February 2009 Archives

Ask.com has gone too far. I have given them a lot of negative attention recently but they deserve it all. They are now framing the landing page of the search results. Let me rephrase that... If you search at Ask.com, click on a listing, Ask.com will put the result in a frame, below their search results.

Here is a picture, notice the bar at the top:

Want to see it for yourself? Go to this URL to see.

At the top right, there is a little "X" icon that allows you to hide the bar and even "never show again." Here is a picture:

This is just so wrong and I am surprised I missed Pandia's coverage of this news on the 14th.

Searchers are not happy about this at WebmasterWorld. Robzilla said, "this annoys me as both a user and a webmaster, and overall just seems a little desperate." Senior member, skipfactor, accurately points out that the search ads are not framed in.

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: February 27, 2009"

In this week's edition, I covered Yahoo's new ad tools that should help them gain support. Also, I discussed Google Search's recent "brand push." Google Blog Search is still working on a solution. I discussed in more detail, the link clique concept - worth watching, in my opinion. Yahoo lowered minimum bids for some advertisers. Google updates their image index again. Google News added 20,000 new sources. Google News also dropped publishers by accident. AdWords is requiring you to link to your Analytics account. Google joined Twitter! We got the Mardi Gras logos archived. That was this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

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Some Of The Topics Discussed:

• Advertisers Are Excited For Yahoo's New Online Ad Tools
• Is There a Recent Big Brand Bias at Google Search?
• Google Blog Search To Test New Link Command Features Next Week
• Link Building 2009 - Build Your Own Cliques For Link Relevancy
• Yahoo Search Marketing Lowering Minimum Bids For Many
• February '09 Google Image Search Update?
• Is Google Latitude Anticipating Your Travel Plans?
• Google News Adds Over 20,000 News Sources
• Google News Dropping Publishers From Index
• AdWords Requiring Analytics To Be "Linked" To Send Cost Data
• Google Joins Twitter, The Online World Goes Haywire
• Mardi Gras '09 Logos From Live, DogPile, AOL & Others

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

There were reports this morning at about 1am (EST), that the Google AdSense console was down. A DigitalPoint Forums thread has several publishers upset with the downtime, but soon later it came back up.

The Wall Street Journal blog has confirmation from Google about this downtime. I am a bit shocked they bothered to cover AdSense console downtime, but as they said:

AdSense is the online-ad server of choice for thousands of Web sites, and while it’s not unheard of for it to experience down time, it comes in a week that’s already seen the catchphrase “Gfail” bandied about.

Google told the Wall Street Journal that the downtime was for about 90 minutes and did not impact all publishers.

This news comes days after Gmail went offline for a couple hours.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

If you look at Google News a year ago, you will notice they said they had "4,500 news" sources. Now, if you visit Google News today, you will see they have 25,000 news sources.

I do not know when Google changed that number, but I believe it was some time in the recent past.

I know publishers are constantly being added as sources to Google News but to explode from 4,500 sources to 25,000 sources in a year? Wow, that is pretty impressive. Does quality suffer? I am not sure.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

I cover Google a lot here, because that is what people talk about in the forums - mostly. But yesterday, Google joined Twitter at http://twitter.com/google and the online world went berserk. Google has 26,093 right now and it is growing. Yahoo http://twitter.com/yahoo only has 4,709 and they have been on Twitter for a while, and Live Search http://twitter.com/live_search only has 1,434 followers. Let's not forget Ask.com http://twitter.com/askdotcom with a whopping 94 followers.

Google joins and gets 25,000 in 24 hours. What brand power!

FYI, if you want to follow me on Twitter, I am at http://twitter.com/rustybrick. I only have 3,400 followers right now.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and Sphinn.

There is an important change coming up for those Google AdWords users who use Google Analytics to track their campaigns. Brad posted this information yesterday, but just in case you missed it, here it is again.

This is the email being sent to those that are impacted by this change. But I am concerned that not everyone who would be impacted by the change received the email, so here it is:

On March 4th, we will be updating how Google Analytics imports AdWords data to improve security and provide greater control and convenience. This update will require that your AdWords and Analytics accounts are linked and that you have "Apply Cost Data" selected. We are proactively notifying Administrators of Analytics accounts that will be affected by this change (you either have auto-tagging enabled and/or have a linked account without cost data applied to some or all of your profiles).

