April 2007 Archives

On a DigitalPoint Forums post, member Jon West notices that the searching for Google Checkout currently displays some interesting results: the Google Checkout page appears with the anchor text of "use google checkout on hibidder com free"

I was able to search for "Google Checkout" from two separate locations and was able to reproduce the result, which is below:

What could it be? Could the site have been hacked? Some members speculate that it was because of the ODP designation somewhere else:

I bet someone in the ODP is linking to https://checkout.google.com with the anchor text "use google checkout on hibidder com free" - and because the Google Checkout page doesn't have the no ODP tag, it is displaying what an ODP editor is using in some random category.

But then another member finds that hibidder.com is linking to Google Checkout, perhaps accidentally:

ok, it looks like http://hibidder.com/ is linking to https://checkout.google.com/ with the alt tag: "use google checkout on hibidder.com free", among other google sites.

So it doesn't look like they did it on purpose. Or even know what they did. Nice way to get their site known tho.

What do you think it could be? Digg the story and discuss it at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: Danny also caught Jon's find and wrote on Search Engine Land about why this is occurring. Apparently, the text came from an ALT tag for an image! Do we need standards for pages lacking a title tag? Should the title be inherited from ALT tags? Not according to this example.

On DigitalPoint, WebmasterWorld, and Search Engine Watch Forums, adCenterEU of Microsoft has written in to inform the Microsoft adCenter community that adCenter is currently being upgraded to version 3.7.1.

He writes:

We are pleased to announce the arrival of adCenter 3.7.1. As communicated in advance of the upgrade, reporting will remain out of SLA until around Tuesday May 1st 2007 due to the massive amounts of data that we must process as a result of the upgrade.

Users ‘may’ see some partial data in our BI reporting for day, month, year when compared to hourly:

This is an expected side effect of the upgrade and catch up of data.

This is only affecting data after Friday the 27th of April. All data prior is complete for all grains – hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc.

This is only temporary. We expect to catch up on the data end of day Tuesday 2nd May 2007.

Users will likely see blanks or ‘-‘ in the Keyword Performance tab (under the Campaigns Tab) instead of the actual keyword data. We are working hard to investigate root cause. The good news – there is a work-around:

Simply run a Keyword Performance report in adCenter and you should get the data you are looking for.

We'll keep you informed as the progress of this post-upgrade data catch-up.

It will only be fair to wait until after the upgrade is complete (tomorrow) before reporting any errors, although members already have concerns and requests for future upgrades.

Discussion continues at DigitalPoint, WebmasterWorld, and Search Engine Watch.

This morning, Yahoo will officially announce an acquisition of Right Media which rival's Google's acquisition of DoubleClick. Danny discussed the purchase on Search Engine Land, saying that they purchased these outside companies because their own internal ad networks weren't good enough:

Both moves to me underscore how neither players' own existing ad networks have apparently been good enough for their display ambitions.

In the Search Engine Land article, Danny walks through why DoubleClick was a good match for Google: a large user base, an ad exchange network, and possible competition. Yahoo's acquisition is a "democratic move for ad sales."

A DigitalPoint Forums post references the New York Times article that also broke the story. DigitalPoint members wonder what will be expected of Microsoft, especially since they recently challenged Google for its DoubleClick acquisition. Interestingly, Yahoo! responded with an acquisition of its own, but Microsoft only asked the government to examine the purchase. I think that the strategic acquisition was the way to go here.

On WebmasterWorld, however, members question the leadership of Terry Semel and believe that Yahoo! is going to continually do worse. Again, I think that if you compare Yahoo to Microsoft, Yahoo took lemons and made lemonade. Microsoft just stared at the lemons and brought them to the government for review.

Discussion continues at DigitalPoint and WebmasterWorld.

There have been publishers in both the Google AdSense network and Yahoo! Publisher Network who were banned due to their ads running on sites that were not appropriate. Some publishers are worried that it may happen to them.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks for Google to add an allow domain feature.

