March 2007 Archives

I know Lisa feels like she can steal the Search Buzz Roundup with her own take, but we won't allow for that, will we? :)

Google Time

First, we found out that Google AdSense does allow revenue sharing, and you can track your checks using a nice Google Maps mashup.

We also realized that Google AdSense publishers can get banned and that the bans are done so on an account, domain, or URL wide basis.

We found that there appears to be a domain-wide quality score in AdWords. This was also picked up by Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal and by Peter Da Vanzo at V7N and also by those witty guys over at Threadwatch -- thank you guys!

Pay Per Click and Pay Per Action seem to have been in the spotlight this week as well. On the PPC front, you really should manage your campaigns regularly. (Lisa, of course, had to chime in on this or else she would be out of a job.)

Furthermore, you can get a nice sneak peek of PPA in action on the frontend as well as on the PPA backend. Pretty cool stuff, guys.

Also, since I'm all about optimization, the nofollow tag has been questioned again regarding rankings, and there's a cool way to optimize images for long tail searches. I assume that if you have a store and host images for the products you're selling, this would be a great way to get targeted traffic for those products. Of course, make sure you're optimizing using the right white hat techniques!

Yahoo! Mail Turns 10

This may be a premature birthday wish for Yahoo! Mail, which is actually celebrating its 10th anniversary in the month of May. However, they are celebrating with us and have offered unlimited email storage and new APIs for Yahoo! Mail. You guys are so generous.

We filled it out for you!

This week, the guys using MSN search in the UK were in for something interesting: prepopulated search boxes. This has not been received well thus far, unfortunately. Most people do know how to search and don't need to guess what MSN thinks they should be searching for. However, the guy over at The Apprentice UK Blog had his knickers in a twist over the news.

Oh, and as of today, those prepopulated search phrases seem to be gone. Maybe they're onto us.

Only two more weeks!

SES New York is around the corner, and there will be heavy coverage of the event on Search Engine Roundtable. Who will be blogging for the event? Well, besides yours truly, there's an incredible roundup of talent who will be blogging the event to benefit those who aren't able to make it. Yeah, we're nice that way.

Speaking of which, Gilad covered some of the SES Munich events earlier this week. He wrote about successful site architecture, search marketing for large companies, designing a search friendly website, and blogging, social media marketing, and linkbait. Thanks Gilad!

Next week on Search Engine Roundtable

This Monday night is Passover, which means Barry and I will be off the blog on Tuesday and Wednesday. You Diggaholics will have to just wait an extra day for the Digg Digest. Lucky you, though; you don't have to listen to Barry and me chat for those two days. (I can already hear Lisa saying "Huzzah!") Our outstanding editors and guest authors will be coming in to provide fresh new articles. If you don't like them, feel free to submit your feedback in our suggestion box.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread points to a thread that Barry wrote at Search Engine Land with a sneak peek of Google's new Pay-Per-Action. We discussed the launch of Pay-Per-Action, which was announced last week. Barry then posted some Pay-Per-Action screenshots.

On DigitalPoint, the sentiment seems to be of excitement and anxiety. Many people are ready to test out the new features.

Barry shows us how the PPA ads will show up in his personal blog. A screenshot of this is below:

Discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Numerous reports from users in the WebmasterWorld forum say that the MSN reinclusion process is taking a long time.

One member says that he tried to email webspam@msn.com and it got bounced back. According to msndude, a Microsoft representative, that is because the address is at @microsoft.com.

Another person questions the proper way to submit a reinclusion request:

I used this form

feedback.live.com/eform.aspx?productkey=wlsearch&mkt=en-us

im guessing this is the new place to request reinclusion?

anyone know of any other way?

Another member says that he submitted a request and has not heard back:

Even with the right address, don't hold your breath. I sent in a request back on March 6th and I've yet to hear back from Microsoft.

Which way is the best way to submit a reinclusion request from Microsoft, and how long should it take? Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Earlier this week, I wrote about Yahoo offering unlimited mail storage. I didn't mention this recent WebmasterWorld finding that states that Yahoo is going to offer new APIs for Yahoo mail. According to a news report:

Late on Wednesday, Yahoo plans to deliver application programming interfaces (APIs) for Yahoo Mail, said Chad Dickerson, head of the Yahoo Developer Network. The move comes on the heels of an announcement to offer unlimited storage capacity for Yahoo Mail users starting from May.