If you are receiving AdWords traffic (e.g. Visits), but the AdWords reports in Google Analytics do not contain impression or click data (e.g. CPC, Impressions, ROI), then it is likely that AdWords and Analytics are not linked or the cost data option is turned off for that profile. The cost data import option is selected by default when linking your accounts; however, new profiles created after the linking process may not have cost data implemented.

There is a Google AdWords Help thread with additional instructions on how to link your accounts, if you need to take this action.

AdWordsPro Stephen explained that this change is being done for security reasons.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

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: February 26, 2009"

Two days ago, I ran a poll asking if SEO companies implement SEO changes or just recommend changes to be implemented. Meaning, does your SEO company normally start with coding changes and upload files to the web server.

I now have the poll results, which shows the majority of SEO companies do both. They will make coding changes and/or offer recommendations, based on what their client wants them to do.

Here is the break down of 170+ responses to the question, Do You Implement SEO Recommendations or Just Make Recommendations?

:: Both, Implement When Asked & Offer Recommendations When Asked said 121 respondents or 70%
:: Offer Recommendations Only said 41 respondents or 24%
:: Implement Changes on Site Only said 10 respondents or 6%

The numbers seem logical to me. I wonder why 6% would only conduct SEO services if they can make the changes themselves on the site. I assume it gives them more control and thus makes them more secure in getting the changes they need done, so they can see results?

Forum discussion continued at HighRankings Forum.

There seems to be a Yahoo Search update taking place now. A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the update. We do not have official confirmation from the Yahoo Search Blog yet, but we didn't have confirmation the last update either.

The first report came in early yesterday morning and since then, many others confirmed seeing an update as well. Let me pull out the key findings from the thread:

• Link counts may have dropped
• Some are reporting canonical issues
• One person reported "different titles and descriptions for singular vs. plural of my main keyword. It's the same URL, so kind of odd."

Why did Yahoo not announce this update? Well, maybe they will today or tomorrow. But the Yahoo Search Japan blog announced it the other day. It translates to:

Yahoo! In search, Yahoo! Inc. UEBUSACHIENJIN has developed the "Yahoo! Search Technology (YST)" has started a full update of the index.

The Index Update?

YST, every day to make a more user-friendly search engine, such as Japan's own and respond to the world stage and improve the work of Akira Osamu develop new features and functions. To reflect the results of this search engine, built-in indexer will update the entire index.
Position changes are expected to be improved with the results of this search. The full completion of the update takes a few days.

Yahoo! Search Project

The last update was a small hiccup on February 9th but a larger update was on or around January 19th.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: We helped coerce Yahoo to post weather updates again.

Since November 2008, Google Blog search's link command has been scanning too much information, including blogrolls. Since then, Google vowed to fix the blogroll issue with the link command back in early December. At the end of December, Google said they fixed the issue but there was still more work to be done. That was indeed true, because there are still many complaints over Google Blog Search's matching skills.

Googler, Jeremy Hylton, has said that Google is going to be releasing a "user visible experiments early next month," which is next week, to better target Google Blog Search's issue with "blogroll detectors" and the link command.

You can find Jeremy's post in a Google Groups thread, I will quote it here:

This is just a brief status report. We've been continuing to experiment with blogroll detectors. We're going to do some user- visible experiments early next month, probably starting with link: queries. I'll follow up here when the experiments are running.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Outstanding news for marketers of all kinds, Google has quietly opened up Google Ad Planner to everyone, or at least, that is what it seems. Go to google.com/adplanner and give it a try, you should be able to sign in with your Google Account and agree to the terms of service and then start using this incredibly robust and powerful tool.

Google launched Ad Planner in June 2008 as an invite only program. I was privileged to be included in this release and I provided detailed screen captures of Ad Planner in action. Take a quick look, the data is amazing.

Like I said above, all marketers, including search marketers, print marketers, water marketers :) need to check this out.

Again, go to google.com/adplanner now and give it a try.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: It has been open since November. I am sorry, I should have known this, we blogged it at Search Engine Land.

Many Yahoo Search advertisers are reporting that Yahoo has decreased the minimum bid requirements on some keywords in their campaigns over the past couple days. A WebmasterWorld thread has several advertisers confirming this activity.

In fact, I received a message from Yahoo with the exact same notification on February 24th at 8:37 PM. The Yahoo Search Marketing "alert" said:

Minimum bid requirements have decreased for 'Company Name' [account #]. Some of your inactive Sponsored Search keywords are now active. Review bids now.

Why has Yahoo reduced the bids for some keywords? Don't they want to make more money?

