November 1, 2007 Archives

Less than a month after Google broke $600 a share, it looks like Google has hit the $700 barrier against analysts' expectations that it would happen by the end of 2008:

So the question is - if analysts predict that it was supposed to hit $700 next year, will it go up to $800 instead? Should you invest?

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

It isn't quite a 2.0 release as some blogs claim, as there isn't anything substantial besides speed improvements, a new Contacts form, and a different drop down menu for "More Actions," but Gmail has been updated.

If you don't notice anything new, either you have the new version and didn't realize it, or you'll have to check your top right hand corner and click on "Newer Version." (Some people still don't have it yet, though, as I've confirmed.)

Then you can switch back to the Older Version.

The only noticeable differences for me are the drop-down menu (I'm a heavy Labeler, so I use this often) and the speed -- it looks good. I did get an error yesterday where I was prompted to use Gmail in basic HTML (sadly), but overall, the changes look good.

Now where is Folders support, guys?

Gmail has also written about these code improvements on the Official Gmail Blog.

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

DigitalPoint Forums users believe that Matt Cutts is a tease. After the paid link debate, instead of being a nice fairy princess for Halloween, he dresses up to an evil a sexy LOLcat:

I think it looks hot. What do you say? :)

Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums.

There are many reports at WebmasterWorld that Google AdSense publishers who have signed up for Secured Express Delivery of their AdSense payment have not yet received it yet.

Typically, it takes about one week from when you payment is approved to get the secured express check. But now, it appears that publishers who opt for standard delivery have already received their checks. Typically, standard delivery can take one to two weeks longer than the secure express check. Hence the reason for concern.

Google uses DHL to ship those checks via secure express delivery. In fact, AdSense publishers are charged a $30.00 processing fee for each check delivered via that method.

Google does however ask you to wait until the 5th of the month before requesting a reissue of your check. How do yo do that? Just fill out this form and you should be all set.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The Zorgloob blog shared screen captures of an internal Google tool that assigns dollar values to the organic search results at Google. The screen shot below is provided by Zorgloob:

Notice the various values, including GG Score, Adv, Vertical, and PVs. As soon as I saw this, when Philipp Lenssen blogged about it, I dismissed this tool as an AdWords tool. Heck, why would Google organic assign these values to the organic results. I thought, this is a nice tool to find potential AdWords customers. How much is this potential customer worth (GG Score)? Do they already advertise in AdWords (ADV)? What vertical would we place them in (Vertical)? How many PageViews can we generate for this site's advertisement (PVs)?

Later, Matt Cutts, of Google, confirmed that this is not a Google organic tool:

Our organic search results have always been completely independent from our paid advertisements. We consider the objectivity of our search results to be paramount to our success and would never compromise that in any way.

The screenshot shows a tool that is not used by the search quality team in any way. It is a tool used by members of our AdWords sales team to help prioritize new customer acquisition. We are strongly committed to maintaining the integrity of our organic search results.

Very clear.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Microsoft announced that they will be launching the Live Search Webmaster Portal, similar to Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Central.

Microsoft started inviting webmasters into the beta starting around August 31st of this year. I have not heard of anyone actually seeing the portal, as of yet. But that might change real soon.

Yesterday, I personally received an invite to the Live Search Webmaster Portal Beta. The email read:

On behalf of the entire Live Search Webmaster Portal Beta team, we are very happy to invite you to be one of the first beta users. We look forward to working with you over the coming months on the Live Search Webmaster Portal Beta program. Please confirm your participating webmaster/SEO manager contact(s) by sending an email to XXXXXX@microsoft.com.

An email invite to join the Connect site for this beta will follow shortly from XXXXXX@microsoft.com (you may want to add this address to your junk mail filter’s “Safe Senders” list). You will be asked to accept the Terms of Use for the beta program, and will then be entered into the queue for assignment of credentials to the Webmaster Portal.

Thank you again for your support of the Live Search Webmaster Portal Beta.

So I have a feeling, I will be seeing something really soon. I am still awaiting that email, so time will tell.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that Google has also done a backlink update recently.

Now, I think most people in this forum thread are talking about the link:www.domain.com command when searched at Google.com. That backlink command is known to just show a sampling on one's backlinks and no the full set of backlinks.

If that is the case and people are noticing a change (or increase) in the number of backlinks reported, then there is not much to those numbers. I personally would ignore such an update. What you do want to look at are your backlinks reported in Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer.

There have been additional reports of Google Blog Search not return recent backlink counts for specific URL checks. For example, an article I wrote yesterday, shows 0 backlinks in Google Blog Search, click here to see. This appears to be a small, temporary issue in Google. I suspect it will be fixed shortly.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.