This feature will allow the publisher to specify which domains or IPs can show this publisher's ads. If the domain or IP is not allowed, the ads will not show. A security blanket for some worried publishers.

I like the idea.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I have finally been able to find an advertiser who set up a Google Pay Per Action text ad through the help of Search Engine Watch Forums. The ad should appear as the next phrase " " and it should look like a standard text link.

There was some controversy over the text link unit but that seemed to have died down now.

In the past we reported on PPA in use but not the text link ad unit. This is the first known example of a text link ad unit live, as far as I know.

Again, here is the text link unit in real time for you:

Don't forget to try to mouse over the ad and you should see "Ads by Google."

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread talks about Google's new audio ads. Part of that discussion, one member posted a URL to screen captures of the Google Ad Creation Marketplace.

Basically, the Google Ad Creation Marketplace is a place for those interested in Audio Ads from Google to have the ads created for them.

The Ad Creation Marketplace is a searchable directory of professional audio ad specialists that AdWords advertisers may use to locate someone to assist them in the creation of radio advertisements.
Ad creation specialists can help with every step of the process, from concept and scriptwriting to final production and file delivery. For advertisers new to the radio space, or who are starting a new campaign, the directory provides an invaluable starting point for finding the talent they need.

There is a huge FAQ over at http://www.google.com/adwords/acm/advertiser.html.

The early tests are beginning now.

If you want to beta test these ads, visit http://www.google.com/adwords/audioads/ and sign up.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

It has been a while since I have compared Yahoo! Publisher Network with Google AdSense. I have seen threads over the past month or so, with complaints on the Yahoo Publisher Network.

A recent WebmasterWorld thread sums up all those complaints into one nice little package.

The issues publishers are noticing with the Yahoo! Publisher Network include:

• Ad targeting is extremely poor and getting worse
• Earnings are about two to for times less than with Google
• Click through rates on the ads are five to ten times less than on Google

Most of the responses to these numbers are in agreement. Most have agreed that Yahoo's ad are not as targeted, drive less of a click through rate and earn them less money.

I have not personally tested any of this but I am curious, so I am placing an ad below and I would love to see how relevant it is. Of course, I am not going to look at the earnings on this ad - so don't click it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

As much as you explain that toolbar PageRank does not show you a result that you can work with, people still tend to obsess about PageRank. Go ahead and read Danny's PageRank Guide once again. In any event, on Friday we reported about possible buggy PageRank but now there seems to be a wide update in the toolbar PageRank scores.

Most people are noticing a drop of one point, while some are noticing PR0s and others are noticing nothing.

We have threads at Search Engine Roundtable Forums, Search Engine Watch Forums, WebmasterWorld and about a dozen threads at DigitalPoint Forums.

Gabs at Search Engine Roundtable Forums asks if Google is capping the PageRank displayed in the toolbar by a certain value if your site falls within a specific category. Easy enough to check, but I highly doubt it.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums, Search Engine Watch Forums, Cre8asite Forums, WebmasterWorld and about a dozen threads at DigitalPoint Forums.

Hey guys! How are you all doing? It's pouring here, but on a happier note, I have noticed that more and more trees are blooming, which means that spring is now in full force on this side of the globe. Awesome! This is perfect timing, too:

Earth Day

The search engine Earth Day logos should have indicated that something was up on Sunday. Ah, yes, it was that day that we honor and respect our habitat. Yahoo! had a pretty neat logo done in Flash with a windmill. Ask displayed a logo indicating a sunshiney day. Google's logo is most like the weather today: a blue blur where the sky meets the sea.

Continue reading "Weekly Search Buzz RoundUp - 4/27/07"

Ever since Google expanded Webmaster Central to include a link analysis tool, we have been collecting the raw data to analyze for later purposes. Last month, we saw some February and March link data. This month, let's look at April and put it up against February and March.