Well, it seems that some keywords were "inactive" and were making Yahoo no money at all. Possibly by decreasing the minimum bids, Yahoo has reactivated these keywords and is now capable of making some money on these keywords. Thus activating hundreds, if not thousands of new ads into the search marketplace automatically, but with giving notification.

In January, Yahoo had the nerve to make changes to advertiser campaigns after there was an outcry already. So clearly this is still going on, but Yahoo is at least sending "alerts" now.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

One of the official representatives in the Google AdSense Help Forums, AdSensePro Jen, has posted three threads in an effort to help publishers who are having payment issues. Those threads are named:

• I have no visible holds on my account, and have not been paid
• I have requested a check reissue but not received a confirmation
• My check/payment was returned or expired and I'm unable to remove a hold on my account

The first thread is the only thread that has any current complaints in it, but the threads are less than 12 hours old anyway.

Let me break out the payment issues with each thread:

(1) I have no visible holds on my account, and have not been paid:

Please reply to this thread if you meet the following criteria:

- you have no visible holds on your account
- you have over $100 in earnings
- you have not yet been paid

However, please keep in mind that the payment hold issue that was occurring earlier was fixed after the 2/15 Feb payment cycle deadline. As a result, if you believe you were under this issue, you should be paid in the next cycle at the end of March.

(2) I have requested a check reissue but not received a confirmation:

If you have once submitted a check reissue request and never received a response, please reply to this thread.

Keep in mind that if you requested a reissue and received a reply about your earnings being credited back in 15 days, the request was processed and there is nothing more you need to do.

Moreover, if you are using EFT, you cannot request a reissue, you must check with your bank as to why the earnings were not received.

(3) My check/payment was returned or expired and I'm unable to remove a hold on my account:

Please reply to this thread if you have a payment that was returned or expired and after you entered your updated address/account information, the hold still hasn't been removed from your account.

Hopefully, you don't have to reply to any of these threads.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

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: February 25, 2009"

I live in Google Reader and I am sure many of you do also, based on my FeedBurner statistics at least. That being said, Google continues to make Google Reader more useful and they have asked in a recent Google Groups thread for feedback. They want to know which media players, both audio and video, do you want supported by Google Reader.

Google Reader already supports YouTube and most embedded audio files. They also support Flickr videos, which was a recent addition. They also support MySpace, Jumpcut, Grouper, IFILM, Metacafe, Revver, Vimeo, vSocial, Monsters and Critics, Odeo, Yahoo! Video, Brightcove, Dailymotion, blip.tv and MSN Soapbox embedded players. If you think they are missing anything, make sure to tell Google in this feedback form and Google might include that format.

Google Reader does have some rules, them being:

Please keep in mind that all embedded media providers have to be using Flash, and never QuickTime. Also, 'embed' tags have to be used as opposed to 'object' tags. We also don't guarantee support and reserve the right to end support at any time.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

A week ago today, we reported that some webmasters noticed the link reports in Google Webmaster Tools was not being updated or was not allowing for download.

On the 19th, Google said in a Google Webmaster Help forum thread that they fixed the issue for some sites. Then on the 23rd, they said they fixed it for all sites:

Ok everyone....thanks for responding here. It looks like there was a hiccup over the weekend with this fix getting completely rolled out to everyone.

With some extra legwork this morning the fix should be in place for all. Is anyone still seeing this issue?

But the issue has not been resolved for many. We have many messages both in that same Google Webmaster Help thread and a WebmasterWorld thread that this bug is still an issue today, the 25th.

So I guess Google will keep plugging away at the issue and hopefully resolve it soon.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday, Yahoo announced new ad solutions for advertisers to better target and reach potential customers. I wrote about the news at Search Engine Land, but let me sum it up here quickly.

Yahoo is offering three new offerings:

• Search Retargeting, which gives advertisers the ability to target display advertising based on user search activities;
• Enhanced Retargeting, which allows advertisers to deliver dynamically generated display ads across the Yahoo! network based on user activity on an advertiser's site; and
• Enhanced Targeting capabilities for search advertising, including ad scheduling and demographic targeting within search.

Advertisers can use search data to target display ads to them on other properties. This is in the realm of merging search ads with behavioral ads. Plus, Yahoo will be joining Google and Microsoft in giving marketers the ability to target search ads based on time of day (day parting) and using demographic data such as gender, age, income and so on.

