Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 30, 2007"

It's been a long week, or at least it feels like it. TGIF is all I have to say about that. :)

Searching Blogs: Use Ask

It looks like Ask has emerged a winner lately compared to Google's Blog Search. The results are a lot better according to Barry Schwartz and Barry Welford. Two Barrys can't be wrong.

You Can't Hide 'em Lotto Winnings

A crazy guy in Miami (my hometown) decided he'd win the lottery and hide it from his wife. He tried to turn her off of everything related to the media so she wouldn't find out -- but finally, she decided to Google him, and she learned that he was keeping it a secret. The divorce proceedings should be ongoing shortly.

Google Feels Lucky Enough

Google doesn't want to remove their "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, but maybe they should, because they're wasting $110 million annually on missed opportunities for AdWords. I'll give you $1.10 a year to remove the button and give me your profits.

Not a Grand Monday

On Monday, Yahoo Stores failed many small business owners. They experienced serious outages. It's horrible given that this is the busiest online shopping day of the year for many people.

Matt Cutts Explains the Google Snippet

If you've never seen a video of Matt Cutts in action (or you've never seen him in person), perhaps it would be good for you to watch this cute little video of Matt explaining the Google snippet: the part of the results that Google takes from your website.

Google AdSense Video Units: Targeting Problems

Okay, so if you've got a site about digital photography and your Google AdSense video units started displaying ads about football, you'd be disappointed, right? I wouldn't blame you. Apparently, Google is off the mark in terms of targeting appropriately from the publisher perspective.

Canadians: Don't Switch Your AdWords to the US Dollar

Even if the US dollar is weaker (unfortunately), it's not wise to open a new Google AdWords account with the US dollar. Your Quality Score might take a plunge, like it did for one Canadian who tried to experiment with this approach.

5,000 and Counting

Earlier this week, Barry hit his 5,000th post on Search Engine Roundtable. Now how is that for dedication? I should be at 1k by February at this rate. ;) Maybe I can catch up!

Google to Release New Technologies

Platypus or GDrive is around the corner, or so they say. This is Google's new online storage option, with free and paid versions available. Additionally, Google is touting a new mobile locator service which will help people find their way on cellular phones that have mapping features.

Yahoo + Adobe = <3

Yahoo is offering sponsored ads on PDF documents which is a brand new incentive for PDF authors to monetize their content. Awesome idea.

Spammers Seize Al Gore's Search Engine Traffic

It sucks to be Al Gore. His site was hacked by spammers earlier and they embedded bad HTML pharmaceutical code into the site to get ranked higher. Jerks.

Fake Google .CN Spam Continues to Plague the Internets

It appears that .CN spam on Google is still a problem: it's bringing malware to the masses. Unfortunately, it's been happening for quite some time.

Google to Identify Manipulated Articles

Google has applied for a patent that can analyze articles and determine if they're spamming the search results. Pretty cool.

YSM Gets a Tune Up

You can now tune up your Yahoo Search Marketing campaign using a neat little feature on the console. Click on the Tune Up tab and let it run; then get your results.

Google + Social Media = Results that Matter?

Google is experimenting with voting on their search results, so that you can bring more pertinent results to the forefront. This could be big.

Google Sells Links. That Means You Can Too.

Seriously, I don't get it. Why is Google selling a PR7 link when paid links are supposedly evil?

Google AdWords Diagnostic Tool Bug = Fixed (or Not)

We reported that the Google AdWords Diagnostic Tool was fixed, but apparently, it's not, so hold your horses and we'll let you know if anything else changes on that front.

Pubcon, SES, and More!

Next week, we're having an awesome conference week. A few of us will be in Chicago and a few of us will be in Las Vegas. If you're in Vegas, there's an unofficial event guide posted, a Werewolf parlor game, and shows in Vegas for pre-approved bloggers. And if you missed it, our conference coverage schedule has been posted. Don't miss out!

A WebmasterWorld member asks: how do you find out if you've been smart priced? Do you get notified?

No. It's a "big black box" as someone else says and the amount of money you earned instead is more important.

Other telltale signs:

When you receive only 1 cent to 3 cent clicks over 100's of clicks for ads which sell medium to expensive products or services, you KNOW, you have been smartpriced.

When your income falls suddenly by 50- 60 %, you know you have been smartpriced.

When you can't seem to do anything to increase the EPC, you know you have been smartpriced or capped.

Someone else suggests asking Google themselves. I don't know if that works, however.

If you want more information about it, Google has written about smart pricing in the past.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A Washington Post article refers to a recent lawsuit between Dell and a number of domain registrars who are cybersquatting on misspellings of Dell's various domains so that they can profit off PPC ads.

This has been a problem for quite some time. WebmasterWorld members wonder if this suit will impact Google AdSense's domain parking advertising programs.

It could, and some folks hope that it does since they're similar victims and also suffer the typosquatting fate. Forum members hope that Google will be the ones who are held responsible (but don't count on it since Google is huge). As one member puts it:

Google is guilty as charged. They aided and abbetted the whole scam by allowing it to be monetized.

A simple fact: Google could have prevented this whole dirty business by prohibiting ads from being displayed on domains that were less than five days old. A very simple and elegant solution. They, quite frankly, deserve to get fried for their complicity in the whole affair. I am sick and tired of Google and their 'partners' raking it in on my trademarks just because I don't have the resources to play wack-a-mole at $2000.00 per shot.

Go Dell.

This is a good point indeed. Why should domain tasters profit?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Google is testing technology that will find you if you're lost, as long as you're equipped with a cell phone (and even if the cell phone doesn't have a GPS receiver).

The new tracking feature introduced Wednesday is being touted as an added convenience because it will enable people on the go to skip the task of typing a starting address on a mobile handset's small keys when they turn to Google's maps for guidance.

Using the technology, dubbed "My Location," simply requires pressing zero on a mobile handset equipped with the new software. The sender's location shows up as a blue dot on Google's mobile maps

I could see this being useful in emergency situations as well. But what do forum members think? They assume there will be more geotargeted ads. They're also a bit concerned about the privacy ramifications of such an application, but doesn't that happen every single time Google releases a new feature?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Yahoo Search Marketing has released a pretty cool feature that allows you to fine-tune your campaign and have greater control (and feedback) over your accounts. Additionally, you can now save your preferences so that when you log in, your previous view is restored.

Here's an example of the Campaign Tune-Up feature. As you notice, there's a new tab to allow you to tune your campaign.

Once Yahoo performs the tune-up, you can view your results.

Nifty.

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

A single report comes from a preferred WebmasterWorld member that Google's MediaBot, the crawler Google uses to power the AdSense ads are cutting off his URLs right after the .ht of the .html pages.

Here is an export of a portion of his log files:

211.10.xx.xxc - - [30/Nov/2007:13:05:16 +0100] "GET /some-file.html HTTP/1.0" 200 11706 "http://www.example.com/other-file.html" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)"
66.249.72.210 - - [30/Nov/2007:13:05:17 +0100] "GET /some-file.ht HTTP/1.1" 404 2390 "-" "Mediapartners-Google"
66.249.72.210 - - [30/Nov/2007:13:05:18 +0100] "GET /some-file.ht HTTP/1.1" 404 2390 "-" "Mediapartners-Google"

You can see that Mediapartner-Google is generating 404 pages on his site by breaking the filename after the extension.

Is this an isolated issue for this user in particular or more wide spread? I tried to validate it on my side but was unsuccessful.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

If you login to your Google AdSense account and go to your AdSense for Search reports, you should see a new warning from Google that they will be deleting AdSense for Search top query data that is older than one year.

The message reads:

Effective December 10, AdSense for Search top query data that's more than a year old will no longer be available. If you have any critical reports, please run and save them prior to December 10.

If you want that data for historical tracking purposes, I would login today and download that data as soon as possible before Google takes it away.

I don't blame Google for deleting it. They can't store data forever. Actually, as I write this, Google is well-known for wanting to store data forever. So why not keep it? They must have some technical reason for wanting to trash old data.

In any event, this is happening on December 10th, so login now and back up that old data.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday the Automated Content Access Protocol group released their ACAP Technical Framework (Extension of robots.txt format PDF).

Danny does an excellent job explaining the implications for search engines with his ACAP Launches, Robots.txt 2.0 For Blocking Search Engines?

In short, he says, let's wait and see if the major search engines adopt the new protocol which calls for more "emphasis on granting permissions and blocking" as well as additional support for "time-based inclusion or exclusion."

Will webmasters adopt the new protocol? Why should they? If search engines adopt them, then webmasters and SEOs have a reason to adopt them as well. Until then? Why bother?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday I covered the news at Search Engine Land of a new Google experimental search feature that lets you move search results up and remove results from the Google search results page.

The changes you make only impact you - your login and does not influence the overall scope of the search results. But can they? Who knows. We have been seeing Google test remove results features before and then drop the feature.

Here is a screen capture of how it works:

Google says:

This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you'll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you've made. Note that this is an experimental feature and may be available for only a few weeks.

A Cre8asite Forums thread is talking about how this may or may not impact SEOs. Well, this is nothing new. We have had whole conference panels on the topic, such as Personalized Search: Fear or Not?. Plus we have shown how much the personalized results today can differ from non-personalized results. In fact, why not try turning off Google personalized results yourself and do some tests.

Is this new Google experimental test the end of SEO? Not at all. This does not add much more than what we have today with Google Personalized results. All it does it make it more visible to all of us.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 29, 2007"

Gabs reported Google has done a Sitelinks update. He is indeed correct. The first Sitelinks update was in February 2007 and then we had a new recent one where Google expanded them to 8 sitelinks per result.

Here is the new set of Sitelinks for the Search Engine Roundtable:

This is what they looked like on October 19, 2007:

So it does appear that some Sitelinks have been updated.

Forum discussion at the Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

This is the first time in our history of conference coverage where we are going to attempt to provide coverage of two different search marketing conferences that are overlapping on the same week. If you did not know, Search Engine Strategies Chicago is the same week as WebmasterWorld's PubCon. And yes, we will be covering both in great depth - thanks to our wonderful volunteers.

First let's thank our volunteers, who include Carolyn Shelby, Dave Rohrer, Chris Boggs, Justin Davy, Marty Weintraub, and Steve Krull. (Oh, and I, Tamar Weinberg, am writing too) ;)

Now here are the schedules:

Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2007

Monday, December 3
9:00-10:00AM: Search Around the World - Part One: Asia/Pacific & Australia (Justin)
9:00-10:00AM: Mobile Search Battle Royal (Chris)
10:15-11:15AM: The Human Equation: Giving Back Internet Style (Justin)
10:15-11:15AM: Meet the Web Analytics Players (Marty)
10:15-11:15AM: Redefining the Customer (Chris)
11:30AM-12:30PM: Orion Panel: Search, Privacy and Community in the Digital Age (Chris)
1:30-2:30PM: There's Still Money on the Table! (Chris)
1:30-2:30PM: Igniting Viral Campaigns (Justin)
2:45-3:45PM: Orion Panel: Universal, Blended and Vertical Search (Chris)

Tuesday, December 4
9:00-9:45AM:Keynote Presentation: Seth Godin (Chris)
10:15-11:15AM Shopping Search Tactics (Marty)
10:15-11:15AM Usability & SEO: Two Wins For The Price of One (Steve)
10:15-11:15AM: The Transformation of Local in a Search Driven World (Justin)
11:30AM-12:30PM: Landing Page Testing Overview (Steve)
11:30AM-12:30PM: Big Site, Big Search (Justin)
11:30AM-12:30PM: Are Paid Links Evil? (Marty)
2:00-3:00PM: Actionable Social Media (Chris)
2:00-3:00PM Maximum Conversion in Retail: Raising the Bar (Justin)
2:00-3:00PM Sitemaps: Oversold, Misused or On The Money? (Steve)
3:30-4:30PM: How to Build Investment Interest in Your SEO/SEM Company (Steve)
3:30-4:30PM: Online Maps: Plotting the Direction of Local Search (Justin)

Wednesday, December 5
9:00-9:45AM: Keynote Presentation: David S. Isenberg "Neutral Net" Topic (Marty)
10:15-11:15AM: Podcast & Audio Search (Chris)
10:15-11:15AM: Managing Automated PPC Bid Management (Marty)
10:15-11:15AM: Case Study: Moving from Paper to Online (Justin)
11:30AM-12:30PM: Your Marketing Program in Context (Justin)
11:30AM-12:30PM: Managing PPC for Multiple Clients (Steve)
2:00-3:00PM: Calling All Clicks: PayPerCall and You (Justin)
2:00-3:00PM: CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines (Steve)
2:00-3:00PM: Retail Case Studies (Marty)
3:30-4:30PM: Last Minute Holiday Search Tactics (Chris)
3:30-4:30PM: PPC Advertising on Influential Blogs and Social Media (Justin)
3:30-4:30PM: SEM Pricing Models (Steve)

Thursday, December 6
9:00-10:00AM: So You Want to Be a Search Marketer? (Marty)
10:15-11:15AM: Landing Page Optimization Clinic (Steve / tentative)
10:15-11:15AM: Search Marketers on Click Fraud (Justin)
11:30AM-12:30PM: Dealing With Difficult Clients (Chris / tentative)

WebmasterWorld PubCon Vegas 2007

Tuesday, December 4
9:00-10:00 AM Keynote by Craig Newmark (Tamar)
10:00-11:30 AM Social Marketing 101 - The Playing Field (Dave)
11:35AM-12:50PM Monetizing Social Media Traffic (Tamar)
11:35AM-12:50PM Optimizing Your Site for Contextual Ads (Dave)
1:30-2:45PM Keyword Research, Selection and Optimization (Tamar)
1:30-2:45PM Link Building Campaigns and Strategies (Dave)
2:45-4:00PM Content Creation - Cranking it Out (Tamar)
2:45-4:00PM Link Baiting - 96 Different Strategies (Dave)
4:00-5:30PM Link Buying (Tamar)

Wednesday, December 5
9:00-10:00AM Keynote by Richard Rosenblatt (Dave)
10:15 AM - 11:30 AM Domain Names and Trademarks - Legal Issues (Dave)
11:35AM-12:50PM Interactive Site Reviews - Focus - Social Media (Tamar is speaking!)
11:35AM-12:50PM Effective Domaining Strategies (Dave)
1:30-2:45PM SEO and Big Search (Tamar)
1:30-2:45PM Alternative Discovery and SEO - Feeds, PDF's, and Blog SEO (Dave)

Thursday, December 6
9:00-10:00AM Keynote with Matt Cutts (Tamar)
10:15-11:30AM Effective Action Based Copywriting (Tamar)
10:15-11:30AM Brand Management (Carolyn)
10:15-11:30AM CSS and HTML Coding Today - (Dave)
11:35AM-12:50PM Search and Blogging Reporters Forum (Tamar)
11:35AM-12:50PM International and European Site Optimization (Dave)
11:35AM-12:50PM Responsible Web Design (Carolyn)
1:30-2:45PM Ecommerce and Shopping Cart Optimization (Carolyn)
2:45-4:00PM Competitive Intelligence (Carolyn)
4:00-5:30PM Tools of the Trade (Tamar)
4:00-5:30PM Organic Keyword Research and Selection (Carolyn)

Again, a big thank you to our volunteers! These schedules may change, but we'll do our best to stick with them.

