May 2007 Archives

A number of members on WebmasterWorld are frustrated with the Google AdSense Preview Tool (which is available for IE versions 6.x and 7.x and allows you to preview ads that may appear on your website and filter out ads that will not do much for advertisers). A number of complaints have been addressed about the tool, particularly with regards to its ineffectiveness and lack of functionality. Additionally, there are just too many "spammy ads" that are hitting advertisers' sites and causing anger amongst AdSense publishers.

Each and every time I click to open the preview tool my web page "jumps down" so I can only see the bottom of the page.

I was wondering what she meant, so I installed the AdSense Preview Tool and tested it out on Barry's blog. It seems that opening the tool causes the ad to disappear out of view. Very strange. See the animated GIF for what I mean:

Want to see it again? Here's the Google AdSense Preview Tool bug.

Other users suggest other ways to improve the tool:

- show ads that will show instead of ads that may show - show ads restricted on ad format (e.g. only 468x60) - show non text ads as well (e.g. image, video, flash) - notify Adsense on an ad, directly from the tool

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A Google user posts on the Google Groups asking whether signing up to a Google AdWords campaign will expedite her site listing in the organic SERPs.

However, AdWordsPro of Google writes to say that there is no correlation between PPC and organic listings:

It is very important to note that there is absolutely no connection between being an AdWords advertiser, and having your site appear in the unpaid search results. One does not effect the other in any way. To put it another way, being an AdWords advertisers will neither help nor harm your chances of appearing on the 'organic' search engine.

AdWordsPro adds that this information has been gathered after careful observation after "quite a few years at Google."

Still, this has been a "conspiracy theory," to quote Barry, since the inception of AdWords. From a Search Engine Watch Forums thread, a member noticed that his paused AdWords campaign yielded a drop in organic referrals as well. Member scrubs adds that "Over the last year I would say the AdWords algo is as complex and as clever as the natural algo. Both are looking at different aspects on page to warrent your position in the listings."

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups and Search Engine Watch.

A WebmasterWorld thread points to an official announcement on the eBay website about its recent acquisition: social search engine StumbleUpon.

From Bill Cobb, President of eBay North America:

Our intent is to support the growth and evolution of this community-based business, and StumbleUpon will run as a separate business unit within eBay Inc. Although there are no definite plans to share at this time, as the site evolves, we'll be exploring the possibilities for synergies between StumbleUpon and eBay marketplaces, Skype, and PayPal.

But this doesn't necessarily sit well with forum members who see this possible merge as a way of serving additional ads.

exploring == exploiting == ads, ads, ads, more ads, and ads

I guess this really is web 2.0 where the big get bigger.

Personally, I don't think so.

TechCrunch has more on the acquisition, saying that the product is not changing and the company itself is just adding an additional team member from eBay.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

As Danny reported yesterday, Jason Calacanis is backing a new search engine named Mahalo.

Mahalo is a human edited search engine, meaning - humans are aggressively cleaning up the search results by hand - something Google says they never do.

Here are sample searches you can look at:
- ipod, showing you the top sites, quick facts, the ipod family, and a ton of information. To me this page looks like a static article on ipods.
- barry schwartz, is an example of a search that was not hand written. They show a message that reads, "Oops! We haven't hand-written a result page for "barry schwartz" yet." And then they show related results for other people like Barry Bonds, and so on. Followed by that, they use Google search results.
- google returns a page like ipod, but more focused around company information - like a financial page.

Mahalo would like to "hand-write result pages for the top 10,000 search terms." They are hiring and you can also recommend sites and links.

Current forum buzz and discussion is mixed. Danny concludes; "overall, the best solution probably isn't all human or all machine but some combination of the two."

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and Cre8asite Forums.

The Google Checkout blog announced that they are now supporting Google Checkout for mobile devices. So if you are on the road, see something on your favorite site, that you must have, you can buy it using Google Checkout on your mobile device.

So if you are a merchant, you will need to enable your site to be WAP enabled and then integrated Google Checkout mobile.

GoogleCheckoutPro at Google Groups said:

US and UK Checkout merchants who have mobile-friendly sites can now offer their customers a fast and secure way to shop online while on the go. Existing Google Checkout buyers are now able to make fast, secure purchases on their mobile phones from any WAP-enabled Checkout merchant. The user experience has been adapted for mobile - for example, buyers can verify their identity using a PIN rather than a full password. Checkout for Mobile is currently limited to the sale of physical goods.

Old merchants need to upgrade - free of course. New merchants will automatically be supported.

Are you a mobile buyer and have questions, check out Google Checkout for Mobile help.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Step 1: Download the Google Gears extension to your browser.
Step 2: Enable it, when it asks you to.
Step 3: Google to Google Reader and click the offline icon and agree.

Notice I have 6 items unread in the general news folder.

Step 4: Clicking on the green icon with download all your unread feeds into the Google Gears format. Google Gears will then download them, showing you this status display.

Step 5: When it is done downloading, you will see that green icon turned grey.

Step 6: Go offline by unplugging your internet or using this little trick.

Step 7: Browse your unread feeds offline.

Notice how I now have 3 unread items in the general news folder, so I read three items offline.

Step 8: Go back online.

Step 9: Sync back up with Google Reader by clicking the green icon.

A status display will come up quickly, like in step 4.

Step 10: Google Reader will load up again.

Step 11: Continue browsing online...

Notice it removed those 3 feeds I read in online mode.

With Google Gears, Google is trying to create a standard for working with online web applications in an offline mode. This can be applied to anything. Just see the Google Gears API Developer's Guide.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and Google Gears Forum.

It's been a pretty cool last two weeks. A lot of Google innovations have been made public, and I for sure am impressed, albeit frightened when Google comes with a truck photographing my backyard.

Yes, you heard that right. Google has launched a pretty nifty street maps photography feature. Barry captured a video of how far this photography feature goes in New York: just blocks shy of our office. We also covered the street maps feature this morning.

Another nifty addition to Google is the ability to restrict image results to faces . That means Rebecca's complaint about the ineffectiveness of Google Image Search might no longer hold true. Well, with most of these other results, maybe not. Guess she's right about MSN Search, but it's a good start. (The results for Jordin Sparks was actually better without the special "face" restriction in the URL. But, moving on...)

As we covered, Google launched a new universal search platform . The response was overwhelming, and Diggers ate up that story: it hit the top 10 news stories on Digg for a few hours when it first came out. I feel special.

Other neat developments include Google's addendum of hot trends. On a very similar note, Barry decided to post his search trends. This helps Google collect its data.

Innovation doesn't only sit online. Google needs to hire its engineers and staff through innovative methods. They've been holding contests, games, Sudoku challenges, and the like to look for the best talent. I want to play all day. I guess I'm lucky we have this instead.

Danny shared a pretty cool link via Google Experimental . Some features include timeline views, keyword shortcuts, left-hand search navigation, and right-hand contextual search navigation.

Oh, but Google is not a flawless beast. Numerous Google properties have been hacked in the past. Cool. In #5 of these security breaches, we see that "Googlified discovered a fault in Gmail that allowed a user's contact list to be stolen via JavaScript." This week, there was a JavaScript finding via Ionut Alex Chitu and Danny Sullivan. If you have JavaScript turned off, Google is not navigable. Um, oops?

In the social search sphere, outside of Digg, we have Technorati, one of the foremost blog search engines, which came out with a redesign that broadens search capabilities . From the blog, "Overall the changes make Technorati somewhat easier to grok and move the site away from just blog searches to a wider view of what might be best termed time sensitive searches." Good stuff all around.

Let me see some more Digg love from you guys!

Over the weekend, an article found via DigitalPoint Forums was published in a New Zealand news site about financial authors and property investors whose names are being linked to an unaffiliated company through Google AdWords. They are disgruntled, to say the least, and they question the ethics of the practice.

One of the individuals explains his disgust pretty eloquently:

Property investor Kieran Trass, of the Hybrid Group said: "It's underhanded. I have nothing to do with that company, and I don't want to. They are leveraging off other people's efforts to gain a financial reward with no recompense to the people they are linking to.

Shoemoney writes in to say that this is trademark bidding and that people should take appropriate legal action.

This is called trademark bidding and it goes on all the time. There is legal recourse for trademark bidding I am surprised these people have putting up with it for so long.

Actually, unless the people have trademarks on their names, I'm not sure if it can be considered trademark bidding.

If the names are trademarked, however, legal action can be taken and you can file a complaint via Google for trademark violations. Since this particular violation is occurring outside the United States and Canada, Google also provides a means to report these concerns as well.

If names aren't trademarked, it's still nice to ask the people if you can bid on their name.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

An interesting poll is in its infancy at DigitalPoint Forums but a trend is already emerging. The poll asks: what are the most important elements of your AdWords campaign? So far, Keyword Research and Landing Pages.

The discussion brings forth some good points:

You can have the best quality score in the world, a million targeted keywords and the best product on the market but if your landing page does not convey trust, authority and relevance, your visitors leave.

My vote is for Landing Page.

GuyFromChicago follows this thread in his personal blog and agrees.

Someone disagrees with that, however:

On the other hand, get your title wrong, or your advert text, and you can immediately halve your clickthrough rate and Quality Score - this leads to your sweet spot being much lower, and can halve (at least) the amount of traffic that you get. So your conversion rate needs to be a lot higher to offset that.

Organization of a campaign is also a focus of some campaigns:

I don't know whether it's the most important, but I think the most under-rated element is the campaign architecture (a fancy way of saying the way your ads/keywords/groups are organised).

Well organised = easy to track & measure, allows you to relate ads more closely to their keywords, allows you to separate content vs search clicks quickly
Badly organised = shoot & hope!

If you have the time, vote in the poll; it would be nice to see what factors are most important to you.

Forum discussion and poll at DigitalPoint Forums.

According to Gmail Guide, the following steps need to be provided to Google in order to obtain access to the Gmail account:

1. Your full name and contact information, including a verifiable email address.
2. The Gmail address of the individual who passed away.
3a. The full header from an email message that you have received at your verifiable email address, from the Gmail account in question. (To obtain the header from a message in Gmail, open the message, click 'More options,' then click 'Show original.' Copy everything from 'Delivered- To:' through the 'References:' line. To obtain headers from other webmail or email providers, please refer to http://www.spamcop.com/help_with_headers/)
3b. The entire contents of the message.
4. A copy of the death certificate of the deceased.
5. A copy of the document that gives you Power of Attorney over the Gmail account.
6. If you are the parent of the individual, please send us a copy of the Birth Certificate if the Gmail account owner was under the age of 18. In this case, Power of Attorney is not required.

Gmail Guide requests that you send this information via Fax or Postal Mail:

Google Inc.
Attention: Gmail User Support
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

650-644-0358

It takes approximately 30 days for the information to be processed, but if the access is needed sooner, "it is Google's policy to only provide information pursuant to a valid third party court order or other appropriate legal process."

Discussion continues at Google Groups.

This is kind of a crazy question but I found it so crazy that I had to write about it. A DigitalPoint Forums thread has someone asking if he can put on his resume that he was or is employed by Google, since he is an AdSense publisher.

Today I applied at Best-Buy and one of the fields in the application said: What technology related positions have you worked in recently?

I put Web-designer and electronic delivery guy but I was thinking about putting Google Publisher. Bet you anything related to "Google" would look nice.

Now we pay taxes, they have our name, our tax ID, and everything else. Are we employed by Google?

No! AdSense publishers are not employed by Google. They are independent contractors, and you have no right to claim you worked for Google as an employee on your resume or on a job application.

The last line of the Google AdSense terms and conditions reads:

The relationship between Google and You is not one of a legal partnership relationship, but is one of independent contractors.

Too funny.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A ton of mapping news came out yesterday. Search Engine Land has a great overview of ma lot of the ones that apply to the search engines.

- Google Launches "Street View" Photography
- Microsoft Virtual Earth Expands 3-D Coverage To Include New York
- MapQuest Introduces New ActionScript API For Richer Maps

Google Street Views:
The Google Lat Long Blog posteda on it linking a video demonstration of it in action. I made my own yesterday at personal blog and here it is showing off my office neighborhood.

Check it out yourself, this is a street level view of around times square

Microsoft Virtual Earth 3D New York:
To see this in action, check out this video and the press release.

I did not demo this because it doesn't run (or run well) on a Mac.

MapQuest API:
Well, Garmin took advantage of it already. Check out MapQuests API for Adobe ActionScript for more information.

Google Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums and Cre8asite Forums. Microsoft Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Last night, the Yahoo Publisher Network has announced that they are now offering payment to publishers via PayPal.

I logged into my account to see how the set up works. You simple go to your account settings, click on payment options and there is a fourth checkbox now, this one is for PayPal.

PayPal even set up a special URL to show YPNers the benefits of PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/ypnwhypaypal. If you have billing questions, you can find more information at the FAQs.

The ain advantage is you will get your money sooner, if you are a publisher who earns less than $100 per month.

If you use direct deposit, the minimum available balance required to receive payments is $100. With PayPal, it's only $50. You can also earn a return on the deposits in your PayPal account by using PayPal's Money Market Reserve Fund. Please visit the PayPal Web site to learn more about this service.

This is an apparent extension of Yahoo's PayPal partnership on the Search Marketing side. This is also a much requested feature by publishers on both the Yahoo and Google side.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.

Late last night, Yahoo's Panama release launched in Europe. We reported this was coming the other day, but now it is official.

Gabs documented the email notification to UK advertisers:

Yahoo! Europe today announces that its new sponsored search advertising platform has launched and that it has started upgrading European advertisers to the new campaign management console.

Nw, if advertisers go to the login page they will be presented with an early upgrade login area at https://login.marketingsolutions.yahoo.com/en_GB. In addition, Yahoo Europe has a tailored Upgrade Centre for European advertisers.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums & DigitalPoint Forums.

The 32nd edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download. Chris and I discussed the Memorial Day weekend news and logos or lack there of. We also review the latest Yahoo! Search index update. We discussed the recent search market share figures released last week. Google banned essay writing ads, go figure. Elisabeth is leaving Search Engine Watch for Zonder. People are now critisizing Ask.com's unabommer ads, but is this what Ask.com wanted? We discussed several 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.

Please vote if you want us to continue doing this podcast, here is the poll:

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

Topics We Covered:

1. Memorial Day Commemorated: Ask.com & Search Engine Roundtable
   
2. Yahoo Search Update Last Night
   
3. Search Market Share Update: Google Rises, MSN Falls, Yahoo Hovers
   
4. Google to Ban Ads for Essay Writing
   
5. Elisabeth Leaves Search Engine Watch For Vacation Rentals
   
6. SEOs Critique Ask.com's New "Algorithm Ads"
   
7. Ask.com "The Algorithm" Promotions: Controversy to Publicity?
   
8. Creating a Search Engine Friendly Glossary or Definitions List
   
9. Can Clicking on Google Organic Results Influence Rank?
   
10. Does Google Reinclude Banned Sites into Google.com Without Request?
    

Lightening Round:

Continue reading "Search Pulse 32: Memorial Day, Yahoo! Search Update, Search Share, AdWords, Elis SEW, Ask.com Ads, SEO & More"

A New York Times article says that Google will be investigated for its $3.1 billion dollar acquisition of DoubleClick to see if the company has violated any antitrust laws.

Last month, Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion and was challenged by rivals, particularly Microsoft. However, a month later, Microsoft acquired aQuantive for a value of $6 billion.

According to the New York Times article, "Google said it was confident that the deal would withstand scrutiny." I think given recent events and in response to the latest acquisition by Microsoft, this will indeed be the case.

Techmeme has more coverage, as does Search Engine Land.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Can I start clicking like crazy on a link in the search results and rank it higher than it is currently? A Search Engine Watch Forums thread addresses this question.

If a large number of people did a search for a specific key phrase and kept clicking on a result that appeared in page 4, for a certain period of time, could it cause the site to move up in the Google results? maybe increase PR?

Forum members suspect that it could have an impact but it probably won't be used heavily because of the possible manipulation.

Some people believe usage data will eventually become as important as link authority..or at least be a strong 2nd factor. What's gonna happen nobody knows for sure, but I've also read opinions, that it won't become the most important factor, as it's just too easy to manipulate (the way you suggested for example :-)). I think letting the users judge through their actions could be a great way to improve an engine's algorithm, but if it should really be too prone to manipulation, they probably can't depend on it too much.

It is also something that one of our editors, evilgreenmonkey, plans to do a study on, because, after all, he says: "Google's click tracking on natural search results is there for a reason, and it would a sensible assumption that CTR can alter your ranking."

I had Personalized Search enabled for a short time this weekend, and as I clicked on the results for a specific search term, it started counting the number of visits I had made and moved the specific result from the #2 spot to the #1 spot under the personalized engine. So there was a definite emphasis on clickthroughs as a ranking mechanism under Personalized Search.

That's exactly what Barry says in a post published two months ago about whether Google uses click data to rank sites. It seems pretty possible that Google is still tracking clicks to some extent.

The question is, does Google use click data for the search results for searches performed when a user is not logged in?

