September 2007 Archives

This topic comes up pretty regularly as it affects quite a few websites in the space. People are wondering how with more regionalization of search results these multi-language or geospecific websites are faring in today's result set. The thread on WMW highlights some of the experience and thoughts from posters concerned about these trends. I think people are looking to understand how the search engines are responding to geolocation sites. What is the process for which they consider these websites?

A member asks:

I remember reading either GG/MC suggesting CCTLDs was the preferred option when targeting specific countries, so are the days of the multi-language single site numbered?

Rainborick responded to how the search engine are treating CC TLD's these days "The search engines behavior in this area has remained unchanged in at least 2 years. They check for a CC TLD first, and failing that refer to the IP address of the server. It is easy to see why they chose these methods. Its dirt simple to implement because it doesn't require a lot of ongoing processing, and reasonably reliable in terms of the Web overall. Routine updates of the generic TLDs' IP addresses is all that's required."

It seems everyone is quite interested more in how multi-language websites are treated. There is no consensus how these websites are treated, but some do offer plausible examples on how they are approached.

So what are they doing differently these days? Here are some thoughts.

"What's new in all this is that for generic terms G is boosting "local" pages in the "web search" results and it now depends mostly on the strength of the local competition how well "foreign" pages will feature."

"Its not just Google. Yahoo! and MSN both give geo-location a great deal of weight in their rankings for all web searches."

Some good information and discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

One of Google's first audio advertisers has written up a great in-depth review of the service on DigitalPoint Forums. A few takeaways:

• There is no way to delete or remove campaigns, only stop or pause them. This creates a tad bit of confusion when looking at the collective budget because it includes ALL campaigns, even ones you stopped.
• It still appears to be a beta product. Some of the navigation is still ambiguous.
• Creating an ad is simple. You can upload an MP3 or have one done professionally.
• Custom jingles, multiple voices, and sound effects can add to the cost.
• Currently, there's no easy way to request quotes from companies that display offerings on multiple pages. This appears to be a bug.
• Price range for most ads $300-400
• You can choose demographics to tailor your ad to.
• Caution: The cheapest audio ads will almost certainly play on AM stations.
• The approval process for audio ads takes a few days.
• So far: no conversions for this advertiser, but he may try again.

This is definitely a lot to digest, so if you want to read the whole review, navigate to DigitalPoint Forums.

This post was composed on September 25 and was scheduled for publication on September 28.

If you live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas and want to know of 51 essential tools for SEM, Jeff Martin has announced that there will be a meetup at the Renaissance Hotel in Richardson, TX on October 15, 2007 between 6:30PM and 8PM. The meetup is intended to cover "51 essential tools for managing paid and natural search engine marketing campaigns." The presenters include Christine Churchill, Rob Garner, and other members of the DFW SEM association.

If you're interested in attending, the event is free for members and $20 for non-members. Additional information can be found on the DFW SEM website.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

This post was composed on September 24 and has been scheduled for publication on September 28.

So lets say you change all of your urls on your website to a completely new url structure. You 301 redirect all the old urls to the new ones. So how does it take for this to update in Google and other search engines? A thread on WMW has some good thoughts from members who have experienced this situation. The thread starter remarked on his situation:

We dropped from 120k pages in the index to 87k pages. We also are not coming up for certain keywords that we were always there for, and are seeing 50% less traffic from Google.

Some of the other posters said that it take quite some time up to a year for all the urls to be fully spidered and ranked again by Google. It is important to mention that result will vary based on a number of factors. If you have a site that has 120K pages and you change all the urls, then it not unreasonable to expect a large delay. It often comes down to "Is it worth it to change that many urls?" Does the outcome of such a change benefit you in the long run? For traffic from search engines? Or for visitors?

Tedster said:

"My experience was that, long term, it was always a positive step. Short term, a site with anything lower than a PR7 Home Page may experience a few bumps on the way to improvement. It's essential to get the technology right in your rewrite scheme, and there are several pitfalls.

1. Poorly configured, you may open the door to duplicate urls for the same content.
2. Remember that there are two steps to address: a. get the new urls to resolve and b. 301 redirect the old urls.
3. I found it more effective to do a ranking, traffic and backlink study and then only redirect the key urls, letting the rest go 404. That approach seemed to give the quickest "recovery" time in Google I ever achieved. In fact, that site never saw a dip in Google traffic, and then rankings improved quickly."