SEOmoz is holding a Werewolf parlor game event next week in Pubcon where registrants are able to score cool playing cards (including the one of Barry, pictured). If you don't know how to play, you can read the rules.

The event will be held on Wednesday night, Decmeber 5, from 8-10PM in the South Hall during Pubcon. Registration is limited to 200 participants and you can sign up here if you're interested.

Looks nice. Those cards are good looking. ;)

By the way, our Pubcon coverage schedule will be up later today!

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

If you're a videoblogger or a blogger who might be able to write a review about some Vegas shows, you might be interested in the 500 tickets that Joe Morin scored for you. You will need to meet some criteria, however:

To participate you must be a WebmasterWorld PubCon attendee, and an active editorial or video blogger. You may attend more than one show provided that you write a separate review (i.e. separate blog post) about each show. These tickets are in limited supply and this is a first come first serve opportunity and we reserve the right to deny tickets to any blog or editorial that we deem inappropriate to host a review.

The shows available are: Blue Man Group, KÀ by Cirque du Soleil, Mystere by Cirque du Soleil, and Monty Python's Spamalot.

Very cool. In fact, as beu says on Search Engine Watch Forums, it's something that every conference should consider (and the venues themselves would probably appreciate the coverage from the blogger - social media, anyone?)

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums and WebmasterWorld (subscription required).

According to recent reports, Al Gore's website was hacked by spammers who were trying to manipulate the SERPs. The article states that deep within the code, links to "bogus pharmaceuticals" were added and brought those companies much higher in the search results than they should have been.

Barry adds over at Search Engine Land that search spam has worsened over the last few months. And unfortunately it's nothing new. One forum member believes that it's Google's responsibility to prevent this from becoming someone else's gain.

It is clear that search spammers wanted to leverage the domain to boost the rankings of their pages. We have seen it in the past with Jennifer Convertibles. But do you think Al Gore's site was hacked intentionally because of the prominence of the politician, or do you think it was simply because his code was vulnerable and thus susceptible to attack?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Adobe has announced Ads for PDF, a system they launched with Yahoo which will allow PDF owners to monetize for their content much like Google AdSense. The CNet News blog goes into detail on the partnership, explaining that it's a PPC program for contextually relevant ads that are displayed to the right of the PDF article. The ads look like Yahoo Publisher Network ads.

(Credit: Adobe Labs)

Currently, the program is in beta and only a few publishers have been invited, but it looks rather cool and Adobe is taking applications for additional beta testers. This is definitely a good move on Yahoo's part.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

When you have a title tag with an & (ampersand), how should you best structure it?

My thought would be to use "and," but some people say that the &amp; works. The W3C validator will not approve of the & sign itself.

Additionally, you should consider that if you're doing a search, you're likely not going to be pressing the & key. If you're doing exact match, you'll likely type in "and." For the ease of search, "and" is recommended.

What do you think? Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

Updated: Seems like Google was wrong, some advertisers are still experiencing issues with this tool. AdWordsAdvisor confirmed the following statement and said there is currently no ETA to a possible fix:

The support person I contacted followed up with me and told me the technical specialist they consulted confirmed the issue is still occuring for some advertisers and they are once again working to resolve it.

---

On November 7th we reported a major Google AdWords Diagnostic Tool Bug, where advertisers were noticing Google reporting their ads were not active, but in reality they were.

Yes, it was simply a reporting issue.

Yesterday, AdWordsAdvisor, has posted in the WebmasterWorld thread that the bug has been fixed.

I heard from the tech team yesterday - about an hour or so before Rehan's "It's fixed now" post - that the issue with the Ads Diagnostic tool had been resolved - but decided to hold off mentioning it in this forum, overnight, until I was certain.

Today, within the last hour, the tech folks have confirmed for me that all indications (other than the several 'not fixed' posts here) are that this issue is in fact resolved.

But many are still reporting that this is still an issue. AdWordsAdvisor asked those who still feel this is an issue to double check to make sure their ads are indeed live.

The tech team wondered whether it was possible that those in the 'not fixed' camp here might be misinterpreting the rejection reasons that they're legitimately seeing as further evidence of the issue. (I am nearly positive, for example that this will be the case for the "...all my keys incactive, i need to pay like 1$ to get it active, and my landing page are perfectly matched the keys" post earlier in the thread.)

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Remember back in September we reported about Chinese-like .CN TLDs spamming the heck out of Google's search results? Well, it appears that a study was done by Sunbelt Software that showed "27 different domains, each with up to 1,499 [malicious] pages" found in Google for hundreds of legitimate search queries. It appears that the .CN (which were really not .CN TLDs but masked as such) are directly related to this report.

Subverted search sites lead to massive malware attack in progress is the article that most people are pointing to. I covered it yesterday at Search Engine Land placing blame on Google's Malware Filter not working properly. But it has history, as I showed above.

Here is our picture from September:

Here is a picture from News.com from yesterday with those malware results:

Look similar? Yea.

Was Google aware of this issue back in September. Yes, they were. Google is working to clean up the mess faster since this news hit the front page of Techmeme.

Do I know for sure the two are related. No, but they seem to be. Only Google can confirm the two are directly related.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

With all the debate and discussion around paid links these days, some DigitalPoint Forums members are wondering how Google can get away with selling links that are not nofollowed.

That is right, if you want a PageRank 7 link directly form Google.com, all you need to do is buy a Google Mini Search Appliance for $1,995 per year (or $166 per month) and you can get a link on this page.

Should Google slap on a nofollow tag on those links? Personally, I don't think they have to. But I think Matt would think otherwise.

Not to point anyone specifically out, but it seems like some SEO companies are already savvy to this:

Sacrificial lamb gets the link, thanks Neutralize!

I am not the first to point this out, Andy reported this way back in June of this year.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

What SEO doesn't like talking about spam? Now add a newly granted Google patent that talks about spam and an SEO is in heaven!

Bill at created a Cre8asite Forums thread about a new granted patent named Methods and systems for identifying manipulated articles. Here is the abstract:

Systems and methods that identify manipulated articles are described. In one embodiment, a search engine implements a method comprising determining at least one cluster comprising a plurality of articles, analyzing signals to determine an overall signal for the cluster, and determining if the articles are manipulated articles based at least in part on the overall signal.

Bill goes into more detail at the Cre8asite Forums thread and in his blog post at SEO By The Sea. I will not recap what he wrote, since he did an excellent job explaining the patent.

In short, Google has come up with an formula for analyzing articles, placing them in a cluster and determining based on the linkage pattern between those articles if they are manipulating the web with spamming tactics.

Here is how Bill explains it:

A patent granted to Google today explores Web spam and the manipulation of documents and links on the Web. It describes how the rankings of pages may be influenced if they are identified as “manipulative.”

The identification of manipulative documents, how they might be grouped together, and how they could be treated by the search engine is described in some detail. That treatment might include removal of pages from the search index, reductions in rankings for pages, and possibly a change in how quality scores (PageRank) are calculated for links from manipulative pages.

The patent application was filed about 4 years ago. So Google may or may not be using all or some of these concepts within their current day algorithm. The fun part is the discussion and application of the patent to current day SEO trends.

Bill ends his thread with a teaser, "Anyone want to talk about spam? Paid links?"

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums & WebmasterWorld.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 28, 2007"

Can you believe it, this post is my 5,000th article here at the Search Engine Roundtable. I started writing here on December 2nd, 2003 - just under four years ago - and have kept up with it since.

On average, I have written just about 5 posts per work-day. There are times where I have written on weekends or holidays, which skew the data slightly to show 4.7519 posts per day where I have written any posts. In fact, you can see at any time throughout the day, the number of articles our authors have written in real time. Tamar, has already written 695 articles in just about 6 months so far!

In any event, how does my article writing break down by category? Since we have dozens of categories, I will show you the top 20 categories by article count:

1. Google Optimization with 598
2. Google AdSense with 469
3. Other Google Topics with 431
4. Google AdWords with 405
5. Google Search Engine with 317
6. Microsoft MSN Search with 255
7. Google News & Press with 229
8. Search Engine Optimization with 222
9. Yahoo! Search Optimization with 189
10. Ask.com with 184
11. SEO Forum News with 180
12. Blog Administration with 172
13. Link Building with 163
14. Yahoo! Search Engine with 149
15. Yahoo! Search Marketing with 147
16. Search Engine Conferences with 140
17. Yahoo! Publisher Network with 120
18. Google PageRank/SERP Updates with 113
19. Search Engine Industry News with 110

As you can see, I am very Google focused. But I can blame the forums for that. Since I cover what is hot in the forums, Google is typically what is hot in the forums.

Who would have thought, four years ago, still going strong at about 5 articles per day on search at the Search Engine Roundtable? Consistency and reliability is huge for me.

Adding Tamar to the team has helped us average about ten stories per day, which would not be possible without her. It has helped us expand our conference coverage and keep up with the fast growing search marketing industry.

In addition to my articles here, I have done a ton of writing throughout the web. Here is a brief run down of my contributions to the search industry outside of my 5,000 articles at the Search Engine Roundtable.

• Cartoon Barry: 1,406
• Search Engine Land: 1,212
• Search Engine Watch Blog: 1,137
• Search Engine Watch Forums: 2,755
• SEO Chat Forums: 2,642
• Search Engine Roundtable Forums: 1,639
• Cre8asite Forums: 1,027
• DigitalPoint Forums: 303
• WebmasterWorld: 252
• HighRankings Forum: 124
• JimWorld: 100
• Sphinn: 58

Thank you all for reading and making this site what it is today!

Here is to 10,000 articles at the Search Engine Roundtable!

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks, can multiple hyphens in a domain name raise a red flag with a search engine?

For example, if you have a domain name that is something like www.buy-shoes-now-online-for-cheap.com, would that type of domain raise a red flag with a search engine and warrant a manual review?

In fact, we discussed specific examples of sites with this issue back April 2005 and also wrote about a mystical Hyphen Filter in May 2004, which are both dated articles.

If you want evidence that Google does index domains with multiple hyphens, click here. The first result has six, I repeat, six hyphens in the domain.

So I would say there is no automated penalty for having many hyphens in the domain name but I would still be careful.

(1) It is not user friendly
(2) It just looks weird
(3) It may raise a red flag (who knows)

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A Google Groups thread asks how long does it take to get an image ad reviewed and accepted within Google AdWords.

AdWordsPro explains there is no specific date or time frame for image ads. It depends on current volume, the number of submissions, the type of ad and what day and time it is.

It is hard to give a 'typical time-to-approve' answer, since this can depend on how many ads are being submitted, the content of the ad, etc. However, I'd say 'average' might be around one to two *business* days. (This means an ad submitted late Friday is not likely to be reviewed until Monday or Tuesday, since ads are reviewed on a very limited basis over the weekends.)

Image ads require more human intervention than text ads. Search engines can easily write rules based on the words used and matched on in the text ads. But with image ads, it is hard for the search engine to see what words are being used in the image. So one would imagine it would take longer to be displayed and reviewed.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

What is better? A custom 404 page or a generic one?

In 2004, Barry wrote that a custom 404 page is a "must have" for usability purposes. That's so true. But what about search engines? A forum member asks, would a generic 404 page be construed as duplicate content?

Well, first of all, if you're using a generic 404, who cares if it's duplicate content? 404 pages are not "content" though. They are "Error not found" pages.

But in all seriousness, the issue is that the return code should be 404, and if it is, the page won't be indexed. And further, 404 pages are not "content." They are "Error not found" pages.

Tedster adds:

The thing to be aware of is custom error solutions that return a 302 redirect code to get to the custom content. That can be trouble.

So make sure your pages have a 404. And as far as generic versus custom 404 pages, go with custom. It makes the user experience a lot more enjoyable (even if they can't find what they're looking for!) :)

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Back in May 2004, DigitalPoint Forums opened a revenue sharing program that enabled the members share in the Google AdSense revenue earned in the forums. At that time, the idea was unique - Shawn Hogan coded his AdSense system to work with member's Google AdSense publisher IDs. If that member started a thread, his publisher ID would show up 50% of the time when ads are displayed.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks members of the forums how much money they have made all time. So I decided to look up exactly how much money I made and I see from day one, I made $5.13. To be fair I only started 24 threads at the forum, so that $5.13 was from only 24 threads.

