but now with a simple Google search.

The thread asks, is Google asking for trouble with this? Why not make a dynamically generated file that has no pattern, that can be uploaded to your server. Instead of a standard file named googlehostedservice.html?

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

I just wanted to give everyone an update that the site design for the blog is complete, as far as I know. We launched version three Tuesday night and then received some incredibly feedback.

Based on that feedback we made the following changes:

• Fixed issues in IE6 with formatting
• Bolded title fonts
• Tried to synchronize the two font styles on the site, keeping the middle fonts all neutral
• Added minimum width of 900px and maximum 1500 pixels
• Added image code verification on contact us forms
• Lightened up sponsored links
• Some minor style changes
• And some minor functionality changes

If I missed anything, please comment below or email us at contact us form.

We also maxed out our advertiser, in fact, we have a waiting list. I still have a banner to upload. So that is good news.

The forums should be migrated to the new design this week.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

When you install the Google Custom Search Engine on your pages, on many browsers, you will notice that inside the search box is read in a light font, "Google Custom Search." Here is a screen shot of our implementation on this site.

A Google Groups thread asks how can you remove the default text from the search box.

To be clear, this is against the terms of service as mentioned by a Google Coop Engineer.

2.3 Attribution. The Search Box shall conspicuously display a graphic (available at http://www.google.com/coop/images/searchbox.gif ) that indicates that the Service is provided by Google. The graphic shall link to the Google site located at http://www.google.com or such other address as Google may designate from time to time during the Term.

But if you want to take a chance and remove the attribution then according to the Google Groups you can add the value=" ", so the code looks like:

<input name="q" type="text" size="40" value=" " />

There are mentions that the AJAX implementation by default does not show the "Google Custom Search" text. If that is the case, then go with that method and you won't be violating Google's terms of service.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Fixed: The adCenter representative has notified us via the two forums and the adCenter blog that the overcharging has been fixed and that they are now working up a plan to reimburse advertisers.

Update: This is a very serious issue. Continue reading below...

Reported this morning at WebmasterWorld, was a bug where advertisers reports are showing that they are being seriously overcharged for many of their keywords.

I have a bid. of $0.30 and i was charged on a click for $16.

So this user was overcharged by about 500%.

They charged me $5.10/click on something that is clearly set at $0.44/click!

My daily spend increased almost 10-fold from $140 to over $1350 yesterday!

The official adCenter representative, adCenterEU, confirmed this issue saying:

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

This is a known issue and our support team are working on analysing the root cause and providing a solution.

We'll post back when we have more news.

Thanks for your patience.

Regards

adCenterEU

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Not only is there a thread at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums also has a thread with screen captures. Take a look at this:

Notice how the base bid is $0.50 and the average bid is $281.58. Nice Microsoft! Yes, Microsoft is aware of this issue and posted an update in the WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint thread about an hour ago.

The adCenter team are still ascertaining the root cause in order to implement a resolution.

We completely understand your frustration with this issue and are pulling out all the stops to bring it to a swift conclusion.

Once we have fixed the issue we will decide on which and how customers are credited for any overspend due to the error and we hope you'll bear with us while we investigate.

We'll post back in the next 3 hours with further updates.

Thanks again for your patience on this matter.

This is big!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & DigitalPoint Forums.

Marcia posted a thread at WebmasterWorld informing us that Yahoo! Search is now highlighting the keyword search you have done, when you click on the cache link.

For example, if you search on search engine roundtable in Yahoo! Search and then click on the cache link under the top result, you will notice that the keywords "search" "engine" and "roundtable" are all highlighted in the cache results. Here is a screen capture:

Did Yahoo! every highlight keywords before? I am not sure if they did or not. There is a WebmasterWorld thread from November 2004 saying the Yahoo! cache does not have highlighted keywords anymore...

Marcia's posts:

I saw it for the first time yesterday evening. They're still not showing a cache date, but the words in the search term are now highlighted in bold, bright colors.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

MSGraph at WebmasterWorld posted a link to a Google Patent filed in August 22, 2005 with authors including Matt Cutts named removing documents.

The patent basically describes how you can remove documents using Google personalized search, which I described in detail with Google Personalized Search Removal of Results Feature. But msgraph points to a few specific lines in the patent application.

40. A method, comprising: aggregating information regarding documents that have been removed by a group of users; and assign scores to a set of documents based on the aggregated information.
41. The method of claim 40, wherein aggregating information regarding documents that have been removed by a group of users includes: identifying a set of legitimate users and a set of illegitimate users; and collecting information regarding documents that have been removed by the set of legitimate users.
42. The method of claim 40, wherein aggregating information regarding documents that have been removed by a group of users includes: identifying a set of users with a defined relationship; and collecting information regarding documents that have been removed by the set of users.