Yahoo officials had indicated in September of last year their intention to let external developers write applications for Yahoo Mail, and the tools will now be available at the Yahoo Developer Network Web site.

The Yahoo Mail API will be added onto Yahoo's many APIs available to programmers, including Yahoo! Answers, Yahoo! Shopping, and Yahoo! Maps, among many others.

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

In the Cre8asite Forums, moderator skore reports the findings that ads are coming to Reddit. He refers to their blog:

Part of the reason reddit was acquired was so that eventually it could be used to sell advertising. We wanted to delay ads until we could debut all the new stuff we're working on, but it's taking longer than expected, and the powers-that-be are getting antsy. So, sometime later this week we'll be flipping the switch to turn a few ads on.

He also adds:

One interesting thing to watch is they think they have found a way to track the ads so they can let Reddit users vote/comment on them (just like using the system).

A number of users are skeptical of this approach. Administrator Adrian does not think that ads will be well received and will be voted down regardless.

Heh, I bet a load of reddit users will down vote every ad going anyway.

Others, like moderator JoeDolson, wonder about the CTR effect of allowing ads to be voted upon:

I like the idea of voting and commenting on advertisements - but I'm sure people will also want to know the end destinations to take into consideration in their voting, which will require click throughs...

Users, like moderator eKSstreme, hope that the ads will be distinguishable from the rest of the text on the site:

I hope their ads will be clearly marked as that. Otherwise it's deceiving the community, which is not the best strategy to take.

What do you think Reddit will do? Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks if Google just bans an AdSense Account or do they also ban domains that AdSense can be displayed on?

I am very certain that Google does ban Google AdSense accounts completely. An AdSense publisher can have four different web sites, but the ads are pulled from a single AdSense account. If that AdSense account has been banned the ads will not show up on any of the sites this publisher controls.

The thread also adds that Google does ban domains and sites that AdSense cannot be displayed on. So if I have a domain that Google has banned, the ads won't show on that domain, but they can appear on other domains.

Even more so, Google can and does ban ads from showing on specific URLs. For example, if you are accused of a DMCA copyright violation, Google will not show the ad on that specific Page/URL accused of the DMCS violation until the necessary steps are taken.

There are such things as Google AdSense Account Bans, Google AdSense Domain Bans, and Google AdSense URL Bans.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

There is an interesting thread at WebmasterWorld about a site that appears to be losing ground in Google because they used the nofollow attribute for linking to some of their internal pages. For example, they nofollowed links to their privacy policy, contact us page, user agreement, terms of service and so on.

theBear, someone I really respect in the forums, responded saying something very true:

Only part of which is strictly PR related, depending on how Google looks at things the related link text should be made moot, the page that is doing the link just had an update done to it, and the page linked to should have also lost an IBL. So could this affect ranking etc? Yup.

Then WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, response with more food for thought:

Let's take a very naive look at this. The rel=nofollow attribute was introduced to combat blog comment spam. It was supposed to mean "I don't vouch for this link."

What message does that send if the link goes to one of the pages on your own site - especially to contact information which certainly you would "vouch for"? I think the message is very clear: "I'm trying to manipulate Google's rankings for my urls."

But let me add one more twist to this. In the past I reported how Google handles the nofollow attribute. Specifically, that Google will not crawl a link that has the nofollow attribute on it. Adam Lasnik of Google specifically said that. But of course, Google will crawl the same URL if it is linked to elsewhere, without the nofollow attribute.

So, if Google won't crawl a link that has the nofollow attribute associated. And if these pages are not linked to from other sources (typically a privacy policy, contact us page, user agreement, terms of service type of page), then they won't do well in the search results. Plus, those pages (the ones that are linked to using the nofollow tag) will not benefit your other pages on the site.

All in all, the theory has some substance. But I can see an argument against all three points in this article. Kind of makes for a good thread.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The Yahoo! Publisher Network has one feature that Google AdSense does not have. Yahoo allows you to transfer your earned publisher income to your Yahoo Search Marketing account, to spend the money there.

According to a WebmasterWorld thread, AdWords advisor claims that this feature "is on our radar." But even more so, he/she explain why it is taking so long for Google to implement.

To that I'll add that, for a number of reasons, including regulatory issues with the many different currencies with which one may pay for Adwords (or be payed in by AdSense), this is not nearly as simple as it might appear to be at first blush. ;)

I wonder if this is one of the reasons why Yahoo hasn't opened up YPN to publishers outside of the United States? In any event, this would be a nice feature to add, based on the number of requests I have seen out there over time.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

According to a recent WebmasterWorld thread, Google has said that it views all bad SERP reports but may not necessarily look into them further.