On a similar note, back when the Direct Hit search engine existed, it utilized click data to rank sites. However, due to the manipulation, it was made extinct. Recently, it was mentioned that the Ask.com algorithm known as Edison will be bringing part of this feature back to some extent: "In a sense, it uses the 'wisdom of the crowds' to determine relevancy and show the best results they can."

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Last Friday, both the AdSense Blog and the AdWords Blog announced they have launched new video ad formats for AdWords advertisers to use and publishers to place on their sites.

The new ad formats are 728x90 Leaderboard, the 120x600 Skyscraper, and the 160x600 Wide Skyscraper. The old formats include the 300x250 Medium Rectangle, the 336x280 Large Rectangle, the 200x200 Small Square, and the 250x250 Square.

For more information on the publisher side, see the AdSense Video ads help documentation. For more information on the advertiser side, see the Guide to Google Video Ads and Video ad demo page.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has one post from one individual who said his banned site was automatically reincluded in Google's index. In short, he did not go to Google and ask for his site to be reincluded, it was done by itself.

Normally, if your site is delisted from Google you would ask for a reinclusion request. Then Google would review your site and accept your site back in or not.

In this case, Google seems to have reincluded the site automatically, after a one-year ban.

I am waiting on more reports in this thread to see if this happens often. I would suspect Google sets a date for automated review of a site that was banned, so reinclusion can be automated. But I have never seen it reported in a support forum.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

First signs on "The Algorithm" came when Edison was leaked at SES NY from Apostolos Gerasoulis, the co-founder of Ask.com's technologies. Edison is the code name of the new algorithm, more on how that works here.

Since then, Ask.com has launched many local campaigns to generate buzz about "the algorithm." Some of those campaigns are a bit controversial. The goal, in my opinion, is to generate buzz around the phrase "the algorithm." Ask.com's CEO, Jim Lanzone, has gone on the record saying that they want the word "algorithm" to be a cool word.

A forum thread at Cre8asite Forum is still chugging away, I added that there has been a lot more discussion on Ask.com since they launched these controversial billboards and posters.

You know, the "no publicity is bad publicity" concept.

Now that Ask.com is backing these billboards on the algorithm with these new TV spots, that are both tasteful and cool, I think it may just help a bit. At least I hope so. Hey, I still am for the underdog and have been for a while. Check out my Ask Jeeves: The Little Engine That Could from 2004.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Today is Memorial Day, and as a result, the Ask.com search engine has recognized the holiday. There's no indication that Google and Yahoo have done anything in their logos to commemorate the day, which we've covered in the past. It appears that they will not be showing any commemorative logos, similar to last year and the year before.

The Ask.com site has a mention of Memorial Day as a day of remembrance. In 2005, they featured a silhouette of a butler blowing a trumpet.

We also are celebrating in weather-appropriate skies (until it rains, at least) with red, white, and blue.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Roundtable forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread calls attention to an article about the length of time that Google is retaining data for user searches.

European data protection officials have raised concerns that Google could be contravening European privacy laws by keeping data on internet searches for too long.

The Article 29 working party, a group of national officials that advises the European Union on privacy policy, sent a letter to Google last week asking the company to justify its policy of keeping information on individuals’ internet searches for up to two years.

A number of questions have been raised about how Google should proceed with the data -- or if it's even their responsibility. Members cite the absence of clear laws to define what can be done properly and in what country.

Laws have to be wrote before google can react. Right now there is not much law governing that type of information.

Another article mentions that Google does protect its user privacy, and in fact plans to anonymize data after 18-24 months. That is exactly what is said by Peter Fleischer, Google's global policy counsel:

Fleischer said Google needs to log details of user searches for security purposes - to protect its search engine from hackers. But he said the company has taken recent measures to improve user privacy. Server logs, for example, are "anonymized" after 18 to 24 months.

Peter Fleischer even mentions in the Google blog that there are ways to opt-out of web history and to maintain your privacy when using Google.

Our policy puts the user in charge. It is not something Google seeks to control. At any time they can turn off personal search, pause it, remove specific web history items or remove the whole lot.

I think that's fair, though perhaps it should be an opt-in procedure rather than an opt-out one.

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks whether users are noticing any sort of "AdSense slump" or a "a little dip in U.S traffic & revenues."

Indeed, people are, with earning drops between 20% and 95%, and it's not atypical behavior for the three-day weekend.

You won't find a lot of folks in the U.S. sitting in front of their computers during a 3-day weekend.

What else can possibly contribute to the lower earnings? There's better weather, college graduation (and thus slower Internet connections), the Memorial Day holiday, and summer vacation.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Last week, we reported that Google To Shut Down AdSense Arbitrageurs. The WebmasterWorld thread has been hoping on that topic since. In fact, they just split the thread into a new thread over here.

Finally, in post number 639 in that thread, Google's AdSenseAdvisor has chimed in.

Hi all,

Very interesting conversation.

I just wanted to say that while I can't provide any new information right now about the decision to close certain AdSense accounts, I am following this thread closely, along with many other people from all parts of the AdSense team. This decision was a long time in the making, and your thoughts and feedback are quite valuable to us.

-ASA

Although AdSenseAdvisor did not say much, saying that he or she "can't provide any new information right now about the decision to close certain AdSense accounts" says that something is going on, if the thread didn't convince you otherwise.

I just guess we will learn more early next month.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

A Search Engine Roundtable Forums thread reports that Yahoo! is testing our their Panama Search Marketing engine out in the United Kingdom.

I was at the launch of Panama in the US on October 17, 2006. Yahoo! planned to roll it out worldwide later, and the UK is coming soon.

Our moderator, gabs, was at a Yahoo! demonstration of Panama last week. He said;

I've just been @ yahoo ... For a demo of yahoo panama..

I will be launching very soon so we should see new algo's bouncing ads around a bit imho...

No date as yet

I suspect a launch in the UK by probably end of this quarter or early next quarter. These are guesses but if they are demonstrating it now, I suspect it is coming really soon.

Yahoo! has been emailing their UK advertisers warning them of this upgrade. The full text email can be seen at PPC blog, but here are two snippets of interest.

We launch our new ranking model successfully we have started running a limited test across our UK advertiser listings in which the display order of Sponsored Search listings in some keyword markets is based on factors other than bid.

Our new Sponsored Search system will be rolled out in the UK soon, beginning with advertiser migration later this quarter. We will be contacting you with more specific information as the rollout date approaches.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports a few webmasters received phone calls from Microsoft adCenter representatives.

Both webmasters seemed to have set up accounts in the past, but never fully activated those accounts.

One said,

I signed up several months back never did get around to doing anything with it. At the time they were giving away $20 of free clicks.

Another said,

I got a call a few weeks back - The call dropped & I gave the rep a call back, left a message for him to call me back to continue the conversation, but he never called back.

Does not surprise me that Microsoft is reaching out to these advertisers. They took the time to set up an account. A little push, maybe they will start spending some money with Microsoft.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks if Google will allow you to track your adult site using Google Analytics, Google's web analytics software.

Everyone says, they believe so. While the Google Analytics terms of service does not specifically reject sites by theme, including not rejecting adult sites - they do say that the service is free for those with AdWords accounts.

In section two;

The Service is provided without charge to You for up to 5 million pageviews per month per account, and if You have an active Adwords campaign in good standing, the Service is provided without charge to You without a pageview limitation.

So if your adult theme site gets over 5 million pageviews, then technically, you would need an AdWords account in good standing. Since Google AdWords has a content policy that disallows "Sexual Content (Adult)" then those adult sites would technically not be accepted to use Google Analytics for free.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

An excellent Memorial Day weekend Cre8asite Forums thread was started by a novice SEO that has the requirement of showing to her company, how SEO can impact their bottom line.

She express that she is "missing something somewhere" because she is unable to come up with a solid number or percentage. Meaning, she wants to say, if they invest $X dollars in SEO or $X in PPC, it will return an increase sales of X percent.

While most of the replies in the forums are supportive, saying that it is almost impossible to come up with that number, without giving it a try first. Why? As one Cre8asite Moderator explains, "because the numbers are hugely variable for every site, and you really don't know the effect until after you've made the changes."

But I believe, as do others, that you can give ranges. Cre8asite moderator, Barry Welford, a statistics lover (I love stats also, but probably not as much as him) says it is possible. I agree.

Basically, look at the numbers you have now. If you have X visits per day and X of those current visits turn into sales or leads - then just multiple that number. In fact, you will probably see more targeted visitors with SEM, so if you like, you can even increase the current percentage of sales/leads driven by your current web site and use those figures. It is probably best to give a low, medium and high range. You can then use your current formula from lead to sales to dollar average, to come up with an ROI on a specific campaign.

Those will be your initial numbers. Run a test campaign. Then you may just be surprised by how your numbers align with your estimates. Your initial report is just to get you some money from the company to prove to them that it can work. Once you get that money, then it is up to you to make it happen.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Boy, it's hot outside! It's 78F and not even noon yet, and tomorrow's high is 93. Summer doesn't start for another month. Even SMX will happen before that! I hope spring didn't fly by! I like it when there's a cool breeze outside.

Did you miss us? Barry and I were away for the holiday, and we're getting back to the swing of things (I can tell that Barry is suffering, so this is where I come in). Barry, got anything for me to do? Can I twitter for you?

Google AdSense Arbitrageurs: Your Time has Come

Google and advertisers are sick of click fraudsters. Anyone involved in the deceptive act of AdSense arbitrage will be shut down as of June 1st. Some of these people are making tens of thousands of dollars. It's time to adapt or die out. It's not fair to rob the bank off the innocents unless you have clear intention on looking into their product.

Yahoo CTR Gone Down?

To determine the success of your PPC campaign, it's important to test, retest, and continue tweaking for perfection. Like they say: Wash. Rinse. Repeat. For Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers, now is a great time for you to focus on optimizing your campaign. After all, advertisers have reported much lower click-throughs which is likely a consequence of the shorter ad descriptions. Not all advertisers feel that way, however. But now is a just as good a time as any to focus on your PPC campaigns.

Who Rules Them All?

The winner is Google for now. Ben, who took over in our absence, reported that Google's search market share has increased, while Yahoo "hovers" (with an increase of 0.1 percent). Microsoft is losing ground. Perhaps last week's aQuantive acquisition will change things. Let's give it some time.

Google Increases its Presence on the Webmaster Forums

Hello there, Bergy, Wysz, Pat, Susan Moskwa, and nathanj! These are the five newest Google Webmaster Help Forums faces, and they will be posting on the Google Webmaster Forums to increase Google's presence in the search sphere. Will we also see you at SMX? (Shouts to Susan who I'll actually recognize!)

Google Maps

Fun things can be done with Google Maps. You can search your neighborhood or you can make your commute three hours longer by avoiding highways.

Naughty, Naughty, Yahoo!

Yahoo! Autos was caught cloaking earlier this week. Later, it was confirmed that they were indeed involved in this practice. At least they changed their page.

Google Trends Gets Hot

Like the weather, Google Trends shows some pretty "volcanic" activity lately. For example, take the winner of this year's American Idol. On May 23rd, Jordin Sparks was hot. However, the momentum is dying down. She was only spicy yesterday.

Google Universal Search

Since Google Universal Search was launched, there have been a lot of questions. First of all, your custom search engine will not feature Google Universal Search results.

Now, how do you capitalize on Google Universal Search? You just need to focus on all different areas: organic search for standard content, blogs, images, video (Google Video or YouTube), news (press releases), and you should have a local presence. There are other ways to capitalize, but this should be a good start.

For those of you out of the office on Monday (that would not be me), have a great three-day weekend!

Advertisers should know the importance of maximizing their presence online with the least amount of cost, but to do that, they need to effectively measure the success of their campaign. How long does that take? A Cre8asite Forums thread brings up this question.

Once a PPC campaign is launched for a brand new website, is there a certain amount of time to wait before drawing conclusions about the PPC ad, the effectiveness of the landing page, the quality of the website, and the desireability of the products?

It pretty much depends on the impressions and clicks that your ad has generated:

I wouldn't measure it in time but number of impressions and number of clicks. Both need to be sufficiently high to give you a statistically sound sample.

Administrator EGOL has golden words of wisdom that I've heard time and time again. Because there are so many factors in the market, you need to consistently be on top of your ad campaign. "Success" may only be fleeting.

So, PPC is not a set it and forget it venture.

Ammon Johns has another nugget of wisdom based on decisions made by prospective buyers:

So the length of time to evaluate your conversions will vary on the natural "consideration period" for the product or service on offer.

Additionally, there's a Cre8asite Forums post that points to the Google Website Optimizer tool that is available for advertisers as well.

Some additional insights and advice is shared in the Cre8asite Forums discussion.

According to WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums, OpenDNS has accused Google and Dell of teaming up to install spyware on PCs. Danny at Search Engine Land summarized this discovery as well.

From OpenDNS:

In short, Google and Dell have teamed up to install some software on Dell computers that borders on being spyware. I say spyware because it’s hard to figure out what it is and is even harder to remove.

Danny writes:

I wouldn't consider it spyware, but it certainly isn't friendlyware. But you can understand why some people would think it's spyware, when their computers seem to be acting in a strange way.

And forum members are sharing thoughts and tips of how to avoid this issue. One such tip: buy from Dell Small Business, not Dell Home.

Others just think it's evil:

Googles motto is "Do no Evil..... Unless it make Us money"

Or not:

i think google will never do that..

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

A Google Groups announces that there is a new feature when using Google Maps. You can now plan your route without driving on highways. The Google LatLong blog also announces the new feature.

Maps Guide Brian of Google writes:

Are you one of those people (like me) who hates getting stuck in rush hour traffic on the highway? I'm happy to let you all know that you can now choose to avoid highways when getting driving directions on Google Maps! Try it out by checking the "Avoid highways" box at the top of your step-by-step driving directions.

Nice. However, what about toll roads, as Google Groups user asks? That feature is not yet implemented. It will be passed on.

What does your commute look like without highways? Mine just got 20 miles longer. This isn't it, but you get the idea:

From Manhattan, it's about 5 miles longer with highways. Not bad. Try doing the same thing to the same destination from Bronx, NY.

If you have any additional tips for the Google Maps team or just want to offer your feedback on this new functionality, feel free to join in the discussion at Google Groups.

Yesterday, the Google AdSense blog said accidents happen and people click on their own ads. Why did Google tell us this? Well, they are kind of tired of AdSense publishers emailing them, that they accidently clicked on their ads.

Remember, we wrote about click-o-phobia? Happens all too often. Google said:

As most of you know, our program policies state that publishers are not permitted to click on their own ads for any reason. For this reason, we've received many emails from publishers letting us know that they've accidentally clicked on their own ads. If you're one of these publishers, we truly appreciate the efforts you've made to monitor your account and keep it in good standing. However, we do understand that an accidental click may occur from time to time, so there's no need to contact us each instance this occurs.

So relax, if you can.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Groups.

I reported this at Search Engine Land earlier, but now we have feedback from the search community at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums on the news that Google will be banning ads related to essay writing services.

The BBC News broke the story:

Google is to ban adverts for essay writing services - following claims that plagiarism is threatening the integrity of university degrees.

Funny how that will be added to the long list of unacceptable ads at Google. They include; Aids to Pass Drug Tests, Alcohol, Anti and Violence, Automated Ad Clicking, Bulk Marketing, Copyrighted Works, Counterfeit Designer Goods and much much more.

So what the forums have to say?

Crazy stuff from google, it's not illegal(or even close) yet they're banning it. Big brother google telling us what's right and wrong, disgraceful behavior.

should have been done a long time ago.....they are now viewed as a bad neighbourhood by google....down in the pits with the pharmacy and porn sites

So what's next? Banning ads for Harry Potter books on request of radical evangelicals?

Good for Google. I started a full time MA in September and there is evidence of these scavengers and parasites everywhere. They don't help students get a degree, they help students get a piece of paper which is representative of nothing and useless to both themselves and their future employers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Elisabeth Osmeloski, the Search Engine Watch Forums editor, has decided it was time for a change. She has announced she will be leaving Search Engine Watch, as the forums editor, and joining Zonder.com, a vacation rentals company.

At Zonder, Elisabeth will be the director of online media for the vertical niche site. I hope we all get discounts on sweet vacation spots!

Elisabeth was integral in creating the Search Engine Watch Forums when it launched in June 2004. The forums have undergone many many changes since then, but it is time for Elisabeth to hand over the administrator keys.

I believe Elisabeth will continue to be a part of Search Engine Watch Forums, but she just won't have the time to be an administrator. So it is good to see that we won't lose her as part of the community, she has helped build.

Robert Kerry (EvilGreenMonkey), a guest author here, will be taking over Elisabeth's role. He has been with Search Engine Watch Forums for a while. His professionalism and sense of humor are a good fit to running a forum. Rob, we know you will do a great job running the forums.

