October 30, 2007 Archives

The 40th edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download. In this show, Ben and I chatted about the big PageRank massacre, if you want to call it that. We spent a whole 15 minutes on that discussion, so check it out. The final 15 minutes we chatted about Yahoo Site Explorer old bug, a problem that was solved with AdSense channels and a new feature coming to AdSense. We also talked about a Microsoft adCenter upgrade, a Google Image update and asked the big question, Are SEOs better searchers?

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.

Topics We Covered:

1. What Does This Google PageRank Message Mean?
   
2. Matt Cutts Confirms that Paid Links Killed Your PageRank
   
3. 2nd Google PageRank in October 2007
   
4. Theory: How Does Google Determine Which Sites Sell Links?
   
5. Yahoo! Responds to Site Explorer Inlinks Issue
   
6. Google AdSense Reporting Discrepancies
   
7. Google Fixes AdSense Channel Reporting Issue
   
8. Code Free Changes Coming To Google AdSense
   
9. MSN adCenter Adds Editorial Status, Campaign Management & Reporting Features
   
10. Google Image Index Update
    
11. Are Seach Engine Optimization Professionals Better Searchers?

Lightening Round:

Continue reading "Search Pulse 40: PageRank Paid Links Drop, Yahoo Fixes Site Explorer, Google AdSense Topics & Searching"

Selling links? Matt Cutts has told Loren at Search Engine Journal that it was buying and selling links that ended up getting your PageRank lowered over the past few days.

The partial update to visible PageRank that went out a few days ago was primarily regarding PageRank selling and the forward links of sites. So paid links that pass PageRank would affect our opinion of a site.

Danny Sullivan adds in the comments that he already knew this was happening. On October 7, Search Engine Land came out with a post warning you that you could get your PageRank lowered for selling links. Fast forward three weeks and we're here.

The discussion moves to Sphinn where there's a lot of confusion over the fact that Google seems to have penalized sites that simply do not participate in selling links. Copyblogger is an example.

Of course, there's also the other side (in a blog post that I can't find and link to): why can't bloggers make a little money on the side? Some of them aren't as rich as the Googlers. :P

How many people do you think were really outed by SEOs?

Still, according to a more recent Search Engine Land post, Google's stance seems unclear:

Google is always working to improve the ways that we generate relevant search results and update our opinions of sites' reputations across the web.

Some of the hard-hit sites seem to be pretty relevant, if you ask me. Again, the question goes back to the many posts I've seen where bloggers ask why they should be penalized if they provide quality content -- and sell links. So what? Why slight them?

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Some people like to check their Google AdWords every few days. Others take a more extreme approach and check every few minutes. Which one are you? Are you addicted to AdWords?

Many are. They want to be on top of their competition. They want to make tweaks all the time. Surprisingly, there are more AdWords addicts than there are casual users of AdWords, including those who check AdWords on days off.

Others had to stop, like AussieWebmaster, who went to rehAd. ;)

And you?

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread discusses strategies about what you would do if you started advertising with a brand new keyword in Google AdWords. Are you compelled to pay a lot per click at first or start your bids low?

The responses vary greatly and it's interesting to gauge the strategy. Some people start a little higher:

I've always done it by starting about 50% higher than my max bid (so if my max bid is 30c, i'll start off with a 45c bid), but put a low campaign maximum. This way I can establish a click history so i'm not penalized right off the bat by having bids too low on historically high cpc rated keywords.

Others price it according to competition:

Here is what I do on a new site. I set a moderate price on my better keywords Not too high or low. Put a pretty good size daily budget on. Keep it on for 24 hours daily. When the high bidders have spent their budget or vacate their their normal time slot, you should be able to move up the page and garner some traffic. Conversion of course always depends on the site, content, the offer, etc.

What do you do when you have a brand new keyword? Personally, since we've implied that it's an existing campaign and we're merely adding a keyword, I would be compelled to use the max CPC and see how the ads perform with this keyword. Depending on the CTR, I will lower or raise the bid.

If you have anything to add, forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Numerous reports indicate that Google AdWords has removed the negative keyword tool. Here's a screenshot of forum members' findings showing how the negative keyword tool is missing from the drop down field above all the keywords.

But actually, the negative keyword tool still exists. It has been reassigned to individual keywords as forum member fluxposure points out. This screenshot shows that you can expand the keyword itself and add a negative keyword on the selected keyword.

Do you think that relocating the negative keyword tool is an inconvenience or do you find it easier?

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Microsoft adCenter announced that it has new features for campaign management, including immediate editorial feedback on ads and keywords, a daily budget for campaigns, campaign importing tools that are compatible with AdWords Editor, and reporting access, among other nice features.

This is great, and it's certainly a step in the right direction. Forum members feel that adCenter still needs some of the fundamentals for improvement, however:

They seem to miss some basics I would really like to see such at totals for cost, clicks, impressions ctr etc. on campaign and ad group level pages.

What do you think about the adCenter changes? Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

The largest topic by far this week in the forums is the PageRank update that hit sites that are selling links. There are literally dozens upon dozens of threads at many of the webmaster forums on the topic.

We covered it with What Does This Google PageRank Message Mean? and 2nd Google PageRank in October 2007. Yes, Google has confirmed this is a PageRank reduction in the toolbar for selling links. Even Matt Cutts, of Google, gave Loren a quote:

The partial update to visible PageRank that went out a few days ago was primarily regarding PageRank selling and the forward links of sites. So paid links that pass PageRank would affect our opinion of a site.