In an interesting release on their webmaster PR blog, Google claims that they will investigate all bad SERP reports from inside their panel tool. Problem results claims made through the public report form are viewed but not necessarily investigated.

Not many people agree with this proposition. One person has reported a site and noticed no changes:

I have been thinking this for quite some time as I have reported a site hidding text etc for months and it has risen in the serps and not dropped.

...

Seems this a very bad move on Google's part....

This may be very true and it is an incident that has been around for over two years.

Others are confused with regards to what reports this refers to and believe that some of these reports are fraudulent to begin with:

I take it this is about the "Dissatisfied? Help us improve" link at the bottom of the results?

If so, I think that many of the "users" submiting feedback will actually be webmasters trying to get their site listed higher or get a competitor banned.

Cue: "I'm trying to find xyz.com but can't for this popular phrase", "after searching though millions of their pages, I've found two invisble links on pararpaph 5 of page 320: please can you ban them forever", etc.

I know people who send several of these per day, all pretending that they're not webmasters!

Interestingly enough, we covered something earlier about the ethics of reporting SERP spam. Initially, we reported about the best way to contact Google about such incidents.

The question on WebmasterWorld shifts in the middle of the thread: do Google's human search quality raters review these reports? Is it practical to evaluate the relevance of results manually?

Well I feel google should give importance to both for webmasters and users. Users are its client and webmasters are suppliers.

It has been a constant effort by google to provide relevent result and that is why it is trying to do so many things.

Verifying SERP is a good idea but I was wondering how practical is it to do it manually. I guess they would build a system for this.

Barry posted on Search Engine Land saying that they do investigate all authenticated spam results as reported through the Google Webmaster Central under the Tools menu:

The real difference is that anonymous complaints through Google's Spam Reporting Tool are not weighted as heavily, as Google says:

Our spam report forms are provided in two different flavors: an authenticated form that requires registration in Webmaster Tools, and an unauthenticated form. Currently, we investigate every spam report from a registered user. Spam reports to the unauthenticated form are assessed in terms of impact, and a large fraction of those are reviewed as well.

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums member has discovered a way to optimize images for long tail searches that will yield results in both Google Web Search and Google Image Search.

He says that the best way to optimize the images is to create a separate page that is heavily targeted towards the image that you are creating and then you can link to that page and the image. In his example, he shows how to target the keyword "Black Ferrari 612 Scaglietti," which yields the following results:

• You’ve added a highly-optimised page for the keywords ‘Black ferrari 612 scaglietti’.
• Courtesy of the ‘Back’ anchor on the new page, when a visitor finds the new page through the search engines they can easily find the attached content page.
• You’ve added more content to your site, and SEs love new content & big sites.

As a photographer, this is a pretty neat way of getting the images that I post on my personal photoblog optimized for more search exposure.

We have discussed previously how to optimize images for Google as well.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

A member in the Google Groups says that he is unable to link his Google AdWords Starter Edition account with his Google Analytics account. He believes that the reason for this is because he has the Starter Edition of AdWords:

I am using the Starter version of Adwords and have an Analytics account as well, all under the same Google email / password. For some reason I cannot figure out how to link the two. Is the fact I'm using Starter Edition prohibiting me from doing so?

An official Google representative confirms his suspicions. AdWords Starter Editions can not link their accounts to Google Analytics.

You're correct that your Analytics account can't be linked to your AdWords account because you're using the Starter Edition. If you'd like to link the two accounts, you can upgrade to the Standard Edition.

You can find instructions for upgrading at:
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=31757

Also, here's how to link your AdWords account to your Analytics
account:
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=26789

Discussion continues in Google Groups.

A DigitalPoint member writes that he originally had managed an AdWords campaign across several domains and received a "Great" quality score for his keyword groups. However, ever since he has begun consolidating his AdWords campaigns on one domain, his quality score plummets. He writes:

We want to move everything to 1 domain name and build a large site around a premium domain name, but when I try sending all of the same ad groups/keywords to the same domain name, instead of the individual one like before our Quality Score plummets. Most keywords are then rated as OK and a decent amount are Poor. It takes a few days for this to happen though. Typically when I test with a new domain name we will have a “Great” Quality Score across the board for a day or two before it tanks and then traffic is basically gone. We literally receive about 1/100th of the traffic we were receiving before, yet the same ads, same keywords, same landing page etc. The only difference is we have everything going to the same domain name instead of individual domain names.