Here are some of the other responses in the forum so far:
- $46.58
- $26.49
- $2.00
- $5.00
- $14.00
- $2.80
- $0.13
- $0.33

So as you can see, it totally depends on what you put into the forum. The more you put in, the more you get out. You can earn money from revenue sharing forums, but it might not be the most lucrative thing you can do.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Rumors all over the Internet are talking about a possible Google online storage service that will be launching in the upcoming months. The Wall Street Journal reports that it will have free and paid options.

There's no confirmation from Google at all on these services, but it looks like it could possibly occur. The online service, code-named "GDrive" or "Platypus," has been seen on Googlers' desktops:

So now, what will it be? And what do you think about it?

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Kevin Gibbons spotted some new changes to the Google AdWords Client Center for multiple account management. It appears that you can now create a template and share them with multiple accounts, making it easier so you don't have to port all the changes from one account to another by hand or with a software application.

I'm not even seeing this in the AdWords FAQ yet, so it looks quite new. Kevin has fortunately showed us how to use it in a screenshot step by step on his blog.

It looks pretty useful and should make managing multiple similar campaigns a lot easier.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Roundtable Forums and Sphinn.

One day, Matt McGee decided to take a deep look at Sphinn (as a moderator) and acknowledged 7 recurring mistakes that continually happen on the booming social news network. He listed them out and encouraged users to be distinct, different, and unique. Here's what you should avoid when pitching to a site like Sphinn or another type of social news website:

1. Avoid sales pitches disguised as "good content."
2. Don't submit your entire website. Social news sites don't need your "about" pages. They aren't directories.
3. Have a good headline. Seriously.
4. Make your description interesting. Don't you want people to vote on your article?
5. Give yourself a noticeable avatar. Stop blending in with the crowd.
6. Create a unique username.
7. Stay on topic and contribute articles that are pertinent to the categories you've submitted to.

(I feel like I've said much of this before and it still works quite well for other social networks. Thanks Matt!)

But what else would drive someone bonkers? Well, for a smallish site like Sphinn, you shouldn't submit more than 2 stories in a row (it's in the guidelines, people). That one frustrates a lot of people.

What would drive you crazy on a social network? Forum discussion continues on Sphinn.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 27, 2007"

If you subscribe to Google Groups via email and have noticed any latency regarding the receipt of your emails, be advised that the problem is now fixed.

How do you subscribe via email to Google Groups? Simply click "Join this Group" on the right hand corner and choose which subforums you want emails from, like so:

In any event, if you do experience the issue again, feel free to let Google know in the Google Groups thread.

Cyber Monday: one of the biggest shopping days of the year. And Yahoo stores were down.

Naturally, anyone using Yahoo stores was quite upset by this.

We were having a record weekend and now this...What a disgrace for Yahoo to have issues on one of the most important days of the year. And they have NO ETA as to the fix...

Apparently, shopping carts were timing out. Small business owners are feeling the heat.

What is Yahoo going to give us back in exchange for losing thousands of dollars in sales? A free month?

We had better at least see a VERY large PPC credit with Yahoo to try and make up for this.

The news got heavy coverage throughout cyberspace, with one forum member reporting that a segment was even run on TV. It took about 16 hours to fix, and obviously, that didn't satisfy many.

The reason we pay a premium for Yahoo is to avoid situations like this.

I am extremely disappointed with their reaction (keeping us in the dark) as well.

"Unacceptable and completely unbelievable," they say.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

There is no doubt that link builders love to get links from sites on edu TLDs. But those are not always that easy to obtain. We have covered the topic several times here, including:

• Finding Some of Your EDU Links with Yahoo Search
• What Would You Do For An .edu Link?
• How Do You Obtain Links from .edu Sites?

There, moderator EGOL explains:

Everybody wants links from .edu websites. They want those links because .edu websites have lots of high quality links and that gives them trust with the search engines. Another great thing about .edu websites is that they are almost always very picky about who they link to - giving those links only to the best and most reliable content. If .edu websites had pages where anybody can add a link for free or for a fee then they would lose a lot of trust with the search engines because those pages would be linking to a lot of unworthy sites.

If you want links from .edu websites make resources that are best-on-the-web in your theme and then email the webmasters of relevant pages on some .edu domains and let them know what you have created.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread has numerous reports that the AdWords Editor is no longer downloading CPC (cost per click) placement targeted campaigns.

One user reported the following problem:

I created a CPC placement targeted campaign. I went to download it in adwords editor so I can bulk import some ads.

But adwords editor ignores that campaign and says there is "nothing to download."

Others have validated that they are also experiencing the same issues.

AdWordsAdvisor has promised to look into the issue, but has not yet confirmed it is an issue on Google's side.

I'll look into this, and post again when I know more.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

What are your biggest concerns and complaints about Google AdSense?

Numerous forum members have provided feedback regarding what they feel are the biggest hurdles to AdSense. For example, many are not too keen on smart pricing which relates to lack of transparency. Others are not happy with the fact that so many MFAs get accepted as advertisers.

What about penalizing publishers when there's click fraud involved? As one member puts it, there is little protection, because "if some one clicks fraud you, they do not count those clicks which is the right thing to do, but also they might ban the publishers too even knowing they may not be responsible for the fraud."

Do you have additional gripes? Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

There has been a Google AdWords bug that has been an issue for just over a week now. The bug has been reported at WebmasterWorld and is described as a redirect issue.

When adding a new ad variation to one's campaign in certain browsers, AdWords automatically redirects the advertiser to the Campaign Management page instead of taking that advertiser to the Ad Group page.

The bug still persists today with no word from Google on a fix.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Sphinn has the scoop on some of the events to be held at Pubcon which is to occur next week (already!)

So far, there are a few parties, including an Enom one to be held on Wednesday, December 5th, but forum members are encouraged to chime in so that a Sphinn lunch can be scheduled on one of the days (TBA).

Tim Dineen has kindly prepared a PubCon events list for sessions (and extracurricular events) he will be attending, but if you're looking for more and want to let us know where you'll be, feel free to add to the Sphinn discussion. Remember: I will be there, and while I'll be blogging most of the sessions, I expect you to say hello :)

Ever wonder what exactly makes up the pieces of the search results you see at Google? Matt Cutts, the head of "search quality" at Google blogged about it over at the Google Webmaster Central Blog.

Here is the video where Matt breaks down the following components of the search result snippet:
* Title Link
* Description under link
* Plus expansion box
* URL
* Bolding keywords
* Cache, Similar Pages, Google Notes
* Site Links
* More Results

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

The following Microsoft Unified Communications video had mixed results at the Cre8asite Forums. To some, it resonated; to others, it didn't click.

What are your criteria for viral videos? What do you like most? Do you consider this an effective promotion of the service?

Over the weekend, a controversial TechCrunch article was written about viral videos. Some tips: using women for sex appeal, using fake headlines, don't advertise outright, and make the story shocking.

Would you agree that this is effective promotion? What would you add or subtract?

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 26, 2007"

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that some Canadian Google AdWords advertisers are switching their accounts to pay in US dollars as opposed to Canadian dollars. Why? Because the US dollar is now weaker than the Canadian dollar and the conversion rates are more beneficial when paying in US dollars within the AdWords system.

But to make such a change, you need to set up a new account. Most advertisers know that when you start a new account, you cannot bring over your account history from your previous account. So now this advertiser is noticing that his new account quality score for his keywords are set to "poor," but before the change it was set to "OK."

The best case scenario for this advertiser is to convince his Google account representative to transfer the account based history from his original five-year old account to the new one. If that doesn't work, migriffin has an idea:

Finally, we sacrificed an old account, moved everything over, and our account quality problems were erased instantaneously. I would recommend running only your very best campaigns in terms of CTR on the new account. Run the rest of the campaigns on the old account. After you spend enough money and achieve a high enough CTR, you'll be in good shape to start unpausing the other campaigns.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The Miami Herald reports that a woman is suing her husband and filing for divorce after discovering that he won the lottery and kept it a secret from her. The woman became suspicious after her husband disconnected the phones and television and then finally decided to search Google after she received a postcard addressed to her husband congratulating him on the purchase of a new house. Since her husband was known to gamble, she searched for his name and "lottery" and discovered that he won the $19 million jackpot in June.

Pretty crazy, don't you think? I guess you just can't hide on the Internet any longer. :)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

We talked about how to set up Google AdSense video units via YouTube. Now we're onto the next step: people are starting to use the AdSense video units and are not getting relevant ads. For example, this user is selling golf equipment, but what is his ad? A man in a Darth Vader suit.

What are the issues here? Can advertisers not preview ads before they go live? What about recurring AdSense video units? Will you see the same thing when you refresh? These questions are still lingering.

There's no response from Google on the AdSense unit targeting concerns just yet, and the program is still brand new. I'd like to hear other feedback from other publishers though.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

How would you go about submitting a reinclusion request for a site that may have been banned from MSN unfairly?

MSNdude says that you can visit http://support.live.com/eform.aspx?productKey=wlsearch&ct=eformts and ask for reinclusion.

Forum members at WebmasterWorld are frankly disappointed in MSN's reinclusion procedures. From what others say, if you've been wrongfully banned, you're forever condemned.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Valleywag reported last week that Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, which takes the user directly to the #1 result for a particular search phrase, costs the company $110 million per year in lost revenues because the button bypasses all sponsored results (and is used in 1% of all searches).

Ironically, people still don't know what it is. I remember thinking that "I'm Feeling Lucky" would randomly bring me to a website related to the search term, but it didn't necessarily have to be the #1 ranking.

Why does Google keep it? It's part of who they are.

A few years ago back at SES NYC I was at a session and I cannot remember who, but a woman from Google and I were talking and she stated that they did a test years ago and that when they removed the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button there were a ton of complaints. Most people inquired about something that changed on the site- but could not point out what it was....

Yeah, it's useless to most people, but it still identifies the Google search engine. Funny and ironic at the same time.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

I have been watching a thread started by Barry W. at Cre8asite forums named Blogsearch, Google's Neglected Property back about a month or so ago. Since then, I have been trying to find a good blog search engine to use on a daily basis.

Personally and professionally, I dropped all my subscriptions to blog search engine searches. The results were 95% spam and simply wasted my time. I stuck with RSS News searches and that worked for me. But I was pretty sure I was missing something by not being 100% plugged into the blogosphere. So that thread at Cre8asite Forums sprung my interest.

Recently Read/Write Web asked So Which Blog Search Engine Do You Use? and I saw Steve Rubel twit that he uses "Bloglines/Ask a lot" for blog search. So I have been giving it a try and so has Barry W.

A new Cre8asite Forums thread has early positive feedback from folks. I have resubscribed to my RSS searches to the blogosphere and I feel more plugged in. The results are actually fairly good and I don't feel like I am wasting my time with blog search anymore. Barry W. said:

I'm really finding it excellent. For any item found you can immediately subscribe to the RSS feed or you can post it to some of the more popular social media sites.

So why not give Ask.com blog search a deeper try?

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Have you ever wanted to import a Google AdWords campaign to Yahoo Search Marketing but didn't know how? You do now, thanks to Discovery, who wrote an excellent guide on Search Engine Watch Forums.

On the Yahoo Search Marketing end, go to the Campaign Tab > Import > Import 3rd Party Campaigns.

Here are the necessary steps:

1. Download the third-party campaign to a file on the appropriate site.
2. Open the file on your computer. Make sure it's in CSV or ZIP format and adheres to the guidelines for YSM.
3. Convert your third party campaign file with an appropriate name that is easy to remember.
4. Download and review the converted campaign file by choosing the Download link.
5. Import the converted campaign file.

So far, one person has tried it and it worked well with the exception of one small issue: Yahoo sees some keywords as duplicates whereas other campaigns on other sites do not have these restrictions.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today (and yesterday), through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 23, 2007"

Now that most of you are stuffed with Turkey and are probably lounging around and buying really cheap discounts (and not working this lovely Friday), it's time to review the week in search. Fortunately, I'm doing the work for you, so just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Thanksgiving in Searchville

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. The search engines celebrated, and a few forums did too. We're still sporting our Thanksgiving theme for the next few hours, so take a quick look or review our Thanksgiving theme page (if you miss it!)

And did you notice loss of search and earnings yesterday? Many publishers did; we were eating turkey, guys!

Holiday Buying Season is Here!

...and Google notices. The Google homepage has had a slight change and now features Product Search instead of Videos. It's time to go shopping, guys! (There are still great deals ongoing today in the States.)

SMX in Israel?

If you want to have a Search Marketing Expo event in Israel this February, you better vote for one on Sphinn. Now I just need to justify going there through Barry. (Pretty please?)

Google Scores!

According to Hitwise, Google dominated search last month. That's not a surprise given that a lot of webmasters think that Google gives them about 90% of search traffic (!!!).

But when it comes to Local, Ask Wins

Google is testing out new local search results and they're just not as good as the old ones. But Ask's new search results for local searches really wins out. You guys should really look into it. :)

Selling Links: Penalties Continue

If you used PayPerPost, your PageRank dropped to 0 unfortunately. Google is making it clear that selling links is just as bad as buying links. But will your rankings change? Not yet, at least.

Google AdSense Video Units Rolled out to Other Countries

We had access to the Google AdSense video units in the US first, but now UK, Ireland, and Canada publishers can take advantage of the new advertising program. Yay!