Some more history:
- Danny Sullivan Says Goodbye To Search Engine Watch
- Reaction from the Search Community on Danny Sullivan's Departure
- Apax Buys Incisive Media Owner of Search Engine Strategies & Search Engine Watch
- Search Engine Watch Forums Broke 3,000 Members
- Search Engine Watch Forum Reorganization
- Search Engine Watch Launches SEW Forum

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Google rises in market share, MSN falls badly and Yahoo just hovers in place. There was a thread this morning on WMW about the April 2007 stats numbers just released by Nielsen/NetRatings. According to them:

Microsoft saw its share of the market slip to 9 percent, down from 10.1 percent a month earlier. Google, meanwhile, increased its lead, accounting for 55.2 percent of Web searches, up from 53.7 percent in March. Yahoo grew its share to 21.9 percent, up narrowly from the 21.8 percent share it held in March.

AOL remained in fourth place for April, but saw its share slip to 5.4 percent from 5.8 percent in March, while Ask.com held steady in fifth place with 1.8 percent of search queries.

Continued discussion at WMW - Search Market Update

An interesting discussion has arisen in the Cre8asite Forums where a member asks about the benefit of memes.

What's a meme, you may ask?

These are the "Why I Blog?", "My Favorite Charity", etc. blog posts that list the site owner's thoughts and then they tag others to continue the discussion.

Lately, a lot of interesting memes have arisen. There was the first one that I participated in which asked 5 things that you don't typically know about me. After that, there was the Why I Blog meme. I've been tagged by a few other memes, including in a "what offline magazine publications do you read?" and "what charities do you give to?" and I'm a bit overwhelmed.

I'm not alone.

Other Cre8asite Forums members feel similarly. Many feel that "after the first few memes they lose their appeal." As for me, I'm not sure if I am bored by memes, but I certainly feel an obligation to comply with the requests, even when I'm not sure what to say!

What do you think? Discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

This article was written this past Tuesday and scheduled for publication on Thursday, May 24th.

An interesting question has arisen in the Search Engine Watch Forums about whether there's any benefit to attending the Search Engine Strategies Latino Conference if you're not particularly targeting the Latino demographic.

According to moderator Nacho, there's a benefit to attending, even if you're not particularly targeting this market. However, you might end up focusing on a multilingual market in the future after attending the valuable sessions.

There are actually two tracks during the two day event. The fundamentals track is primarily focused on those SEM needs that you want to get better at, which doesn't really have to apply to the Latino market. It's like learning math no matter if you adding apples with apples or using examples of oranges. The principles are the same. On the other hand, there are really awesome new sessions at SES Latino on the Landscape and Tactics track that may help you understand how to take your site from being monolingual to multilingual. In our case, we use the prime focus of Spanish or Portuguese driven targeted markets. However, the principles again will also help you with other languages. With regards to the Latino market, you'll be surprised the enormous potential it has, so if you are not targeting them, maybe SES Latino will help you change your mind.

I personally won't be there, but it sounds exciting. If you haven't ever been to a Search Engine Strategies conference and you're near Miami, you should definitely consider it. In fact, Nacho provides a 20% discount with coupon code: 20IHIS

We will have conference coverage if you can't attend, and if you are interested in covering any sessions for Search Engine Roundtable, please feel free to contact us.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

This article was written this past Monday and scheduled for publication on Thursday, May 24th.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks if DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) filings are on a site basis or page by page basis. It is on a page by page basis.

So if you submit a DMCA page removal request, you need to submit it for each page.

If your site content is stolen, learn how to report stolen content and submit DMCA requests. If you want your content back in the Google index after being removed due to a DMCA request, see here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

This was written on Tuesday and scheduled to go live at a later date.

There is a great thread at Cre8asite Forums discussing how one should implement a glossary or definitions page. I have written about Google Definitions a bunch of times already:

- Google Definitions Help with Rankings
- Google Definitions Traffic Slump
- Google Definitions Now Provided by Answers.com
- Definitions & Glossary Pages Are Good

But how should you construct your glossary or definitions page from a SEO and usability standpoint?

Ammon Johns recommends breaking down your page into sections of 15 or so words on a page, and ordering them by alphabet. For example, break them out like A-G , H-R , S-Z. Not only that, but hyperlink them from your pages to the definition.

Let me show you how I have been doing it on my corporate site for years now.

On my company page and throughout my site, I have dotted underline words that symbolize there is a definition for that word. When you place your mouse over that link, it changes the curser to a question-mark. Then it uses the title attribute to overlay a snippet of that definition for that word. Here is a screen capture:

In this case the word is "World Wide Web" and if you click on it, it will link you to the definition page and anchor you down to that word.

My definitions page is one long list, but there is no doubt that I should probably break it up one day and add more to it.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

This article was written on Tuesday, May 22nd and scheduled to go live for Thursday, May 24th.

There has been a lot of talk lately about Google's new Universal Search interface. Obviously big changes like this precipitate discussion on ways to make it useful to the SEO and the webmaster.The pressing question of the day, is how to capitalize on it. Barry has some excellent coverage here and I definitely must point out Danny's coverage at Search Engine Land to get the basics of how Universal search is working.

While researching ways to take advantage of Universal search, I came across a thread on WebmasterWorld Supporters Forum today about some tactics and tips to take advantage of optimizing for Google Universal search. Since it is a paid section I will try to summarize some of the points and add more own experience.

The thread starter asks some important questions to think about:

How to land in these alternate embedded listings? How to take monetize the traffic, or more properly refine it so that one's getting targetted users? Worse, am I wasting my time?

Great questions. Some of the many main areas to work on are the following:

1. Standard Content/ Web Search

Naturally this is one of the first areas to work on, optimize for organic search with standard SEO tactics. Integrate other parts forms of media into your pages. Add images to your content.

2. Blog Search

Venice on WMW suggests: "Take a blog post for example. You can incorporate your photos, video, and content into your blog, along with an RSS feed. That results in an opportunity to get positioned for more than just a plain standard HTML page."

3. Image Search

Big one, but often neglected. First would to allow Google to spider your image content. Next, the logical step would be to optimize the names jpgs, gifs, etc.. effectively so that they rank well in normal Google searches. Alt tags are your friend, make sure images are properly labeled. Blogs are excellent ways to get images spidered quickly and rank for many terms. Take this search for armadillo, the second images at the top is from a blogspot.com url. The poster included the terms armadillo in the post title, image name, and has relevant content surrounding the image.

4. Video Search

The big one here is Youtube.com and Google Video. Upload videos to one or both. Largely we have seen a lot of videos from Youtube appear in the results. One of the best ways I have found to get videos included is to have the linked to from blog posts, other users and websites and make sure they have good titles. The combination of a little optimization and insane popularity on these sites goes a long way. Videos with comments, awards, etc.. on Youtube also seem to make it quicker in the results than those that do not. Videos that are properly tagged with relevant keywords also help. Not to mention using words like "video" or "vid". If you have a video that you want to get ranked another helpful way to attract some "attention" is too comment on other people's videos in the same category. This can help encourage people to view your video and link to it. Here is an example of a search for Texas Armadillo video that is optimized for the term "texas armadillo" and is linked to from many other blogs. The video is kinda dull I know, sorry feel free to recommend other examples in the comments.

Another great example I found is a search for "Umbrella" a semi popular search term that has a big mix of listings. Do I want an umbrella to keep the rain away or do I mean the song? Google gives you both. The videos that display overwhelming here are from a song from a singer called Rhinna and the song is titled "Umbrella". Covergirl.com has sponsored this video and it includes advertising in the beginning and the end for there products plus a celebrity endorsement. They are capitalizing on Google Universal search big time by catching all people that are searching for the song not the thing that keeps rain away. '

Do good editing on your videos. Now that Google is showing the video boxes, these image boxes of your videos really catch the users attention. If you first opening frame of the video is a big black screen, its probably not going to capture as many searchers as someone who has a more interesting opening frame. Interestingly what Google displays in the video box is not always the opening frame, so sometimes you don't get to decide. Just make the videos easy to watch.

Related Videos. When Google displays a video in the search results and you watch it directly in the results, there is a link that appears that says "Related Videos". I haven't tried this, but if its a very popular type of video you might submit some videos to Youtube in this same category or with the same title and try to capitalize on those people looking for related videos. See an example here.

5. Local/Maps Search

The best way here I think to capitalize is to make sure your business or website is listed in Google Local and Yahoo Local. Yellowpages also help (but watch those fees). Add your business to Google Local and then wait an eternity for them to update it in the results. Adding addresses on the bottom of each page of a website helps. Submit to authority directories like Yahoo Directory and DMOZ. Get local links! Obtain links from other businesses in your local space, location, industry, etc..

6. News Search

Submit optimized press releases and if your blog is spidered by Google News, optimize post titles to take advantage that they might show up in a search result somewhere. I am not completely bullish on News Search optimization, as the flood of news postings and press releases each day seem to degrade the usefulness of optimizing for this pretty quickly. However if you have a site that is spidered by Google News, consider yourself lucky. You have the keys to the kingdom to optimize as you will and test this approach.

7. and others such as Books, Patent, Product, Finance, Directory, Code and Catalogs.

Not exactly sure about these, as others from the WMW thread didn't know either. I think these Universal search items might be classified as a waste of time. You decide! Unless you have a patent, you probably are not going to get in the patent search. Book scanning hasn't reached as far as scanning your home library yet, so we might just have to wait on that one. There is often a link between News search and Finance search for stock quotes. I have seen quite often posts from Seroundtable.com appear on the Google stock quote page. Might be worth testing, but in terms of monetizing, it maybe be a little difficult unless specifically targeted to a group of people interested in what you content is about. Code Search I admit I have no idea about how to leverage this, maybe someone has some ideas. If you are interested in getting listed in Catalog search, you need to start uploading offers and products to Google Base and also see this page here about Catalogs FAQ.

Continued discussion at WebmasterWorld Supporters Forum

At first glance, this may appear to be an odd question because we all banter about the pros and cons of ad distractions. However, this particular thread is remarkable because the person asking the question is an SEO practioner and is questioning the appearance of a long time industry website, Search Engine Guide.

The author asks,

I think that Jennifer Laycock is one of the best writers in our industry. Beyond the basic SEO subjects she addresses for beginners, the questions she asks about facets of the industry always strike me as important, fresh and worthy. I love reading her articles. Unfortunately, I've found myself going to searchengineguide.com less and less lately because of the abundance of Flash advertising on the site. Right now, in the top spot on their pages, there is an ad with a guy popping around a screen. This one isn't as intrusive as the last one that ran for weeks and feautured a rapidly morphing image of people's faces that had a flickering, flashing effect to it.

The thread covers distractions, ad sizes and types that may or may not hinder the ability to read and the risks involved with angering regular readership.

The kicker comes in when SEG site owner, Robert Clough, enters into the discussion. He learned a few things, and so is everybody else from his team's very public experience.

Cre8asiteforums discussion: Can Advertising Hurt Your Readership?

Last night the Y! Search blog announced a weather report indicating that the Yahoo index was updating overnight. Tim Mayer who usually lets us know about these updates told us to expect some changes most likely in response to spam reports and feedback from webmasters. The Y! Search Blog says:

We just rolled out a new search index last night. So, as usual, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index throughout this process. This update should be complete very soon.

I have spent the morning tracking down some forum threads on the recent update. While it may still be too soon to tell the effect of these changes. A thread on Digitalpoint Forums and WMW so far are the most active. From the forum members, most from my searching have indicated positive results from this update. Its seems like a big update from what I can tell. Some webmasters are seeing upward changes in their sites ranking and some are seeing no changes at all.

If you have been following our reports on Yahoo lately, Barry did an excellent post on websites ranking poorly in Yahoo but doing well in Google. There has been some good discussion lately about the differences between Yahoo and Google algorithms. Lately I have been getting a lot of emails from clients and friends about how to improve their search engine rankings in Yahoo. So what does Yahoo like? Barry profiled at the beginning of May new tags Yahoo has released to let them know about your most important content. There are also some good tips in this WebmasterWorld thread.

Continued discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, SEOChat

Traditional bookmarking seems obsolete. Adding a bookmark to your browser, to many, is a practice that has been since seemingly replaced by newer methods -- social bookmarking sites, if you will.

However, not everyone is aware of these social bookmarking sites, nor are they ready to abandon their traditional methods of bookmarking. A Cre8asite Forums thread touches upon this subject. In the thread, administrator EGOL suggests that traditional means of bookmarking stay intact, and social bookmarking methods through sites like AddThis.com not necessarily be implemented -- or at least done as a secondary option.

This is exactly what other members agree is the right thing to do:

Absolutely. For most visitors bookmark this site means triggering a bookmark in their browser. I would add social bookmarking micro-icons for the rest. It also comes out as more honest.

The other angle is whether to have social bookmarking sites only, browser bookmarking only, both, or simply some text saying "hey, press Control-D to bookmark this!". IMHO, you need at the very least the Ctrl-D text and some of the social bookmarking sites.

For those not ready to jump into the social bookmarking realm, you should make sure that if you include a bookmarking option, your website accommodates these types of users.

Discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

This article was written this past Monday and scheduled for publication on Wednesday, May 23rd.

In a Search Engine Watch Forums thread, a member asks whether it is beneficial to utilize an XML sitemap for your SEO efforts.

The answer, according to other forum members, is yes:

Google sitemaps is the system that tells G which pages your website contains. If you have an website with URL with parameters then the googlebot won't crawl to much of it, especially if you have multiple parameters(more than two). So, you must create a sitemap file and tell google what pages your server contain. Then the googlebot will came on your sitemap file and will try to reach those URL that normally he will have problems crawling.

However, the member is confused because he has a file called feed.xml that is being ranked for competitive keywords. In fact, he mentions that it has a PageRank of 4.

Danny Sullivan responds to explain this "anomaly."

Sure, anything can have a PR score, if you can link to it. All those links add up. But can it pass PR elsewhere. Look at the cached copy of your page: http://66.249.93.104/search?sourcei...rss%2F rss.xml. The "links" aren't proper links -- no PR passing. Well, to be honest, Google probably could parse out the links to use for PR purposes, if it wanted. But I wouldn't be depending on that.

To summarize, RSS is used for syndicating content. It helps to bring Google to the awareness of the pages on your website, but there is no benefit to linking to an XML file.

Discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

This article was written this past Monday and scheduled for publication on Wednesday, May 23rd.

I have been reporting about the Ask.com Algorithm campaign at Search Engine Land for a couple months now. You can read some of my coverage at Now Starring: The Algorithm - Ask.com To Focus On Ranking System In New TV Ads, Ask.com: The $100 Million Brand and some other Ask.com promotions here.

I am sure you have seen some of these ads yourself. But one of the ads being discussed is the ad named "The Unabomber Hates The Algorithm." The ad looks like this:

A Cre8asite Forums thread has one member calling the ad disgusting.

This latest one "The Unabomber Hates the Algorithm"....what is the deal with this?

The Unabomber killed 3 people and wounded more than 20 others. This is what Ask is now using as a marketing ploy? I'm totally disgusted. Beyond this just not making sense, (am I supposed to say, well if a murderer hates it, then I, a good person, will like it????) it's making me think Ask is being run by a bunch of nut cases. Seriously. Will we soon be seeing H****r featured in one of these things? Some things just aren't joke material...and I honestly don't know if this is supposed to be a joke, or clever, or weird, or thought-provoking, or brain washing or what.

He then asks, why was the on YouTube? YouTube is a Google owned property and why would Google allow competitors to advertiser on their property?

There are answers for all these questions but let's leave it to the forums.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

This article was written Tuesday and scheduled to go live today.

The 31st edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download. In this show we chatted about Google's new Universal Search approach. Microsoft is set to buy Chris Boggs' company, Avenue A/Razorfish. Google is shutting down AdSense arbitrage MFAs. Google launched hot trends, and we also talked about SEO, linking, anchor text, ip stuff and 301 redirects. Plus we discussed other stories involving Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and Live.com. 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 Revamps Search Results Landscape with Universal Search
   
2. Microsoft Acquires Ad Company aQuantive for $6 Billion
   
3. Google To Shut Down AdSense Arbitrageurs
   
4. Google Trends Releases "Hot Trends" Tool
   
5. Should You Focus on the "Small Stuff" in SEO?
   
6. Ethical Linkbait: When Have You Crossed the Line?
   
7. Does Google Split or Stem Anchor Text?
   
8. How Important is the IP Address for SEO?
   
9. Can Too Many 301 Redirects Hurt Your SEO Efforts?
   

Lightening Round:

Continue reading "Search Pulse 31: Universal Search, Microsoft Buys Chris, AdSense MFAs, Google Hot Trends, SEO, Link Bait, & More"

A number of members at WebmasterWorld noticed that their AdWords ads, which previously ranked on the first page, were moved to the second and third page results. This was first observed on May 16th.

On the 16th of May, I noticed that most of the websites that were in the first page rankings in Google USA, had been dropped to second and third page positions.

Websites that have replaced them are mostly irrelevant listings from large corporate companies and over-bidded newbies.

Is this a glitch in the system, as I don't see how this would increase Googles' revenue if they have a much lower click through rate or if surfers eventually block them out of their vision like they do with banners?

Apparently, this member is not alone. On May 16th, others observed the same behavior.