Clearly there is a domain name Quality Score that is affecting us. It seems when using individual domains names the success or failure of an individual ad group/keyword does not affect the others, but when it all goes to the same domain name it seems tied into each other.

It is assumed that his landing pages need more work, but he says that he has had the exact same landing pages on both domains. He speculates that a "new domain definatly resets the quality score."

It is possible that this is on the page level and that it may just be something that the user will need to wait for until the Quality Score updates (which is at least monthly):

I think it's at the page level. LP QS's are not updated that often (once a month, maybe more) so if your LP gets a poor QS you may be stuck with it until it's reevaluated. My hunch is that's why you see changes in the QS after campaigns have been live for few days.

Has anyone else seen this behavior? Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

I began tracking image searches to spot new changes reported by those in the image world. The first thing I spotted was that Google appears to have added the "Maps" navigation link to the Google.co.uk pages.

The photo I spotted was at Yandle's Flickr gallery and he notes:

Google Maps is one of the default search option in th UK (at last)

To verify, I checked some older screen captures I had and Flickr had of Google UK, and it does appear to be correct. Google has just added "Maps" to the navigation in the Google UK version. Of course, the US version (Google.com) had it for a while.

Here is a screen capture:

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

The other day I reported that Microsoft Live Search Link Command Operator Offline. You can not longer use the link:, linkdomain: and inurl: operators at Microsoft's Live Search.

It is official, Microsoft has informed us that they removed it because of "mass automated usage." As I reported at Search Engine Land less than an hour ago, I believe "this is a sign that Microsoft is working on a webmaster tools section, similar to what Google has with Webmaster Central and what Yahoo has with Site Explorer."

We are doing our best to get this back online as soon as possible in a manner that allows folks that use this functionality for real queries. We have a few good ideas up our sleeve on how to enable this, but want to make sure we are making the right changes that will give you the functionality you want and all of our customers the experience they deserve. Our apologies and thank you for being patient. Keep an eye on our blog for updates.

The question is how soon will webmasters be without this command from Live Search? And how much of it will change?

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld & DigitalPoint Forums.

Tamar reported yesterday here that MSN Prepopulates their UK Search Box with "The Apprentice BBC". But it does not appear to just be prepopulated with "The Apprentice BBC". Last night they began showing "Euro 2008 results" in the search box, which leads to here and the first result goes to euro2008.com.

And I just refreshed and I see a third one. This one is for "Cricket World Cup" and looks like:

This new observation seems to me that this may not be a new type of ad. But rather a way to get MSN UK readers to notice the search box, test it out with these predefined search queries. Since these predefined searches are reviewed by Microsoft, they probably have a nice top ten subset. Possibly, this may influence Google users to switch to Microsoft's Live Search?

Or maybe it is a weird type of ad.

Forum discussion continued at DigtialPoint Forums and Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

As you may have read, we've started a brand new Digg column. There are plenty of social news promotional sites out there, but a big favorite among the industry's most respected search engine folks is Digg. We've done some sleuthing to see what interests these folks in the world of search.

Google announced that it accepted applications for its summer of code , the open source project for college students. Then, once you finish coding and graduate, you might want to consider a job with Google. Jason Warner, head of staffing, tells you what not to wear on your Google job interview.

Link building is hot this season. Some fine young man compiled a list of 66 ways to build links . On that note, check out some of the same people I stalk read about talk about link building .

Can you rank higher on Google? Google's secret sauce awaits your challenge. This four-page article is an interesting read and quotes a lot of industry experts.

Did I hear traffic? Yeah, it took me a little longer to get to work today too. Well, there's been an interesting study that was released that shows that changing the structure of your URL does increase rankings, and consequently, traffic. And if you're looking for more tips to improve your rankings, you might want to consider these six tips that address redirects, subdomains, custom 404 pages, and more.

For a 18 cool ways to pimp your Google calendar, check out these hot tips .

Oh, and I'm sure you remember that last week, Google got pretty with personalization from a design standpoint. Did you know that these personalized themes also have some easter eggs ? Now you do.

Li notes that the PPC model can be affected by Google's new Pay Per Action implementation.

If you didn't catch it from us, Google has launched a new mobile search engine .