Microsoft adCenter: Pros and Cons

A few advertisers discussed what they like and hate about MSN adCenter: the adCenter console is probably the worst feature because it's confusing as all heck, but the ROI is awesome. If you can figure out how to master that console, you're in for a good return.

gOS: Will You Do it?

Are you going to install the Google Operating System? Most people say yes. I think that speaks for itself: Google is always on the mind.

Google AdSense Clickable Area Change Reaction

After all the brouhaha about the new Google AdSense clickable area changes, there's finally a reaction from publishers: it's not so bad. We polled the audience and asked them what they thought: most felt that it remained the same, whereas a few people noticed less clicks and only a small fraction had more traffic. Interesting.

Check your Robots.txt file!

Don't add noindex: / to your robots.txt file or you'll be deindexed. Careful, people! You need to really think about how your robots.txt file will impact your traffic.

Move that Google Maps Marker

Google has allowed you to change the placement marker on its maps and I walked you through how to do it. This makes things a lot easier for people who plot an address but get the placement pointer blocks away (like for my home address). Now you can customize it and let others see it.

Google Supplemental Index Changes for Country Searches

We reported earlier this week that you will not be able to see pages in the supplemental index when you perform a site: search if you refined the results to a specific country.

Your Shared IP is Fine

Got shared hosting? You need not worry if you share your website with a porn site. Google has confirmed that it's safe and is just as good as dedicated hosting. Hmmm!

SEO Tidbits

Here's some important information for you: Flash intro pages are bad, you can change your menu navigation via CSS, and you should carefully consider whether you want to go with a subdomain on your domain for SEO purposes.

That's all. Happy Black Friday!

Sometimes people build sites without considering SEO. While this is typically what webmasters who don't know about SEO do, it's not the best way to get things done because the site will need to be modified heavily. A Cre8asite Forums member did this and now has to start over: first, he registered his site with Google Webmaster Tools, and then he did some updates to the copy. What's next?

Well, yes, while this is definitely the reverse approach, it can still be salvaged, but a lot of changes will need to be made. Don't forget unique titles (which should be done earlier than later!). Add some good copy to your site. Add descriptive anchor text for links. When it comes to identifying keyword strategy, you now need to brainstorm what keywords to target. SEO should really be part of the development phase before anything else.

The important thing to take away is that the visitors come first. The site needs to be designed for them, and then you should worry about Google. When it comes to a site redesign, you should really prepare your SEO strategy properly and give the customer power to make changes.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

If you're worried about security and want to give your Google accounts some extra padding; that is, you want to have a backup email address associated with your account just in case, you can now do so. Google Groups Guide 2 has written in Google Groups about how it's done:

To add an email address to a Google Account, follow the link below and add an additional email to the account listed under "Google account". If you want to add an email to another Google Account, simply select "change account".

To do so, go to https://www.google.com/accounts/AddNonGmailAlternate.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Have you noticed Google's homepage lately? Instead of the "Video" link, you'll now see "Products" instead. This must be Google's official acknowledgment of the holiday season. :)

Philipp Lenssen has more.

Forum discussion: Search Engine Watch Forums.

John Honeck discovered new wording in Google's Webmaster Guidelines that reflects how Google views paid links. He reported his findings to Philipp Lenssen, who noticed the following change (italicized):

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.

It looks like Google is now strictly enforcing rules that will penalize webmasters who sell links.

Do you think anything will change?

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums threads have discussion from Google AdSense publishers on how their earnings and statistics were impacted by the American holiday, Thanksgiving Day.

Many AdSense publishers reported huge drops in traffic and earnings on those days. Some said earnings were down by more than half. Some reported their earnings dropped due to their traffic dropping. Who made money on this day, those who were writing about the Thanksgiving theme?

In any event, not everyone lost money. Many reported earnings to be stable and "normal," as if there was no holiday.

One would think that typically internet traffic is lower on a day like Thanksgiving, with all the travel and families getting together.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

In the SEO world, the topic of shared versus dedicated IPs has always been a controversial topic. Some SEOs demand a site to be on an IP address all by itself, while others simply do not care.

A Google Groups thread renews this debate but gives us, yet again, a confirmation from Google that shared vs dedicated IPs are just fine.

Official Googler, Berghausen, said:

Lots of sites are hosted on shared IPs. If this had a negative effect on ranking, it would harm most of the sites on the web--and that's not good for small webmasters or for our users. So, understandably, sharing an IP should not have an effect your ability to rank.

My advice: don't worry about it. Host your site however you think is best, and instead spend your time focusing on the content--making sure your pages are easy to navigate for users regardless of their browser or hardware, and ensuring that the content you provide is informative and unique.

Good advice. Where else did we see confirmation from Google on this? Matt Cutts of Google a year ago wrote Myth busting: virtual hosts vs. dedicated IP addresses where he said:

I’m happy to affirm that this statement which was true in 2003 is still true now. Links to virtually hosted domains are treated the same as links to domains on dedicated IP addresses.

We have past articles about both sides of the coin:

• The Dedicated IP Myth
• Why Using A Static IP Address is Benefical... Google Engineer Explains
• How Important is the IP Address for SEO?

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

There are dozens of reports via WebmasterWorld that Google has sent out emails to their publishers telling them they must update their tax information.

The subject of the email was "Action Required: Please update your tax information" and it was sent yesterday, on Thanksgiving.

The email stated that these publisher's tax-identification number (TIN) and the taxpayer name do not coincide/match. The emails did not appear to be phising scams, because the URLs did send the user to the proper source.

It may just be that a multitude of AdSense publishers were missing details from their tax information page. I did not personally receive the email and my account looks to be in good status.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google AdSense publishers are in luck. Google has added two more representatives to aid the current AdSensePro representative in the AdSense Help Google Group.

AdSense Pro announced in a Google Groups thread that they have added AdSensePro Ashley and AdSensePro Jordan to aid in the communication and guidance from Google on AdSense topics.

AdSensePro Ashley is based in the Google Dublin, Ireland office and will focus on supporting UK English publishers. AdSensePro Jordan is based in Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California and has a focus in "publisher engagement and community projects."

Welcome new AdSense Pros!

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Today is one of my most favorite holidays, Thanksgiving! This will probably be our only post today, but I wanted to share the logos and search forum threads from around the search industry. We have logos from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Dogpile, Cre8asite Forums, our site and many others! Here is a run down:

Ask.com dressed up their home page:

Dogpile goes cute:

Here is Google:

Yahoo has a Flash logo and a static, here is the flash followed by the static version:

Gmail has a special logo:

Cre8asite Forums has a logo:

We, the Search Engine Roundtable, have a special logo:

The pretty much recaps all the logos I was able to track down. For more thanksgiving images, check out Flickr. Gary Price compiled his Fast Facts: Thanksgiving Day 2007 Facts and Stats and Danny Sullivan posted Flight Tracking, Airport Conditions, Real-Time Traffic, & Other Thanksgiving Search Tips. Quintura emailed me to tell me they added a thanksgiving tab to their navigation.

And here is a run down of threads I found on the Thanksgiving topic from the search marketing forums we track daily:

• Thanksgiving 2007 SER Logo, Search Engine Roundtable Forums
• 3 Reasons I'm Thankful For Cre8asite, Cre8asite Forums
• Google Thanksgiving...., DigitalPoint Forums
• Happy Thankgiving!, WebmasterWorld
• happy thanksgiving day, DigitalPoint Forums
• Thanksgiving Cheer, HighRankings Forums
• Thanksgiving Day 2007 and Effect on AdSense Earnings, WebmasterWorld
• Thanksgiving day is soon, V7N Forums

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 21, 2007"

I love conferences. Anyone who knows me would know that. I love meeting new people (hint: I'll be liveblogging for Search Engine Roundtable at Pubcon which means I'll likely be sitting in the front row for most sessions. You should say hello!) I love learning new things. A BrightonSEO blog post goes into how the cost can be justified. His points:

1. Learning keeps you ahead of the competition.
2. Tell your boss that evening activities are filled with parties extracurricular seminars.
3. You're saving money because you can meet the industry's most famous consultants for much cheaper at conferences. (Matt Cutts charges $2000 an hour, I hear. Okay, I'm kidding.)
4. It's all about the education, and you can pass it on if you're the only lucky participant who can attend.
5. Pitch what you've learned to your clients and show them that you'll implement this on their website.
6. There are a lot of conferences, but choose wisely. Sometimes you may need to choose based on who is speaking or based on what content is being covered.

Overall, a good list.

But there's more. The discussion moves to Sphinn where you can really justify it and show that you appreciate your employees:

In my experience as a "boss" one thing you can tell from conferences is who is in or out. If staff is enthusiastic it shows in office productivity. I work to make "work related trips" fun and productive for all. It's a great time for goal setting, some good meals, and to show the staff how much they are appreciated.

A lot of great opportunities can fall into your lap if you just hang out in the conference room. :)

So how do you justify the ROI? Share everything that you've learned with your staff, and if you're some agencies, cover every conference you can.

Forum discussion continues on Sphinn.

Using Google's My Maps feature, you can now move the marker exactly where you want people to visit. This is especially useful for me because whenever I check my address on the map, it's about 2 blocks away. Now, I can show people exactly where they need to go. :)

Google has announced this feature on the Google LatLong blog but didn't quite walk you through it. That's where I come in.

Here's how you do it:

First, plot the address on Google's My Maps feature and click on "Edit."

Now click on "Move marker":

Here, you can drag the marker:

Now you see the newly placed marker. Save this to My Maps:

Choose the Map you want to save it to. You may have to create a new map if you haven't done so already, but that's easy since it's in the drop-down box:

Finally, save your map and give it a nice little description:

Now you can link to the revised map and see your new marker placed where you want it.

Pretty cool.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Sometimes the wrong text appears in the Google SERPs. You'd very much rather see a company description than some "Home | About Us | Contact" text, for example, right?

I thought so. And so webmasters are scrambling to get the right text to appear in the Google search results because that can help--a lot.

There are a few ways to go about this. You can eliminate the redundant navigation with Javascript or position the text elsewhere using CSS, but JohnMu, who now works for Google, suggests what others recommend: use meta descriptions and vary them wherever possible.

All are good ideas and the web design element as well as combining the meta descriptions would probably do the trick.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

After October's Google PageRank massacre, a lot of sites scrambled in hopes of trying to salvage what they had left. Some stopped paid links altogether. Some stopped advertising. One guy audited his site, where he discovered that 20 of 25 paid sites were negatively impacted by the PageRank drop but Google rankings never changed for his customer.

Interesting, eh?

Actually, some don't find that surprising. Perhaps this was just a wake-up call initially for link buyers. Eventually, the rankings may drop.

Others feel that Google PageRank is overrated, so perhaps it's just not a good measure of comparison.

The general consensus to those afflicted by dropped PageRanks is that nothing has changed. Rankings are still there.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

How do search engines handle subdomains in terms of SEO? We've covered this before, but this question comes up every so often and occasionally these things change.

On WebmasterWorld, tedster provides a rather interesting perspective about subdomains. I think the whole statement in its entirety deserves repeating:

There's no black and white answer, since a subdomain is a kind of hybrid critter. It's treated much more like an independent domain in many respects - for example, if urls from both the root domain and a subdomain show up on the same page of search results, they do not cluster together.

And yet, in some ways, it's still treated like the "child" of the domain is belongs to. For example, a subdomain can show up as a sitelink under the #1 ranking for the root domain if there's a home page link to it.

And then there's also some middle ground. A penalty or loss of trust for the subdomain does not necessarily affect the root domain. But this "penalty firewall" doesn't flow in the other direction. A penalty on the root domain will almost always affect any subdomains as well.

If you create a new subdomain for a trusted and well-ranked domain, it will still start out life a lot like other sites. It's PR must be calculated from the ground up - although links from the parent domain are certainly expected and will transfer PR to the urls that they link to. Time in the "honeymoon phase" and the "sandbox phenomenon" can often be shorter.

But a subdomain still needs to stand on it's own, in many ways - not the least of which is establishing a solid backlink profile. There's no "free ride" for it.

Very interesting information.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Validate your robots.txt - Googlebot becomes smarter from Sebastian reports official confirmation from Google that they are testing out new crawler directives.

He explains that adding "Noindex: /" to your robots.txt file will now deindex your complete site. Specifically, Google has told us about the new REP META tags protocol and the X-Robots support a while back, so just be careful with your old tags.

Google commented at Sebastian's post saying:

Good catch, Sebastian. How is your experiment going? At the moment we will usually accept the “noindex” directive in the robots.txt, but we are not yet at a point where we are willing to set it into stone and announce full support.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

We gave Early Feedback on Google AdSense Click Area Change where we showed some people calling out that they saw a huge drop in earnings and their click through rate. We also reported some people saying they saw no drop in anything.

My statistics seem to show the status quo for now, but it still may be too early to tell.

Gabs reported an increase in CTR by 0.5% for a forum that has over 1,000 impressions per day.

Reviewing the WebmasterWorld thread that we have been tracking shows most people have not seen a significant drop in CTR, while some have. But most are fairly happy and some are even happy to see their CTR increase.

I figure I do a simple poll for this as well. So, AdSense Publisher, please take a quick look at your AdSense stats over the past several days and let me know if you see a change in CTR:

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums and WebmasterWorld.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread is running a little poll to see how many of you would be willing to give the gOS a try? Currently of the 58 responses, 34 said yes and 24 said no. But I wanted to ask our readers, if they would be willing to give it a try on one of their machines.

Please take our poll below, so we can get an idea:

Google's Matt Cutts is giving it a try.

Now that you voted. FYI, the gOS is not for "Google OS" as the title implies. It is for the "Green PC." Would you change your vote now?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 20, 2007"

A High Rankings Forum member discovered the golden Google Box, a widget that displays the top 10 rankings for any particular keyword.