Glad to see I'm not alone in noticing this... starting on the 16th, for one of our most popular terms (our historic rank: 1 - 3) - the entire first page is now filled with advertisers who all fail to include this rather popular word in their ads.

It was suggested that users delete their cookies to see a different ranking. Doing this actually helped the users who were affected.

I deleted my browser cookies and the rank changed, not as it was, but an updated version. It almost appears as though the system is refreshing and an updated rank is developing breaking loose the websites that seemed to be glued at the top and moving a few new ones in.

I deleted cookies as tootalldave suggested and the "odd" results stopped appearing and then I started getting the "true" results. Weird indeed. There is definetely something in that cookie that was trigering the "oddball" results. I am at a loss.

Did anyone else notice this? Unfortunately for typical users, they won't be deleting their cookies as they don't know that there's a problem.

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

According to a DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld posts, Google and Salesforce.com are in potential talks for a partnership. A Yahoo News article expounds on this possible relationship:

The paper said one outcome could be a Web-based offering that integrates some of Google's online services such as e-mail and instant-messaging with those of Salesforce.com, whose customer-relationship management tools help salespeople track their accounts.

So, why this acquisition? For the betterment of the Google Apps platform, it seems. Digital Point Forum members feel this way.

Salesforce is a pretty powerful software far superior to MS CRM. I have used both and can see why google wants to go after it.

If it was integrated with other Google apps it would be the daddy of all business focused web applications.

I have no experience with this CRM software, but if that's true, this is a naturally strategic move on Google's part. And maybe another DigitalPoint Forum member is right, "Google wants to spread their business to every market!"

Or maybe it's just competition at its finest. As a WebmasterWorld member says:

Man, they're really in an all-out war now, aren't they, GOOG v. MSN. G fired the first shot with the DoubleClick buy, and since then it's been wild.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Additional coverage is at Techmeme and in the Washington Post article.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports Google not only bolding the ad text that matches your exact search query, but also bolding variations of that query.

For example, a search on ipod in singular form, also bolds the word "ipods" in plural within this Circuit City ad.

WebmasterWorld member Rehan confirms that he also believes this is new, saying;

I'm pretty sure this is relatively new, or at the very least the broadening of what may have been happening on a limited basis before. A few weeks ago I split up a "Keyword widget" campaign into separate "Keyword widget", "Keyword widgets", "Key word widget", and "Key word widgets" ad groups just so I could get bolding without using dynamic keyword insertion. With this new change, I don't need to do that because "Keyword widget" in the ad text is bold even if "Key word widgets" is the search query.

I personally do not know for sure if this is new, but it seems like the majority of the AdWords professionals at WebmasterWorld seem to believe so.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

David Tussey from Google Maps announced that you can now do neighborhood searches at Google Maps.

So if you are on the upper west side of Manhattan and you want bagels you can find them over here. But yes, if you do travel over to the dark side of the upper east side of Manhattan and you want bagels from there, you can find them here. Also, if you are in the gramercy park area of Manhattan, near Baruch College (where I went), and you need a bagel, that works also over here.

Greg Sterling adds; Real Estate sites HomeGain and Trulia offer this capability and so do local search sites Yelp and Ask City. Yahoo recently introduced color-coded neighborhood maps (in SF and NY) among other changes and Maps upgrades.

Gramercy Park Bagels searches at Ask City isn't too shabby.

Yea, but Google gets the forum buzz for it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Cloaking is when a search bot is given one page of content, while a normal user is given another set of content.

If you go to http://autos.yahoo.com/used-cars/forsale.html and compare it with the Google Cache version, to me they look identical. So possibly, Yahoo! changed it. But in the screen captures, only the Google version had the "used cars" anchor text by every state break down. You can see the before and after at Agerhart.com.

It seems like Yahoo Autos is currently not cloaking at this moment.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Tim Mayer of Yahoo! has confirmed on May 22nd edition of The Daily Search Cast that Yahoo Autos has changed the page since this has been reported. So, Yahoo Autos was cloaking. FYI, this wasn't the first time Yahoo! was caught cloaking, there also were spotted using unethical search practices in July 2005.

I wrote a really long piece at Search Engine Land on a new feature by Google Trends, I named my article Google Meme: Hot Trends Added To Google Trends.

In short, now when you go to the Google Trends home page you will see "hot trends" under the search box. These hot trends are made up of USA based queries. What makes a query hot? If there is a sudden increase in searches for that phrase, something out of the norm relative to the historical look at that phrase, it will be considered a hot trend. I gave several examples in my article at Search Engine Land.

Let me give you one more that is related to why Tamar and I will be out Wednesday and Thursday. The Jewish holiday of Shavuot is tomorrow, we won't be here, so expect some prewritten articles and articles from the other authors. But since Shavuot is a seasonal event, typically, throughout the year, no one searches on that term. But now that Shavuot is tomorrow, there is a spike in people searching for it.

Right now, Shavuot is 36 on hot trends list for me. Here is a link to the trend for May 22nd for Shavuot.

As you can see at the top right it shows the date, which you can change. Then it shows the "hotness" level, in this case, it is only mild. It shows the search volume throughout the day. The search query "peaked" 22 hours ago, meaning Google noticed a spike in people searching for that search term 22 hours ago. What I find very interesting is that the "location " is 9% New York - well there a lot of religious Jewish people in New York, so that may make sense. Then at the bottom you see news articles and blog posts, followed by related web pages. I suspect news and blog posts have a lot to do with the hot trends reports.

Now, just think how this can be useful for SEOs. Hot trends. Hmm...

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums

It may appear unimportant to care about where to put an "*" or text word "Required" in forms, but the more complicated the type of form or application, the more it becomes a design issue. Creating a form that works for both those who can see web pages and those who can't, as well as all the physical limitations that rely on assistive software to access the Web, may be challenging.

There are many solutions out there. Cre8asiteforums visits the topic in force in Accessibility Design - Where To Put "required" In Forms?

On a Google Groups thread, Barry asks whether Google Universal search will impact user-created Google Custom Search Engines.

It's a good question, according to Christine of Google. She says that it will not affect your custom search engines.

Good question. The integrated search results you're referring to won't be available on your Custom Search Engine or any other syndicated search feature.

What this means is that while the main Google search engine is displaying embedded results (local, news, video, etc.), these results will not appear within your own custom search engine results.

Discussion continues at Google Groups.

Often, when you view results from Google News or Yahoo! News you are taken to a site that normally would require you to register in order to view the content. But normally, you can view all the content right away, without signing in. I.e. you click from Google News, you see all the content. Then you go back to that page, but it then restricts you from seeing the content on that page.

How does that work? How do you as a publisher allow Google News to index your content but require users to register before viewing your content?

That is the question being asked at a Google Groups thread where Google News Guide answers it can be done.

Remember subscription sites aren't indexed less--they just require a little more TLC to get set-up correctly :)

The rep links us to a help document that gives publishers two options.

How do you allow Google News to index these pages, when Google News can sign in? Google asks you to cloak, well kinda cloak.

The easiest way to do this is to configure your webservers to not serve the registration page to our crawlers (when the User-Agent is "Googlebot"). You can verify that the request is actually from our robot by making sure the IP address is within the range of 66.249.64.0/20. It’s equally important that your robots.txt file permits Googlebot to access your site.

Other solutions include:

First click free: We have worked with other subscription-based news services to arrange that the very first article view by a Google News user (identifiable by referrer) does not require subscription. While the first article can be seen without subscribing, all clicks on the article page are "trapped." This means that if users click anywhere else on that page, they will be prompted to sign up. This is our preferred solution since it benefits both you and our users.

Subscription designation: If the above solution is not feasible, our policy is to add a "(subscription)" tag to the publication name of all sources that greet our users with a subscription or registration form. This signals to our users that they may be required to register or subscribe on your site in order to access the article in question.

If you go with the "First click free" you need to follow Google News Guide's steps:

The basic idea is that your site must allow referrals coming from any Google domain or subdomain to hop over your subscription page. There are a lot of different URLs they could come from, so include any top-level domain matching http://*.google.*

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Last week, Google Revamps Search Results Landscape with Universal Search. Part of that includes not just Google News results in the middle of the page, not just image results or local results but also video results.

An example video result that comes up in the middle of the page is a search for star wars kid. You should see the famous video from YouTube in the middle of the page, here is a screen capture of it, if you do not see it.

Webmasters and SEOs are already asking at WebmasterWorld how they can optimize their videos to be included in Google Web search?

Of course basic elements like the title of the video, the keywords, the description and so on are all important. But you have two challenges.

(1) Make Google believe a video result is important enough to come up in the main Google web results

(2) Make Google feel that you video deserves to be there over other videos.

I find it interesting that a search on the correct spelling of lonelygirl15 doesn't bring up a video, for me, in the Google web results. However a misspelling of it, as lonleygirl15 does return a video result in the main web search results.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Last Wednesday, May 16th, Yahoo! Search Marketing went from long to short descriptions. They gave advertisers ample time and warning to adjust their descriptions, if they deem necessary.

I spotted a thread at WebmasterWorld showing that one advertiser is not happy with the results after the change.

My CTR since May 16 has fallen through the floor.

I assume this is because of the new short description policy.

To say the least, this particular advertiser is not happy. But there is only one post in that thread, no more complaints as of yet. I am curious, are others noticing any changes? Seeing a drop in CTR, sales, conversions or seeing an increase in CTR, sales or conversions? Or are you seeing no change at all?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A Cre8asite Forums thread asks if having too many 301 redirects from OLD site to NEW site can hurt you in the search results. It is a good question, one which administrator Ammon Johns (aka Black_Knight) comes out to answer.

You have legitimately moved the content to a consolidated main site, so it really shouldn't be an issue. Of course, ideally all the deep-urls from the scattered old sites should be redirecting to the specific page where the rquivalent content now resides on he main domain. Deep URLs from the old domain should really not all be pointing at the homepage as it is just poor usability, and poor usability is something the engines don't mind devaluing.

If I were a search engineer, I wouldn't be worried about the number of sites redirecting to the new site, but I'd have built a lot of warn-levels into the algorithm for when all the deep-pages of many different domains were pointed solely at a homepage. That would look like any made-up url on the old domain would give a 301 redirect, and that is an issue my algorithm would have to discount completely.

I agree. When moving from an old site to a new site, the best thing one can do is 301 redirect all the deep old pages to the new respective and related deep pages on the new site. So you can have thousands of redirects. In fact, when we tear down and old site and rebuild it. Normally, we are able to map the OLD URLs to the new URLs using some smart scripts. That builds thousands and sometimes infinite 301 redirects. Why infinite? Many sites we take on may have infinite URLs because of tracking; i.e. domain.com/page1.html?trackingurl=23322, etc or even because of session IDs. We redirect them all, automatically. So, potentially, we redirect an infinite number of OLD URLs to NEW URLs using 301s.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Arbitrage and AdSense has been an issue basically since the day Google launched AdSense. Arbitrageurs would use Google AdWords and other means to send traffic to their site, and monetize that traffic with Google AdSense.

So if they paid $0.20 per click on AdWords and made $0.25 per click with AdSense, they made $0.05. Simple concept.

We discussed this way back on December 1, 2004 with In with Adwords, Out with AdSense. Chris Boggs then took two looks at it with Publishers and Arbitrage: Sucking the Life Out of Search Results? and Revisiting the Subject of AdSense Arbitrage. I also wrote about it again at MFAs (Made for AdSense Sites) Targeted by Google?

Well, it seems from the WebmasterWorld thread that those MFAs and AdSense arbitrageurs are being shut down.

They told me my account will be disabled at 1st June, and also added that I'll receive payment for all outstanding earnings in accordance with the standard AdSense payment schedule.

Starting June 1, this individual's account as well as many many others will be terminated. They will however receive all outstanding earnings that are due to them.

Many more publishers received this email from Google on Friday.

I to got the "friendly account disablement" email today, May 18. It came out of the blue. It says my business model is not a good fit for AdSense and that the account goes down on June 1. Payment will be made normally though. I am a UPS club+ size publisher.

I will be the first to admit that I have been running substantial arbitrage and MFA sites. They have just grown exponentially lately due to all the efficient AdWords tools. Yet, MFA and arbritage is not a breach of TOS in and of itself right?

I admit that they are not the greatest user experience out there. Yet I do believe they do comply with the specifics of the TOS, there are no blatant breaches. I run dozens of sites/domains with AdSense and I have been careful to abide with the specifics in the letters of the TOS.

Some of these publishers are earning $70,000 per month or more. And they also will be terminated.

Got the same email here. I just reached my 70k-month.

I am confident, these AdSense publishers will adapt.

There has been no official word from Google on this. AdSenseAdvisor has not made any appearance in the forum to confirm or deny these emails.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Hey everyone! How has your week been? Hopefully it was great, and hopefully you're also in for an excellent weekend! It's been a nice quiet spring week here in New York. We had a little rain and a tornado watch, but the rest of the week has been nice -- albeit cloudy -- but I feel springtime! Truthfully, I hope it lasts a lot longer. I hate the heat. It's why I left Florida. :)

Mother's Day

Happy belated Mother's Day to all your mothers out there! We saw a fair share of Mother's Day logos, and we also celebrated with a lovely pink theme that covered the "U" in Roundtable. (Did you notice that? Bet you didn't!)

Google Goes Universal

World, meet Google 2.0. Google is now integrating its other search properties into its main search results. This was first seen by a select few individuals but was unleashed shortly thereafter. There's an incredible writeup of the Google Universal Search on Search Engine Land, because world, this is the future of Google search.

At the same time, we're talking about some slightly noticeable differences in the Google Search Engine. They now are using CSS. For me, a change was evident when I did searches and saw the white gradient above the search results. What did you notice? Was it too subtle for you?

Are Your Yahoo Rankings Suffering?

A bunch of users have been sharing their pain over what apparently is a lack of Yahoo rankings. If you're ranking so well on Google, you should be ranking somewhere in Yahoo, right? Well, if you are, tell them and ask them what's up. Apparently, two different algorithms are at work here, but who knows for sure.

By the way, when you lose rankings after launching an SEO version of a site, it's usually only temporary. Make sure you have 301 redirects and that there's no duplicate content. Barry suggests more in this post.

Celebrate!

As you may know, two big guys in search have been married -- and no, not to each other. My apologies for the misleading headline. :) Sergey Brin of Google married a woman named Anne, and Gary Price of Ask.com married a lovely lady named Lisa. One wedding was in the Bahamas, while the other one was in Chicago. As Nathan asks, where do we send the gifts?

Stephen Colbert Still Sucks

(I wonder if I can rank for that headline.)

In response to the recent "debombing" of Stephen Colbert as the Greatest Living American, Matt Cutts commented that this is not a live algorithm. To quote Matt, "it's not a manual change; it's just a fresh push of our Googlebomb data. The algorithm doesn't run every day."

GoogleTalk

Matt Cutts also followed up on an earlier post I wrote about Google being attacked over webmaster relations. In his followup, he writes about the -950 Penalty and over-optimization. There's a video to watch with insightful information as well. Take some time out of your day to educate yourself if you're so inclined and interested.

Tag Clouds

We added a tag cloud to Search Engine Roundtable. The tag cloud is growing every day. What do you think about tag clouds? Should they be blocked from search engines? They're almost like meta keywords, if you ask me. They could be dangerous if not implemented with caution. I spent last Friday cleaning up our tag cloud, and we still have close to 900 tags.

aQuantive is Rich

Just a few hours ago, news broke that Microsoft acquired aQuantive, an ad company, for a hefty $6 billion. It's been a busy day for those guys at Avenue A | Razorfish, but it's exciting news for our Associate Editor, Chris Boggs. Congrats. :)

Conference-O-Rama

It's almost June. To be precise, it's 17 days until SMX, and I'll be there with Barry. There's SES Latino and SES Toronto as well, and we're looking for people to cover the sessions for Search Engine Roundtable. Let us know if you're interested.

Next Week

Next week, on Wednesday and Thursday, Barry and I will be celebrating the holiday of Shavuot, so we'll be out of commission. Hopefully, we'll have a few good articles lined up for you and our other editors will write in as well. We'll be back on Friday!

Microsoft has issued a press release about its latest acquisition: aQuantive, a massive ad network. The Wall Street Journal has more:

Microsoft Corp. agreed to acquire aQuantive Inc. for $66.50 a share, in an all-cash deal valued at about $6 billion, as the software giant became the latest to buy an online advertising agency.

According to TechCrunch, aQuantive is the parent company to Avenue A | Razorfish, Atlas and DRIVEpm. Our Associate Editor, Chris Boggs, works for Avenue A | Razorfish, but was unable to comment. However, we anticipate some more information shortly.

Discussion on WebmasterWorld has already begun, with people putting this up against Google's acquisition of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.

So do ya go with DoubleClick or Atlas for an ad server now? If DoubleClick was to expensive at 3.1B, how is Atlas a deal at 6B? Maybe the revenue from the agency unit makes it more financially attractive.

Additional coverage of the news is on Techmeme.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

AdSensePro of Google starts off an interesting discussion in a Google Groups pointing the community to a recent post made in the Inside AdSense blog. In the blog post, the AdSense team says that it is not permitted to encourage clicking of ads because the proceeds will go to charity.