Some great advice from him. Continued discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Who knew something as simple as a link in a footer giving credit to the web site designer could set off such a controversy, but that's exactly what happened in Adding Links To Sites You Designed Right or Wrong?.

In this Cre8asiteforums thread, the majority of web site designers see nothing wrong with wanting a link to their web site placed on the web site they designed and/or built. Some view this as a courtesy. Some put it into their contract. In general, it's been a practice we've seen for years.

However, someone in this thread steadfastly looks at this link as an SEO trick to get link juice and recommends that if credit is given, that it not be in the form of a link or if so, add the "no follow" tag so it passes no PR.

Battle lines were drawn. Interesting points were raised. This issue must have been one of those "I always wondered about that" questions. What happens if everybody wants credit?

Garrick writes,

"Footer:

Copyright © Company XYZ. All rights reserved.
Website Design by Joe
Graphics by Ken
HTML by Betty
CSS by Larry
Logo by Fred
Database design by Harvey
Programming by Anne
Javascript by Karen
Rollovers by Uncle Fred
Dropdown Menus by Maurice
Color Scheme by Wendy
Copyrighting by Irma
Server administration by Chuck
Photos by Janine
Graphic optimization by Julia
Shopping cart by Shopping Carts r US
Gateway services by Versign
Credit card processing by Harry and Sons

Where does it stop? There are lots of people one could hire to help build a site, who have worked equally hard to help make the site what it is."

For the record, I only come here and play when Barry and Tamar are away on holiday and can't yell at me for my silly posts. The site design and all the credit for this place is totally theirs.

SEO's from the early days eventually learned that no matter how often they submitted URL's to search engines, the rewards were questionable, if any existed at all. There are still some search engine marketing company rip-offs selling site submission services to "hundreds of search engines", promising rank (in them all?) and doing it for dirt cheap.

When someone asked about such a scam, he also wondered that if a search engine like Google follows links to find new web sites, why is there a URL submit form?

It's kinda like a Dentist insisting that you get fluoride treatments, even though you buy toothpaste that has it in there and many towns put it in the water and some research says it's bad for you.

Do you submit to search engines on a "just in case" basis or is there some worth to this practice that remains?

If you're curious, read How Many SE's Do You Submit To? at Cre8asiteforums.

A forums member wants to know who the boss is. In your work as an SEO, are you optimizing pages for the site owner, search engines or web site visitors?

The writer asks,

"Now wouldn't we all be out of a job if we did whatever is best for the people viewing the site? We do what is best for our customers. The people paying us to make their websites....Of course, we need to provide something for the viewers out there to 'view'. But really, isn't this secondary to delivering a product to them?"

Ammon Johns responds:

"All the searching on major search engines happened in the early phases - the pure research phases. By the time they were holding their credit card, they were using another means to find the best price, such as a price comparison site.

The SEM uses this knowledge to change the way he markets to this small but growing portion of the market. He makes sure he provides material for those early 'scouting' type searches. He provides impressive information to make a good experience for the user. He builds a brand.

Because later, when that person is shopping for prices, if his site is any one of the options, he's got that sale on the trust he built, and the positive experiences given.

That is why it is all about giving an excellent, remarkable, memorable user-experience to every visitor."

Cre8asiteforums discussion: Why Is The Answer In Seo Always "Think About Your Audience"

A HighRankings thread discusses how conversion rates are calculated. Alan says that industry experts typically calculate conversion rates between 0.005% and 0.2% but would like to know how this number is found.

It really varies, says other members. The only use of knowing this statistic is that it may be necessary in the future to explain to your PPC customer that a big percentage of their visitors will not be converting visitors. nethy explains that it's really not a useful metric at all.

Conversion rate outside of context is not a very useful metric. That's why it is not agood idea (it think) to benchmark too seriously. Except maybe to calm a client that just realised that 98.6% of visitors to his site left without paying.

Conversion rates in general are difficult to apply over different markets or different situations. Randy adds that funnels may show higher conversions.