It looks like this: embedding a bit of code on your site, you can show your users the top 10 rankings for a particular keyword. For example, if you are searching for "Google," you'll be presented with the following (or similar) box:

So the forum member asks: should you put one of these on your site? It's almost an endorsement from Google.

Many forum members think that it's not a good idea. After all, by doing so, you're promoting yourself and 9 competitors. Do you really want people to start analyzing the competition or looking elsewhere?

If it's something you want, I think the best bet is to look at it internally so you can analyze the data that way.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

In a recent blog response to his own post, Matt Cutts has responded to allegations about the open dispute about Aaron and Google.

In a nutshell, Matt says that there were some blackhat practices intertwined with whitehat sites and that the dispute has been resolved.

Now I know both of them so I personally cannot comment on the incident, but the discussion moves to Sphinn where webmasters are happy that this has been brought to the limelight and that there's no leniency from Google when it comes to webmasters' activity.

But an interesting question emerges from the thread:

Aaron: "my link profile was at least 95% organic, clean, and hand built using editorial votes"

Matt: "Aaron obtained and promoted a domain in ways that Google considers blackhat"

Can really both be true?

I suppose I'll leave it at that. :)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Guess what, publishers? If you reside in the UK, Ireland, or in Canada, you can now try Google's video AdSense feature. Apparently, it has been a success in the US, and now the feature is being rolled out to additional countries, according to the Inside AdSense blog.

Now that you're able to take advantage of this feature, Barry's excellent screenshot walkthrough on how to set up Google AdSense video units is even more applicable to you, so be sure to check that out.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Hitwise, a competitive intelligence service, has released its October 2007 numbers, indicating that Google dominated the search landscape that month with over 64% of searches performed. Yahoo, MSN, and Ask followed, with numbers at 21.65%, 7.42%, and 4.76%, respectively.

Is Google a monopoly? Forum members wonder. Other forum members dismiss that idea, saying that high market shares are not indicative of any such monopoly. It is, after all, a user preference, and there are few "barriers to entry" at this time.

Another member spots that MSN is performing better than expected. But yet another member has a problem with that. Why is MSN still sending spam-like referrals?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Google has updated Google Webmaster Tools with a link update again this month. Google has been updating their linkage data in Webmaster Tools more frequently, but it appears it has often been happening the first or second week of the month and not towards the end of the month.

There is currently discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Here is a look at our top pages, by links reported via Google Webmaster Tools:

Again, this is the second major link update in Google Webmaster Tools this month.

For the past updates see:

• November 2007 Google Linkage Data
• October 2007 Google Linkage Data
• September 2007 Google Linkage Data
• August 2007 Google Linkage Data
• July 2007 Google Linkage Data
• June 2007 Google Linkage Data
• April 2007 Google Linkage Data
• March 2007 Google Linkage Data
• February 2007 Google Linkage Data

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a great run down of the frustration many search marketers have to deal with when it comes to advertising with Microsoft adCenter.

The user interface within the advertising console clearly frustrates most search marketers. They say it takes them at least twice as long to manage a campaign in adCenter than it does with Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing. The page to page load times are slow, the features are sometimes found in obscure locations and the campaign management is not as intuitive, according to some SEMs.

But yet, many SEMs love the ROI they see from Microsoft adCenter and Live Search. Some say they have the best ROI because they currently do not have "low quality affiliates" messing with their inventory. Both Google and Yahoo have large publisher networks, which many advertisers find to mess with their conversions and quality. Microsoft has yet to open their publisher network, aka ContentAds, to the public. They are testing the ContentAds program with internal Microsoft sites and selected and trusted publishers. It is because of that, impressions will be lower than at Google and Yahoo, but some SEMs say the quality is much higher.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Do you want to make the most of your site's search engine visibility? Do you want to rank for your bread and butter keywords? Do you also love your Flash introduction page? Well, you would be kidding yourself if you want to have the best of both worlds.

A SitePoint Forums thread asks if a Flash intro page can hurt your rankings. 99% of the time, it can. Your homepage is often the most linked to page on your site. Since that page is most likely to have the most number of links, it is your best chance at ranking for your most competitive keywords. If you do not put those keywords on that page, within the body content area, than you have a poor shot at ranking for those keywords.

Flash is much like having a picture on your site. Search engines have a tough time reading pictures or trusting the alternative text within those pictures. The same applies to Flash, search engines have a tough time reading them. It may be possible to utilize a Z-Layer of content under the Flash object, if and only if that content represents what is exactly in your Flash intro.

But all in all, you do not want to use a completed, 100%, Flash intro for your site. What you do want to do, if you love Flash, is to use Flash elements within your pages, like in place of pictures and so forth.

Forum discussion at SitePoint Forums.

Reports are coming from WebmasterWorld that when you conduct a country specific search, you are no longer able to see which pages are supplemental.

The example given was a search at google.co.uk. When you conduct a site: specific search for "the web," you would be able to see pages in the supplemental index. But when you refined that search by "pages from the UK," you would not be able to see such results.

We all know that Google hide the supplemental tag from us. I suspect in this case, people are defining supplemental as pages found after clicking on the message that reads:

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the ### already displayed.

If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

So in short, I believe that message above is no longer being displayed for site command searches limited to "pages from the UK." I tested a few examples, and all have shown that to be the case.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 19, 2007"

In September, we reported that Microsoft's Live Search spam-like referrals are official tests performed by Microsoft and that blocking them could have you delisted from the search results.

A bunch of forum members are still reporting this "abnormal" activity and have seen it for about a month now. Unfortunately, this negatively impacts these users' analytics.

How long is this supposed to last? One member said one week. But a month? What is the purpose?

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Unfortunately for some Google AdWords subscribers, they've learned that there's no way to cancel the Google AdWords account -- you can only deactivate the account. And they're unhappy because they don't want Google having access to their information, even if Google is such a big company.

I suppose I have no choice but to cancel the credit card I used for this account- to assure Google will not have access to my financial information- and move on.

While this is frustrating to some, it makes a whole lot of sense to others:

From google's point of view, they don't want people closing accounts, then starting new ones without it relating back to what happened in their old account. Look at the number of posts in this forum that claim the way to solve a problem in an account is close it and start a new one.

But deleting the account completely could be a bad idea, especially if you want to access reports at a later date. Some forum members find that rather useful. In a few years, it could be like nostalgia. ;)

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Forum members are noticing a bit of a change in terms of presentation for Google Local results. One member was a bit disgruntled by the results presented when he performed a local search and found 10 links -- without the necessary map:

I am no longer seening a map and now I get the "top ten local results" instead of the 3 links and the map.

That observation piqued another response from someone who watches TV:

I have seen some commercials for Ask and think that Google needs to do more

(Really, now, beyond watching the tube, you should also be using Ask.com. Their local results rock!)

I can't reproduce the 10-link result and still see the standard map plus three links, but my guess is that Google is testing this feature out and looking for feedback. There's your feedback, Google. I still say that Ask.com works pretty darn well on the local front, though.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Let's face it: even if Alexa is not a good measure, it still shows interesting data. Forum members note that YouTube now has an Alexa rank of 3, which beats out Live.com and MSN (ranking 4 and 5 respectively).

Do you suspect that the numbers will change? Who will be #1 in one year (currently Yahoo)? People are already putting bets on Google.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Somehow, I think that the incident with Shopzilla is related to the recent news that anyone using the PayPerPost method just got their PageRanks reduced this weekend.

Forum members have mixed reactions. Some have obviously participated in such schemes. Others hope that those who participate suffer the consequences:

If you cheat you die.

Google seems to be taking out all the "schemes" that were set up to game the system.

Finally, others note that they have been penalized without using any paid advertising at all. These forum members feel that their penalty was unjust and that Google should review why it happened to begin with. Personally, I've seen a lot of incorrect penalties over the past few weeks that Google has not yet rectified, even with a request for reinclusion. I understand the frustration there.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

There's a poll going on at DigitalPoint Forums to discern how much search traffic comes to a variety of sites versus other search engines. And surprisingly, Google has come out the victor, claiming the majority of the vote: 90% of search traffic comes from Google (14 votes). In second place, 50-80% of search traffic has only garnered 7 votes.

Why is this happening? Surprisingly, it isn't what you think. Sure, Google has the market share, but a forum member suggests that there's more to it:

This seems to be down to the fact that Yahoo and MSN are just not very good at keeping out poor sites - Yahoo and MSN results are much easier to manipulate if you follow a particular formula - and MSN and Yahoo results are full of such sites, blocking genuine sites from appearing higher up in the results.

Interesting thought. Perhaps it's also very true.

Sure, some siteowners see a good amount of traffic from the other search engines, but it's quite revealing that most of them are finding the majority of the traffic coming from Google.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Have you checked how much space your Gmail account is using lately? Well, if you haven't, it's at 5053MB right now and surpassed the 5GB mark over the weekend.

Pretty sweet, eh?

Forum members think so too, but oddly enough, they don't think that anyone would use that much storage. But if you create a centralized hub for all your mail needs (like I do), you will find out that you run out of Gmail storage space quickly. I wonder how much space Graywolf is using at this point in time. :)

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums

Would you want to visit one of the most beautiful countries in the world while attending an esteemed SMX event? Barry will be in Israel on February 3, 2008, and he'd like to organize an event.

If you're Israeli, would like to make an excuse to travel to Israel, or just want to meet Barry (trust me, he's a cool guy, and he hasn't paid me to write this endorsement), you should sign up for the event on Sphinn (yes, please register) to indicate that you have an interest. Barry explains more in his blog post.

Seriously, you all need to vote and have a real interest to go. :)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 16, 2007"

Hope y'all had a nice week, but we can't forget that it's Friday and it's time to relax. Before you do, though, let's cover what you may have missed... you wouldn't want to be out of the loop, would you?

Veteran's Day

Did you know that Monday was Veteran's Day in the states? Now you do. And search engines may have reminded you. This year, only a few took on the theme: Google and Dogpile.

Microsoft Live Search Webmaster Tools Now Open

It's a public beta, everyone! The Microsoft Live Search Webmaster Tools has been opened to the public, but it's still in beta. It certainly is no Google, but at least the option is there, coupled with domain rank and Page Rank bars. It needs a lot more work to be a great product, though.

Microsoft Link Command Works Again

It only took them 8 months, but the Microsoft Link command is working! In case you forgot how to use it, Barry explains that "for a link command, you need to use +link:www.domain.com/filename and for a linkdomain command, you need to use +linkdomain:www.domain.com." Thanks for the refresher course. I needed it.

More Microsoft: It's Reading Your Mind

The future of paid advertising suspects that Microsoft will take a different approach: it will read your mind. The more appropriate term is "neuromarketing" and there are several studies that are looking into the effectiveness of such an approach. What do you suppose will happen in 2 years? 5 years? 10?

GoDaddy + Google = <3

GoDaddy and Google have partnered to offer Google Webmaster Tools in the GoDaddy control panel. That makes it a lot easier for those hosting with GoDaddy to make sure they have the most up-to-date sitemaps and the like.

Google AdSense: You have 6 Months

Google AdSense checks expire after 6 months, people. Cash those checks early and don't ask such silly questions.

Oh, and if your bank does reject your check, it's advised that you use electronic funds transfer. Some banks are just stupid.

You Might be Making Less Money Soon

Google AdSense ads are changing, and not for the better according to many publishers. The clickable area will soon be reduced. An illustration of the new changes have been posted to Problogger. That's unfortunate for publishers, but only legitimate clicks will go through so it should be a win for the advertiser. There are already some early reports on how this has affected big publishers.

...and Even Less

Gokul Rajaram is leaving Google. He was one of the founders of Google AdSense, so he's not just a nobody. The thirty-three year old is ready to pursue personal projects. I think he'll do just fine. Wherever he goes, others will follow.

Google Sued Over Patent

Northeastern University has sued Google over patent infringement. Yawn. This is getting boring.

DoubleClick? Maybe Not with Google After All

Here's another one of those "let's move on" stories. Google is still being reviewed by their DoubleClick acquisition and it's been rejected for now. I understand the fear of monopoly, but the drawn-out drama drives me crazy.

Build Android Apps, Get Money

In a contest to build up momentum for Google's new mobile operating system, they're offering $10 million to numerous developers. Do you have what it takes?

Google Geographic Targeting Tool: How Long?

Google recently released a geotargeting tool to allow the search engine to know which countries the websites intend to target. But how long does it take for it to go into effect? It's been taking awhile for many using the service. Hopefully, that'll speed up a little more.

Are You Buying Text Links?

We polled the audience to ask who is still buying text links, and most (60%) of you are. Obviously, something's working here. Here's my question for Google: if the links being purchased are relevant and brings lesser known sites to the light, why do you care? User experience doesn't seem to be sacrificed as many link buyers have suggested. Instead of targeting relevant paid links, how about you target the Viagra links on a page about baseballs? Hm?

Yahoo Search Marketing Customer Service Rocks

You watch the news. You hear about companies scamming consumers left and right. But how often do you hear a feel-good story about a company that does the right thing for the customer? Not very often, eh? It's usually not so interesting to people. Well, to me, it is. And to someone who had an experience with Yahoo, it was too. He shared his great customer service story with Yahoo for us, and I feel warm and fuzzy inside.

If it's Not Deceptive, Z-Layers are Fine

Can you hide text under a Z-Layer? The answer is... probably yes. Bergy answered this question from a webmaster who wanted to hide text under an image so that the search engines could discern what the page was about. As long as it's not spammy, sure.