This month, only three of the top ten most-linked to pages made Digg's front page:

• Yahoo! Removes Category (Directory) Links From Under Search Results
• Google Wins in Kinderstart Lawsuit
• Google Sending Out More Google Coolers to AdWords Advertisers

Tamar did an excellent job organizing the data for me to look at and analyze a bit more. Here is our most recent linkage data from Google Webmaster Central's link tool. One thing stands out about this data is that the first article has 15,426 more links than the second most link to article - that is huge. Anyway, here are the most linked to article, based on April's linkage data.

Continue reading "The Life Time Value of Links Based on Google Webmaster Central"

Now that we know that toolbar PageRank does not mean all that much, in terms of ones ranking at this point in time - we can discuss a possible bug in the Google Toolbar.

A WebmasterWorld thread has dozens of people reporting that old and trusted sites are now showing a PageRank 0 (PR0) score.

If it happened to their site, some are clarifying that they have seen no significant change in traffic data. That is just one more sign that the toolbar PageRank doesn't impact your rankings directly.

But is there some sort of bug with the toolbar?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google has released four new document patent applications. All four are on the topic of scoring a document. One is based on scoring documents on query analysis, an other on traffic analysis, an other on link criteria and the last is on age of the document.

• Document Scoring Based on Query Analysis
• Document Scoring Based on Traffic Associated with a Document
• Document Scoring Based on Link-Based Criteria
• Document Scoring Based on Document Inception Date

These four patent applications were released in the past two weeks. Even Matt Cutts is named on one.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday I reported at Search Engine Land that many users of the Google personalized home page have suddenly lost their customized settings.

The threads were endless. We have reports at Google Blogoscoped Forums, tons of threads at Google Groups (including this 300+ post one) and a thread at WebmasterWorld.

My Google home page remained fine, I believe (I rarely use it). Here is a screen capture of mine, which I sorely need to update.

Yes, it is currently raining here...

It appears that those personalized home pages that lost their data were restored at about 4:30am (EST) this morning.

Google Guide Jaime wrote that he appreciated the reports:

Yikes! So sorry about this everyone... but thanks so much for coming here to report it. We're now in frantic-chase-down-this-bug mode here at the Googleplex, and I hope to have more info for you soon. For now, we're not entirely sure of this, but it's possible that changing your homepage theme might cause the problem. SO, if you still have your homepage intact, please avoid changing your theme until further notice.

The big question I know you'll all want answered is whether you'll get your homepage back once we sort things out... and the really honest answer is that I hope so, but I just don't know yet.

Thanks for all your patience and helpful details. I will update this thread as soon as I can.
- Jaime

Later, Google Guide Cameron came in to say:

Thanks for letting us know that this problem isn't related to your theme - it's really helpful to get this info. Another piece of information that could help us sort this out is your approximate location; if you feel like sharing, that would be great!

- Cameron

That was out last word from Google and then at about 4:30am (EST), people began reporting their personalized settings have come back.

Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums, Google Groups and WebmasterWorld.

I finally had time last night to read Danny's What Is Google PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters.

This write up is undoubtedly the best explanation of Google PageRank I have seen in years.

Not only does it include a point I tried hard to stress in Why Do Some SEOs Want Toolbar PageRank To Go Away?, it also goes over every single other aspect of PageRank.

Here is the index of this article:

• Google's Definition: PageRank As Votes
• Recent Google Edits Emphasize PageRank Just One Of Many Factors
• PageRank For Searchers: Google Toolbar
• PR Stands For PageRank, Not Public Relations
• PageRank In The Google Directory
• PageRank For SEOs
• Seeing PageRank In Search Rankings
• PageRank Versus "Toolbar" PageRank
• PageRank Tech Talk
• Conclusion (Especially For Those Thinking I Don't Have Time To Read)

Whenever you get a call from someone asking you to improve their PageRank, send them there. :)

Again, a must read and a must keep article.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums post refers to a PC World article about recent malware being disguised by a Google Sponsored Link.