To my surprise, the discussion around this news at WebmasterWorld is mostly positive. I would have thought that marketers would be skeptical and a bit sarcastic in their discussion about the new offerings. But I was wrong, marketers seem excited about the news.

WebmasterWorld moderator, eWhisper, said:

I love these new offering from yahoo. Yahoo has had some of the best behavioral targeting results for display ads of anyone out there. I've seen interstitials combined with behavioral targeting break double digit CTRs on Y.

If they can take that same targeting to search, and make a search/banner connection - they will have a great product.

I'm hoping they combine this with attribution management to show when banner are display/clicked how it affects your search CTR and eventual conversions.

Looking forward to exploring this one.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

We are hearing reports from several publishers in the Google AdSense network that Google is testing larger font types in their ads.

We have threads at both WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums discussing both seeing this in action and the results from the larger fonts.

Some like the larger fonts because they feel it draws more attention to the ads, which leads to more clicks and more earnings. But some don't like how the large fonts stand out. They feel it distracts from the content on the site and they have no way to downsize the font.

Maybe this will lead to giving publishers control over the font size, like they recently did with AdSense Font Types just last week.

JenSense has some pictures of the larger font types being tested.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Yesterday, my brother-in-law called me and asked me where Google Latitude was showing him as being. I looked at iGoogle and loaded up his profile to see that Google Latitude put him in Florida, at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to be exact. He told me, he was in Newark Airport, in New Jersey, waiting to board a flight to Florida, to go to that airport.

He asked me if Google uses Gmail data to figure out that he will be in Florida soon. He thought that maybe, Google read his emails and figured out that he will be in Florida at this time. I said, there is no way that this was possible. It must be a bug.

I quickly asked him to go to ShowMyIP.com and read me what he saw. He said, the ISP data come back as being in Newark. At that point, I figured it was likely not the Wifi network reporting back as being in Florida. I still dismissed it as some weird bug and told him not to worry that Google is anticipating where he will be based on his personal emails.

There is no doubt there have been many many reports of Google Latitude showing people at the wrong location. The accuracy of this stuff is not perfect, so it is possible. But still, to show the airport of where he will be in the next few hours, well - that is a bit creepy.

I guess it is possible Google mapped certain ISP locations in the wrong location. Google has reported this bug over and over again and has asked to be notified via the forums if this is a problem, so they can fix those mappings.

Yesterday, Google began working on other Latitude bugs. In a Google Mobile Help thread, Googler, Chris said:

Thank you for all your detailed reports. There is in fact a bug in the background location updates feature that we're currently working on for an upcoming version that includes other several other bug fixes. The intended behavior is exactly what many of you have asked for -- Maps is closed but a small location update process runs in the background that updates based on if you are moving and how fast. I'll describe the known issue below as many of you have noted. Please let me know if you experience any differences:

- Background sharing is not currently working on Windows Mobile phones when closing Maps for mobile and choosing 'Yes' to allow background sharing. This is a known issue and is being fixed for the next release.

- If you leave Maps for mobile open in the background by minimizing it or opening another app, location updates will continue as long as your phone is awake.

But still, what are the chances of Google showing an airport that my brother-in-law will be at in the next few hours, even when he wasn't there yet? Pretty crazy.

Forum discussion at Google Mobile Help.

It seems like Google News has been dropping publishers from their index. We have several posts in the Google News Help forum. There are a bunch of threads from upset publishers, including two large threads here and here.

Jason Dowdell, Founder & Editor of MarketingShift.com was one of those publishers who noticed his site being dropped by Google News. Jason told me his site has been in Google News for over 4 years now and as of today, his content is no longer getting picked up. In addition, Jason told me, he no longer sees the "News" tab in Google Webmaster Tools Diagnostics area. To me, that is a clear sign that his site is no longer syndicated by Google News.

As you can see, the last article indexed by Google News from MarketingShift.com was from yesterday, even though, MarketingShift.com has new articles today.

Jason feels like Google is going after the smaller sites making him feel that Google doesn't value the small publishers who work hard to produce "quality content day in and day out." Jason told me that he, "personally spent $25k a year for the past 4 years on MarketingShift, by employing full time writers because we wanted to make sure we remained in Google News and abided by their quality content guidelines."

Mr. Dowdell suspects that Google is dropping the small publishers to help "save the newspaper business." He quoted Google's CEO, in a recent CNN publication, with his solution to help the newspaper industry:

I think the solution is tighter integration. In other words, we can do this without making an acquisition. The term I've been using is 'merge without merging.' The Web allows you to do that, where you can get the Web systems of both organizations fairly well integrated, and you don't have to do it on exclusive basis.

