November 2, 2007 Archives

Happy Fall, everyone! Now that Halloween is out of the way and you didn't get any candy, we can reminisce the funny outfits that people wore during the holiday.

So let's start with the highlight of the week for many:

Halloween and the Search Sphere

This is Matt Cutts.

This is The Lisa Barone.

This is Lee Odden. This photo was not taken on Halloween but it was posted to Flickr on October 31st so it's totally fair game. Sorry, Lee. :)

The search engines (and Search Engine Roundtable!) dressed up for Halloween too. Did you see?

For more great Halloweeny goodness, check out Search Engine Land's Search in Pictures column for today. That Ask.com pumpkin looks awesome.

New Google Webmaster Tool: Geographic Location

Vanessa Fox is so proud of herself: she wrote on Search Engine Land about Google's brand new tool to set the geographic region of your website. Can I say awesome? Vanessa did. Now it's your turn.

Social Stuff

Facebook is soon to start a pay per action model to make money off their network. Google has opened its OpenSocial network and has had MySpace, SixApart, and Bebo sign on. The competition mounts.

US Residents: Get More Microsoft Analytics with Gatineau

Microsoft Gatineau has opened its beta doors to US residents only so that you can take advantage of the new analytics which will soon become a competitor (or complement) to Google Analytics. Sign ups begin now. US residents need only apply.

Microsoft Webmaster Tools Coming Soon

Now that Gatineau is out of the way, Microsoft needs to tackle another obstacle: Live Search Webmaster Portal, which will compete with Yahoo! Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Central. It's coming, but how soon?

Gmail Comes Out with Version 1.1

Like I said, it's not version 2.0, but Gmail has begun sporting a newer interface with a few small tweaks and speed gains. For those of you who still don't have it, you're really not missing much. For those of you who think you've had it for a few months, I don't buy it; it really isn't that much different. :P

Oh, and by the way, not everyone has Gmail IMAP either. It's not the end of the world. I promise. I don't even use it.

GOOG = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I want 10,000 shares of Google stock. Right now. Today. Please? That would make me a millionaire since Google hit the $700 barrier this week. Some people are seriously partying. Google just invests in aircraft. Maybe they're planning on wiring the skies. Sweet.

Is Yahoo Search Marketing Encouraging Laziness?

This one advertiser using Yahoo Search Marketing decided to ban a domain that he didn't want his ads displayed in. Well, guess what: they circumvented the ban and created similar domains to display their ads on. Should they be doing their due diligence about who they accept as publishers? You tell me.

Get Google AdSense Resources

Google AdSense has added a resource tab where you can access the blog, webinars, the AdSense calendar, and the AdSense Help Forum. This certainly makes life a little easier for some.

AdSense Reporting Issue is Fixed Again

Google AdSense stopped reporting for awhile. Then it was fixed. Then it broke again. Now it is fixed again. In other words, it's a matter of time until it breaks again.

Yahoo Search Update

It seems that rankings are dropping and increasing in Yahoo's latest 2007 search update. It's too early to tell how this will impact Yahoo search, but Yahoo has confirmed that it is indeed happening.

Google Does Not Assign Dollar Values to Organic Listings

Even though we've posted a screenshot and explained that there are dollar values associated to organic results from an internal Googler, it's actually used by the AdWords team and has no relationship to the organic SERPs. Big whoops to whoever leaked that photo.

And Finally, PageRank

Come on, you knew we'd save the worst best last for last. We talked about the big PageRank update last week, and now we followed up this week with a confirmation from Matt Cutts that selling links got you in trouble. How do they know that you're selling links? SEOs are probably ratting on each other. All hope is not lost, however, because you're getting increased traffic now, right? If not, you might be seeing lowered rankings. Where are you at now if your PageRank dropped? It's been a few days; let's revisit the question again in the comments.

Have a great weekend!

When search engines parse through billions of websites to find results that are relevant, it's somewhat miraculous, to say the least. A WebmasterWorld thread asks, "how does Google do it?"

There are a few parts to this answer: the Google File System is "a scalable distributed file system for large distributed data-intensive applications. It provides fault tolerance while running on inexpensive commodity hardware, and it delivers high aggregate performance to a large number of clients."

Additionally, one member suspects that Google's entire index is stored in RAM (!!!), though that sounds pretty hard to believe and another member disputes this claim.

Other factors include datacenters throughout the world, a clean interface without too many graphics, and of course, the algorithm. In case you're not familiar with this element of computer science, a well-coded and well-executed algorithm can locate millions of entries in a short amount of disk accesses.

Even more, Google uses column-oriented databases (not row-oriented databases that most webmasters use), and according to another member, Google has eliminated middle-tier hosts and has its datacenters plugged in directly to the Internet like powerful ISPs. Their datacenters are strategically placed close to densely populated areas.