We want users to click on ads because they are interested in the products or services offered by the advertiser, not because they are interested in supporting a site or a charity.

Remember, the advertiser pays for those clicks, so it would not be fair to encourage this on the advertiser's dime. If you're interested in clicking on ads for charity, I suggest you visit The Hunger Site and its associated rings of sites.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

The question about IP address and SEO is revisited time and time again. How beneficial is having a shared IP versus a dedicated IP? A Search Engine Watch Forums thread tackles this question.

1. What happens when one web site gets banned and in doing so penalizing the IP?
2. Is it fair that a web site using ethical SEO techniques is affected because it is being hosted in a "bad" neighborhood?
3. Does interlinking websites on the the same shared IP cause search engines to view them as a cluster and consequently loose link weight? i.e. links originating from a single C Block.

A few observations have been thrown out. A number of comments have been mentioned to reflect that Google is not as concerned about the IP address and focuses more on the domain name. However, it is observed that Google would rather you not link to the same sites if they reside on the same C-class.

Another person quotes Google:

"Actually, Google handles virtually hosted domains and their links just the same as domains on unique IP addresses. If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you'll never see a difference between the two cases. We do see a small percentage of ISPs every month that misconfigure their virtual hosting, which might account for this persistent misperception--thanks for giving me the chance to dispel a myth!"

-Google Director of Technology Craig Silverstein Slashdot interview

Ian McAnerin, moderator, adds that a shared IP is fine if you do not do anything shady:

For the average site, my experience is that it really doesn't matter if it's shared or not. It only becomes an issue if you begin to push the spam envelope, at which point I would suggest you have other problems other than your IP...

I invite you to read a blog post from my BFF Lisa that was written two months ago that also addresses this question. In the post, Lisa says that it's best to be on a dedicated IP.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread finally has a response from a Google representative on the use of AdSense ads on proxy sites.

Google AdSense Representative, AdSenseAdvisor, said:

Publishers are permitted to place Google ads on the homepages of anonymous proxy sites, but not in the frames around pages viewed through the proxy. The concern is that the publisher is unable to control the content of pages framed by his ads.

So ads on the homepages of these proxy sites are OK. But ads within frames around the pages visible via the proxy is not allowed.

Why? The publisher cannot control the content in those pages. So the content can be in violation of the AdSense terms of service, which can get your account terminated.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Adam Lasnik, the original Googler hired to help Webmasters (Yes, Matt Cutts is famous for it, but he wasn't originally hired for it), has promised us that Google will be adding more Google representatives to answer questions about Google search.

You'll be able to spot and verify these folks' status as a Googler by the "G" badge you see next to their name on posts. And while they clearly know their stuff, it may take them a short bit to get their "Group legs," so welcome 'em and be nice, okay? :)

This week, Google has added three new Googlers to the team.

(1) Bergy:

I'm "Bergy," (my nickname since college) and I am a Googler from the Search Quality Team who will be around to try to both answer your questions and help you help each other. I do not have any websites left on the web that I am willing to admit to authoring, but I've been a blogger, freelance web designer, and Perl programmer.

Outside of Google, I enjoy riding motorcycles too fast, replaying old video games, cooking, and watching and collecting movies. I'm a transplant to the Bay Area, originally from the "Queen City of the West"--Cincinnati, Ohio--a place full of unpredictable weather, delicious food, and people who are related to me.

(2) Wysz:

I'm "Wysz," (as in, "Gee, Wiz!") and I've had my nickname much longer than Bergy.

You're all way ahead of me as webmasters, as I don't even have a URL to list here! (Does http://www.google.com count?) However, I do have a personal site of my own brewing, so I might give it a plug here when it's ready for release... and ready for your constructive criticism!

I'm originally from Bucks County, Pennsylvania (where the movie "Signs" takes place), but am now in sunny California. I miss the snow in winter, but I've really enjoyed being able to eat outside for much of the year. When I'm not in front of a computer (which is hard for my friends to imagine), I enjoy photography, videography, and skiing... sometimes all at the same time!

(3) Pat:

I'm Pat and I have had my nickname for my entire life. Beat that Bergy and Wysz. :P While I don't currently run a public website, I have a bit of development experience in various languages. I own a couple domains though, and who knows, I may actually do something with them someday. If you talk to my friends, some might say I wear t-shirts with nerdy phrases on them, but I just think they are cool. In my spare time I enjoy remodeling my condo, watching movies on my new TV (HD rules!), and listening to The Mountain Goats, Bob Dylan, Neutral Milk Hotel and anything Wil Oldham does.

This adds to the already great group of Googlers answers webmaster questions on a daily basis. Jonathan Simon, Vanessa Fox, Adam Lasnik and the others.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Update: Seems like we got two more...

(4) Susan Moskwa:

Hey, all! One more Googler chiming in...

My name's Susan (sorry, no hip nicknames) and I've been working with the Webmaster Tools team since last summer, mostly on international issues. I'm looking forward to dialoguing with y'all and helping out where I can!

On the personal side: I grew up in Wisconsin (yes, I love fried cheese curds; no, I do not own a cheesehead), I'm a huge NPR freak, and I spend most of my free time playing board games and training for roller derby (though not at the same time).

I work in the Google Kirkland office, so if any of you are coming out for SMX Seattle next month, look for me and come say hello!

(5) nathanj:

I'm Nate, yet another Googler posting in the Google Webmaster Help group. A bit about me:

If my background were a recipe, I'd consist of one cup web design, one cup network administration, a few dashes of random programming skillz and a big heaping helping of a passion for technology. While at Google, I've bounced around from Product Support to Gmail to where I am now - Search Quality. I do have a personal blog, but I've got a few tweaks and some housecleaning to do before it's ready to be let loose into the wild.

A few of my other interests include sports, games, and music. And beer. I openly admit to being both a music snob and a beer snob. So in the spirit of spirits, I raise my pint glass and look forward to contributing to an already fantastic group.

Welcome guys and gals!

A new WebmasterWorld thread has a single report of all his old Overture data being deleted.

I just got off the phone with an support rep from Yahoo. I was trying to pull some data from the old Overture system from 2005 and none of the reports were pulling up. The rep said that this data was deleted from their servers because they needed to make space for some other things.

A Yahoo! representative supposedly told him that the old Overture data from the old system has been deleted?

Is this true?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

For what reasons can Yahoo! terminate your Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN) account?

The answer is for any reason they want.

According to the terms and conditions Yahoo (aka Overture) has the right to terminate your account for any reason they deem necessary.

We may suspend or terminate our provision of Matched Ads to you at any time, with or without notice, for any reason or no reason, with or without regard for how well Your Site or Your RSS Feed is performing, the quality of user traffic coming from Your Site or Your RSS Feed, or any other factor, in Overture's sole discretion.

Side note: I am curious why the legal document is still from Overture, aren't they going to legally change everything over to Yahoo! eventually? :)

But you as a publisher can also terminate for any reason you want.

You may terminate any of Your Sites' or Your RSS Feeds' participation in the Beta Program at any time by removing the Ad Code from that web site or RSS feed. Upon your termination, we may but do not have to immediately stop providing Matched Ads to Your Site or Your RSS Feed. If you place the Ad Code back on Your Site or Your RSS Feed, you will be subject to the then-current Terms and Policies.

Can you be terminated for not running the ads on your site? That is the question a DigitalPoint Forums asks. Technically, yes - but highly doubtful.

As one member points out, you can also technically be terminated if "you sneeze and cover your mouth with your left hand."

Keep in mind, Yahoo! terminates accounts if they deem necessary. They typically do this if they feel the publisher is exploiting their advertisers in some sense. Yahoo has done a lot to keep their publishers aware of potential violations through their revolutionary compliance manager section.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Tamar reported that Google Webmaster Tools Query Statistics Frozen yesterday.

Today, they are back to normal. Try checking yours out at http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/.

Reports at Google Groups and DigitalPoint Forums show people noticing that they have been updated.

My top search queries for Google Australia (I selected Australia for fun) are:
1. google uk
2. picsearch
3. google finance

Forum discussion at Google Groups and DigitalPoint Forums.

Gabs spotted that Yahoo Search UK was showing zero results for the term fishing. Here is a screen capture:

But do notice the sponsored results.

But if you do the same search at the UK domain and not add the "countryGB" to the end, you do get results.

Weird, indeed.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

A Google Groups thread shows numerous complaints from Google Webmaster Tool users who say that they have not received any updated query statistics since the beginning of April.

The only information that is seemingly updated is the sitemaps and last crawl data.

My site is regulary being indexed, but no updates at all to the search statistics or external links section...

Jonathan Simon of Google has updated the thread with information informing the community that they are working on getting the data updated for all affected users:

Thanks to all for reporting this issue. Our engineers are currently working on getting the Query Stats in Webmaster Tools updated. We expect to have the latest data available by the end of the week.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

I suppose that "Google 2.0" includes a few more tweaks besides just the typical universal search. Google's revamp which was first covered by Danny at Search Engine Land has more than just universal search: the search engine has been resdesigned and now uses CSS.

This was picked up on WebmasterWorld:

The lightly tinted bar, with graded colouring, containing the search keywords, tipped me off to this!

Just look at that source code on any Google SERPs.

CSS up the wazoooo... (about time too!)

Indeed, it's rather nice, but I'm still getting used to it. :)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A HighRankings Forums member wonders how Google treats his keywords since some of the backlinks pointing to his site do not have spaces despite the fact that the phrase consists of multiple words.

Due to the long name of my website (keyword), a couple of my backlinks are anchor text as thisisme, instead of this is me.

Just wondering, does google see the backlink anchor text as 3 words too?

Many people think that the answer to this question is no. As one of the members puts it, "There is no way for google bot to segregate out the words thisisme."

The discussion turns to how Google handles multiple words (splitting or stemming) within a keyword phrase. The idea is that Google will stem keywords, which means that they will add appropriate suffixes to keywords when they are being searched upon, but there's no evidence to promote the conception that Google is actually splitting keywords in a search term.

Word splitting is a whole other matter. I've not seen any evidence suggesting any of the engines attempt to split words. Especially if the root word isn't really a word.

That should mean that if you search for "thisisme" on Google, you will probably find the desired result, but if you search for "this is me," you probably won't.

To further the splitting argument, moderator chrishirst makes a good point:

Why would ANY search engine do word splitting as returned results???

It really would be wasted processing power.

what if a user types in redfordcar? do they want results for "red ford car", "redford car" (as in a search for a car in Redford) or are they looking for redfordcar??

The software engineers cannot afford to second guess what the user wanted, that way would lie disaster for the SE in question.

As an example, I did a search for Stumble Upon but saw the typical "StumbleUpon" results. However, on the front page, I saw a result for the Technorati tag "stumble upon." When I did the same search for StumbleUpon without the space, the Technorati tag with the space was nowhere to be seen within the first 100 results.

Here's a screenshot of the "Stumble Upon" search on Google. The first result with the space showed up in position #8. As you can see, Google is ranking the Technorati listing that contains a space in the title and URL and description of the phrase "stumble upon" in the top ten for a search on stumble [SPACE] upon. But the same page does not rank for a search on "stumbleupon," without a space, in Google. This may support the theories above, but in the same case, we do not know exactly how Google handles these situations.

Forum discussion continues at HighRankings Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread keeps lingering on since March 15th of this year. The topic is that some SEOs and Webmasters are asking why they can't seem to rank well in Yahoo Search. The same webmasters tend to be doing just fine in Google, but Yahoo won't show them any love in the search results.

There are literally dozens of reports of this in that thread. Plus I have received phone calls and emails to this nature from many people asking me why.

The simple answer is that Yahoo Search is a different search engine than Google. They rank pages differently. But for Google to rank a page within the top ten and for Yahoo to not rank that page within the top 100 - is there something wrong?

If so, wrong with who? Is Google too easy? Is Yahoo broken? These are the questions folks are asking in the thread. Most are blaming Yahoo for not being the most relevant search engine. But those are the same people who are not doing well in Yahoo; yes, a bias and conflict of interest.

So where do we go from here? Simple. If you really care that much, tell Yahoo. They need examples. Problem is, you cannot post examples in WebmasterWorld. So what can you do? I have created a thread just for you to post examples at our forums, submit it to Site Ranking Poorly in Yahoo But Well in Google and I will do what I can to get Yahoo to review those sites and give us feedback.

The only criteria is that you have to have a top ten in Google for that phrase and not rank in the top 75 at Yahoo for the same phrase. If those conditions are met, I will do my best to get Yahoo to review those threads. I can't force them, but I will try to encourage them.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld but don't post URL examples there. Post your examples at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

The Google search results landscape has forever changed. Yes, this is a huge deal. With the launch of Google Universal Search, you will see a totally different approach to search results that you have never seen before.

Remember we found both Google News results in the middle of the Google search results? Remember two nights ago we found Google Local Results Found In Google.com Web Search Results? Well, that is here to say. Vertical searches (video, images, news, local, blogs, etc.) will now be directly incorporated within the main Google Web search results at Google.com. I am not kidding. I strongly recommend you read through the various articles Danny and company wrote at Search Engine Land.

- Google 2.0: Google Universal Search
- Google's New Navigational Links: An Illustrated Guide
- Google Experimental: Opt-In To Google User Interface Experiments
- Google Searchology: CLIR and Views
- Mayer Suggests New Ad Units Might Show Up On Google.com

If you want a quick demo, video style, I have created a screen cast with voice overlays showing you many of the new features Google has launched in the main search web results.

The forums, as you would image, are all buzzing about it. I love the title used at Cre8asite Forums, Predictive Search Goes Live On Google - yes, it is predictive. Google has to know what you are thinking by the two words you enter into that small search box. They have to know you want three of the ten results to be local oriented or a video embedded within the search results or news items in the main results - it is predictive and universal in nature.

SEOs and SEMs, this changes the search results landscape. As I described at my personal blog last night, Google Will Never Be The Same: Invisible Tabs a Reality. Danny's Searching With Invisible Tabs concept has come alive at Google.com last night. And as Danny put it towards SEMs:

The skilled search engine marketer's most important asset is understanding how search engines get various types of listings, then helping their clients enter the appropriate databases.

SEOs and SEMs now, more than ever, need to think vertical.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums, Search Engine Watch Forums, WebmasterWorld, HighRankings Forums and DigitalPoint Forums.

This past Sunday I launched a new element for locating content at the Search Engine Roundtable, I launched the Search Engine Roundtable Tag Cloud.

Ever since we upgraded to the new version of Movable Type, which supported tags, I have been tagging my content. I figured after I had enough tagged content, I would then launch a tag cloud. I did that this week. We currently have have almost 900 different unique tags. I tried to limit the tags to display only if there are two or more articles tagged with the tag, but I was unable to get that working.

In any event, we have 900 or so more ways to find content on the site. It has expanded our category archives tremendously, and also gave us a visual understanding of the most popular topics covered here. The larger the font of the tag, the more times we wrote about that topic.

A timely Cre8asite Forums thread asks;

I am doing a bit of development recently and part of which is going to be creating a tag cloud for a personal app... I was thinking about Blogs in general, and the amount of duplicate content they can produce with things like tag clouds etc...

Do you think adding rel="nofollow" to all the links in the clould would be a good move?

This individual is concerned that a tag cloud will generate duplicate content. My concern was that Google does not like to index search results pages. Are tag pages search results pages?

I spoke with some high profile people (not at Google) and they were confident that tags are not search results, but they are category pages. Even more so, only authors can tag the content here, so it is fairly structured, if we can call tags structured. So I personally decided to enable Google and other search engines to crawl and index the tag cloud and tag landing pages. The tag cloud not only is a benefit to my readers but can help searchers find the results they are looking for.

Bill Slawski added an excellent point about nofollowing internal links:

I don't like the use of the nofollow value for internal links within a site. If a search engine uses "nofollow" in a link as a sign of distrust, then there's the potential to harm your site by using a rel="nofollow" within a link.

So in our case, we left it open. Enjoy our new Search Engine Roundtable Tag Cloud.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a post from AdWordsRep sharing with us that they have launched a tool for mobile advertisers. Now you can view your ad as if they would look in mobile devices without having to run the risk of clicking on your ad or hurting your CTR factor.

To preview your mobile ads, go here: http://www.google.com/m/adpreview

You will be able to then filter your preview by the following parameters:

Select a country and carrier: Australia - Any Operator, China - Any Operator, China - CMCC (China Mobile), France - Any Operator, Germany - Any Operator, Germany - E-Plus, Germany - O2, Germany - T-Mobile, Germany - Vodafone, Great Britain - Any Operator, Great Britain - O2, Great Britain - Orange, Great Britain - T-Mobile, Great Britain - Vodafone, India - Any Operator, Ireland - Any Operator, Italy - Any Operator, Japan - Any Operator, Japan - KDDI/au, Japan - NTT DoCoMo, Japan - SoftBank, Netherlands - Any Operator, Russia - Any Operator, Spain - Any Operator, United States - Any Operator, United States - Cingular, United States - Sprint, United States - T-Mobile, United States - Verizon.