Is Google really going this far to drop small publishers in order to try to save the newspaper business? As far as I know, this site (which is a small publication), is still indexed by Google News.

For all I know, this can be a temporary bug. Google has not yet made a post or commented on these allegations but I will try to get you a comment shortly.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Update: Google told me this was an indexing bug. Here is a statement from Google:

Starting earlier today, some publishers noticed that Google News was not crawling their site properly. This issue has now been resolved. We know how important Google News is to publishers, and we take issues like these very seriously.

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: February 24, 2009"

The other day we wrote about being your own SEO client isn't easy, but clearly that doesn't stop the bulk of you from working on your own solo projects. We ran a poll, asking which would you rather do? Either work with clients or do your own work? Most of you said, you prefer to do both and mix it up.

Here is the break down of the 126 responses:

:: Both Clients & My Projects said 56 respondents or 44.44%
:: For My Projects said 48 respondents or 38.1%
:: For Client Projects said 22 respondents or 17.46%

The results really do not surprise me at all. Doing both client work and self work give you the advantage of a stable income while experimenting on how you can make yourself rich overnight. ;-)

There are many quality comments in our previous article on the topic of being your own SEO client from first hand SEOs who have done it both.

Forum discussion continued at HighRankings Forum.

In August 2005 was the first time I saw "According To" Google results show up in the search results. Since then, they show up for very specific queries.

I spotted an interesting thread, where a webmaster asked why is his client showing up in the Google "according to" results. The thread is at Google Webmaster Help forums, and the webmaster showed that his client ranks for the search query octopus top speed. Here is a screen capture:

The webmaster asked a valid question, i.e. how did this happen? He said:

I am interested to know how this data is sourced and how we can improve the A-Z-Animals.com website so this happens for all the animals listed on the site (over 350 animals are listed with comprehensive fact lists) as the client has worked extremely hard to source reliable information for the site which will be extremely valuable to users of Google search. Or is it simply a case of given time Google will source other information from the site assuming another source isn't being used?

Autocrat, a top contributor in the forum says he really doesn't know exactly how Google shows or complies these, but he offers his two cents:

Your client does realise what a recommendation and acknowledgment that is, right?

Chances are that it''s automated/algorythmic.

Its probably done over time and based on various factors - possibly things like time, references, quotes, links to the information etc.

The only advice I can offer is for your client to keep on doing what they clearly excel at!

This may be similar to how Google Definitions works, but I would just be guessing.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Some SEO companies that I know of either offer recommendations in written form, to be handed off to the developers to implement, while others actually get their hands dirty and make the changes for the client. I was hoping to poll our audience of SEO companies to see how they do it. Do you make the coding changes or just offer written recommendations or do you do both?

Here is a poll:

A HighRankings Forum thread asks which is best and what is the best strategy. To me, it depends on the site, the working relationship with the owner and the developers and the knowledge of the SEOs making the recommendations.

You do not have to be a programmer to know SEO and make recommendations. But to implement SEO changes, you do need to know some programming, at least HTML. Plus, there are often issues and constraints that third-party SEO companies are not aware of when they ask to make SEO changes to a site. A developer has more of an intimate relationship with the site, knowing the ins and outs of that site and if a recommendation would be easy, hard, quick, or hurtful to a site. The best of both worlds would be to get a developer who is well versed in SEO to maintain your site day in and day out. But that is often not the case.

So, take the poll above and let us know how your SEO company primarily handles this.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

If you conduct a search on any Google Custom Search Engine, such as ours, you will see that the page numbers, which aid the searcher to the next page of search results, are squeezed together. Here is a screen capture of those page numbers:

There are many Google Custom Search Engine users who are upset with this uncontrollable formatting issue. You can read all the complaints at the Google Custom Search Engine Help thread. As you can see, many webmasters, publishers and searchers are a bit upset with this. I, personally, don't care too much - you can still use it, it just doesn't look pretty.

Forum discussion at Google Custom Search Engine Help.

Update: Soon after we posted this, a Googler confirmed the bug in the forum and then soon after that, it was fixed. The Googler said:

The squished-together page numbers is indeed an issue on our end, and we're working on fixing this. Thanks for reporting the issue, and for your patience - I can't say for sure when this will be resolved, but it should be in the next day or so.