Roger Thompson of Exploit Security Labs posted today about finding poisoned Google sponsored links that surreptitiously direct searchers through malicious sites that attempt to surreptitiously install malware on your PC.

According to the article, on the morning of April 10th, if you searched for Better Business Bureau on Google and clicked on the Sponsored Listing, you'd find yourself on the BBB website as expected. However, before you actually reached the final destination, you'd pass through a site that attempts to exploit an Internet Explorer browser vulnerability and installs malware intended to steal very sensitive banking data.

Barry wrote about this a on Search Engine Land. He references yet another article from the Washington Post that reports the same story about how sponsored listings are being tainted to install malware that reportedly steals passwords and other sensitive information.

On DigitalPoint, a member asks if this will have an impact on the future of paid listings. I hope it does. In the PC World article, the writer says:

I'd love to hear from Google whether they screen purchasers of sponsored links or the redirection URLs they use.

I think that this is very important. Otherwise, the search engine will be under fire as others take advantage of the exploit.

On a similar note, AdWords accounts are being hacked. When Barry reported the story, there was no apparent association to GregOne's account being compromised to the malware within the sponsored listings. It may, however, be the case now. The WebmasterWorld is updated, and GregOne (whose account was hacked) writes to say that by clicking on one of the ads, there was a "redirect pointing to trackback.org that somehow installed an activex component without approval."

This is pretty worrisome. GregOne says, "I got hit on the 23rd of April, you'd think Google would have put a freeze on any links pointing to fasttrack.org." That would be a good idea.

Discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Is Google watching your surfing habits all the more closely to target ads that would serve your personal needs? Perhaps you haven't taken note, but a member on WebmasterWorld did.

I'm currently working on my personal site and I just happen to read some of the ads.

They are very off-topic for my site. But they are exactly my interests.

He says that he has browsed related sites and discussed the topic within his Gmail account -- and he suspects that this is the cause of the ad targeting.

Google has enough information for the personalized ads to be pretty targeted, so I wouldn't be surprised at this direction. Other members feel the same way.

Very interesting! I haven't seen this myself and haven't heard any news, but I wouldn't be surprised if Google was starting to implement "behavioral targeting" - seems to be the future of advertising. And between Search and Gmail and a bunch of other programs, Google is certainly building up quite a bank of information on people's interests!

Barry says that this is very farfetched for the time being. I think it's a likely direction with all the information Google has amassed about its users.

Have you noticed these extremely targeted ads? Let the readers at WebmasterWorld know.

Google might have the highest market share, the most visitors, and is the most powerful brand of 2007, but the other search engines happen to exist for a reason: they satisfy the needs of users. A WebmasterWorld member actually finds Ask, which is the weakest of the four at the present, to be the best search engine. His claim is that "it produces much better results." Furthermore, to its credit, "Ask is naturally more difficult to game, and no Ask rep has needed to ask webmasters to rat on their colleagues - because it hasn't needed to."

Good observation. But his post went unanswered for several days until someone pointed out that while Ask does show promise, they have other issues: "poor spidering [and] very low caching ability." Worse, "their complete absense here on webmasters world, their refusal to engage with webmasters, plus the lack of referals does mean no one hearabouts gets excited about ask."

Another member has similar findings, especially after reviewing his server logs:

In my case, I can easily see that Ask/Teoma bot keeps asking for non-existing, deprecated URLs, which have been superseded over 2.5yr ago.

For some reason, Ask/Teoma bot is very slow to spider new pages, readily crawlable from the site's linking structure (or by consulting the sitemap.xml new standard), with deeplinks from other sites. Instead, many of its requests end up 404s (i.e. waste of resources, both its own and ours).

These observations do not boost my confidence in Ask's ability to find relevant content.