As a general rule though, I'd say your 00.5 - 0.2 numbers are probably talking about overall site conversions. I would personally expect CR for individual pages or even a series of pages (funnel) that lead to a sale to be considerably higher.

Forum discussion continues at HighRankings Forums.

This post was composed on September 25 and was scheduled for publication on September 27th.

A DigitalPoint Forums member is concerned about the heavy crawling performed by the Googlebot. He claims that Google is crawling 3GB of data from his site a month and wants to reduce this as it's a bit excessive in his opinion.

This is possible and can be done through the Google Webmaster Central Tools.
. Click on the Tools button on the left hand navigation and then choose "Crawl Rate." You'll get a screen like this:

If you want to reduce the crawl delay, you can do so here. Google advises you that if you want to use a slower rate, it will be valid for 90 days. If, after that time, Google determines that it is crawling your site too slowly, it will present the webmaster with a recommendation about crawling the site at a faster rate (or the webmaster can continue having the site crawled at the slower rate).

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

This post was written on September 25th and was scheduled for publication on September 27.

How does one rank in the Google Image Search Engine? A Cre8asite Forums member asks this question and a bunch of good advice is dispensed.

For one, filename, alt text, and surrounding text is important.

EGOL says that while on-page elements are important, rankings are also driven by searcher interest in the image. The more times it's accessed for a particular search phrase, the more likely it is relevant for the search.

The Google Webmaster Central blog shares some useful tips: don't put the bulk of your text in images, take advantage of ALT tags (but don't overload it), and look at the image-to-text ratio on your page.

Other resources: Search Engine Placement using Google Image Search and Optimizing Images for Search Engines.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

This post was composed on September 24 and has been scheduled for publication on September 27.

Tonight is the holiday of Sukkot, so Tamar and I will be offline starting tonight through the weekend.

We have scheduled several posts to go live during our time offline. But we will also have live coverage from Ben, Chris, Kim while Tamar and I are off. I have previewed some of the topics and they are really exciting. So stay tuned.

Next week is the same story. It is the last day we are off during the week for months. So after next week, we are back to a regular schedule. At least I hope so.

For those celebrating Sukkot, have a happy holiday. Everyone else, thank you for reading and commenting!

There seems to be a major update taking place at Yahoo! Search today. A WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums thread has chatter on it from SEOs.

One member said that his rankings "jumped from 168 to 29."

But is this update causing technical problems with searching over at Yahoo? An other WebmasterWorld thread reports Yahoo is telling searches they can't process their query:

We had temporary problems searching for web pages. Search again for MY SEARCH or type a new query above.

Aaron Wall at SEO Book seems to be the first to spot and call out this Yahoo update. He said he has seen a shift in rankings and problems with how they handle 301s, and a change in how they weight on domain names. Loren Baker also covered Aaron's post.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: It is now official, the Yahoo Search blog just posted a weather report.

The 37th edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download.In the 37th edition of the Search Pulse, Chris, Ben and I discussed several exciting topics. We talked about how some search engines celebrated Talk Like a Pirate Day. We also discussed some of the reaction towards Google stopping the commission payouts to AdWords agencies in Europe. We discussed the Chinese-like spam in Google, as well as how Google Book search results invaded some of the listings. We touched on many more topics including AdWords Quality Scores, link building, web directories, Microsoft's Live 2.0 search engine and then went into "lightening round." The topics we covered are listed below, in order of priority (based on search community buzz).

Update: They recovered the file, here is the MP3 file.

NOTE: The show MP3 file was corrupt, WebmasterRadio was unable to publish an archive of the show. I apologize, but I guess more of an incentive to listen live. But here is a summary of what we talked about.

Topics We Covered:

1. Talk Like A Pirate Day: Dogpile, Flickr, Roundtable & Others
   
2. Google to Discontinue Commission Payouts to European Agencies
   
3. Google Update Underway? Chinese Spam Impacting Google.com
   
4. Google Book Search Results in Google.com Organic Results?
   
5. Advertisers React to Google's Quality Score Penalty Definitions
   
6. Link Building is Getting More Difficult, but Why?
   
7. What Makes a Bad Web Directory?
   
8. More Signs of Live Search 2.0
   
9. Live.com Search Update & Design Update?
   

Continue reading "Search Pulse 37: Pirate Day, AdWords Payouts, Google Spam, Google Books, Ad Penalties & More"

WebmasterWorld members announced that the ODP has created a blog which is run by AOL staff.