So, there you have it... fun finds from our search industry experts and people I need to keep active on Digg so I have something to write about admire.

Now that I have hired Tamar as a editor for the Search Engine Roundtable, we have more resources to provide you with more coverage of the search forums. I really wanted to expand beyond that, but at the same time, keep true to our goal of being the "pulse of the search marketing community."

That is why I am proud to introduce a new weekly column where we will be providing coverage of the top search stories at Digg. The new column is named the Digg Digest and will be authored by Tamar.

How do we figure out what are the top stories at Digg on search? Simple, we are tracking several dozen of known search faces - that we know participate at Digg. We track what they submit, what they Digg and what they comment on. We continue to track who they befriend and add new Digg profiles to our list.

So not only are we providing daily coverage of search marketing forums. We now will be tracking, weekly, the top search stories at Digg.

Each weekly Digg Digest will contain some of the stories for the past week. They will have a link to the original story as well as a link to the Digg submission. The link to the Digg submission will be marked with a Little Digg man as so .

We hope you like this new weekly column, of course, feedback is always welcomed.

You may have also noticed our new Friday Search Buzz RoundUp column.

According to threads at both DigitalPoint Forums and Search Engine Roundtable Forums, MSN in the UK is showing that the search box is prefilled with "The Apprentice BBC." This was actually spotted this morning but I was able to reproduce it just now.

The screenshot can be seen below:

Barry blogged about it on Search Engine Land as well.

Is this a brokerage deal between Microsoft and the BBC? Danny is following up with both Microsoft and the BBC.

I'm not sure I'm enthusiastic about this implementation and would hope that it does not go further than this "experiment." It would be completely confusing to users who have no intention to search for anything related to "The Apprentice" or whatever else might end up being prepopulated in those search boxes. Even newer users will wonder where they are supposed to search now.

Forum discussions continue at DigitalPoint Forums and SERoundtable Forums. Hat tip to gabs.

Update from Barry: To me, it is looking less to be an ad. More at MSN UK Shows More Prepopulated Kewyords in Search Box.

A user on the Cre8asite Forums says that he has been trying to rank for a specific keyword on Google but is currently competing with numerous .gov websites. He writes:

when i search for their terms in google the first four pages are government websites, i didn't even bother to go deeper... can i rank higher than government websites? they seem to have taken over google for the search terms i need and i'm concerned.

Moderator EGOL says that you should have a clear strategy and know your competition:

You can beat .gov sites... but check their backlinks to get some idea what you are up against.

How can you do this? Bill Slawski, forum administrator, says:

You may want to avoid a head-to-head confrontation on some of the more competitive keywords, and look for opportunities to rank for keywords that they missed. While that may mean targeting some less competitive keywords, if it brings you the audience that you are looking for, that should be fine.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

According to several reports on the DigitalPoint Forums, Gmail experienced an outage in the middle of the day. Members were seeing the following message:

Loading...

This seems to be taking longer than usual.

If you are using a slow Internet connection, you can wait a bit longer for this page to finish loading, or just use basic HTML view for now.

If you are using your normal Internet connection and you usually get past this loading step without any problems, please refresh this page in your browser. If you continue to have trouble loading your account, please visit the help center for troubleshooting information.

Not everyone was experiencing the downtime, but it seemed to have been sporadic throughout the day.

An article in PC World states that this is the third time that Gmail had experienced an outage this month. According to a company spokesperson, Google is aware of the issue and is taking it very seriously.

A Google Groups thread shows official word from Google acknowledging the problem. Their most recent message was posted last night and says:

The account errors some of you have been experiencing are now resolved for the vast majority of users. You may experience some delays in mail delivery, although we expect these to be resolved shortly. A small group of accounts, however, may continue to show errors, and we'll be watching these errors closely to ensure they're fixed as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience today and appreciate your patience.

Update from Barry: Just want to add that David Ogletree also spotted this.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums and Google Groups.

Members at DigitalPoint and WebmasterWorld Forums note that Yahoo is now offering unlimited mail storage. Yahoo confirmed this on their company blog, saying that it is in honor of its 10th anniversary. The unlimited quota will kick in in May of 2007.

On DigitalPoint, many people seem happy at the news:

Clever Marketing...Unlimited really sells people...

Others hope that Yahoo will increase the attachment quota that is currently set to 10MB:

i like unlimited space but i want more than 10mb attachment filesize. hope they provide that soon.