But there's more. Andy Hagans writes a blog post urging Ask (and Microsoft) to respect users' privacy. He considers it a "business opportunity" if the smaller engines would become a "privacy engine," so that user results are not stored for more than 2 weeks/2 months.

At a certain point, search relevancy is a relative commodity (is Google really that much better than is was a year ago?), and other priorities are going to determine where searchers hang their hats. For millions of searchers out there, the overriding “other priority” is privacy.

Hey, I hear you, Andy.

In 2004, Barry also reported about Ask.com as a search engine that shows a terrific amount of potential. Still, they could do so much more if they engage in the community. I think that would be a wonderful thing.

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

On a Search Engine Watch forums post, a member says that he has many Google AdWords vouchers and wants to resell them.

The only problem is that they aren't for resale.

AdWordsRep, Google's Customer Associate, writes in and tells the user to proceed with caution.

Given that AdWords vouchers are not meant to be sold, I would advise against responding to any offer which offers one or more of them for sale.

He later reiterates his point:

...these vouchers are meant as a means for new advertisers to try out AdWords for a short time, on Google's nickel - not to be gleefully sold on well known auction sites - or, now, apparently, on this very forum!

Discussion continues at Search Engine Watch.

Back on March 8, 2007, I reported at Search Engine Land how Google Local Business Center Adds Photos, Attributes, Maps Corrections & Stats. I went through how I added photos and updated some attributes. But since then I have been waiting for Google Maps to update my listing and as of yesterday, I believe they have.

I noticed the images that I uploaded come into play at my local listings. The images shown in my business listing are images I selected and uploaded to Google Local Business Center.

Here is a screen capture of the listing now, after it was updated:

But, when I log into Google Local Business Center, it shows me that my listing was updated on Mar 8, 2007 but is still pending approval and "awaiting next update."

Weird.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I was prepped two days ago for a Search Engine Land post that announced Ask.com To Launch Contextual Advertising Product. In short, Ask.com's Search Listings division is launching a contextual product to compete with Google AdSense, Yahoo! Publisher Network and Microsoft contentAds. Ask.com's program is named ASL Contextual Advertising and will go live the week of May 21st on IAC's properties.

I honestly have no idea when individual publishers will be able to apply to join the Ask.com Contextual program, but as soon as I know, I will let you know.

The Ask.com blog posted a couple screen captures showing off a sample ad. Here is one of those ads:

How is this product different from our competitors, you ask? Three important reasons, each one a paradigm shift:

* It gives publishers more control over yield and relevancy
* It gives publishers more creative ad unit opportunities
* It allows both advertisers and publishers more control over where and what ads are displayed

DigitalPoint Forums has a pretty long thread on this announcement. They are extremely excited for a competitor to enter the market, outside of Yahoo and Google. Time will tell when they launch it to these publishers.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

I have received a couple emails asking me about what Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers are noticing since the change from Overture to Panama.

Don't get me wrong, we covered it a lot at Search Engine Land but there has not been much discussion at the forums on it. Here are the reports I have found on this:

• Preliminary Scorecard: How Effective Is Yahoo's Panama Upgrade?, Search Engine Land
• Yahoo! Panama First Look, Search Marketing Trends
• Feb 2007 Results: Yahoo ‘Panama’ Siezes Back Share From Google, Rimm-Kaufman Group Blog

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has feedback from four different SEMs all saying that they noticed a drop in volume from Yahoo! Search Marketing since the Panama upgrade.

For me, I think the interface is much better and the account maitenance is somewhat easier. As far as performance, we are down quite a bit from where we were pre-Panama. ROI is similar, but volume is way down.

Our volume is way down too. We are actually at the point of deciding if it's even worth my time to manage Yahoo's campaigns any longer.

I've also noticed an extreme decrease in volume.