PageRank Sucks

Get rid of PageRank! Ugh. Now there is the PR0 plague that's hitting folks. And I suspect that Shopzilla is having paid reviews removed because of PageRank. Cmon, don't you see the stress this is giving us?

Search Engine Roundtable Gets More Content

You can now subscribe to our newest feeds through a brand new section we've started: the Search Forum Recap. If you're inundated by the volume of posts we write a day (as I am), you can instead opt in for one email a day or subscribe to one feed. It's quite easy. Try it. :)

Well, not quite, but forum members are noticing that people are shifting their focus away from forums and into blogs. Do forums have to adapt?

Not necessarily. Some forum members are not yet embracing the blogosphere. The audiences may stay the same.

And so, many think that forums can still coexist with blogs and newer social media. RuudHein adds the following:

By nature, I believe, all social media, including forums, are complementary.

Forum administrators often grapple with this problem. The discussion prompted Cre8asite administrator Kim Krause Berg to blog about it. Jill Whalen of High Rankings forums believes that both can coexist as well, as they're quite similar in what they offer:

But I really don't see forums as all that different from blogs that allow commenting.

Still, some people, like Barry Welford, do:

If you want a discussion with like-minded people, then a forum is the place to go. Social media sites like Digg, or even Sphinn, are like a whitewater river. There is little time to stop and look around. That isn't at all the nature of a successful forum.

Some people will move onto blogs, and others will stick with forums. Yet others will mix and match. There's nothing wrong with that, and forums don't appear to be going obsolete anytime soon. (If they would, Search Engine Roundtable would too, right? We only cover forum discussion, after all!)

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums and Sphinn.

A High Rankings Forums member wonders if there's a way to check how many links are on Wikipedia. A few people say yes, you can. Some possible methods of exploration include the linkdomain:yoursite.com site:wikipedia.org or Google Webmaster Tools. But Barry, our savior, gives the most authoritative answer yet:

To see your links from Wikipedia (nofollowed or not followed) go to:

Here is an example search of our links in Wikipedia.

Nice. If you didn't know that existed, now you do. :)

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forums.

Editors note: Tamar wrote this post, but I made changes to links and added some more information.

Are you using Gmail and are being redirected to basic HTML? Google wants to know if you've been afflicted by this new bug -- they acknowledge the problem -- and they want you to provide some insight for them to diagnose the issue via Google Groups.

In related news, Gmail users are also finding that their emails are disappearing, according to NetworkWorld. Thankfully, that's not happening to me or any other forum members for that matter.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups and DigitalPoint Forums.

Shopzilla must've been hit hard by the PageRank massacre, or so one would suspect. A blogger was offered $100 to remove a PayPerPost review that he had written on Shopzilla.

But in the second mail they were offering me $100 for the removal of the link. I was really amazed to see the mail because they paid for putting the link and now they are offering for the removal of the link also.

Uh, what? Whatever works for them, I guess. I guess PageRank matters more to some people than to others.

Some folks are already prepared to make it tougher for ShopZilla:

I think I'm going to have to add a post about stopzilla on a blog under a PayPerPoast heading. Are they gong to pay me too?

Shopzilla, it really doesn't matter. Or rather, Google, stop making people run like a stampede to have bloggers remove their posts.

On the other hand, would PageRank really make people go this far? Is there something else we don't know? Maybe there is a Public Relations (PR) issue with some of their paid reviews that triggered Shopzilla to encourage bloggers monetarily to remove some paid reviews. We have seen cases before where paid reviews have hurt a company's reputation.

Still, the timing is just a little bit coincidental. I know a few people whose PageRanks were restored after they removed their paid links and requested reinclusion.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

One of Google's "godfathers of AdSense" has left the company to start his own, according to CNN. Gokul Rajaram, 33, is off to start his own venture, but not without praise from Google. Before his departure, he was presented with a plaque signed by a few hundred Googlers at his own farewell party.

Interestingly, there's a lot of good background on AdSense in that article:

“Google had already understood how to match keywords with URLs, so the next step was building a matching algorithm and create an advertising system around it. Sergey had a mandate to launch it in June 2003. So we had less than six months.”... “When we started AdSense, it was just me and four engineers,” Rajaram says. “The night before we launched, Sergey spent five hours with me testing the system and pointing out bugs.”

A forum member wonders why nobody else is even close to Google in terms of a decent AdSense competitor:

Given that information (four engineers & one product manager & six months), HOW is it possible that Microsoft, Yahoo! and others (yes that means you Ask.com) find it so hard to launch a copycat system to Adsense?

And others want to follow him wherever he goes. This guy's story is rather inspirational:

Whatever he does, have him call me and I'll sign up.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Typically, you need to worry about companies that promise a top position in Google's organic or free listings. But Google also warns that you should be wary of those companies that will guarantee the top position in their paid listings, Google AdWords.

Googler, AdWordsPro, said in a Google Groups thread:

Bottom line, if anyone says they can 'guarantee' top placement - whether in the unpaid search results or within AdWords - then buyer beware.

AdWordsPro

Why? Well, Google's AdWords algorithm is not simply based on how much you pay. Other factors include your click through rate, the quality of your pages and many more criteria. This also now applies to Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter sponsored listings.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Andy Beard has been tracking the Google PageRank changes like a hawk and he reported PageRank Zeros to many sites. There are also many people reporting PageRank Zeros at DigitalPoint Forums.

Those reporting that they have a PageRank of zero are also reporting that their rankings and traffic from Google are the same. I have seen some sites with a PR0 that do not sell links, so I am not sure if it is directly related to link selling or buying or just a PR bug.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

We were the first to notify people about the click area changing in AdSense a few days ago. I thought it would be interesting to aggregate some of the reaction to the change from several channels. The theory is that since Google made the click area of an AdSense ad more defined (i.e. less clickable area) that AdSense publishers would realize a drop in earnings and CTR.

The AdSense blog posted about the change last night and used this graphic to illustrate the difference:

The changes should be live for all publisher, but I still see some ads, such as on my personal blog that still allow me to click on the white and description area. I suspect my ads did not change yet because I still do no have access to the new ad management features. In any event, we still have feedback from WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and ProBlogger.

Overall, the feedback is that CTR (click through rates) have dropped. But many are reporting that things are stable and CTR for them have not dropped. In addition, many people are reporting a slight decrease in earnings but on the whole, most people are not complaining. So, currently, the impact does not seem to be all that huge, as one would expect.

Quotable Drastic Change:

My CTR dropped by about 15% today. No increase in RPC. My lowest earnings all year.

Quotable Calmness in Change:

Averaging across all my sites, my CTR appears to be up about 50% compared to the rest of the week - which I find a little odd to say the least!

We will keep tracking the reaction towards this major change and keep you up to date on any significant changes.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and Sphinn.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 15, 2007"

Are our daily posts becoming overwhelming? Do you prefer to just get one update from this site daily and not several? Do you want to learn about the search forum threads that did not make the cut to become a featured article at the Search Engine Roundtable?

If so, you will be glad to know, we have started a new daily recap feed. You can either subscribe via RSS using this link or via email by using the form directly below this sentence:

The new recaps are named Search Forum Recaps and they contain the articles from the day and links to other forum threads that we felt were great but just didn't make the cut to us writing about them.

Note, if you ever see a thread that you feel would be great for us to cover, please consider submitting a thread.

Is this format very similar to the SearchCap at Search Engine Land? Yes, but Danny is cool with it and it should be helpful to many new and current readers.

301s can effectively be used to inform a search engine that you have moved page a to a new permanent location. While they help make matters easier for webmasters, they are also so very sloooooooooooooow. A WebmasterWorld member wants to know if there is any way to expedite the process.

The only search engine that seems to somewhat support this is Yahoo's Dynamic URL Rewriting, where you can get your site crawled more efficiently by informing Yahoo of "dynamic parameters in URLs that they'd like Yahoo! to ignore, which [Yahoo will] then automatically rewrite accordingly."

However, there really is no easy way to speed up the 301 process, from what we know. Do you know any way to do it? What are your methods?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

A Google Groups thread asks if there's any such penalty for using the z-index HTML attribute underneath images. Would that be deceiving the search engines if you're putting text underneath an image that is not apparent to the visitor?

Bergy from the Google Webmaster Central team says that it's not a bad practice:

So, the technique you've laid out here is neither good nor evil. ... [I]f the hidden content is a more-accessible-but-less-pretty version of the content that hides it--e.g. text behind an image containing those words--our quality measures should not mind. Of course, we suggest using the ALT and TITLE attributes of the IMG tag, which were designed for this very purpose (providing alternative text to replace images), but you are, of course, free to design your site as you see fit.

That's interesting, and it should help other web designers who are in a similar pickle. ;)

Either way, hopefully the quality measures really do not mind.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Google announced earlier this week that now Go Daddy subscribers can take full advantage of Google's Webmaster Tools, which will be built into the Go Daddy control panel.

Go Daddy users will now see our link right in their hosting control center, and can launch Google Webmaster Tools directly from their hosting account. And Go Daddy makes the Google Webmaster Tools account creation process faster by adding the site, verifying the site, and submitting Sitemaps on behalf of hosting customers. Our tools show users how Google views their site, give useful stats like queries and links, diagnose problems, and share information with us in order to improve their site's visibility in search results.

Sweet.

And forum members who host with Go Daddy think so too.

By the way, since there was a bit of forum confusion, I'm pretty sure that this is for those who are hosting on Go Daddy, not just those who register their domain names there. Google Blogoscoped has a screenshot walkthrough of all the features within the Go Daddy control panel.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

In April, Google announced its plans to acquire DoubleClick and was already faced with some challenges by its competitors. In May, the Federal Trade Commission started looking into those claims.

While Google was confident that this acquisition would "withstand scrutiny," recent reports indicate that it's going to be on hold. One report says that the acquisition is "rejected for now."

And Google is naturally upset about it:

"We are obviously disappointed," said Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, in a statement. "We will continue to work with the commission to demonstrate how our proposed acquisition will benefit publishers, advertisers and consumers. We seek to avoid further delays that might put us at a disadvantage in competing fully against Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and others whose acquisitions in the highly competitive online advertising market have already been approved."

But forum members have calmed down. They hope that Google will not be able to go through with the DoubleClick deal because "google already knows enough about us." Google's size, to some, is "scary."

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and Cre8asite Forums.

When you look at the Internet, a lot of people either have concerns, want to get questions answered, but they never talk about when a company goes above and beyond. Perhaps that's because companies don't typically go the extra mile.

But in one case, Yahoo! did. And a forum member at DigitalPoint Forums wants everyone to know.

I do advertising (PPC) with both Google and Yahoo. the other day I got a call from a customer service agent at Yahoo making sure that everthing was running ok and that i was happy with the results.

He calls Yahoo's customer service simply "awesome." If only other companies would go out of their way to make sure the end user is happy. (Google, for example, does not.) :)

Yahoo has gone out of their way before. When we reported about the block domain feature just a few weeks ago, Yahoo ended up calling a concerned user and spoke to them for "about an hour."

Yahoo's extra attention to improving the user experience is only a good thing. Keep up the good work.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

Brian Turner is reporting at a Platinax Forum that Yahoo has changed the way they handle 301 redirects.

In the past, according to Yahoo! Redirect Handling Rules (PDF File), a 301 from Site A to Site B, Yahoo would keep the target URL. If the domain remained the same, it would not necessarily be the case, see the PDF file above to see the detailed rules.

Brian is claiming that Yahoo is now looking at the authority of the domain and if the domain has more "authority" than where it is 301 redirecting to, then it would keep the source (the more authoritative domain) as the main URL for that site, regardless of the 301.

Honestly, it seems like Brian tested this out on one domain. To me, this seems like a glitch on one particular site. We have no other reports of this in any of the other forums or any confirmations from other SEOs or webmasters on this topic, at this point in time.

Forum discussion at Platinax Forum.

As many of you saw in the first images of Live Search Webmaster Tools, webmasters can now login to Live Search Webmaster Tools and find their "Domain Rank" and the "Rank" of their top pages.

Here is an image of "Domain Rank":

And here is an image of my "Top Five Pages" by "Rank":

Why is Microsoft calling these bars "Rank"? Why are they green bars? Is it way too similar to Google's PageRank brand?

Other questions I had was, do people actually see pages with less than five green bars? The answer to that is yes. Some folks at a DigitalPoint Forums thread reported having only one bar for some of his sites.

Anyway, is this too similar to Google? Remember Yahoo's WebRank score in their toolbar?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Server failures happen, they are almost guaranteed. And when they do happen, SEOs hope that Google does not try to visit the site during that timeframe. If Google does and the server issues are database related, then Google may index your site and use "Cannot connect to database" or something related as your page title and meta description.

It may look something like this:

And the page might look like this in Google's cache.

That is the problem one member wrote about at this DigitalPoint Forums thread. This member explained that he did not have any redundancy, so his error message returned that error:

So Im currently on Page 1 of google (P8) for a 'fairly' competitive term (15mill results) and its indexed my site as 'sitename' cannot connect to database - its also used my keyword anchor text for the page title.

I assume Google will come back relatively soon and reindex the page. Once Google crawls and reindexes the page, it is only a matter of time for the Google search result to revert back to its old self again.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

There are numerous reports coming from DigitalPoint Forums that Yahoo Site Explorer is reporting a huge reduction of pages and inlinks for sites.

Personally, I cannot confirm these reports to be true at this time. It appears my link counts and page index count is higher than was reported, since the last time I checked.

But many SEOs are saying they are seeing major reductions in those numbers.

Most of the sites I am usually checking have dropped to about 20% of backlinks they had 2 days ago ... I hope its something temporary again ... it happened 2 months ago ...