Today is the ever so popular Mardi Gras and some of the search engines have special logos for the day. Google, Yahoo and Ask.com are missing logos, but AOL, DogPile, Live.com and others have logos. Let me archive those logos for you below:

AOL's animated logo:

Live.com's theme:

DogPile's Logo:

We, the Search Engine Roundtable, have a special theme up:

Today, supposedly is also international pancake day and PPC Heros has a special something for that.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Thousands of Google email users, Gmail users, are experiencing problems logging into Google. I tried it myself, I am am also receiving 502 errors.

There are huge threads at Google Groups with users complaining as early as 5:20am EST (about 40 minutes since this post).

This is an all too familiar error for these users:

Here is another popular thread at Google Groups with Gmail users complaining. In fact, just scan the forum and you will see hundreds of complaints.

It seems like checking email via IMAP or POP is also having issues. So, I guess the solution is wait for Google to fix it.

This is not the first time Gmail has gone down for the masses. This is the third major one we reported. The last major one, that I remember was on August 11, 2008.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Update: IMAP does seem to be working sporadically for some users.

Update 2: At about 6:15am (EST) some people are beginning to access part of Gmail. Google must be working on it right now. Hopefully it will be fixed shortly.

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: February 23, 2009"

I am a paid supporter of WebmasterWorld and to be honest, I don't often use the paid only rooms. But for the thread I am about to discuss, I can tell you, the small fee I paid to have access to this paid area, was well worth it.

Moderator, Martinibuster shared with us a new form of link building that he is finding that is working for him. Now, I won't go through everything he said, because I need to respect the "paid" part of the forum, but I will give you some insight into what Martinibuster's thoughts are.

Relevancy has become more and more important in the area of link building. In the old days, you just wanted links from sites that ranked high. These days, it is less about getting links from pages that rank well and more about getting links from pages that are related to your pages. These relevant links form, what he says, is a link clique. Now, Martinibuster's theory and trick is to control that link clique. How does he do this? Well, I won't say, cause I need to leave some of that in the paid area.

But I can say that this single thread is well worth the money I paid for the year. It is conversations like this thread that make me love doing what I do here, report on the treasures in the forums.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld (paid member access only).

There is an interesting thread at WebmasterWorld that Google may be biased towards showing more and more "big brands" in the top Google web search results.

Yea, yea - big brands have more links, more trust, more pages and bigger budgets to rank better. We all know that. But some are speculating that this month, more than any other month, there was a spike in how Google ranks these big brands.

Tedster, WebmasterWorld's administration, goes as far to possibly imply, and I quote, "Eric Schmidt made some comments that brands were more important."

The question is how would Google do this?

• Manually?
• Using social media metrics
• Linkage data
• Something else

There is a lot of speculation and concern in that thread right now.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Aaron Wall from SEO Book wrote more details, with examples, of this claim. Pretty enlightening, if I must say, so take a look at Aaron's post.

There is so much love for Google's new mobile phone, the G1 or Android phone. A week or two ago, Google announced that they are now accepting paid apps to the app marketplace. But now, we are seeing reports that paid apps cannot be updated.

A Google Mobile Help thread has confirmed reports from a Googler that there is indeed a bug. A G1 paid app user said, "after you purchase a paid and and then try to update it, it doesn't update. It just says downloading and nothing happens." This user said that the free apps update fine, but not the paid apps.

Google employee, Alden confirmed the issue saying:

Thanks for reporting this to us - just wanted to let you know we're looking into it.

In the iTunes App store, if you purchase an app, all updates to the specific app are free. Currently, there is no way for iPhone App users to be charged for a major or even minor update, without releasing a new app. I assume the same model works for the G1.

Forum discussion at Google Mobile Help.

Yahoo's new CEO, Bartz, is rumored to be pushing out a major reorganization for the troubled search engine in the upcoming weeks. Kara Swisher at AllThingsD, I believe, broke the news about this coming down. You can see some additional coverage on the news at Techmeme.

Greg Sterling summarizes this new management style as "top down" approach, something Yahoo might not be use to. But Yahoo needs change and maybe this will be it.

Supposedly, Bartz is very tight lipped about who she tells her plans. So I suspect both executives and the normal workers at Yahoo are both a bit antsy on what will take place this week.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

It was just about a month ago when we reported a Google image search update and now I am seeing reports of another update.