Now is this related to the the addition of the Yahoo Panama quality score factors or Panama itself, is hard to answer. But these reports are a bit upsetting.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Chris Sherman broke the news last week that Google To Integrate News With Web Search Results. In fact, yesterday, Chris Sherman saw it with his own eyes and email Danny a screen shot to be placed on Danny's Google News Results Now Live In Web Search Results. I saw it as well, from home, but not from my office. It appears most people can't see it. So I decided to show you before and after shots.

Google News Now (I did a search on "google news" ironically):

Notice the news results right in the middle of the page.

Google News Then:

Notice the news results at the top of the page, the way we are accustomed to.

Now, news is not always smack in the middle of the page. It can also be at the top, bottom, or in any of the top ten positions in the page.

Here is an example of searches I have taken at home but show news items at the top or bottom.

News results for DoubleClick Google search at the bottom:

News results for Gonzales Google search at the top:

Danny Sullivan will hopefully find out from Google "how the new changes will affect algorithms." If not, I am sure SEOs and Webmasters will analyze it to death in the forums.

For more pictures, including full size screen captures, check out my Flickr set.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & DigitalPoint Forums.

While I was on the Daily Search Cast with Danny Sullivan, we got an email from Brett Tabke, owner of WebmasterWorld, who notified us about speaker pitches. Then Danny informed me that Search Engine Strategies Chicago this year, is the same week as WebmasterWorld's PubCon.

These are the two largest search conference out there today. So this is a huge deal.

SES Chicago starts on December 3rd and runs through the 6th. PubCon starts on December 4th and runs through the 7th.

Why is this such a big deal?

• Speaker Overlap is huge, I would estimate over 50% of those who speak at PubCon also speak at SES.
• Sponsor Overlap is also pretty big, many of the sponsors would have to double or divide their resources to be present at both conferences and monetarily.
• Exhibitor Overlap is very significant as well, especially for small companies that don't have a lot of people on staff.
• Press Overlap is not as big of an issue. For us, we can send people to cover SES and PubCon at the same time. But for smaller, one person bloggers, it won't be fun.
• Audience Overlap is also an issue, although the percentage is probably not as big as the ones above.

Who will win the head to head battle here? Tough call.

• Weather: PubCon Wins. Chicago in the winter is cold!
• Venue: PubCon Wins. Vegas is a lot more fun than Chicago, but Chicago is a cool city.
• Business Opportunities: SES Wins. I am pretty sure there is a more money to be made at SES.
• Networking Fun: PubCon Wins by a bit. While Danny Sullivan has to be at SES, the SEM community is a bit more loyal to PubCon. But since the business opportunities are the advantage of SES, I suspect this will shake things up.
• Educational Experience: About Even. Hard to say.

I would love to see which speakers are going where. Should be very very interesting.

I would like to conduct a small, anonymous poll, to see where most of you are leaning towards. So here it is:

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums

It seems that a lot of well-known companies have webmasters (or legal departments) who just don't have a clue how to implement a robots.txt file. According to a DigitalPoint Forums thread, the United Kingdom based Daily Telegraph is looking to sue Google and Yahoo for accessing its content.

Their statement, as quoted in the Guardian Unlimited, is that they are concerned that these search engines are accessing content for free and don't give them proper credit.

Our ability to protect content is under consistent attack from those such as Google and Yahoo who wish to access it for free. These companies are seeking to build a business model on the back of our own investment without recognition. All media companies need to be on guard for this. Success in the digital age, as we have seen in our own company, is going to require massive investment... [this needs] effective legal protection for our content, in such a way that allows us to invest for the future.

Apparently, they're clueless about implementing a robots.txt file that will prevent search engines from accessing content "for free." As of this writing, this is its current robots.txt file:

# Robots.txt file # All robots will spider the domain

User-agent: *

Disallow: */ixale/

Not only that, but they have the ability to remove content from the SERPs in Google and in Yahoo.