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 14, 2007"

Do you love SEO? What's your favorite part? Forum members discuss what interests them on a WebProWorld thread. How about you?

One member loves the thrill of the constant challenge of following industry trends. SEO is great for writers, and she is one, so this field makes her very enthusiastic.

Many people love the writing element of SEO. And some, like me, are computer geeks. :)

The task is never really monotonous. The industry is always changing and you always have to stay on top of it. This is another interesting element for some SEOs.

Others like knowing they can make a difference for the small or big business. SEO is a big part of that too.

What about that great ranking? Some people love showing their customers that they can rank them on the first page of the SERPs -- and then delivering.

Some SEOs are competitive. They love being in that ever-moving competition.

This thread goes on forever, but you can feel free to provide your own $0.02 on why you love SEO. Forum discussion continues at WebProWorld.

Let's get the basics out of the way. Basic SEO includes keyword research, competition analysis, meta keywords/description, an image strategy, indexing and evaluation, content changes, on-page optimization, link building, and a strategy for online marketing. But let's take it a step further. What else is left?

That pretty much covers it. The SitePoint Forums thread has a pretty extensive SEO strategy outline which includes URL optimization, content optimization, site submission to search engines, XML sitemap creation, and more. It's a must read and is pretty informative.

Is there really a such thing as a "high-level" SEO strategy? Where are the lines blurred? Many forum members disagree with the assessment that there's anything else. SEO is a big task in itself. It may sound easy, but it certainly isn't that simple.

Forum discussion continues at SitePoint Forums.

A SitePoint Forums member did everything right, or so he thought: he ranks #1 for their target keyword phrase, but they have no customers. Where did he go wrong, or what can he do to right the situation?

Forum members offer many useful tips:

Additional website tweaking may be in order. You may want to provide more direct "calls to action" so that a visitor is aware that there's a product/service to be bought.

Check the volume of searches for the keyword phrase. Better copy may improve the rankings for other more searched keywords. Do some keyword research.

Check those web site logs: find out where the user bails from the website. Find out if your traffic is targeted.

How about the product presentation? Is the price too expensive? Do you understand the market? Just like when you tweak your landing pages for a PPC campaign, you may have to start tweaking the results for your organic campaign.

What would you add to this discussion? Forum discussion continues at SitePoint Forums.

What do you suppose would be the problem if your images are not showing up in Google Image Search? Let's review the scenario: a webmaster has a site that has purely G-rated images, but his images are not appearing in the search results. He supposes that this could be because other sites, which don't use friendly images or text, are hotlinking to his images.

How do you test the theory? You could see which images do rank well and have another website start hotlinking to them.

You can also move all images to another directory and let Google re-spider the images.

But if you don't want hotlinking at all, just edit your .htaccess to prevent it.

Numerous other methods of hotlink prevention and discussion continue at WebmasterWorld.

About a week ago, I provided exclusive screen shots of the new Microsoft Live Search Webmaster Tools portal. It appears that as of last night, Microsoft has released the http://webmaster.live.com/ to the public, as a beta.

So far, there is a lot of discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld on the release and not much about the features inside of the tool.

Ben, Chris and I discussed some of those features on the Search Pulse last night. In short, Microsoft has a long way to go with this tool. Very long way to go.

There is currently not much help documentation, nor support for the tool as far as I can see. You can give feedback about the tool over here, if you are signed into the "Connect site."

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

After all the recent Google PageRank news and "penalties," the big question is, are SEOs still buying links?

A DigitalPoint Forums thread has a poll, that is asking that question. They break the poll down into four possible answers. Here are the current results with 42 responses:

• No - I never bought links and never will (17) 40.48%
• No - The Google Penalization Scare Me! (4) 9.52%
• Yeah - It's Still Working Well For Me (19) 45.24%
• Yeah - But I have reduced my spending just in case (2) 4.76%

Hard to tell from this poll, but it seems like those who have actually purchased links in the past, for the most part, are still buying links.

I thought I run a similar poll and just ask flat out, are you buying links right now?

Please take the poll, and feel free to add comments.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

The 42nd edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download. Chris returned to the show to help Ben and I discuss some really exciting topics. We chatted about Microsofts new Live Search Webmaster Portal. We also discussed how Live Search's link command is now working. Google AdWords is testing a new advanced site exclusion feature. Google AdSense changed their on-click event behavior. Google fixed a bug with their total search results shown. AdWords is also testing a "products from this advertisers" feature and AdWords still has a bug with their diagnostic tool.

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. First Screen Shots of Microsoft's Live Search Webmaster Portal
   
2. Google AdWords Adding Category & Domain Ads Exclusion Feature?
   
3. Microsoft Link Command Comes Back to Life After 8 Months
   
4. Google is Changing the Definition of a "Click" on AdSense Ads
   
5. Google Listing Lest Search Results: No More 1,000 Results?
   
6. Google AdWords Testing "Products from this Advertiser" in Search Ads?
   
7. Google AdWords Diagnostic Tool Bug

Lightening Round:

Continue reading "Search Pulse 42: Live Search Portal, Google AdWords Exclusion, Link Command, AdSense Click Change, & More"

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 13, 2007"

If you own a website in a specific country but want to target outside countries, what's the best way to do this? Is it worth hosting mini sites in the target countries?

That's something you can consider, but if the sites are so small, it may not be worth it. As Robert Charlton says, if they're just acting as doorways to the other site, the site may lose credibility. However, not all webmasters have had this issue with the loss of credibility as long as there's a good amount of target key phrases and inbound links.

Another tip would be to try to get links from the target country to your main site. And if you have to, buy ask for links.

Eventually, when the tool works, you can use the Google Webmaster Tool feature that allows you to set the geographic target of your site.

And until then, recall this Google Webmaster Central Blog post where Google acknowledged that the IP address and TLD of your domain influence the rankings.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Everyone has to start somewhere. A High Rankings Forums member is starting to control a Google AdWords campaign and wants to know how long it takes to set up and manage it.

Well, it varies depending on size of the campaign, but for a relatively small campaign, it will take a few hours to set up and a few hours to manage. Eventually, you'll have to test, retest, and continue ensuring that you get the best ROI. While some forum members think you can leave the campaign alone and then you'll reap the rewards, this is not advisable since you always need to be on top of anything that can improve your campaign or be aware of changes that may lessen its potency. A little word change or a different landing page can substantially improve (or decrease) your chances for a conversion.

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.

Is it ten years too late? According to numerous reports, Northeastern university is suing Google over a patent. The patent holders are looking for Google to pay the intellectual property fees.

Forum members are awaiting the results of the trial. One member, however, is not enthusiastic about this lawsuit and thinks it's baseless.

Any company as big as Google is going to face lawsuits, and you'd be surprised at the number. I bet Google is named in at least 100 lawsuits at the current time. That's something any major corporation has to face. Most are without merit, filed by psychopaths who have nothing better to do, but some are valid. I find it interesting that this suit was filed in Texas, even though no parties involved are based there. Google just happens to provide services there, so it was deemed an appropriate venue. Where doesn't Google provide services?

Is it really patent infringement? We'll see what the courts decide.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

The Google Android $10 million challenge is on. Yesterday, Google announced the software development kit (SDK) for the open handset alliance, otherwise named Android. The best developers will get money prizes, up to $10 million.

Some developers are already building applications. Others know that the mobile landscape is to be forever changed. Robert Scoble thinks that Android will appease developer types but not the average Joe Consumer. And some people want more than $10 million. First, try to get a little bit of that cash and then we'll talk. :)

More discussion at Techmeme.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Google recently released a new tool in Google Webmaster Tools that enables you to set your Geographic Target market for your site.

Since then, we have been waiting to see any real feedback on how exactly it works. We learned from a Googler's post that Setting the Geographic Target in Google May Not Limit You to that Target Area but does it actually help you in geographic areas.

One person at WebmasterWorld reported that he set up his geographic target for his site two weeks ago and nothing came of it as of yet.

Now, 2 weeks later, when I search for a specific string from the Spanish subdomain in google.es with the "sites from Spain" option selected it still doesn't show up. If I select the "sites in Spanish" option it does, with a cache date later than the date on which I made the change in W.Tools.

So as of now, we still do not know if it works because we still do not know how long it takes to go into affect. Some feel it may take a few months to make an impact. Time will tell.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Last night I received an email from Google notifying me that they are changing the required action of a user, for a click to occur on an AdSense ad. Google said previously, if you clicked anywhere on an ad, including the background of the ad, that would constitute a click. Now, a user must click on the ad title or URL for it to constitute a click.

Google said this is being changed to "reduce accidental clicks and increase value for advertisers."

Does this seem like any old change? Well, it is, kind of. Google implemented the same thing back in April for ads that display on Google.com (i.e. AdWords ads). Yes, this did have a significant impact on advertiser's spend and earnings. But it obviously is working, because both advertisers seem to have been happy from the change and Google is now implementing this on AdSense ads.

You can imagine that AdSense publisher won't be as happy with this change. Why? Simply because less clicks translates into less money. Google realizes this and told me:

Although we recognize these changes may result in a RPM decrease for some publishers in the short term, we expect these improvements will lead to increased advertiser spend in the long term. By investing in the long-run health of the relationship between AdSense publishers, AdWords advertisers and your sites' visitors, we're ensuring your continued success as an AdSense partner.

I will be watching the forums when they launch this ad change and report back on how AdSense publishers and AdWords advertisers react to this change.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A Cre8asite Forums thread asks if a PPC company has the right not to hand over their client's keyword list for the PPC campaign they are running for the client.

For example, ABCChairs.com hires XYZPPC Inc, to set up a paid search campaign for the company. ABCChairs.com asks XYZPPC for a copy of the keyword list that they set up for the PPC campaign. Can XYZPPC tell ABCChairs.com no?

Personally, I never heard of a PPC company who owned a client's campaign. But I suspect it is possible. How so? Well, if a client only pays a percent of spend to their PPC company and the PPC company spent a month setting up the perfect campaign. What happens if the PPC's client drops the PPC company after all the hard work is done? What is keeping the client there?

That is why typically a PPC company would charge a set up fee or set up a contract for a minimum term contract. But I guess if a PPC company doesn't want to set up either a set up fee or a minimum term contract, then they can hold the keyword campaign 'hostage.'

Projectphp got it right in that thread, it is totally based on what the contract between the two parties has in it.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 12, 2007"

A Sphinn and WebmasterWorld thread report that you can now use the link commands at Live.com again.

The syntax appears to be slightly different as Karen Blakeman notes. For a link command, you need to use +link:www.domain.com/filename and for a linkdomain command, you need to use +linkdomain:www.domain.com. Here is an example link domain command for this site:

Search For: +linkdomain:www.seroundtable.com and you should see results, if not, I have taken a screen capture to prove it.

Microsoft first pulled the link command features back in March of this year, and then told us it was because mass automated usage. It is because of that, it remained off for so long. But just last week I posted screen captures of the new Live Search Webmaster Portal which is suppose to give webmasters access to that data. Unfortunately, it did not give enough access to that data. So maybe this new command is the way they enable some webmasters to see this linkage data?

I have a feeling Microsoft will pull this command soon after they find the SEO and webmaster community using it rapidly.

Forum discussion at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.

I rarely post a thank you to our sponsors. I thought I take this opportunity thank our advertisers at the Search Engine Roundtable as well as introduce a new ad format that we will be testing for the remainder of the year.

Thank you to:

• Text Link Ads for their continued sponsorship over the past few years.
• ACS SEO for signing up to be a long term sponsor of the site.
• SEO Inc. for sponsoring our site throughout the years.
• PubCon for being a sponsor of our site for a couple years now.
• Google Analytics for signing on as an advertiser, I have been using Urchin since they were an alpha product.

Google Analytics is actually the company testing out a new ad spot in our RSS feeds. We are testing a simple RSS text ad, at the top of each of our feed items. The test will continue throughout the end of this year. If you do not like the ads, please feel free to contact us and we promise we will listen.

I would also like to thank all our bronze sponsors who are listed on the left hand side of this page.

Do you maintain any PPC campaigns? How much do you charge? A Search Engine Watch Forums thread asks this question.

Most folks that I know charge between 10-15% of the spend. Others, according to David Wallace, now charge based on hourly rate. That makes sense too.

What do you do? I'd love to find out!

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A Cre8asite Forums member is baffled by an article he read where Bill Gates is working on developing software that can read your mind. Is this a good direction for both Microsoft (as a competitive edge over Google) and for advertising?

It looks like people are all experimenting with this type of advertising. Bill Slawski, for example, brings up a term called neuromarketing and explains what it is:

An emerging technique called neuromarketing that uses brain scans to measure human response to promotional messages is starting to catch on in Europe—and soon ads may become even more effective at prompting you to pull out your wallet.

That's a bit frightening, actually, but some folks can see it to be inevitable. One member suspects that Google won't be far behind, so Microsoft won't have the advantage.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

As you know, Google is now trying something called placement targeting. On a Search Engine Watch forums thread, moderator Discovery goes into the implications of this change.

CPM is just to easy for advertisers to inflate CPM numbers without any promise of quality ... The combination of CPC and Placement reports and advertisers have the tools to help balance out the equation.

This sentiment is echoed by the community. CPC is the way to go:

CPM is an uncontrollable nightmare; and text ads rule. The other stuff (radio, print, etc.) is nice to have in the arsenal, but only as add-ons. I think CPC will continue to be the heavy hitter for a while.

Essentially, CPM doesn't seem to fare well for anyone. CPC is more work but it pays off.

This should play out pretty well over time.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A Cre8asite Forums member is a bit disturbed by his PPC advisor, who he had outsourced the job to, because he is not giving him access to the stats on his account. The reasoning is that he maintains multiple campaigns for different clients under one account, and now the user is unable to access his own statistics.