Select a language: Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese,

Select a markup language: chtml (imode, etc.), PDA-compliant html, wml (WAP 1.x), xhtml (WAP 2.0)

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums and first spotted at eWhisper.net.

The 30th edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download. We thanked the wonder mothers by showing off some of the search engine logos for the day. We discussed Google one box results found in the middle of the Google results. Google Webmaster relations was a hot topic in this podcast. Plus we discussed other stories involving Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and Live.com. 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. Ask.com's Bold Mothers Day Logo, Google.com & Yahoo Go Simple & As The Search Engine Roundtable
   
2. Google Local Results Found In Google.com Web Search Results
   
3. Google Attacked Over Webmaster Relations 
   
4. Adam Lasnik of Google Responds to Webmasters Again
   
5. Matt Cutts of Google Comments on "-950 Penalty" as "Over Optimization Penalty"
   
6. Matt Cutts Tells Us Which Web Directories Can Impact Your Search Rankings
   
7. Google Analytics Releases New Version With Sleek New User Interface
   
8. Fake German Google Search Quality Team Warning from DONOTREPLY@gmail.com
   
9. Sergey Brin of Google and Gary Price of Ask.com Get Married
   
10. What To Do When Your In House SEO Goes Bad?
    
11. How To Get Reinstated After Being Banned from Google AdWords
    

Lightening Round:

Continue reading "Search Pulse 30: Mothers Day, Google One Box, Google Relations, Penalties, Fake Bans, AdWords & More"

Another crazy week at Digg. SEOs are consistently under fire, even if they don't report on anything SEO-related. I still see a good amount of SEO stories being submitted, though. Guys, the Digg community hates that. It's not a good idea.

It's been proven time and time again that Diggers love Google. As of this writing, there's a Google story on the main page, featuring all of Google's hidden features on one page . Pretty neat stuff.

Similarly, Google's 10 commandments received wide acclaim this week. Some highlights: focus on the user and all else will follow, fast is better than slow, and you can be serious without a suit. Is this why Jim Boykin's SEO poll asks what your SEO business attire is? The typical answer: "I SEO naked."

Barry wrote a cool post on his personal blog that never got the exposure it deserved, probably because of the Digg staff burying stories internally. In any event, if you're a Treo user (like myself; I just got a 755p, and to quote Lisa, "Huzzah!"), you'll be interested in knowing what kind of feed reader to take with you on the go. He compared the mobile versions of Bloglines to Google Reader and used a cool tool called QuickTake to capture screenshots of his Treo. I can't wait to try that on mine.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Stephen Colbert as the Greatest Living American in our last Digg Digest. Sadly for some SEOs, that's no longer the case . Brandon Wirtz is happy again in the #1 ranking at Google.

With all this hype about being searchable online, people are concerned when they cannot be found. It's bad for business. And it's so true. You're a nobody unless your name Googles well . You better choose a really unique name if you're aiming for a good ranking.

The New York Times likes 'sex' so much that they spammed Google with their archived results. Hey, at least they know what it takes, but those practices are indeed questionable.

Yahoo has been sued over a defective ad system . The claim is that they have misled advertisers and investors about the company's advertising capabilities, especially in comparison to the competition. Hey, it is pretty obvious by the promoted Digg stories that everyone loves Google. Yahoo has some ways to go.

On the subject of social and image search, Yahoo's property, Flickr, has recently been caught in its own censorship issue. That's right. An Icelandic photographer, Rebekka, had her photos stolen off Flickr by a British company and the images were resold under a different identity. She posted on Flickr about her problem and got over 400 comments supporting her. Flickr then removed that page over apparent harassment, which is censorship of the worst kind. It looks like Flickr is losing members to this recent activity too. Not good, Yahoo.

And finally, experts weighed in on the paid links debate especially after Matt Cutts announced that reports of paid links are being evaluated. Paid links is a "murky area of SEO," so it seems.

gabs, moderator of the Search Engine Roundtable Forums, discovered a blog posted by an individual who apparently lost not one but two Labradors in the same day. He finds that there's a lot of potential for linkbait opportunity with these blogs, but there's a definite question about whether it's moral to do so.

The link baiting potential is massive but so unethical..

Would you cross that line ?

After all, he asks, if it is successful, the media coverage would invite others to do the same thing.

If things are retrieved (fake/real) then a so called blog network would make a national story would it not?

"blog networks recovers lost dogs"

There have been a number of fake linkbait articles. In 2004, a divorced husband sold his ex's wedding dress on eBay, which was an auction that had over 50,000 views. The reality is that it happened, but his ex-wife declined to speak about the gown and the man who sold it never admitted to the gown even being hers.

A few years ago, there was also the Save Toby rabbit campaign. The truth of the matter is that the whole Toby campaign was a hoax, but even I remember visiting the site during the time due to its popularity.

When have you crossed the line?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks about the Microsoft Live link: operator which is still offline. We first reported about the link: operator downtime on March 26, which was nearly two months ago.

A DigitalPoint user references the MSDN blog post from March 28th that says that the operator was taken offline because the tool was being abused:

We have been seeing broad use of these features by legitimate users but unfortunately also what appears to be mass automated usage for data mining. So for now, we have made the tough call to block all queries with these operators.

However, they add that they're "doing [their] best to get this back online as soon as possible in a manner that allows folks that use this functionality for real queries." Since it's been over a month without an update, the community is getting anxious. It was a useful tool, and I hope it comes back soon -- or at least that the MSDN blog gets updated with new information.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Kevin Newcomb starts an interesting thread at Search Engine Watch Forums about a "debate" that is going on in SEO. He cites two blog posts, one from Jill Whalen, who says that you shouldn't sweat the small stuff. However, my BFF Lisa played devil's advocate and said that you should sweat the small stuff and that every detail matters.

Kevin says:

I'm of the opinion that every incremental thing you can do to improve your site is worthwhile, even if it helps in a very small way. The important thing is to keep the effort required to do the small things in line with the potential return, and to prioritize your time to make sure the big stuff gets done first.

How important is the "small stuff" to other forum readers?

A number of people felt that this line summed it up:

I say don't sweat the small stuff, just DO the small stuff.

But some people actually put a lot more emphasis on the small stuff to reap the benefits:

I would always practice SEO discipline i.e. sweating the small stuff; it creates great SEO habits, which in turns equates to more successes. Additional, who know when Google will change their algo, and it may turn out that one of the small factors become more weighted.

Do you sweat the small stuff? I tend to agree with the last quote: sweating over minor details does help me focus on becoming a better SEO, too. Therefore, I'm with Lisa. I know she'll be proud.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch.

I reported this at SES NY but I have now found a thread confirming this at WebmasterWorld.

adCenterEU confirmed there will be some type of accreditation program for adCenter managers.

Thanks for your interest in the adCenter accreditation scheme.

We are working on one right now and hope to have the program out to our customers in the US by late summer.

Keep an eye on the adCenter Blog for more information as and when we have it.

Want more proof? Here is a PPT from one of their presentations in HTML format and here is Molly S. of the adCenter team confirming the same thing at Microsoft forums.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google launched the Google Custom Search Engine back on October 24, 2006. Soon after, I switched this site and personal blog to be powered by the Google CSE.

I can personally say, I love it. Not only do I use it several times a day, instead of going to Google and conducting a site command, it actually returns what I am looking for (at least most of the time). With the built in search features in Movable Type, it sorts search results by data and not by relevance. So I often find the built in search feature both a time waster and very slow to return results. The Google CSE works fast and accurately.

In addition to being a great way to find my content, it also has earned me some money. I have integrated it with my Google AdSense account and I have earned some nice pocket change on the side.

They have a great support staff in the Google Custom Search Google Groups discussion forum, to answer your questions also.

I am not the only one in love with the Google CSE. A DigitalPoint Forums thread has a few people praising Google over it.

I started a bit of a case study a few months ago and combined a Google co-op search engine with googlepages and am so far pleased with the results.

I've never set one up for money but I have used it for personal use and found it very easy to use.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Next month is a pretty busy month for conferences. Week after week, we have conferences to attend most of the month. The Search Engine Roundtable will have representatives at each conference, covering the sessions live for you.

The first conference is SMX Advanced in Seattle on June 4th & 5th. Both Tamar and I will be attending and covering the conference. I wrote more about this conference at Danny's First Search Marketing Expo Coming!

The second conference is SES Toronto in Canada on June 12th & 13th. This is the first time I am not personally covering SES Toronto in two years. Carolyn Shelby will be covering this conference and we may add more reporters to this event (if you are interested, let me know).

The third conference is SES Latino in Miami on June 18th & 19th. Last year I covered the kick off of Nacho's SES Latino. You can see our 2006 SES Latino coverage to get an idea on the niche this conference fulfills. Carolyn Shelby will be covering this conference and we may add more reporters to this event (if you are interested, let me know).

Carolyn Shelby (aka cshel) will be our "Conference Reporter" for as long as she loves doing it, since she has done such an excellent job at SES NY 07.

FYI - if you are going to SES Toronto from USA, you probably will need a passport. In the past you did not, but I think there is a new rule, so don't forget it.

Also, if you want to see my personal conference checklist for the upcoming events, see my personal blog.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update Barry: I just asked several people around the world if they see Google News and Google Local results in the middle of the Google Web Search results. They all have confirmed seeing it, except for one in the UK. Here are some test examples that should show in the middle of the page; myspace, white house, google news and Pennsylvania Engineering schools. This has already dramatically changed the number of visitors to those who are included in Google News or Google Local.

A member on the SEO Refugee forums discovered that Google Onebox has expanded its application to show maps in expanded queries and that the placement of maps is in the center of the page, increasing visibility. This was also picked up on WebmasterWorld.

Today, I noticed that Google Onebox/G maps has now been extended for organic searches with state names. It wasn't there yesterday.

We took a screenshot of the results for you:

He notes:

One thing that I believe is powerful about this is that as the onebox spreads other sources of advertising on the web, outside of Google become less effective.

This is already making a huge impact on traffic to web sites. EarlPearl reports having "total traffic approached our highest daily numbers." In fact, he reports seeing over 80% more traffic from this change in one day.

EarlPearl then commented at Mike Blumenthal's blog with the same search, which we used in our screen capture. For example, a search on Pennsylvania Engineering schools brings up the Google onebox local result smack in the middle of the page.

This is exactly what we reported with Google News results in the middle of Google web search results pages. In fact, then I (Barry) was only able to see it at home, but now I can see this at my office.

So we can now find Google Local and Google News results in the middle of the page for searches that m ay trigger those types of results. I.e. Local results are triggered by regional searched (location + service) and News results are triggered by news types of searches (paris hilton happens to be in the news today).

Forum discussion at SEO Refugee and WebmasterWorld.

Co-authored by Tamar Weinberg and Barry Schwartz

Over the weekend, Matt Cutts updated his recent blog post about how to report paid links. He added some questions and answers which gave the members of the Search Engine Watch Forums an idea of a quality directory.

Since Google does put weight on directories, Matt says that submitting to directories are okay, provided that the directory accepts quality sites and is not simply a free-for-all link site.

A: I’ll try to give a few rules of thumb to think about when looking at a directory. When considering submitting to a directory, I’d ask questions like:

- Does the directory reject urls? If every url passes a review, the directory gets closer to just a list of links or a free-for-all link site.

- What is the quality of urls in the directory? Suppose a site rejects 25% of submissions, but the urls that are accepted/listed are still quite low-quality or spammy. That doesn’t speak well to the quality of the directory.

- If there is a fee, what’s the purpose of the fee? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time/effort for someone to do a genuine evaluation of a url or site.

This makes sense. There appears to be nothing wrong with submitting to directories that highlight the sites that are distinguished, and paying for them justifies the manual review of the site.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch.

On May 3rd, I first covered the details about Google's intention to migrate AdSense accounts to a Google account login. It appears that this is being rolled out to more and more subscribers, and the frustration is mounting for WebmasterWorld members who are encountering this "upgrade" since it isn't working right.

Just got presented with a screen saying I had to convert my existing account details to a Google account or a Gmail account etc.

Went through the motions and changed all my login details only to find my old details still apply.

Some members just want a single account where they can manage everything. I feel that; I lost track of which of my accounts corresponds to which service. One member's frustration is heard loudly as he emphasizes his dissatisfaction with the account migration: "I do NOT want 20 ... google accounts. I only want ONE account."

Even martinibuster, forum moderator, feels the same way:

I feel myself melting into a Kafkaesque bureaucratic mess
Why, why, why?... This is senseless and pointless. I want it to go away and let me return to the happy login experience I used to have.

Then there's the group of users whose services only partially migrated. Then again, this might be how it's supposed to be.

I think my account is screwed now. Had to change to another account, but half my services seem to have been left on the old one (blogger, web analytics, webmaster tools etc), and only adsense seems to have moved :(

So, what gives?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Personally, I like the Google Ads, but if you don't, you may want to try this URL from Google to search.

A search for "ipod" brings up about nine ads on the main Google Search. But the same search on www.google.com/search?output=googleabout displays no ads, but the same exact organic results.

I spotted this at DigitalPoint Forums but I believe this originated from TecheBlog, but I am not 100% sure.

How did they figure this out? It was not brain surgery. Go to any of the About Google pages, for example here and on the left side is a search box that says "Find on this site." Enter your search query there, let's say for ipod and up come results for ipod matches found at google.com.

Right, I know, that is not what you want. But by simply removing the "&sitesearch=www.google.com" parameter from the URL, you are opening up the search to all sites. Yes, ad free.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

If you login to your Google AdWords account you may find a new tab at the top of your console. Many advertisers are now seeing it. Here is a screen by screen blow of all the available options I have seen in the Audio Ads section. Note, you can click on any image to see a larger one over at Flickr.

When you click on the "Audio Ads" tab on the top right, you see this page.

I then clicked on the "Get Started Now" to be taken to the Audio Ad setup screen:

One thing that is neat about this screen, is that they automatically select your local area using their geo-targetting technology, to assign radio stations for you.

We've automatically selected areas in your home state of NY. You can add or remove locations below.

Another interesting point, that you do not see in the screen capture, is that at the bottom of the ad set up pages only, a copyright is set by "©2004-2007 Arbitron Inc." From Arbitron's web site.

Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) is an international media and marketing research firm serving radio broadcasters, radio networks, cable companies, advertisers, advertising agencies, out-of-home advertising companies and the online radio industry in the United States and Europe.

After you set the ad campaign, they ask you for when you want the ad to air.

Based on that, Google can now show you budget estimates for your ad.

Finally, you need to upload or have a specialist create your audio ad. Here is that screen.

If you don't have an audio ad, you can use the Find a Specialist page to locate audio ad or radio ad producers in your area.

Pretty cool.

For more information on Google Audio Ads see the FAQ section.

A WebmasterWorld thread has feedback on some early tests:

I have been running a national campaign for about 2 weeks now. I am very impressed with how Google has set this up. The reporting is top notch. You get an email in the morning telling you when your ads a scheduled to run and then throughout the day you can see when the ad actually ran.

Seems to be very targeted so far, been getting a ton of plays on stations across the country (US).

Just like with anything else, the less you spend the worse the ads are. When I lower the cpm I end up with a lot of ads in Alaska between 1am and 3am. but I’m ok with that for testing purposes.

As for roi, not sure how that would be. I am only testing the ads on a pet project of mine and strictly for branding.

Another member added, "What we have found is that radio is great for branding, but the AdWords text ads are generating the conversions not radio."

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums & WebmasterWorld.

There is an excellent thread over at Search Engine Watch Forums that discusses how one Google AdWords advertiser is too busy these days to manage his account. He asks, what is the safest way to delegate those responsibilities to a third-party company.

For the last several years, I’ve always setup and managed my own Google AdWords campaigns and ad groups. In the early years, when I could devote the proper time, we did very well with AdWords.

As time went on and I got pulled in many different directions with other non-PPC-related aspects of the business, ROI declined. I sense that Google AdWords could still work very well for us, if someone competent would just put in a good 10-15 hours/week.

So I’m looking to outsource this task.

There is some excellent feedback in the thread.

(1) Agency reputation is critical. Speak to people in the SEM community, do searches, speak with their clients, try to track down past clients, just get as much information about the SEM company that you can, so you can be comfortable with your decision. If you are second guessing yourself, you will probably end up spending more time reviewing the work of the SEM company than just doing it yourself.

(2) The Google AdWords interface does not enable someone to view the full credit card number, after it has been entered. So you do not need to worry about your credit card getting into the wrong hands. However, most PPC companies will put the bill on their credit card and then bill you at the end of the month for the spend.

(3) If you want to test the waters with the company, maybe set the daily spend lower than you normally would. One thing is that this may restrict the PPC company from strutting their true potential.

(4) Sign a legal contract detailing everything you are worried about and then some. Spend amounts, daily budgets, keywords, and so on.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread highlights an article with an update about the American Blind lawsuit against Google. According to the article, a judge has set a date in November to pick jurors for the case. It appears as if this one is truly going to trial.