It is a bit disturbing how many people are concerned about search engines (which ultimately give them more visibility!) The claim that search engines don't respect their rules goes both ways. Daily Telegraph, I imagine you have rules you want Google and Yahoo to respect. Well, the search engines have rules too. Follow them and you'll be fine.

Feel free to add your two cents on the DigitalPoint Forums thread.

Does anyone find it irritating to visit a page that features ads that do not actually relate to the product being offered? According to a WebmasterWorld thread, this is actually a constant concern. The culprit? Well, for one, a lot of newspapers are responsible, but it is happening everywhere.

A member writes in to say that this is happening to him:

My local newspaper's website recently underwent a complete overhaul and now they display AdSense ads prominently. It's amazing how many of the ads are just plain outright misleading. The landing page/site is an actual site, not a page full of links, but what is offered is not what is promised in the ad.

He is hardly alone:

In my country, the most widely circulated newspaper has blended ads and ad links very well with navigation and I am sure they must be getting tons of clicks.. Bikini babes, lingerie tag lines do generate a lot of cliks. Where they lead to is very diffn..

A member mentions that he's already banned 200 AdSense abusers -- and that's the limit.

I've also seen so many fraudulent ads by AdWords abusers. I've banned many of them, but already reached the 200 limit.

Their link titles look attractive and optimized for relevance--they 'tell' consumers what they want to 'hear.' But they mislead the public, leading them to, among other destinations, a search engine whose results are new ad links of another online advertising company other than Google.

People who utilize AdSense are just getting frustrated:

I felt like putting a warning notice on my site:

"If you find ads misleading, please report to Google... Apologies in advance. Google has an awful screening system... if the domain listed in the ad is weird, the ad is probably bogus. Google offers many useless, time-wasting, misleading ads. Its team of talented engineers is currently working on a solution."

Google needs a craigslist bad ad flagging system.

I understand their frustration, since it goes against the Google AdSense Program Policies. Further, I don't see how clicking on an irrelevant ad that promises something else could possibly yield a decent ROI.

If you want to see PPC to PPC to PPC to PPC (in other words, additional AdSense abuse), check out a video demonstration we displayed at the end of last year.

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

In a WebmasterWorld thread, a member mentions that he has recently bought a domain from an owner who previously was banned from Google AdSense for violating TOS. He says that he is unable to get a response from Google and only that they have provided him with their Policies.

He is presented with the following advice:

You need to email Adsense support and make it clear to them that you purchased these domains, and ask them to unblock/clear them to show Adsense ads for you.

It might take a few days to get everything done, but as long as you act openly with them, there should be no problem. Don't put your own ads on them until they respond it is okay.

I'm not sure if this will help him as it seems that it appears that he's gone down that road before.

To prevent owners from running in circles, I have a suggestion instead to tie this into Google's AdSense Console. After all, there is similar functionality in Google Webmaster Central which has capability for webmasters to submit a reinclusion request. As I understand it from recent interview of Vanessa Fox by Rand Fishkin, the Google Webmaster Central is being consistently improved upon. I'd imagine that the Google AdSense portal is being worked upon as well. Maybe it would be a good idea to enable functionality for the portal to submit similar AdSense reinclusion requests.

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

GregOne posted a thread at WebmasterWorld and HighRankings Forums about how his Google AdWords account was hacked into. By reviewing both threads and all the posts, I was able to piece together some of the story.

It appears that some external program gained access to his computer. The program then logged into his AdWords account, set up several ads that redirected to "places like orbitz.com and business.com" and also tried to install "activex remote desktop program" on those computers through the redirects (to infect other computers). Then it blocked access for that computer to login into AdWords by setting the local host files to 127.0.0.1 adwords.google.com (which means if someone on that computer tries accessing adwords.google.com, they get a not found). This prevents this computer from logging into AdWords to see if changed have been made to the account.