In cases like these, it's important to give access to the client -- this is an important part of the partnership and relationship between PPC advisors and the customer, according to forum members. Therefore, those maintaining large accounts should opt in for My Client Center so that these multiple accounts are easy to manage.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

Has your Google AdSense check been bounced? If so, you're not alone. Google recommends instead that you opt in for Western Union or Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) to eliminate the hassle.

AdSenseAdvisor says that Google is not out of money and can pay every publisher:

First of all, our accounts are not closed and we do have sufficient funds to pay all publishers every month. We use a non-traditional check format that some bank tellers seem to have trouble handling. We chose this system because it's designed to ensure timely and accurate payments even in large monthly volumes. Our payments team is investigating the specific difficulties banks are encountering so that we can figure out how to make things easier for all of you.

Deposit those checks!

AdSense checks are for deposit only. We've heard that some banks will tell clients who try to cash these checks that there is a problem with the check, but in fact it's a problem with the cashing.

If you choose to go ahead with cashing your check with the bank, check with them:

Ask your bank about their check-clearing times. As I'm sure you know, these will vary from bank to bank, and some banks may take a considerably longer time than others.

And instead of checks, try something different:

I strongly encourage you to sign up for EFT or Western Union if you live in a country that offers one of these forms of payment. This will reduce check mailing delays and mishaps, clearing times, bank miscommunications, and many other errors.

That clears things up a bit. But any bank refusing to cash a Google check is clearly clueless. :)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

As a result of StumbleUpon's newest update, a lot of folks are confused about how it's integrating into the Google SERPs. There are two new features, one of which actually isn't a new feature, but it looks like StumbleUpon has finally brought these options to the attention of its users.

Here's an example of what you see with the feature turned on fully. Don't ask me why they categorized one of these as "Car Parts."

It appears that it's just a matter of a recent update -- nothing more, nothing less. In fact, you can turn it off here:

StumbleUpon Toolbar > Tools > Toolbar Options > Configuration Tab > Uncheck "Highlight Recommended Search Results," "Show Names of Friends Who Like Search Results," and "Show Topics of Search Results." At that point, the page will look like it used to -- but you'll still see a "See StumbleUpon Friends Reviews."

Of course, many people are a bit concerned about the privacy implications. I don't mind; I'm a big SU user.

You can disable just about everything, which essentially restores your search results to the normal results you'd expect.

In any event, forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday was Veterans Day and Google and Dogpile both had special logos up for the day. Here they are:

Yahoo, Ask.com and the other engines seemed to not have done any logo work for the day. We also did not do anything, since it was a Sunday.

You can see Ask.com did do something in 2004, by adding a flower to Jeeves.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

A WebmasterWorld member said he saw Google trying out a special type of Google AdWords listing.

He said he was using the AdWords Preview Tool and did a search on something. He then saw that under an ad, which showcased a Google Checkout icon, was a link with a plus sign that read "Products from this Advertiser."

He said, that if you clicked on the link or the plus sign, the box would expand to showed 3 products, descriptions, and links to the merchant's site.

I tried to reproduce this action, but I was unable to see this behavior. It would not surprise me if Google was testing this feature for Google Checkout / Google Products merchants.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google has updated the Toolbar PageRank score again over the weekend. Reports come from WebmasterWorld and a dozen different threads at DigitalPoint Forums.

This seems to be a continuation of the paid link PageRank downgrades.

Andy Beard documented some of the sites that were impacted by this fourth rendition of PageRank scores in the past month or so.

You can find historical PageRank updates in our Google PageRank updates section of our site.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Sphinn.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks if Google AdSense checks ever expire?

Most checks tend to expire after a certain time period, especially ones from larger organizations that need to be able to properly manage and balance their bank accounts.

Google has actually answered this question over here:

AdSense checks expire six months after they've been issued. If a check hasn't been cashed six months after the date that appears on the check, a stop payment will be placed on the check. When this happens, you'll see the line 'Check Expired - Earnings credited back' appear in your Payment History page. We'll then reissue these earnings in the next cycle in which you're eligible for payments.

Typically, the check will expire after six months. If that happens to you, you should see a "Check Expired" description in your payment history page. What if you want that money? You need to ask Google to reissue those earnings in a new check.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

One of the oldest topics in SEO is how can I optimize my Flash site for search engines? Honestly, the sad answer has always been, you can't optimize Flash pages to do well in search engines. Of course, there are workarounds, but those workarounds are suggestions on how to make use of Flash alternatives to create the same thing.

Kim posted a Cre8asite Forums thread asking, what should one do when a client requires Flash and also requires the site to rank well in search engines.

Now, let me step back... A Flash site can rank well in search engines. Search engines use many factors in ranking a page, one factor which is weighted heavily is link analysis. So a page with many links can rank well, even if the search engine cannot read the text on that page. But the bottom line is that Flash pages are not "search engine friendly" because spiders have trouble crawling, understanding and indexing the content on those pages.

The Google help documents has a Q&A that asks Does Google index sites that use Macromedia Flash?

Yes, Google indexes pages that use Macromedia Flash. However, our crawlers may experience problems indexing Flash pages. If you're concerned that Flash content on your pages may be inhibiting Google's ability to crawl your site, you may want to consider using a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site. If features such as Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.

You may want to consider creating HTML copies of these Flash pages for our crawler. If you create HTML copies, please be sure to include a robots.txt file that disallows the Flash pages in order to ensure that our crawler doesn't recognize these pages as duplicate content.

Finally, you might consider creating and submitting a detailed site map of your pages using Sitemaps. Sitemaps are an easy way for you to submit all your URLs to the Google index and get detailed reports about the visibility of your pages on Google. With Sitemaps, you can automatically keep us informed of all of your current pages and of any updates you make to those pages. Please note that submitting a Sitemap doesn't guarantee that all pages of your site will be crawled or included in our search results.

The folks at Cre8asite Forums recommend using the SWFObject if necessary.

My advice, and it is mentioned in the forum threads, use Flash elements within the site but do not use Flash 100%. Do not use Flash for the complete site, do not use Flash for the main navigation or main content area.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: November 9, 2007"

I'm sure you all had a wonderful week learning about the numerous conferences that we didn't liveblog -- Blogworld Expo (blogged by The Lisa and Lee Odden, adTech (blogged by a bunch of people, including the guys at Mashable), and well, that pretty much kept most of us busy. My next conference stop is Pubcon, guys. I intend to be quite busy. :) (By the way, if you're going to be there and want to blog, let us know.)

So, now that an entire week has passed, what is new in our little search bubble? Let's take a look.

Microsoft Live Webmaster Portal: Exclusive Screenshots

Barry walked through the brand new Microsoft Live Webmaster Portal earlier this week and offered some screenshots of the features. It looks pretty cool. I want access. kthx.

Monkey Business

Google was under fire earlier this week because of the ineffectiveness of its image-labeling algorithms. In fact, they need a lot of work. Two African American leaders were accidentally paired up with monkeys in an image search, obviously giving off the wrong impression and disappointing many. But is Google racist? I would think not. This is the nature of building up technology that hasn't been recognized yet. And the algorithms are far from perfect, but at least more of the relevant results especially as purchased through text links show up in the SERPs. (Hi Matt!)

Google Expanding Western Union Payments to Africa... but Patience is a Virtue

For those of you overseas, be advised that you'll soon be able to use Western Union payments. However, Google jumped the gun on this one -- it's not available yet.

Google: Update or No Update?

A few people reported earlier this week that Google's search results were being updated. A few people have lost considerable traffic and rankings. One pinpoints the problem to Google starting to take more aggressive measures on duplicate content. What are your suspicions, and have you noticed anything?

AOL to Acquire Quigo

AOL is buying Quigo for $300 million. The purchase includes two Quigo products: AdSonar, which is like AdSense, and FeedPoint for search engine marketing. Congratulations to both parties. You've been patted on the back by forum folks.

g.cn

Google has finally activated its g.cn domain name, making the shortest domain name ever owned by the search engine giant of the Western Hemisphere.

IAC Splits Companies and keeps Ask.com

IAC, the parent company of Ask.com, has split into 5 publicly traded companies. IAC will still be the umbrella company for Ask and Bloglines (which just came out with a pretty awesome Top 1000 Feeds this week).

Google Mobile OS: Yes, it's True

Well, rumors about the Googlephone have finally been addressed: there is no phone. Instead, Google is coming out with an open source mobile operating system. Would you use it? What about those awesome iPhones? I still love my Treo. Commitments, commitments...

Google AdSense Management Features Rolled Out, and it's Quick Too

Look out, publishers: there are some changes to AdSense code that will require you to update your web properties. And don't be afraid to implement this change: it takes about 10 minutes to go into effect.

Want to Get Google to Speak at an Event? Just Ask

Dear Google: my birthday is in 2 months. I was hoping you can speak at the party.

If you're one of those people who wants to have Google speak at an event (not a birthday party -- sorry), you can simply ask Google for their presence by filling out a speaker request form. Now you know.

If you do end up having a Googler attend your birthday party, please be sure to invite me.

Speaking of Events: Susan Clarifies Sitelinks

At a recent speaking engagement, Susan Moskwa answered some questions regarding sitelinks and said that if you have a maximum of 8 sitelinks but remove 2 of them (in hopes that you can supplement them for another 2), unfortunately, that's not how it works. Google will not pick out another two links to make up for the ones you blocked. Sorry Charlie.

Google Third Party PageRank Tools are Broken

Apparently, third party Google PageRank tools are broken. I'm not sure what that means but I hope that my tools are accurately giving me the correct PR. I don't think so anymore, then. Does that mean that all the sites I'm visiting are PR10 rather than PR4? How about it, Google?

You Can't See More than 1000 Results On Google Anymore

Google used to show 1000 results in the SERPs. Not anymore. Why is that anyway? I'm not sure why people are going to page #742 but I'm as curious as the next guy.

Google Acknowledges AdWords Bug

There's a bug in the AdWords console that indicates that your ads aren't showing. Thing is, they are. It's a bug that Google is aware of, and this has been confirmed by AdWordsAdvisor. Guess it'll be fixed soon.

Advertisers Seeing Category and Domain Ads AdWords Exclusion Feature

I checked two accounts, and I don't see what some members report is the new category and domain ads exclusion feature for AdWords. That would be quite cool, though.

ASP.NET Websites were in Trouble

If you have an ASP.NET website, shame on you. It's all about Apache these days, baby. But if you were unfortunate enough to go with Windows unable to get a Linux web host, you were unfortunately a victim of a recent issue with Googlebot where the user-agent would trip the code and return a 500 unavailable error. That sucks.

You Guys are Old

There's hope for me when I'm about to go into retirement: opt in to be an AdSense publisher and score. In a recent poll, we found out that 51% of respondents were over 30. Wow. How's that for interesting?

Bounced Check? Now You Know Why

If you've ever gotten a Google AdSense check bounced, you may be confused. Google has billions of dollars. So what is it about Google that causes this strange incident? Well, in one instance, a bank thought that the publisher was defrauding Google! You bank people are stupid. How about you verify with Google instead of bouncing the check and then incurring $10 fees on innocent people? (I have had bank issues lately myself. I hate you.)

Matt Cutts at Pubcon: Grill Him like a Cheese Sandwich

Okay, I'm kidding about the headline. But as I mentioned, I'll be at Pubcon, and so will Matt Cutts. In fact, Matt Cutts is giving the Keynote presentation at Pubcon, so if you have questions, ask now.

That is all. Have a nice weekend. :)

The Inside AdWords blog announced two changes to site targeting yesterday: placement targeting (targeting precise subsections of websites) and CPC bidding for placement targeting.

A few questions popped up on forums about the changes this will bring, and AdWordsAdvisor chimed in with a few responses:

The goal, for example, is that the Google AdWords team is trying to make it simpler for advertisers to "target specific, quality sites and pay per click."

With this greater flexibility and control, we expect more advertisers will target publisher sites. This may lead to increased competition in the auction and higher revenues for publishers, and while things may not change overnight, we expect this to lead to better overall monetization for publishers.

Is contextual advertising still plausible under this model? AdWordsAdvisor says yes:

As with CPM placement targeting, there is the chance that non-contextually relevant CPC placement targeted ads may appear on your site. As always, you're welcome to add these ads' URLs to your filter list to prevent them from being displayed. However, keep in mind that those advertisers are likely targeting other aspects of your site or audience, and the ads may still perform very well.

What about opting out of this and staying in site-targeted CPC? You can't pick and choose, unfortunately:

Publishers are currently only able to opt into or out of all placement-targeted ads.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

If you block a sitelink using the new tool in Webmaster Tools, can you still use up the maximum number of sitelinks allocated to you in the search results? The answer to this is no. In short, if you have all 8 sitelinks and you block two sitelinks, you will now have 6 sitelinks. Google will not pick out 2 other links on your site, to make up for the two you blocked.

Last week, Susan Moskwa of the Google Webmaster Central team went to the AMA Search Marketing Conference and had this question asked.

The Q&A, in full text, follows:

Q: If your site only has a few sitelinks and you use the new feature in webmaster tools to block one of those sitelinks, your site will show one less sitelink in search results. But if you have the maximum possible number of sitelinks and you block one of them, will you get a new one to fill its place, or do you just go down to [max-1] sitelinks?
A: Every time you block a sitelink, you'll have one less sitelink displayed in search results, regardless of whether you were at the "max" number of sitelinks or not.

As we discussed earlier, you can now see up to 8 sitelinks in action. So if you block one sitelink, you won't be able to add another link to the 8 -- your new max will be 7.

Additional questions and answers are at Google Groups.