The trial is to be held in the US district court in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose. Jury selection is to begin November 9, 2007.

I covered this a few weeks ago and the news confirms that this case is going forward. However, Google is confident that they will win the suit.

Google litigation counsel Catherine Lacavera said Friday that the company was confident ABWF "will be unable to prove" their claims at trial.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

According to a DigitalPoint Forums thread, Sergey Brin has married Anne Wojcici in the Bahamas last weekend. The scoop has been covered at ValleyWag.

In similar news, Barry attended the wedding of Gary Price and Lisa Cohen last weekend as well. The Ask.com blog has more.

From the writers at Search Engine Roundtable, Mazel Tov to Sergey and Anne and to Gary and Lisa!

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint.

There is currently a lot of discussion taking place in two forums about comments left by Matt Cutts of Google in a post here named Google Attacked Over Webmaster Relations. Now, Matt responded to some question left by a comment here. Let me pull out Matt's comments:

Adam's already doing a great job on that thread, but it is frustrating that I don't have a chance to do everything I'd like to do. If I've only got limited time, I could spend that discussing something or a forum, or try to write on a new topic (malware, Stephen Colbert, robots.txt crawl-delay and why we don't support it).

annej, regarding the -950 thing, I'd watch this video I made: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4814548594071648913#1m42s
Starting around 1:42 into the video is where I talk about this.

Then a guy named Mark asked for feedback on his site and Matt gave it to him:

Mark, I wish I had time to chat with each webmaster and give personalized advice, but I really don't. That's part of the idea of the webmaster help group -- to let peers give suggestions.

That peer group can be really helpful. For example, suppose that in April you had a bunch of links at the bottom of your page that looked like "Online Loan | Santa Cruz Hotels | Xbox Mod Chip | Home Loan | Mobile Phones " or "Bad Credit Mortgages | Afvallen | Problem Remortgage | Mortgage | Myspace Layouts". Linking to bad neighborhoods or spammy sites can affect your site's reputation. So the webmaster help group might look at your site and say "Hey, why not remove that link co-op stuff and then do a reinclusion request that says 'In case this was a factor, I'm no longer participating in this co-op link exchange and linking sites like this from my root page.' That might do it."

It's a helpful group, and you can often get actionable advice from it.

To make a long story short, his site was reincluded within a day or so, after some appeals.

But what do we learn from this exchange of Webmaster communication, between Google and SEOs?

A WebmasterWorld thread and Google Groups thread discusses that.

In Matt's comment, he relates the -950 penalty discussion to a video where he explained "over optimization."

WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster explains;

So this algo element has been in place for a year and a half (at the time the video was made - that lines up with reports here) and it's designed to penalize for "over-optimization". I watched this video before but I missed the connection to the -950 that Matt just highlighted.

In the Google Groups thread, a member explains the video in his own words:

-It's an algo update push. -overly seo'd sites -don't listen to what SEO forums say -don't optimize quite as much

I am not sure if Matt said don't listen to SEO Forums, but he did say, don't pay too much attention to them, in the sense of don't obsess over it.

Some nice old theories are coming up. This is what forum discussion is all about.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Groups; also don't forget to check all the comments in Google Attacked Over Webmaster Relations.

If you are a Microsoft adCenter advertiser, I recommend you login to your account and check to make sure that the conversion tracking part is set to the way you like it. Two advertisers noticed over the weekend that the conversion tracking feature was turned off on some of their campaigns, for no apparent reason.

Log in this morning and the conversion tracking is turned off for both accounts. Instead of seeing the number of conversions, it said "Off (Enable?)" and the enable text linked to a page to enable tracking and provided the code snippet.

Gave MS a call and they have no reason as to why this happened...way to go! I have lost important data for my accounts = not happy.

Interesting. So just log in and double check you are set.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread notes that if you do a search over at Yahoo! Japan's image search, and then click on an image, it opens the image in a larger view and let's you flip through other images.

For example a search on basketball gives you a dozen or so results. I clicked on the second result which brought up a screen that looked like this:

Notice of the image overlaid on the other results and a little player came up at the bottom. The player lets you close out, go back, go forward, play or get more information about the picture. Will this be coming to Yahoo! Images USA, I doubt it. FYI, Yahoo! Pictures is closing down for Yahoo! owned, Flickr. Flickr images already show up in Yahoo! Search for image related searches. Flickr sports a neat Flash slideshow player, that is something like this, but not exactly.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

There are some aspects to Google's algorithm that are run at the press of the Google search button. Yet, there are other's that are not. The 'Google Bomb' prevention algorithm, an algorithm used to help prevent the ranking of sites for keywords that are caused by Bloggers and other sites, linking to a specific page on the internet, is an algorithm that seems to be run manually.

In Danny's Google Says Stephen Colbert Is No Longer The Greatest Living American, Matt Cutts commented saying;

Here's what I said over at digg: "it's not a manual change; it's just a fresh push of our Googlebomb data. The algorithm doesn't run every day."

Not that you need me to stop by, since Adam and Vanessa have already weighed in. :)

In quotes from Adam Lasnik and Vanessa Fox of Google in Danny's article, they both say that this was due to a "tune" in the algorithm. But Matt Cutts said that the algorithm isn't runa ll the time. So which is it? It is both? Do they push this algorithm weekly, monthly, or manually? If an algorithm is pushed manually, is that a manual change or an algorithmic change?

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

You follow all the rules, you test all the scenarios, you make your version two site 100% search engine friendly. Then you launch the site and bam, your search referrals drop 60%. How could this of happened?

That is the current discussion in a Cre8asite Forums thread. The honest answer is that it does happen. Even if you follow all the recommendations in my Version 2: Relaunching a Site: SEO Considerations, including the incredible feedback in the comments, you are very likely to see a drop in traffic.

Why? Because you are potentially changing thousands of URLs and the hundreds of signals that go along with those URLs. Even the fastest computer needs time to compute this data, trust it and then push those signals through to the new URLs.

Here is an interesting question I was asked recently. I had a friendly competitor come to me the other day and ask me a question. They launched a site, they changed all the URLs but did not set up either 301s yet. They did set up new URLs, but the thing is, the new URLs and old URLs both worked. Yes, a duplicate content issue. The site was just launched and he asked what can he do now.

I suggested the following and I would love your feedback:
(1) Get working on 301ing the new URLs to the old URLs (the old URLs were more search engine friendly because it was a static site).
(2) Set up a database parameter to control which page gets which URL (more manual work, but for this case, it made more sense, since keeping the old URLs made more sense in this case).
(3) Nofollowing the new URLs or excluding them in the robots.txt file until they can implement number 1 and 2. Which hopefully would be within a week or so.

I suspect you need more information to judge for yourself, but that is all I can provide.

In the case at the top of this article, they tested every scenario and set up all the 301s and mod_rewrites from the start. Even though, they still saw an initial drop in traffic. I am confident that traffic will get better sooner than later - if the content is worthy of it. But in the case I mentioned below, I found it interesting, in that the site was launched, there was a duplicate content issue and a potential issue of losing the current rankings. But in both cases, they issues should only be temporary.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Yesterday was Mothers Day and the search engines had their respective logos up. Here is a look at the various engines logos for the special day.

Ask.com made a splash with their heart on fire background image. Here is a screen capture from the day.

Yahoo! went with the cute flash logo approach, here it is, as it was in Flash.

Google went cute as well, with this simple logo.

Dogpile, of course, got into the action with this special theme.

And the Search Engine Roundtable got all dressed up for the day (we will keep the theme live on the main site throughout today as well).

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

TGIF guys! It's been a nice hot and dry week with summer temperatures... hey, didn't spring just start?!

Shouts to Matt for his nice little post about us, but it's really Barry who is finding all that signal. I'm just the sidekick, after all. :)

Search Engine Optimization

A lot of good discussion about search engine optimization and link building efforts were discussed this week. There was the discussion about submitting to directories, whether SEOs should ask for links to credit their work, and how to ask for links in an "ethical" fashion. There's also a nice tool that you can use to measure your backlinks and determine domain popularity.

Rotten, Sour, and Downright Bad

Since we cover forums, it's natural that we cover forum politics. What would you do if your moderator puts himself/herself before the greater good of your forum community? There's some solid advice presented in the When Forum Moderators Go Bad thread.

What about when your in-house SEO goes bad? Yeah, like when you find some pretty well-hidden links so that an SEO can promote his link-building efforts without the client knowing. If you find them, you should tell the client. Taking advantage of clients is totally wrong.

Google Analytics Gets Prettier

I still haven't seen the new Google Analytics interface, but everyone tells me that it's super cool. To quote my friend Dennis, "wow new google analytics is AMAZING." I guess I'll just have to wait and anticipate. I'm getting antsy.

Google AdWords and AdSense News, Tools, and Tricks

Learning AdWords for the first time? Check out these recommended AdWords tutorials and books.

Learning about negative keywords? Don't know what I'm talking about? The negative keyword tool will be more visible soon, we hope. Perhaps that's just a test. I still don't know.

Want to know which Google ads work the best? So do I. Targeted keyword ads seem to be the most important.

Banned from Google AdWords? You can't be reinstated, but you can try to set up a new account.

Of course, over last week's announcement about Google AdSense ad placement, there was a lot of confusion, but hopefully that was clarified: Google has explained acceptable ad locations, but we wonder if AskBaby.com's colorful implementation is a problem.

Speaking of ads, did you notice that some ads don't have titles? It's useless to us because they're not even clickable!

Google Webmaster Relations

On WebmasterWorld, one of the "best threads ever," as one member put it, has been started this week. With Google's power, a member wonders if Google is defining "ethical SEO." A lot of other Google/webmaster questions were asked, and Adam Lasnik responded. The next day, he responded again. It's a good read, and I admire Adam for stepping in. This is why I love you guys.

MSNHOO

Okay, so this merger that everyone was talking about last Friday didn't happen, but there's still news on the Microsoft and Yahoo! front.

Perhaps related to Bill Gate's announcement that he'll focus on online services, Microsoft is going to be using Intellitxt to promote Live.com search.

Since the Overture keyword suggestion tool no longer seems to be supported, there's speculation that another Yahoo! keyword tool is in the works.

Yahoo also integrated a lyrics shortcut into the search results, which is fun for someone like me who likes to know the real words to the songs I'm listening to.

Oh, and of course, MSN Live Hotmail has finally debuted with a redesign, and it's pretty hot.

Remember

You have only a few hours before the Bruce Clay contest that I highlighted in last week's recap stops accepting entries, so you better get yours in fast!

At Cre8asite Forums, moderator Barry Welford shares a pretty cool domain popularity tool with us. I wasn't able to get it to produce data yesterday, but today I tried again and it worked rather nicely. I have included a screenshot below:

Be patient when running this tool. It processes data for awhile (and you'll see the Loading screen when it does). If you come up emptyhanded as I did when I first ran the tool, try again later.

This is a pretty good backlink checking tool for sure, as member earlpearl says:

I love tools like this. bls are so important and its tough to really get a handle on the bls and what you really have.

I'd love to see a tool that differentiates between static and dynamic urls.

Scraping for bls takes a lot of time. This one was relatively quick.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

In a Search Engine Watch forums post, AussieWebmaster asks if anyone is using the Google AdWords negative keyword tool and whether it is useful or not.

As Barry wrote in an earlier post, Google is giving the negative keywords tab, which has little exposure and use at the present, more visibility.

This is where it used to be:

But some people are now seeing it with a standalone tab:

What do people think about the tool in general? Some people are finding it useful, but others are not:

I used it last week. Personally I don't think much of it . I entered 5 keywords as suggested but it didn't give me anything. I continued to add keywords and eventually it spat out a negative keyword - but nothing very impressive.

I have been using this for a while. It is an excellent tool! In most cases I run it in an ad group, add a bunch of negative keywords then run the clean sweep function to add them as campaign negative keywords.

Google has provided a document that will give you an understanding into how you can use the negative keyword tool. You can try it at the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. (I still see it in a drop-down and not a tab.)

Do you have it? Do you think it's effective? Did you even know about it?

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch.

A featured WebmasterWorld thread asks a good question, does rotating the content on a page hurt your search rankings.

You need to break this question down into how much content is being rotated in and out. If the whole page changes dynamically all the time, then it may cause a problem. If there are sections on the page that change on refresh, then it may not cause a problem. If the content on the page changes throughout the day, like a news site, then it wont cause much of an issue at all.

The big thing here, in my opinion, is to keep users in mind. Will it confuse your users to have the content changing all the time?

Imagine an e-commerce site with featured products on the home page. You can implement the featured products to dynamically rotate based on page load or you can cache the featured products to remain constant for a certain time period. If a shopper comes to your site and likes a featured product but then comes back and can't find it, it can be an issue.

On news sites or blogs, users understand that new content is added often. So users know what will be on the home page today, may not be on the home page tomorrow. Same with sites designed specifically to change on reload, like the Hot or Not web site (great viral site).

WebmasterWorld moderator, caveman, has a nice response:

There are lots of factors here that we don't have precise information on, but that's OK, because there is also a fair amount of existing knowledge out there about sites that constantly change content on the homepage, and for the most part, it just isn't a problem. IMO, Quadrille's point that this won't help in terms of strict SEO, is a legitimate one, but I never look at SEO anymore in that tight a context.

The reality is the the dominant search engine uses a very links based algo (they all do, really), so while I am a big believer in on-page optimization still mattering, let's get this in perspective...

The title of the page (most important onpage element) is presumably not changing, nor are important subheads, high level page text, and important site nav elements. If those things are not present, they probably should be (especially in this case). If those constant elements are present, and considering the importance of backlinks, the SE's have more than enough info to effectively rank the page.

Further discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Ever since Google addressed AdSense placement with their Don't run the risk of click and miss blog post, people were confused.

So Google saw fit to write another blog post named A clarification on accidental clicks. In this post they showed examples of acceptable ad locations and implementations and none acceptable.

Good:

Bad:

The bottom line is, will someone accidently click on your ad without meaning to do so? That is what you need to ask yourself when placing your ads on your Web site.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread discusses a Google AdSense implementation strategy by AskBaby.com. Here is a screen capture:

The three ads on the left are the AdSense ads. You can see that they match the colors of the site and are pretty noticeable. I do not believe they are confused with the navigation of the site.

Yes, as Gabs noted, this is not standard AdSense code. But if this is a premium publisher, then they can change the code to look this way, with Google permission.

This implementation may be acceptable.

Google did post last night a clarification on accidental clicks which may help one determine their ad placement strategy.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

If you have missed the announcement over a month ago, then here it is again. Yahoo! Search Marketing is switching the length of the description field for your ads. Your description will be shortened for you on May 16th, Wednesday, if you do not do it yourself. So it is important to go in and make sure your descriptions make sense after being cut down from 190 characters to the 70 character requirement.

YahooPete has posted the details in various forums including Search Engine Watch Forums, DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Just a reminder here that as part of a rolling launch, we will soon require short descriptions for ALL new or modified Sponsored Search ads. These changes could be seen as early as 5/16/07. Keep in mind that if a short description is not provided by the end of June 2007, we will automatically cut off your ad description at the nearest complete word, followed by an ellipsis, when it is displayed on Yahoo!. This may impact your ad quality and, potentially, your position in search results.

Points to keep in mind:
- Titles will continue to have a maximum of 40 characters.
- Short descriptions are required when creating or modifying an ad. Short descriptions must consist of 70 characters or less.
- Display URLs must be 35 characters or less.

The change is not huge but it can be significant, here is a visualization of the change.

For more information on how to change your ads see the Yahoo Help section.

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

The discussion that I highlighted yesterday about Google and Webmasters is still pretty heated at WebmasterWorld. The number of responses has doubled since I wrote my post here.

Adam took the liberty to respond to some additional concerns from Google users and I thought some were quite noteworthy.

Some wondered if it was beneficial to webmasters for Google to even interact with them. Perhaps it would be better if Google did nothing and the dependency would thus be lessened. To this, Adam responds:

And this, indeed, highlights the challenge we face every day. We aren't going to disengage overall; the core of my job involves finding how we can communicate more, not less. But the venues may change, the methods may change. I know I touched upon this refrain earlier, but my goal is to do the most good for the most Webmasters... a great many of whom don't even see themselves as "Webmasters" much less frequent quality Webmaster forums. One-on-one e-mail chats are absolutely not scalable, even if we hired a thousand of me/Matt/Vanessa/GoogleGuy/etc. More videos? Webinars? More conference attendance? Documentation in different formats, more languages...? So many options, no easy, comprehensive solutions.

Adam then goes into a personal discussion about whether Google -- or his job -- is governed by money or passion. His response: passion.

Google is a public company, accountable to shareholders on the whole. But those of us on the Search Quality side of the business are directed and rewarded based upon... the (user-focused) quality of the index. And what actually drives us? Speaking for myself (and perhaps many of my colleagues), it's not money. I honestly believe that I'm doing Good in that -- directly or indirectly -- I'm making the world better in at least some small way. I feel it when I chat with someone at a conference and a light goes on -- in her head or mine -- that results in her previously-all-Flash non-profit site getting indexed. When I'm "off duty" and chatting with the owner of a new restaurant, I get a kick out of helping the guy understand that, no, he doesn't have to pay to get listed in Google (or the other major search engines)! Info that's ridiculously basic/simple/obvious to us search geeks... it makes a world of difference for far more people than you may realize.