That's great, some say. They always believed there was an intelligent force behind DMOZ and hope it persists. They hope that a new era is about to arrive with better quality.

I'd love to see AOL make a sincere effort to diagnose and fix the weaknesses of DMOZ (no need to repeat that debate/list). There's a huge opportunity for changes that are win-win-win solutions for DMOZ volunteers, AOL shareholders, and quality-oriented webmasters. The only losers would be the fakers and spammers.

My only gripe with this is that I wish it happened earlier. Right now, in light of all recent events relating to DMOZ (in a negative light), it appears that they formed this blog because they're in damage control mode.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

About a week ago, Barry posted at Search Engine Land that a man is suing Google for $5 billion because he says that the word "Google" turned upside down looks so much like his social security number. Interestingly enough, Google has 6 letters whereas a social security number has 9 digits. I wonder if he meant "Gooooogle."

In any event, DigitalPoint Forums members think that the guy is absolutely ridiculous (a claim echoed by me).

If this guy actually wins this, then I will commit suicide.

(They say that he should sue Google after he commits suicide.)

If he wins this case, I will pay some politician to get me that SSN.

Most people think that the guy suing Google is just brainless. Others think that it's just the nature of the American judicial system since it's so easy to start a frivolous lawsuit in this country in comparison to others.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

My friend Sam, who I met at SES New York, ran into an interesting dilemma at the Cre8asite Forums. She's managing several Google Analytics accounts under one master account.

According to the Google Analytics Help, Google Analytics will track an unlimited amount of websites.

However, she's stuck at 50 and is getting the following message:

Add Website Profile » You have reached the maximum number of website profiles allowed.

Interesting. Is this a bug?

However, while there's a lot of convenience to monitor multiple accounts under one single account so as not to require hundreds of logins, it may be simpler in the future to use separate accounts in case you need to give clients access if they no longer do business with you:

I think its a good practice to have separate accounts for different clients, and you should have it with clients login, because if client for some reason want to leave you, then you want have difficulty giving him access

This is a good point, but I'd be inclined to request two things: if Google Analytics is unlimited, please let us know, and can we make it easier to separate Google Analytics accounts in the future without going through the Google team if the time comes?

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Take a look at a site:familyonetransportation.com query. Notice everything looks fine and dandy.

Now, lets look at the cache:familyonetransportation.com result for that page.

Why is it displaying the cache of a different site? Currently, I see ShuttlesInOrlando.com for a cache lookup for FamilyOneTransportation.com. But why? Here is the cache information:

This is G o o g l e's cache of http://www.shuttlesinorlando.com/ as retrieved on 22 Sep 2007 00:58:26 GMT.

In a Google Groups thread, the owner of the site said he or she had a 302 redirect from FamilyOneTransportation.com to ShuttlesInOrlando.com in the past, but over two months ago, she stopped the 302 redirect, but Google still displays the wrong site in the cache.

What makes this a bit weirder is that I can get the cache page of the home page if I go this route.

In any event, Googler Susan Moskwa said:

I've seen a couple other users report the same phenomenon recently in our Help Groups. I'm not sure if/how it's related to your 302 redirects, but I've passed your case along to the team to look into further.

So this might be a larger problem with Google's cache operator. It appears Google knows about the 302 change, it also appears they have cached the correct home page. But the operator for a cache: lookup does not appear to work 100% correctly right now.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

If you take a look at the AdWords Robots.txt file, you will notice that they disallow "Disallow: /*?"

Technically, that disallows all Google AdWords Qualified Professional pages. Here is an example of one Google AdWords Professional page. Notice the URL is https://adwords.google.com/select/ProfessionalStatus?id=. Since Google disallows /*?, Google won't index them fully.

Ah, but what about the 1,300 pages Google seemed to have indexed at adwords.google.com/select/ProfessionalStatus? Well, those are not fully indexed, as you can see. It seems like that is just linkage data, and that is why those are listed in the index.