It's certainly cool how all these factors are contributing to the Google experience.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

As promised last month, we're going to report monthly on Google SERP changes. This month, the following observations on WebmasterWorld have been made:

• Some optimized sites that are being changed for better relevance are just not performing as well. Their rankings seem to be doing worse.
• "Boring websites" with no linkbait are vulnerable to ranking shifts.
• Bigger sites do better. ("Size does matter.")
• Some datacenters have shown changes, but they reverted to their original rankings. Forum members suspect it's part of a new data push (or experimentation, at least).

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Google is soon to launch OpenSocial, which I alluded to earlier this week. MySpace, which has recently lost a lot of users to Facebook, has joined forces with the OpenSocial developer initiative. Additionally, Bebo and SixApart have joined as well.

What does this mean for Google? Money.

I think you can be pretty sure that Google makes a profit on the spread between Adwords revenues from ad placed on MySpace and Adsense payouts to MySpace.

Can we expect the Google stock to rise to $800? Maybe.

Is it too late for them, though? Only time can tell.

And finally, can small players participate or is it also too late? Forum members are skeptical of the success of the small person over giants like Google and Microsoft.

Coverage is at Techmeme, and forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

How many people can participate in online collaboration with Google Docs now supporting 38 languages? According to the Official Google Docs blog, 99% of the world's Internet users.

Google Docs now has added support for the following languages: Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Filipino, Greek, Hindi, Latvian, Lithuanian, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, and Slovenian.

Pretty cool stuff.

Forum discussion is at Google Groups.

About two weeks ago we reported about AdSense reporting not matching up. Then a few days later we reported that the reports were fixed.

Well, not really.

The Inside AdSense Blog updated us saying that the reports are now fixed, again.

We'd like to provide you with an update on the recent channels issue -- our engineers have been working to provide publishers with their missing data, and you should see this data in your account by early next week. Thanks again for your patience!

Prior, Google fixed the issue of the reports not syncing up. But now, Google was able to get the old data, that was missing, back into the reports.

AdSenseAdvisor updated us via the very long WebmasterWorld thread saying:

In case you all didn't see our blog post a few minutes ago -- our engineers have been working to fill in all of the channels data that was misreported last week. You should see the correct data in your accounts by early next week.

Thanks again for your patience!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

This morning, Google has seemed to just add a new tab to the Google AdSense console named resources. Within that tab are the following resources by category:

The community category has the Inside AdSense Blog, AdSense Help Forum, Webinars and the AdSense Calendar. The find help category has the Help Center, a Demos & Guides and the Troubleshooting Wizards. The optimization category has Optimization Tips, Success Stories, Publisher Tools and Webmaster Central. The references category has Program Policies, Webmaster Guidelines, Ad Formats, the Glossary, Terms & Conditions and the Privacy Policy.

Here is a screen capture:

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

There is some buzz that Google AdSense is expanding their Western Union payment options to Egypt and Morocco.

One DigitalPoint Forums thread has a screen capture from a user who is based in Morocco saying that he now sees the Western Union payment option.

Another thread at DigitalPoint Forums has someone from Egypt saying that Western Union is now an option for them also.

I reviewed the current AdSense documentation and it does not say anything about those two countries. It may be that the page is just not updated yet. The countries that can received payment via Western Union, according to that page, include China (Mainland), Malaysia, Pakistan, Romania, Philippines, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Colombia.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Yahoo launched domain blocking within Yahoo Search Marketing (their search ad solution) to help give advertisers control on which sites, domains and subdomains they do not want their ads to show up on.

So if you see your ad is displayed on site abc.com and abc.com is not converting for you, you can block it. Great, no? Well, according to a Search Engine Watch Forums thread, maybe not.

Many believe that this new feature is encouraging Yahoo to be lazy about who they accept as publishers and partners for displaying their ads. Let me explain. Yahoo has a contextual network called the Yahoo Publisher Network, which I write about over here. Those in the Yahoo Publisher Network have the potential to display your ad on their site and earn income for each and every click.

Now, if you block their site by domain, they can just create a brand new one and start all over again. Is Yahoo getting lazy when it comes to blocking these new or even old partners from creating low quality sites and displaying ads on them? Some think so. And as an FYI, the argument can also easily be made for Google's AdSense network.

Member MSI explains:

I agree I blocked one domain to start (findogo.com), now I get clicks from findogobr.com, findogo.net, findogocr.com, fondogoso.com etc.etc.etc. Didn't see these domains until I blocked findogo.com. So if I block 250 and gain at least four per blocked I will then have 1000 more bad partners to deal with....what a joke.

That's why I saw clicks go up and conversions go down when I had them blocking them through my rep months ago!!!!!!

Wake up Yahoo..you lost my last client in your engine this week all because of these type of issues.

Another advertiser said, "YSM is a disaster since they started domain blocking. While there used to be a good share of bad affiliates, now the rate of new bad affiliates is out of control. As fast as I can put them in the filter, new ones come up."

Can such a nice feature cause so many problems?

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.