A senior WebmasterWorld member posted a thread at WebmasterWorld on the 20th, reporting a new Google Image Search update. Zeus said:

Yesterday I saw some few glitches here and there in the Image search, but today there are some BIG changes, new Images has been added again, maybe also moderate filter update, where they for years have had a problem with loosing good sites images, be cause other sites are hotlinking to those images with bad text, then Google see the Original site as bad.

What is interesting is that we rarely see an update on Google Image Search 30 days apart from another update. There is some speculation that Google might be updating their image index more frequently these days. Like in the past, Google use to update their web index every X or so days, and now they update their web index almost real time - maybe Google is speeding up the image search index?

Google Image search can be a huge source of referrals for many sites, so it would make sense to me if Google decided to update the image index more frequently. Especially since images and video are so much more active these days on the web.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The SEO industry is a conflicted industry to work in, in many respects. Much of the public still thinks this is a form black magic, some feel the industry is packed with scam artists and some just totally don't get it. Let's not forget the conflict of the struggle between the search engine and the search engine optimizers. Oh, then black hat versus white hat. It makes for a very conflicted industry.

The last thing we need is misinterpreting SEO advice. But it happens more often in conflicted and new industries, then it would happen in other industries.

A HighRanking Forums thread reminded me of just one minor example of misinterpreting SEO advice. Let me quote you the frustration one SEO felt about his boss's recent SEO discovery:

My boss went upstate to meet with a partner and their SEO "expert" advised him that Google sets aside the 2, 3 and 6 spot in their Top 10 listings to video. Yes folks, it's a miracle. Someone has in their infinite wisdom broken the Google algorithm and found this wonderful tidbit of information. When I tried to argue the validity of this decree, my boss assured me that the "expert" proved it to him.

Now, with Google Universal Search, there were times where specific spots seemed to be set aside for video. But not for all queries and not all the time. Even nowadays, it seems like the specific spots that appeared to be set aside to video, in some queries, are no longer the same spots. A video can now show up in the 1st result or the 5th result or the 4th result or any of the top ten results.

So what happened here? I suspect the "boss" misinterpreted this "SEO experts" advice as to use videos. I personally recommend videos for SEO purposes to many people. It can do very well in the Google results and you can get your message out to a whole group of people through the video. In fact, I did a piece at Search Engine Land named Want To Rank Tops In Google? Do YouTube Videos, Stupid! The summary:

The Forrester Blog published a small but interesting study on how you can improve your chances, by 50 times, of showing up at the top of the Google search results. Their tip? Utilize Google’s Universal Search by creating videos.

But it is not that simple, you need to look beyond those numbers and use wisdom and experience to know when to use which strategies.

Forum discussion at HighRanking 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: February 20, 2009"

I covered a lot of news in this 10 minute video. I wish I could make them longer, but YouTube has a 10 minute limit. In this recap, I covered the Yahoo Search video ads. Google tests SearchWiki on AdWords. Google now lets publishers pick their fonts. Google decided to slap AdWords advertisers this week. Google now requires pricing in Ringtone ads. Google's reporting engine flipped on the weekend. Google begins offer searcher tips. Can you hijack Google Translate? 70% of AdSense publishers report lower earnings last month. Fake news makes its way onto Google News. Google scores a D at the BBB. Google Webmaster Tools has a Sitemap bug and a link reporting bug. AdWords API extends February 23rd deadline to March 9th. Happy Valentines day and Presidents day, we got the logos covered! That is the news from the past week from the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

For the original iTunes version, click here

Some Of The Topics Discussed:

• Yahoo Officially Launches Video & Image Search Ads
• Google Testing SearchWiki On AdWords
• Google Finally Gives AdSense Publishers Font Selection
• Google Opens AdSense For Domains Internationally
• Recent Google AdWords Quality Score Slap?
• Google AdWords Now Requiring Pricing Details in Ringtone Ad Copy
• Google AdSense & AdWords Reportings Takes A Weekend Break
• Google Offering Searcher Tips: What Can We Learn From This?
• Hijacking Google Translations? Vimeo Hijacked By YouTube?
• 70% Of Google AdSense Publisher Report Lower Earnings in January '09
• Fake News Makes Its Way To Google News Via Ads
• Does Google Deserve A "D" On Their Better Business Bureau Rating?
• Google Sitemap In "Pending" Status? Don't Worry
• Google Webmaster Tools Link Reports Bugs Linger On
• Google Extends AdWords API 12 Deadline To March 9th
• 2009 Valentines Day Logos from Google, Yahoo, Live & Search Industry
• Google & Yahoo Stiff America On President's Day But Logos From Live.com, Ask.com, & Others

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

Earlier this month, we polled Google AdSense publishers, asking how their earnings from Google is working out in this recession. After receiving about a 120 responses, I thought I share the results with you.