Now, before I explain them, look at the last question Chris Sherman asks Matt Cutts in A Keynote Conversation with Google's Matt Cutts from SES London (thanks Li).

Chris: Crystal ball time, where do you see Google going in the next 3-5 years?
Matt: Fantastic question, in my own opinion – personalization, and localization. Also if you have your data, you can store it at Google. You can almost start your own business of 5-10 business for free. Google’s ambition to organize the worlds information, this is really where its going.

Now, the patent application does seem to imply that Google may (or may not) use personalization data on the "aggregate." Which would mean that forming a collected base o trusted Google searchers, in a social aspect, i.e. Google Co Op and others, may be the future of your results. Would Google use the "remove result" feature as a way to determine what pages are more trusted than others? Um, "aggregating information regarding documents that have been removed by a group of users includes" and doing what with that?

Keep in mind, this is just a patent application. The whole or pieces of this patent application may or may not be used in the future or in the current Google algorithm.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A Cre8asite Forums thread spots something I have never seen before. A search on google earth in Google brings up an AdWords ad in the sponsored results for someone using the Google AdSense Referral Program to make money. But the twist is that they are using Google Pages so that it appears that this is the official Google site.

As you can see from the screen capture above, the URL in the sponsored result is from Google.Earth.GooglePages.com/Earth. The ad title and ad copy seems legit, and I think this is fine with the Google terms of service, but I may be wrong.

I am sure the ad has a nice click through rate and a high quality score. Nice search marketing on this guy's part. Just curious how legit it is...

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

There is a relatively old Search Engine Watch Forums thread that has a new post from Discovery with some nice information. He was originally wondering why his geo targeted campaign towards Texas was sending zero traffic to his site and zero impressions on his ad.

Yahoo! informed him he was being way to specific with his campaign.

What Discovery did was created one campaign that was:

1. Geo targeted to Texas
2. Uses Texas specific keyword qualifiers
3. Created a Texas specific landing page

Yahoo! recommended that he create two different campaigns. A campaign for that was geo targeted towards Texas, using the geotargetting tools. And another campaign that uses Texas specific keyword qualifiers.

That method worked, Discovery is now getting traffic, but the traffic isn't converting as well as one would like.

Why did the previous method not work? I suspect it may have to do with it possibly being rare for some Texans to search using the word Texas. So imagine, you live in Texas and you are looking for a local auto insurance company. Would you search "texas car insurance" or "car insurance"? I am not sure - I am a bit too involved in search to be considered the typical searcher...

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

So how long do you drag out the training process after you complete SEO or design work for a client? Sometimes they just can't get enough knowledge. Other times you feel like you are holding someone's hand though a painful process of learning a technology they just don't "get". There is a good thread on High Rankings that is discussing how much training is needed after the job is done. Some are saying that it needs to be clearly defined before you start the project. Add a training fee to the bill and charge for anything after that.

The member ttw had a good suggestion, she says,

"Our contract usually official concludes when the site is uploaded to the client's server and goes live. From that point on, we offer ongoing maintenance at a per hour rate -- which includes a minimum of 1 hour for each service request."

I like that. Usually I budget training time into the project and often its very hard to expect what kind of "training" you will need to do. It takes getting to know the client before hand and what their expectations are. There are clients that just wanted it "taken care of" and then there are those that "wanttoknowitall".

The member Carolinebogart has a good point about the situation, saying:

"Trick for me was figuring out when the stop training. Joomla is huge, intelligent clients like to know stuff. I break it out into where their talents are best used, entering articles, maybe adding a menu item. "

Great way to look at it. Navigate to HighRankings for continued discussion.

WebmasterWorld has launched a new forum named Social Media Tagging and Bookmarking Optimization. The new forum comes to life with the recent buzz on SMO - Social Media Optimization.

What is SMO?

• Tagging
• Web based bookmarking
• Digg.com
• StumbleUpon
• del.icio.us
• Link bait content
• and so on

It is being used all over, you see we have our SMO buttons in the footer of each post.

WebmasterWorld administrator, engine, said in the WebmasterWorld thread:

With social media now paying a huge role in modern Internet life, we decided to create this forum to explore the opportunities and developments.

I am excited to watch this forum for some juicy topics.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

As I reported yesterday at Search Engine Land, Google has reverted back from the new design they launched a few weeks ago, to the older the design they had before the redesign. Here is the before and after.

Two days ago:

Now:

This overa