Happy 10th birthday, Yahoo!

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint and WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that the only way to request reinclusion into the Google index is to admit you violated Google's terms of service. If your site has been removed from the Google index, you can then file a reinclusion request with Google within Google Webmaster Central.

But as this WebmasterWorld member noted, you must first admit that you were guilty.

I have gone to Google’s reinclusion request form to look into submitting a reinclusion request for the site. However, to submit such a request, you MUST agree to a declaration that the site has been spamming (you must agree to: “I believe this site has violated Google's quality guidelines in the past.")

Again, you must check off a box where you say, "I believe this site has violated Google's quality guidelines in the past."

If you do not believe the site has violated Google's quality guidelines, then what is an honest person to do?

Senior member, BillyS feels that "it's a rather arrogant way to approach this problem." But jomaxx says something pretty smart, "but if absolutely nothing has been identified or changed is a reinclusion request going to do any good?"

There are times where one takes over a domain that may have done something against Google's guidelines. In that case, you can easily say, yes - it is possible, the previous owner, did things that were wrong. But if not?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums member posted a screen capture of Google testing placing the navigational links above the right sponsored ads, in a box. Here is the screen capture resized and cropped to make it fit better on this site.

This is the most drastic change for the navigation links. The other day we reported Google moving the navigation links to the top of the page.

There are a ton of different reports of people noticing these changes. Here is a roundup of some of that coverage:

- Search Engine Land Coverage
- Google Blogoscoped Coverage
- Google Operating System Coverage
- PPC Blog Coverage
- Search Engine Land Coverage II
- Search Views Coverage

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks if you are allowed to place two different Google AdSense ads from two different publishers on the same page? For example, you and your friend run a blog together. Can you place your ad on the top left, while his ad is on the top right of the same page?

The answer appears to be no.

According to Google AdSense Online Standard Terms and Conditions, section two, paragraph "AdSense for Content," last line:

You shall not display any Ad Unit on a page that contains Ads associated with another Google AdSense customer (e.g., Your Web hosting company), unless authorized to do so by Google.

This does not mean it is out of the question. You simply need to get special person from Google to do so.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums has a thread asking if traffic from Digg can cause problems with your Google AdSense account.

There are a few reasons for concerns when it comes to getting surges of traffic. Now this applies from Digg, StumbleUpon, Netscape and other traffic sources.

First, feel free to read our write up named Is StumbleUpon Considered Auto-Surf Traffic & Against AdSense TOS? In that article, we pretty much determine that StumbleUpon traffic is not against AdSense terms of service.

The same logic applied to that argument is applied here with Digg. Digg is not an automated traffic generation tool. It is not a network that was created simply to create traffic. So in Digg's case, I doubt you will get banned from Google AdSense for getting on the front page of Digg.

In addition, many sites with AdSense have hit the front page of Digg numerous times are were not banned because of it.

As we discussed in the past, there are possible down sides to getting on Digg. But I would like to point out a comment left by Lea de Groot who said:

One day of being hit by Digg doesn't matter, but if the ad supplier (in most cases Google Adsense) evaluates the traffic to show that your page is not as worthwhile because your CTR has dropped, you may be smart priced long after the diggers have gone.

Will Google know it is coming from Digg? Probably, so yes, this may not be a huge issue, but we don't know for sure.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

The twenty-fourth edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download. Google officially launched the beta of Pay Per Action ads, so we had a fifteen minute discussion on that topic to lead off. Then we discussed the new anchor text reports from Google. Followed by a Microsoft Live.com Search update. Then we discussed site SEO factors versus page SEO factors. We talked about Yahoo! Search results missing the directory links, Google anonymizing data, Google testing a new user interface and much more. The topics we covered are listed below, in order of priority (based on search community buzz). You can download the MP3 file and listen at your convenience.