The big question is why does Google not index them? Is it a duplicate content reason? Do you feel that this information is redundant to the company's web site? Is there no added value to having these pages found in a Google search? I find that hard to believe. Even more so, Google has approved these AdWords advertisers, so there is an element of trust, a stamp of approval, so why block these pages from being indexed? Clearly, the link to the company's home page does not have a nofollow attribute applied to the link, but it doesn't really need one if the page isn't indexed.

What do you think? Should Google index these pages or not? Should Google nofollow those links if they are indexed?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Danny Sullivan has turned 42 years old today. I wanted to wish Danny a happy birthday on behalf of the search marketing community.

As many of you know, Danny is instrumental in bridging the search engines and the search marketing industry together. He has helped the communication between the two sides. He has encouraged, successfully, the implementation of open dialogs, tools, access to data, and more importantly, the friendly attitude between the two sides.

Outside of that, Danny has provided free content and information for over a decade on search related topics. From SEO, to PPC, to paid inclusion, to searching and even social media. He has given us a playground with the new Sphinn, he has organized the hottest news in search at Search Engine Land and has organized a new array of exciting conferences with Search Marketing Expo.

Proof of Danny's impact can be seen in this article: Reaction from the Search Community on Danny Sullivan's Departure.

FYI, we have covered Danny's 41st, 40th and 39th birthdays.

Happy Birthday Danny!

If you want to wish Danny a happy birthday, you can! Go to Sphinn thread and leave a comment for Danny.

Many publishers have a hard time getting approved into the Google AdSense program. In fact, Google recently posted a blog entry named Before you apply to AdSense. In that blog post, Google explains the ways to apply and some of the criteria that must be met to get approval into the program.

If that blog post doesn't help you get into the Google AdSense program then maybe a DigitalPoint Forums thread would.

In that thread, one member claimed that if you register at HubPages and then click on "account settings" and then "affiliates." You can sign up for Google AdSense within HubPages. HubPages says:

When you create a user account with HubPages, we’ll automatically create the Google Adsense program for you. Just answer a few simple questions and you’ll be ready to go.

This implies that creating a HubPage account will guarantee acceptance into Google AdSense.

Some of the forums members are giving this theory a try. It would make sense that the same applies to Google's Blogger accounts or Google Pages.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

The Inside AdWords blog announced a new CPA bidding product yesterday called Conversion Optimizer. The tool is intended to "help you meet your ROI objectives by automatically managing your bids according to a maximum CPA goal. By automating the bidding process, this feature helps you minimize your conversion costs while saving you time."

Forum reaction is mixed. Since Conversion Optimizer is requires a minimum of 300 conversions in 30 days, many advertisers cannot try it out.

One who, did, however, is dissatisfied with the tool. Apparently, it's not easy for him to restore his bids as they were before:

I have changed my keyword bids using conversion optimizer tool but iam not satisfied with that tool ,so i would like to know how to insert previous bids for the keywords as they were before.

Yet are just looking forward to seeing how this feature will work on the content network versus the search network.

I agree that PPA sounds much easier on the content network, I'd be interested to see how this could improve the performance on the Google/search network though.

It will take some time before that is known.

If you're interested in giving it a try, Barry has more information at Search Engine Land.

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

WebmasterWorld members are a bit frustrated with broad match keywords since advertisers are complaining that the wrong ads are being delivered by desired keyword phrases.

Some comments regarding broad match come from a member who is particularly peeved:

Broad match does not work as well as described. Actually, I think it works terribly.

The ABSOLUTE WORST thing i've seen broad match do is show ads for searches that I AM NOT BIDDING ON.

AdWordsAdvisor chimes in at that point and asks, with sincerity, why advertisers who know about the risks of broad match are still using it.

Broad match is configured (and documented) to work in a particular way, which includes 'expansions'. Given that this is so, why do advertisers who genuinely hate broad match because of the 'expansions' continue to use it - when 'exact match' is an option which would give them complete control, and when 'phrase match' is less 'exclusive' than exact, but is not expanded?

Some reasons presented by advertisers include:

1. Broad match is good, but some expansions are "way off the mark"
2. If you are not educated properly about the varying match types (broad, phrase, exact), you're led to assume that broad match might equal exact match - nobody is informed that they need to enclose keywords in quotes, for example.
3. Broad match destroys the optimization of keyword relevancy and bidding.