In addition, the password for the account was not changed so he was able to login with a different computer to see these changes. Also, he noticed that the credit card information in the account was not his. Possibly a stolen credit card from someone else, which is weird to me.

Pretty nasty and potentially costly computer exploit. So beware.

AdWordsAdvisor at WebmasterWorld told GregOne that a private message was sent his way.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and HighRankings Forums.

WebmasterWorld moderator, martinibuster, posted a thread at WebmasterWorld documenting a pattern he is seeing recently with Google. He is asking, not telling, if people agree or disagree with his theory. In short, he is noticing that Google is apparently ranking sites that have their keywords in their URL/domain better then Google has in the recent past.

One of my sites with the keyword in the domain (no hyphens) jumped up to number one and started making unprecedented amounts of money. I checked it's backlinks and referrals and DMOZ/Yahoo but no change. The only change was Google giving my site a boost because, and I can't explain this any other way, because of the keyword in the domain. I've not done any promotion to that site at all. Zero.

I've also been seeing an unusual amount of parked domains that are exact matches for the keyword sitting at the top, although they seem to have been dialed back today.

Like with most of these threads, some agree and some disagree.

I have seen some cases of this being correct and some cases of this not being correct.

Of course, there must be some other factors that are hard for these webmasters to isolate. So the discussion continues...

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In a Search Engine Watch Forums Thread, AdWordsRep, the official Google AdWords representative for the forum, called radio ads magical.

The thread is a discussion on if one should try Google Audio Ads or not.

AdWordsRep comes in and says this:

I have to say that radio has always held a bit of magic for me. There is just something about 'hearing your name' on the radio that is too cool for words. Way back in the day I won a minor radio contest (over the phone between songs) and waited with huge anticipation to hear my name actually announced. It was such a big deal - and I can still remember exactly how it felt. I can imagine feeling that same way being a small business advertiser hearing my own ad while on the road, coming home from work. So, for me at least, 'simple' audio has a lot of power.

Yes, I know I am spinning this story, but sometimes a blogger needs to have some fun. There is indeed something special magical about being on the radio. But there is no magic to the metrics you get from search ads - it is pure analytical (outside of some of the copy-writing, I suspect - but then there you have A/B testing).

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums Thread.

The twenty-seventh edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download. We talked about Google and Yahoo's first quarter earnings. We discussed the pros and cons of Google's new web history solution. Google News put the Virginia Tech news in the enterainment catagory. We discussed some PPC and SEO topics 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's (GOOG) Earnings Impress While Yahoo (YHOO) Gears Up For Q2 Earnings
   
2. Google Goes Beyond Search History With Your Web History
   
3. Google News Categorizes Virginia Tech Massacre as "Entertainment," Raises Questions
   
4. A New Way To Remove Content in Google.com via Google Webmaster Central 
   
5. Google Webmaster Central Provides Users with More Detailed Anchor Text Data
   
6. Google Link Tool & Anchor Text Tool At Webmaster Central Goes Down
   
7. Is Too Much Content A Bad Thing For SEO & Search Rankings?
   
8. Microsoft's adCenter Quality Score Update Hurting PPC Relevancy?
   
9. Google, Ask.com & Yahoo! Earth Day Logos
   
10. Google Stumbles With "Queryless Search"
    
11. Social Media Optimization: Are SEOs Part of the Problem?
    
12. Yahoo Partners with eBay and PayPal to Improve the Online Shopping Experience
    
13. More Signs of Google Grouping Search Results by Category
    

Lightening Round:

Continue reading "Search Pulse 27: Google & Yahoo Earnings, Web History, Virginia Tech, Remove Content, Anchor Text, SEO Content, PPC & More"

For a ten-year-old company, this isn't half bad. Barry reported it on Search Engine Land, and it was picked up on DigitalPoint as well. According to Gary Price, Google has placed #1 in Millward Brown Optimor's Brandz Top 100.

Here's the chart of the top 10:

1	Google	$66.4 billion
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