May 13, 2008 Archives

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: May 13, 2008"

At the recent Web 2.0 expo (which I totally wish I went to), Matt Cutts presented on "what Google knows about spam." I actually watched the 9+ minute video (yay me!) and found it informative. Basically, he summarizes a few key points: you should build reputation and trust into your system, you can thwart and frustrate spammers (as they're people), and you should try to make your system hard to infiltrate by spammers.

He even added a slide (so that he wouldn't be "burned in effigy," as he put it), to acknowledge that SEO is not spam and that if you work with whitehat SEOs, they'll be pretty open in terms of what they're doing to optimize your site.

Here's the video, or you can go to Matt's site to watch the video, see the slides, and read the tons of comments he received.

Thanks Matt for the useful presentation. You did a good job. :)

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.

The Google News Blog has announced that it is now incorporating YouTube videos with Google News results. As the blog post explains, "You'll see the prefix "Video" next to story titles, and clicking on these video links will open a video player directly on the page so you can watch the video right there."

While this was announced in August of 2007, it seems that forum members are starting to see this more often, though not enough. As one member writes:

Our site is a contributer for Google News and I've been tracking our articles by doing a search of "site:example.com". While counting the links, I uncovered some unused JavaScript in the Google News code. It seems to indicate the possibility of YouTube results mixed within Google News results.

It seems that YouTube videos within Google News is still not mainstream. Only a few carriers as of the August post (CBS, Reuters, and some Hearst TV properties) were offering video.

Meanwhile, the forum member suggests that it's possible that YouTube and Google accounts will be merged in the future, as he says that when you sign up for a new YouTube account, you're asked to confirm your Google account data, including Webmaster Tools information. It'd be interesting to see if this is incorporated in Google News results.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday, the Internets were abuzz with news that Google has launched Friend Connect, which appears to be "APIs for Open Social participants to pull profile information from social networks into third party websites," according to TechCrunch.

Google's own press release mentions that Friend Connect makes websites social.

The move is applauded by many forum members, who feel that it's great that Google is taking the initiative to make the web more social. Others are a bit skeptical for a variety of reasons, including the fact that if Google's code snippet is on every page on the web, they can learn your habits quickly. Further, another concern lies in the numerous personas assumed by some individuals on the web. If you accept the terms, you're no longer separating your different personalities; instead, the web will be a "big bucket of shared data."

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

About a week ago I ran a poll that asked Can Someone Hurt A Competitors Google Rankings With Links? I ran the poll because there is a lot of debate around this topic. So I figured, why not ask you guys and you guys said that yes, competitors can hurt your Google rankings. Here are the details of the poll.

In short, 70% of the 135 responses said that yes, a competitor can hurt my Google rankings. 19% said, no, competitors cannot and 11% said they have no idea either way.

Here is the break down:
:: Yes said 94 respondents or 70%
:: No said 26 respondents or 19%
:: I Have No Idea said 15 respondents or 11%

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Try it, a search on bowling or lawyers and so on all may return a fourth line to the search ads at Yahoo Search. The fourth line might show a geo-location. Here are some pictures:

If the advertiser is geo-targeting the location of where you are searching for, then the fourth line may show the location. As I explained at BrandVerity Blog on this. This seems to be a new behavior from Yahoo, but yes, Google has been doing this for a while.

Google has been doing this at least since July 2004 and has even tried showing your exact address under the ad, on occassion - which is neat.

Here are Google ads for plumbers:

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Update: Yahoo has sent me a statement:

Yahoo! started labeling the location of ads last just week with the roll out of a new “geo labels” feature. The labeling is displayed primarily for localized queries, like restaurants, florists, mechanics, etc. and is based on the advertiser’s geo targeting preferences and the user’s location of interest.

Google has moved the location of the "Saved Locations" feature in Google Maps. Now, you should see an arrow down on the right hand side of the search box, in Google Maps. Clicking on that arrow will show you your saved locations. It is in that area where you can find the "Edit saved locations" feature, as well.

Here are screen shots to illustrate:

(1) Click on the arrow down:

(2) Will trigger a box to open up below with your saved locations and a way to manage them:

Maps Guide Brian explains in a Google Groups thread:

I understand that it's a bit inconvenient for those of you loyal "Saved Locations" users, but assuming the drop-down arrow remains, any suggestions on how we can improve this feature? I'd love to hear everyone's feedback!

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Dozens and dozens of Google AdSense publishers have reported receiving an email from Google with the subject line, "Important Account Information." The email basically was a reminder to those publishers who have not yet accepted the updated terms and conditions from February.

The issue is, the email was sent to many publishers who have already accepted the new terms and conditions. As AdSenseAdvisor said in the WebmasterWorld thread:

Our team sent an email today with the subject line "Important Account Information", which was a reminder to accept the February changes to the Terms and Conditions. However, we have found that we sent the email to a number of publishers who already agreed to the new terms. We apologize for the confusion caused, and in the next few days we will be sending another message to publishers who received today's email in error.

What is a bit humorous to me, is that Google AdSense recently sent out a mass email to publishers who were not suppose to get that email. In November, Google sent out a tax update email that looked to be a bit "phishy," because it asked publishers to login and update their tax information. The email was sent to publishers who have completed their tax information already, and was a mistake - it should have been sent to only a select number of publishers.

Same here, this email should have been sent to only a select number of publishers who have not yet agreed to the new terms and conditions.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.