These are some very valid points.

If you have anything to add (AdWordsAdvisor is taking these suggestions to a meeting next week), join the discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Numerous reports indicate that Microsoft is looking to purchase a stake in Facebook and values the social networking site at roughly $10 billion. That's 5 times as much as Zuckerberg was originally rumored to have wanted to sell Facebook for in early 2006.

Forum members, particularly those at WebmasterWorld, are shocked that Microsoft has put such a high value on the social networking site.

So we're saying Facebook is worth $8billion... what a load of &*"!£$%^. That's more than some serious worthwhile businesses!

Actually, with many people using Facebook during work, the valuation might not be too far off. I happen to know a lot of Facebook addicts. Don't you?

Others aren't as enthusiastic that Microsoft will have access to all the user data.

Somewhere in this mess is a great truth that your personal data has value and that value will be squeezed out of it, lucky us.

Very true -- and very frightening.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Just a heads up to new Google AdSense publishers, if you are trying to enter your PIN (personal identification number) and it is not working, you are not alone.

A Google Groups thread reports dozens of publishers receiving the same errors:

We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it.

AdSensePro confirms the issue and says they are working on fixing it as soon as possible:

Our engineers are aware that some people have been having trouble entering their PINs, and are working to investigate and resolve this issue. There's no need to write into AdSense support, as they won't be able to give you any updates yet, but I'll be sure to post updates here as more information becomes available.

Thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience,
-AdSensePro

An AdSense PIN is required to get paid. After you verify your address by entering in the PIN that was mailed to you, you will likely not need to enter a new PIN in every again. But you cannot get paid without it anymore.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Update: This is now fixed.

The other day we reported on a Live.com Search Update & Design Update. The other week, in conjunction with our post, the LiveSide blog captured dozens of screen captures of "Live Search 2.0" in action.

Ever since then, I see people popping up in the forums spotting a new algorithm and design for Microsoft's Live.com search engine.

Microsoft actually "spilled the beans" on the launch, posting a blog post too early that read something like:

In a blog posting on Thursday, Windows Live program manager Akram Hussein demonstrated how the revamped Live Search handles searches for digital cameras, showing not just product details, but also reviews. The new search scrapes details from other sites that have user reviews and other information and presents it from within the search engine.

In any event, this new design and "algorithm" is on it's way. Will it be better? Time will tell. It is hard to get worse (ouch!).

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google released Google Referrals 2.0 to all advertisers a couple months back. We now have a detailed WebmasterWorld thread with feedback on if it actually earns publishers money.

Most say, no, it does not earn them any or enough money to keep them live on their site.

In the twenty plus replies about how much people are earning from Referrals ads, there was not one single positive reply.

Many have dropped those ads completely from displaying on their site:

It just didn't work for me. After trying referrals for a couple of months with virtually no conversions, I took it off of my site.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Gabs from SEO Home reported at a Search Engine Roundtable Forums thread that the Google Directory PageRank bars have updated.

There is a difference, sometimes, between the PageRank shown in the Google Directory when compared to the PageRank shown in the Google Toolbar. Also, the PageRank values Google has internally are normally different from both the Directory and Toolbar PageRank values.

Gabs showed an example of a change. If you look at the cached version of this page, it shows a PageRank value of 3 for Abbey Theatre but the current version shows a PageRank value of 2 (I may be off on those numbers, but you can clearly see the current version of the PageRank bar is less than the cached or older version. Here is a side by said:

Current:

Past:

Side by side, just looking at the PageRank bars:

Note, we had a Google Directory Data Update last month, but the last time I reported a PageRank score update at the Google Directory was back in 2004, that is not saying it hasn't happened since.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

DigitalPoint Forums members report that Google (GOOG) stock has reached new heights: at $564, it's higher than it's ever been and is $45 more than our June reporting of $519.

Well, last week it was at $560. It already went up since then.

Forum members attribute this to Google's popularity (as "top dog") and mobile ads. But as one forum member reports, "it keeps growing in a market it basically created a need for. "

What next?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Fear not, my friends. It appears that our report last Monday about Yahoo! Overture being dead was a bit premature. According to WebmasterWorld members, the Yahoo! Overture Keyword Tool is back. The optimistic hopefuls have revived the useful tool from the dead.