You can listen to the MP3 file with our new player directly below:

Topics We Covered:

1. Google Affiliate Management: Pay Per Action Ads
   
2. Google's New Text Link Ad Unit
   
3. Adsense to be Completely Replaced by Pay-Per-Action?
   
4. First Screen Shots Of Google Pay Per Action In Action
   
5. Google Webmaster Central Showing Back Link Anchor Text
   
6. Google Anchor Text Reports Updated Monthly & Not Finalized
   
7. Possible Microsoft Live Search March Update?
   
8. Google Showing More Weight Towards Site Factors as Opposed to Page Factors
   
9. Yahoo! Removes Category (Directory) Links From Under Search Results
   
10. Google To Take Steps To Anonymize Search Data After 18-24 Months
    
11. Google Testing New Alternative Search Navigation Links
    
12. 75% of Google's Blogspot Blogs are Spam
    
13. Yahoo! & Microsoft Release Papers on Web Spam
    
14. Does "Set It & Forget It" Still Work In The PPC Game?
    
15. Google Testing Yellow AdWords Background
    
16. Does Your Business School Have a High PageRank?
    

Continue reading "Search Pulse 24: Google PPA, Google Anchor Text, Microsoft Live Update, SEO Factors, Yahoo! Search Directory, & More"

According to a Cre8asite Forums thread, Google has launched a new search engine specifically for mobile users.

On the Google Mobile Homepage, you now have the ability to try their new mobile search engine.

Screenshots are below:

This is what the mobile search looks like:

In this recent push, Google joins Ask Mobile Search and Yahoo oneSearch for mobile solutions.

Is it what you expected? Do you think Google Mobile Search needs more work? Join the discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Update: Another WebmasterWorld thread shows that Yahoo has launched a mobile ad Pay-Per-Click campaign today as well.

Earlier, we posted regarding that it was unclear if Google allows for revenue sharing. A member at the DigitalPoint Forums sent an email to Google asking whether revenue sharing was supported by the Google Adsense model and received the following response from a member of the Google Adsense Team:

Your members are welcome to submit an application at https://www.google.com/adsense/app-single-1 with your site as their URL. There is no cost or obligation and our review period takes just 2-3 days. If their applications are approved, they can easily set up their accounts and start displaying Google ads and AdSense for search within minutes.

Please be aware that the revenue generated from these ads will be directly
tied to the specific account(s) indicated in the ad code.

We do not have official confirmation from Google in support of this message, but the DigitalPoint members are very happy to hear these results.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

A Cre8asite Forums thread asks whether a business, which is showing up in the Google Local Search Results in the "A" position, has a business listing with Google. She wonders if entering the business location (which is currently blank) in the Local Business Center would affect the rankings of the business.

Bill Slawski says that this would not be the case and reinforces the information provided to Google about the business, as well as allowing business owners to provide more information about their business to Google.

Their business may be listed, Google's local search may show the correct information for the business, but their Google account is probably not associated with that business, which is why the fields are blank.

The Local Business Listing is a way for a business to either add themselves, or to verify the information that exists already in Google's Local Search, and possibly add more information to it.

Bill adds that the following information can be added when a person actually verifies the business listing:

• alternate phone
• mobile phone
• fax number
• TTY/TDD number
• Associated email address
• website (sometimes Google gets this wrong)
• A description of your choice
• choices of payment methods.

Since there were previously speculated local competitor hijackings (that were since refuted), every business should ideally register themselves in Google's the Local Business Center.

More importantly, to prevent against unwanted phone calls, this information should be accurately updated. Any errors can be reported.

Discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

A Cre8asite Forums member notes that instead of getting targeted Google ads, he is seeing a more pervasive theme of ads for Google AdWords:

It used to be that those pages had some sort of general ads on them, often four different text ads (in a banner). Most often they were fairly well targeted to the general site theme. However, since about a week or so I am really seeing a push of "full width" ads for Google Adwords.

He speculates that this may have something to do with him cutting down on his own AdWords campaign:

About a week ago I killed a lot of my Adwords campaigns (moving them to separate accounts), my normal Google account is now spending about 5% of the Adwords-costs that I used to have.

Are these personalized ads based on recent user behavior?

The user speculates that Google is advertising its own services and may therefore be bumping out other higher paying customers. Is this possible? He thinks that it is and that Google is paying for it themselves.

But by bumping off higher-paying ads they're actually paying for the space (opportunity cost). By grabbing a whole wide Adsense block instead of allowing 4 "paid" advertisements they're losing the money which a potential click would bring. It's not cheap.

An AdWords advertiser also notices that his click-through-rates are lesser than expected.

Well, something is definitely up with AdSense: for the past 4-6 weeks, my CTR has been a paltry 0.5%, with 0.1% routinely popping up. Pathetic waste of space.

My typical CTR used to be around 1.5-3%, depending on the day. Not bad for a site aimed at webmasters!

But not everyone is seeing any difference in behavior.

If you are noticing anything, add your $0.02 to the d