Going forward, I expect that Google will be looking at additional sites that appear to be buying or selling PageRank.

The big question is why did this PageRank update hit some sites that are selling links, while others it did not hit? In addition, how did Google hit some sites that were not selling links, which they had to restore a few later?

That is where the theory on how Google determines which sites are selling links.

Remember when Google released the paid link reporting tool back in June? Google asked everyone to report sites that sold links. People reported sites, sites they love, sites they hate, sites they are impartial to, to Google via this form. The form collected hundreds, if not thousands of sites. Google probably put a person or two on the task of scanning the list to validate if those sites sold links. YouTube was on the list, the person who reviewed it may have been on the call and forgot to uncheck it as a site that sells links and moved on. Many sites were not manually reported by you and I (SEOs and Webmasters) and those did not see a PageRank reduction, at least not yet, not until someone reports them.

In my opinion, this was a fairly manual process. Of course, I can be wrong. I am sure Google will automate the process as they continue to collect data, set up characteristics and profiles of sites that sell links. But right now, this seems much more manual than automated to me. And that is why I feel that "we" did this to ourselves. Webmaster A reported Webmaster B, who reported Webmaster A.

Does it matter? I have personally not seen any decline in Google referrals since the drop. Does it mean I will lose sponsors? I have lost one but I have also received an email from another sponsor who said:

I know with the latest PR update that just went live last night you are going to get hammered for going from a PR7 to a PR6 to now a PR4. I wanted you to know that I won't be one of those. We will continue to support you as an advertiser as long as the quality of your blog continues.

We're proud to be a sponsor, regardless of your PageRank.

Honestly, that email was incredibly touching. I never sold links for PageRank purposes. I always thanked those who placed their ads on my site, not in a promotional method but in a way to support the SEO community and this site. I do share site statistics, I don't share PageRank scores on my advertise page. This PageRank update may be a good thing. It will weed out advertisers who are just looking to "buy PageRank" from those who have good intentions about supporting the industry and this site.

But the big question is. Is my theory right? If so, did we do this to ourselves?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld (plus a zillion other threads).

Ever have to take down your site for an extended period of time? By extended period of time, I am talking about more than 5 hours or so.

Those who have, might also worry about how Google or other search engine spiders may treat the long down time.

A Google Groups thread has a response from Google's Berghausen, a Google Webmaster Central representative. Berghausen recommends that you serve up "a '503 Service Unavailable' with a 'Retry-After' header indicating when you expect your site to be back up." That is, if you can serve up that server message while your site is down.

A 503 status is defined as:

The server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The implication is that this is a temporary condition which will be alleviated after some delay. If known, the length of the delay MAY be indicated in a Retry-After header. If no Retry-After is given, the client SHOULD handle the response as it would for a 500 response.

Note: The existence of the 503 status code does not imply that a server must use it when becoming overloaded. Some servers may wish to simply refuse the connection.

Berghausen says that "Googlebot will not index your error page, and will come back looking for updates some time after the date specified in the 'Return-After' header." Very good to know that Google supports this specific header.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

About a week ago, Google announced that they have added the IMAP protocol to Gmail. Google said they would be rolling "out the feature over the next couple of days."

It has now been 6 days since the announcement and many Gmail users still do not see the feature in their account settings.

Gmail Guide has been trying to weather the situation in a Google Groups thread, explaining that these feature roll outs need to go slow to ensure the servers and hardware can handle the new load.

Gmail Guide explained:

t's really great to hear how much everyone wants IMAP, and I feel for those of you that have been such loyal Gmailers for so long but have to wait a little longer. We knew the roll out wouldn't be instant for everyone. Because of the way the system is designed, the feature would go live in Gmailers' accounts gradually and randomly. As a result, we decided to first announce IMAP as it started to roll out rather than later.

We are trying to get IMAP to all users as soon as we can. If you don't have it yet, expect to see it approximately one week from our announcement on October 24. Rolling out new features often place extra burden on our servers, particularly in the case of IMAP where users may be downloading their entire inboxes at once. I know that it is frustrating to wait for a feature that's been highly anticipated. Thanks for your patience, and it won't be much longer!

So, if you still do not have it by tomorrow or the day after, then something is probably wrong.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Yesterday, I asked the question, What Happens When an Google AdSense Publisher Dies? As I promised, I would let you know what Google's stance on this matter is. Now Google has replied saying:

I've spoken to several of our specialists who handle the account issues of deceased publishers, and they said that the best thing you can do now is to leave your preferences in your will. There's no need to notify the AdSense team directly; we'll ask your heirs for any necessary official documentation and will be more than willing to work with them on a case-by-case basis to ensure that everything is handled in the way you specify.

We're not able to provide tax or legal advice on this issue, so everyone should talk to an attorney or tax advisor as well, as several of you have suggested. As with any other asset or business, you should also make sure your heirs know of your intentions, whether that include training them to take over your sites and accounts or simply letting them know they exist. It's great to hear that many of you are already doing this.

OK, so Google says make sure someone knows how to get into your AdSense account. But what if the publisher doesn't tell anyone? What if the heir needs access to the account but does not have that information? What steps will Google require to transfer the account to the heir?

I assume this should require similar steps as with resurrecting dead Gmail accounts.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Ask Google what a month is and Google will tell you it is 30.4368499 days long.

Can't Google tell us the same thing about a day or a decade or maybe even a century? Nope, Google just knows how long a month is.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.