Here's a search I performed just a few minutes ago.

Contrast that with the screenshot I created last week:

It definitely looks like it's working, and it's using data from January 2007. Other forum members report that it's showing May data. I suppose it may vary per search term but I'm unable to get May data.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Do you think that Gmail is lacking in functionality? With millions of users, many people might seem to disagree (but they'd like folder functionality!) However, since Google hasn't innovated with Gmail anytime recently, there's likely to be a brand new Google on the horizon, according to reports by ZDNet.

DigitalPoint Forums members are enthusiastic, but they'd love unlimited storage (for free). I, too, think that would be sweet.

What new features would you like in Gmail? Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread refers to last week's Hitwise Press Release that states that Google has received 64% of US searches for the month of August. Danny Sullivan also reported with these findings at Search Engine Land and followed with another article reporting the Neilsen NetRatings for August 2007. Clearly, Google is on the top of the popularity statistics for the US.

Forum members believe that the smallest players in the Top 4 should close up shop. Given that there are hundreds of other search engines outside the top 4, I'm not so sure I'd agree. Plus, as other members add, competition should exist.

Other search engines are innovative in their own space. For example, a forum member believes Ask is making an impact with its advertising strategy:

ASK.com has been making a big push at google using Radio and Tv ads recently in the USA specifically detailing about the search results with video, ipod and other major sectors that bring it "above" googles.

In general, though, Google might be big in some countries, but in Asia, for example, they're not necessarily leading in search popularity.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Sphinn users report that the DMOZ homepage is missing from the Google results. While you can still do a site:dmoz.org search and find a few million results, searching for "dmoz" alone won't bring up the homepage.

A screenshot, taken by Barry on Search Engine Land, is below:

Does this have anything to do with Search Engine Land's report of the Google Directory Ban of September 2007? Danny Sullivan wonders if that's the case.

Truthfully, I wonder if it has anything to do with DMOZ's apparent corruption.

Discussion continues on Sphinn.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports on a Guardian Unlimited article that says Google will be discontinuing their "Best Practice Funding," which basically pays back some European agencies 3% to 8% of their ad spend each quarter.

This program actually earned some agencies up to £50,000 each year. The program is to be discontinued at the end of 2008. Damian Burns, head of agency relations for Google EMEA said:

Agencies are now at a level where they don't need a subsidy.

Everyone should be equal in an auction system, there shouldn't be buying clout, the value for clients is in how well agency campaigns perform.

This will now level the playing field for many advertisers. As you can imagine, this has been a hot debate over the years. Many agencies kept this program under the radar, to try to not 'ruffle any feathers' over this sweet deal they had with Google. We covered it back in January 2006 with AdWords Discounts for Big Agencies?

A WebmasterWorld thread has some reaction from these European advertisers. Although many knew this day would come, they didn't want to believe it. Some say that some agencies have not charged a PPC management fee, and solely relied on Google's commissions to run their business. This "free model" of PPC management has to be changed and there may be some client's lost over this in the European market.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Go to Google Suggest type in "Israel is a ", again, just type in the words israel space, is space, a space and see it suggests "Israel is a Terrorist State." Then it follows that by "Israel is Evil." Here is a screen capture:

Why would Google suggest these search phrases? According to Google's FAQ this works purely based on algorithms:

Our algorithms use a wide range of information to predict the queries users are most likely to want to see. For example, Google Suggest uses data about the overall popularity of various searches to help rank the refinements it offers. An example of this type of popularity information can be found in the Google Zeitgeist. Google Suggest does not base its suggestions on your personal search history.

Can Google Suggest be manipulated by the outside? I suspect so. Just like they had with the search on "jew" back on April 2004. In fact, a search for jew still returns a Google ad that leads to http://www.google.com/explanation.html.

If you recently used Google to search for the word "Jew," you may have seen results that were very disturbing. We assure you that the views expressed by the sites in your results are not in any way endorsed by Google. We'd like to explain why you're seeing these results when you conduct this search.

A site's ranking in Google's search re