That sort of passion is hardly exclusive to Google and Googlers. I see it in the eyes of various Webmasters I chat with... who feel that THEY are changing the world... whether it's sharing their Indonesia photos with people around the world or helping families find a new home or whatever.

For some, money is a passion. But to equate ethics or passion absolutely with money is, IMHO, overlooking the diversity of Webmasters and search engine employees. I would expect (and hope) that most people working for Yahoo! or Ask or MSN, etc., also feel like they're involved in something deeper than just shifting money around.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

What do you do if a forum moderator becomes hurtful to your forums rather than helpful? A WebmasterWorld thread asks this question based on negative actions performed by a moderator of his forum that resulted in loss of membership. Consequently, he also demoted the moderator.

What I’ve learned from this experience:

1)Never reward a member with a moderation spot just because they have been an active/long time poster. Find other ways to reward good members.

2)Look for warning signs that they might not be a good moderator. Do they get snippy or argue with other members? Are they very opinionated? Do they have an even temper? Have they been ‘know it all’ posters?

3)Avoid mixing moderators and friendship. When things go bad it’s hard to separate the two.

4)Make sure you have written rules on what the moderator job is and how they are expected to act and make sure the see them BEFORE you make them a moderator.

5)Chose a moderator as if you were hiring an employee. Will they represent you well both on and off the forums.

6)Remove moderators quickly if they are losing a forum.

Some people just take the power trip for personal gain. This quote by another member is so true for this instance:

" Power corrupts...

and absolute power, corrupts absolutely"

Appointing moderators can be a pretty sticky situation if they are biased in such a way that it is destructive rather than helpful.

Moderators who are immoderate and partial are very destructive, damaging users' trust.

You can lose a lot of core/good members when even one mod gets rude/patronising/personal or is clearly editing in a partial or biased way!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Bill Gates is determined to keep the Microsoft legacy alive as long as he's working for him. A WebmasterWorld thread references an article by Mr. Gates where he has vowed to keep the online services -- including search -- alive:

Gates, Microsoft's founder, has said that he will work with the company full-time until mid-2008. In his remaining months, he said that his efforts will be mainly directed toward "search, buyers and sellers. ... That will be my biggest thing."

WebmasterWorld moderator skibum thinks this is an "interesting novelty":

It sounds like this says we're determined to focus on using own own proprietary technologies and do our own thing despite what the marketplace wants. Since they are MSFT and they have billions maybe they can make it work.

It's time for innovation, and there's only about a year left for him.

But other moderators think that the focus on these online services can have promise. Receptional adds:

I've seen demos of that - there's a video about it somewhere and it's a potentially awesome (even frightening) technology.

Imagine every image on the web being knitted into its very location in the world, so that you end up with one 3D virtual picture of the planet, that you can view from any angle.

Will it happen? Or is it going to remain as "potentially awesome?"

Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

You can also read additional commentary by Barry at Search Engine Land.

I have seen a couple threads recently asking if the email address donotreply@gmail.com is a Google address. I did not know why people were asking this question until now.

A WebmasterWorld thread says that he as well as others have been receiving "Google Search Quality Team" emails warning of bans. Here are the characteristics of the email, as described in the thread:

(1) The email was in German.
(2) Many of the emails were sent out yesterday or today.
(3) Originating sender IP address resolves to an ISP in Spain.
(4) The email comes from DONOTREPLY@gmail.com and not from a google.com email address.
(5) Google rankings remain intact in both Google.com and Google.de.

Other people confirm recently receiving this email:

In Germany almost every webmaster has got one of those mails. They have been sent by using servers all over the world, the IP is not within Googles IP-range and the last sentence says that you'll find "a webmastertool" as attachement(!) which will easily allow you to file a reinclusion request after you fixed the mentioned problems with your site (a 301-Redirect!)...

It seems fake to me, I hope Matt Cutts sees this post and leaves us some official confirmation that this is not a Google email.

Why are these emails going out? Some suspect it was a virus email where the hackers forget to attach the virus. Or maybe some kids are trying to give people a hard time. We have seen cases of SEOs threatening banning if they don't continue to use their services, but this is different.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks for ideas on how to get reinstated after being banned from using Google AdWords.

You can be banned or suspended from Google AdWords for many reasons. If it happens to you, what can you do?

Well, there is not much one can do to get their account back online and going. They can make a plea to Google via email and hope for the best. But outside of that, you may have to be a bit sneaky about getting back in.

One DigitalPoint member suggests a "false mustache." Too funny.

But in all seriousness, you will probably have to get a new credit card, under a new name and address and apply for a new account.

This is nothing new. An older WebmasterWorld thread discusses the same thing, offering similar suggestions.

My Only suggestion would be to get a new debit/credit card with a different billing address and use either your middle name as your first name. When this happenned to me (yes I was a naughty boy in my past but Im reformed now) I used my partners credit card.

But they also may ban the domain from advertising on Google AdWords. In that case, you also need to set up a new site on a new domain name.

A thread at A4U Forums has a chat transcript with a Google AdWords representative on how to reinstate a suspended Google AdWords account. Unfortunately, you do not learn anything that can help from it.

Jeremy Mayes at PPC Discussions wrote about getting caught in the crossfire of a suspended AdWords account.

To add insult to injury it looks like they've now suspended the account that belongs to the company I work for! (maybe because I've logged into my own account at work and so they've assumed that I own both?)

This happens to reference the above WebmasterWorld thread.

Forum discussion continued at DigitalPoint Forums.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has hearsay on Yahoo working on a new keyword tool that will show search volume data.

This has been sorely missed since Yahoo stopped updating the Overture Keyword Suggestion tool with search volume data.

I was talking to a rep at Yahoo! and voicing my concern about the removal of the Keyword Selector Tool removal and reinstatement. She told me that they are currently working on a new version of the tool that will retain the keyword search volume and introduce some more robust functionality as well.

But at the same time, a "platinum rep" told someone else that "thinking" about it, but have nothing started yet.

I personally have not heard more outside of what I posted here the other day. So I doubt they are currently working on a new keyword tool at this moment.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

As more and more people understand the importance of Google AdWords, more and more people want to get involved in maximizing their profits when advertising on Google. A Search Engine Watch Forums post asks where to find some of these great tutorials.

Suggestions include Andrew Goodman's book on "Winning Results with Google AdWords" which I just so happen to have sitting on the desk next to me as I type this blog post. It's definitely a good read.

AdWordsRep writes in with Google's official resources:

I would probably be remiss if I didn't at least mention these two resources:

* The searchable AdWords Help Center: http://adwords.google.com/support/

* AdWords Learning Center - catalog of text and multimedia lessons: http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/

In my opinion these resources have at least three things to recommend them:

1) They are free.

2) They are created by the same folks who created AdWords - making them quite accurate.

3) The are updated very quickly as the product evolves, which it does on an ongoing basis - making them up-to-date.

AussieWebmaster agrees with the suggestions and says that they both will help you become a qualified AdWords professional:

Funny they were the two resources I was going to recommend... Andrew's book will give you some strategy ideas.... the AdWord Learning center will show you how to work adwords.... by the time you finish both you should be able to get a solid score on the AdWords Professional test!!!

Brad Geddes, who does AdWords Seminars, is also a recommended source.

I'd love to know if there are any other suggestions in the AdWords arena. Does anyone have any additional resources they'd like to share?

Discussion continues at Search Engine Watch forums.

When you have good content but people aren't linking to you, what options do you have? What can you do safely without penalty? A Search Engine Watch Forums webmaster asks this very question:

A few days ago a colleague suggested that we come up with an "incentive program" for link building. I don't want it to appear that I'm bribing or attaining links in an unethical manner but I need some help.

There's some great feedback from some well-esteemed industry experts.

Debra Mastaler writes that you should focus your efforts within the community that is most familiar with your products before branching out:

Start by extending the offer to current customers, vendors, family and friends and then branch into any Associations you belong to. It's much smarter to market to an established group of people who already buy your "stuff" and like you than hunt around for new prospects.

She adds that it is a good to seek out community sites as well:

Search on "community" + "your keywords" to find social networking sites hosting your demographic and get involved. You'd be amazed to find out what some of these sites are offering their membership in the way of networking and promotion opportunities.

Our editor Chris Boggs also contributes and points out the discussion from Matt Cutts on paid links. It's definitely something a brand new link builder should consider so that there are no penalties for trading links.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch.

What would you say about a DMOZ directory that allowed you to vote and review the sites listed on the directory? A Cre8asite Forums thread discusses this question.

Bill Slawski says that DMOZ has a long way to go before it gets to that point:

Even if they added some simple touches, such as some portal features on the front page of the site - last added sites today, last added sites one year ago, featured categories of the day, etc., that would be nice.

lee.n3o agrees and adds that small tweaks could make it a more appealing directory:

Totally agree with Bill.... The structure seems to be there only focus, and some nifty little widgets or even a nice facelift (Including adding some font styles!!) might make a difference

I think it would be tricky business to integrate Web 2.0 voting capability to DMOZ. I've seen a good amount of gaming on other sites that allow for voting, and it would be something that would need to be policed rather carefully if such features were introduced. It would be possible for competitors to either promote their site way too heavily or to demote their competitors' sites if such functionality was integrated into the system. Perhaps it is good as-is with Bill's suggested solutions.

Discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

There's an extremely interesting debate at WebmasterWorld about Google's relationship with webmasters.

The original forum poster, The Shower Scene, brings up a lot of great points:

• Google's Guidelines do not define Ethical SEO: It's time webmasters corrected their lazy habit of referring to ethics and Google's Guidelines as if they were one and the same.
• Google has gone beyond user mindshare: Google literally has webmasters brainwashed into thinking that their guidelines defines ethics.
• The Google Webmaster Spell: Today's webmasters have become so under the Google spell that all their energy is focused on Google.
• Google Defines Webmaster Dialogue and Thinking: Today's webmaster so intellectually lazy they actually believe that the best information is going to come from a heavily moderated Google Groups forum. Today's webmaster confuses helpful information with what is essentially Kool-Aid that is being posted on Matt Cutts blog.
• Thank you for smoking, have some more kool aid. Todays webmaster is so compliant, complacent, and utterly sheep-like they are willingly surrendering highly personal data to Google without understanding how it ultimately benefits Google far more than it benefits them.
• Google is taking over and moderating the webmaster discussion: Google endeavours to control the discussion of Google by limiting it to their own network of blogs and discussion forums. How else to explain the absence of AdSense advisor, GoogleGuy, Adam Lasnik, and AdWords Advisor? ASA didn't even bother to announce the last AdSense weekend update. GoogleGuy is absent on Webmaster Forums except to defend Google at TW or promoting their snitch programs.
• Google is the Internet: Am I the only one who feels it's extraordinary how Google is becoming the arbiter of web ethics, coding practices, and the webmaster dialogue? Do webmasters really want an Internet that is defined and dicated according to what is good for Google?

A lot of discussion ensued, with quotes saying that "Google is the Internet," Google has 80-90% of search traffic and thus should not be ignored, and that Google is "creeping up to market dominance status."

Adam Lasnik responded with some other thoughts to ponder:

• Google's Webmaster Guidelines are designed to help Webmasters and users
• Google doesn't censor its Webmaster forum for content ... unless you consider "Make Viagra Fast!1" or "$&@# you and your #$&!$% Mom!" to be content.
• We Googlers try to post where we can do the most good.
• Completely depending on Google (or ANY limited set of sources) for your traffic is a recipe for unhappiness
• We don't comment publicly on specific penalties.
• If you can't see the current and future value of Webmaster Central, you aren't paying attention.

Barry's thoughts: "Google has come a long way in terms of their communication with Webmasters and SEOs. In the past we have praised Google time and time again. Although some of the points in this thread are interesting, I find it hard to believe that many of them were Google's intentions. I just find it funny that SEOs and Webmasters would spin around and take all that we have received in feedback and communication from Google and throw it back at them as a negative."

I, too, think similarly: Google gives us a lot of great tools, and I even blogged about the usefulness of Google's Webmaster Central last week. As the dominant search engine, I think we should be thankful that we have these resources available to us.

The discussion is pretty heated and continues at WebmasterWorld.

If you are trying to sign up with Google AdSense and you cannot because of problems verifying yourself via the phone verification step, do not worry, Google is aware of it.

The other day a publisher posted a thread at Google Groups with the bug report. An AdSense advisor has come into explain they are aware of the issue and working on it.

Our payments specialists confirmed that we're currently experiencing intermittent outages with our phone verification system. They and I are sorry for any inconvenience this causes you.

Thank you to everyone who has notified us of this issue, and we assure you that we're working to fix the problem ASAP. If you've been unable to verify your phone number, please follow mariaestrel's example and contact us through the AdSense Help Center or your account. A specialist will respond as quickly as possible and work with you to resolve the issue.

Then AdSenseAdvisor made an appearance at WebmasterWorld about this problem, but most people don't understand what phone verification is.

In short, if you are an AdSense publisher already, you have nothing to worry about. This is just to verify new publishers, as part of the sign up process.

More on the phone verification process at Google AdSense help.

As part of our effort to protect the accounts of AdSense publishers and provide account-specific support, a valid phone number is required for publishers. We use automatic telephone number verification to ensure that your information is accurate and up-to-date.

Phone verification is completely automated - you'll only need to key in a 6-digit verification code using your touch-tone telephone.

Forum discussion at Google Groups and WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has Google AdSense publishers asking for a wild card feature in the Competitive Ad Filter panel.

In short, some publishers would like to block any ad that is pointing to a .info TLD from displaying on their sites. Why? Well, a nice number of those sites are made as throwaway domains and provide very little extra value. I am not saying all .info TLDs are like that, but many are.

Right now, in the Competitive Ad Filter panel you can block by domain, page, directory or subdomain but not using a wild card operator to block TLDs or URL patterns.

example.com: block all ads across all subdomains
sports.example.com: block only ads across the 'sports' subdomain
sports.example.com/widgets: block all ads below a specific directory
sports.example.com/index.html: block all ads for a specific page

Forum discussion WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday I was prepped by the folks on Google for my post on Google Analytics Launches New Version With New UI & Features at Search Engine Land. What is new? In short, there is a new user interface, sleek new graphs and reports, and features such as email reports, customizable dashboards and easier to understand explanations of reports. The Google Blog and Google Analytics Blog both now have posts on this new release.

There are tons of screen captures floating around Flickr. Google sent me a few, but here is a screen capture of the dashboard.

For a smooth transition, here are a few helpful resources specific to the new version:

• Take a tour of the new version
  
• Report Finder Tool: will help you see where data from the previous interface is located within the new version (it is also linked to from within your reports on the left navigation menu)
  
• FAQs for more details about the new version
• New version features page

Both DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld have threads on the release. Here are some comments from those who were already upgraded, don't worry if you do not see the new analytics yet, you will within a few weeks.

Just logged in and have seen the new version. I like the AJAX elements, but like you, it will take time to adjust to it.

Definitley a much snazzier interface, I really like the new graphing options

The new site overlay feature is really sweet also. So is the Graphing comparisons month-to-month.

Again, if you do not see the new version - you will in the next several weeks. If you see the new version and want the old version, you will be able to access it for at least 30 days.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

The twenty-ninth edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download. This show we had a special guest come on 15 minutes in, because Ben was unable to be on this show. Todd Malicoat aka Stuntdubl joined us to give us some really great tips on obtaining .edu links. Outside of that we talked about the Microsoft and Yahoo possible merger. Yahoo's new robots-nocontent tag and Matt's rebuttal of the so called "Google Hell." We also talked about AdSense topics, Microsoft adCenter topics, AdWords and more topics. 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. Microsoft and Yahoo in Discussions for Merger
   
2. Yahoo! Supports Robots-Nocontent: Enabling Organic Search Page Section Targeting
   
3. Being "Condemned to Google Hell" and Matt's Rebuttal
   
4. How Do You Obtain Links from .edu Sites? (Guest: Todd Malicoat from stuntdubl.com who mentioned his thoughts on link buying.)
   
5. Google AdSense Team Addresses Ad Placement
   
6. 65% of Google AdSense Publishers Earn $100 or More Per Month
   
7. Microsoft Changes adCenter Terms & Conditions to Boost Distribution of Content Ads
   
8. Google AdWords Ad Missing Title in Sponsored Results
   
9. Twitter Tangent
   
10. Yahoo To Stop Updating Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool
    
11. Are Directories Useful for Search Engine Optimization? Which are Ideal?
    
12. The Return of the Grey PageRank Score in the Google Toolbar?
    
13. YouTube to Offer Revenue Sharing with Popular Content Producers
    

Lightening Round:

Continue reading "Search Pulse 29: Yahoo & Microsoft, Robots-NoContent, Google Hell, .Edu Links, AdSense Terms, Earnings, adCenter, Twitter & More"