About 70% said they are earning less these days, whereas 22% said their earnings are the same and 8% said their earnings have increased.

Here is the break down:

:: Earnings Have Dropped said 82 respondents or 68.91%
:: Earnings Remain The Same said 27 respondents or 22.69%
:: Earnings Have Increased said 10 respondents or 8.4%

Yes, this recession is likely cutting AdWords budgets, impacting both publishers and Google.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

comScore released their January 2009 report on search market share, and for the first time in a while, Google's share declined month to month.

In December 2008, Google had a 63.5 % share, but in January, they dropped down to a 63.0% share. Yahoo gained month to month with a gain from 20.5% to 21.0%.

Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in December with 63.0 percent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites (21.0 percent), Microsoft Sites (8.5 percent), AOL LLC (3.9 percent) and Ask Network (3.7 percent).

In any event, you need to understand this is month to month and you need to look at the numbers over time. So I wouldn't jump to any conclusions after looking at the monthly numbers.

A WebmasterWorld thread is discussing this and one member said something very funny, as to a possible explanation:

maybe it had to do with that malware issue to which google was linking people

Could be... They go to Google, do a search on that Saturday and freak out and leave. Then they head over to #2, Yahoo.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Last night, the Google News iGoogle Gadget was having issues. The gadget did not show any news at all. Here is the first report I saw from Google Web Search Help.

Suddenly last night when I went to my home page, the Google News section was blank - not stories or headlines - only the Tabs were present. If I expanded Google News I could get all the content, but not the summary. I changed some settings, tried restore to the last backup, and even removed, rebooted and reinstalled Google News. No Happiness with my Google News.

Paul from Google replied thanking users for reporting the issue and said they will work on a fix. In the meantime, he asked users to go to news.google.com to get their news fix.

This morning it was fixed and working properly.

In addition to this Google News bug, it seems like Google News was not properly sorting by date yesterday. A Google News Help thread has a report from a user informing Google of this issue. Google replied with a thank you and that they are looking into it.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help and Google News Help.

After years and years of testing different font types and styles in Google AdSense, Google is now giving the publisher the option of defining which font they prefer on their sites. The AdSense blog finally announced this feature last night and the new fonts include Arial, Times and Verdana. Here is a screen capture:

Plus, publishers can set their default font preference over here.

Google has been testing font styles since early 2007 and then began aggressively testing fonts in May 2008, using fonts such as comic sans both then and in June and August.

Publishers are very happy about the extra control and already want more font options.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

A business owner is showing his frustration with Google over Google Maps listing his business as closed. In a Google Webmaster Help thread, this business owner said:

The search result from Google shows our office as closed (the exact phrase shown is "place closed")

Can someone please point me how I can get this corrected? Our office is not closed.

Want to see it yourself? Here is a link to the live map, but for archival purposes, here is a screen capture:

Notice how it says, "place closed" directly under the business name.

This business owner can fix this by going to the Google Local Business Center and updating his listing there. And if you have not verified your business, go do so, so this doesn't happen to you!

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

If you visit Google's reliability report at the Better Business Bureau (BBB) web site, you will notice they have a rating of a "D." The D rating is when the BBB says:

We have enough concerns about this company (for example, their offer, customer complaints, advertising, etc.) that we recommend caution in doing business with it.

How can the BBB caution people conducting business with the largest and most loved search ad company?

In the past 36 months there have been a total of 424 complaints. To me, that is a pretty low number based on the number of advertisers and Google users they have.

In July, I reported at Search Engine Land that the BBB listed Google as unsatisfactory. In any event, does Google deserve a D or unsatisfactory rating?

A Google AdWords Help thread has responses from advertisers. I personally like BizWriter's response:

I agree with you about the scammers, affiliates etc. but -BBB D rating or not- the real issue is that AdWords support is mostly an euphemism even for honest advertisers. Misleading messages in AdWords interface, no phone support, loops and dead-ends when someone tries to contact support. Is that the customer support one would expect from a multi-billion -"do no evil"- company? Google is getting sclerotic and you need to be nimble in business. Just my 2 cents.

JezC, a top Google help member said:

I'm astonished, after all the stuff you've replied to, that you give this any credibility. There's *two* issues (CC denials, and account review speed) that are showing up as a pattern here, and *one* significant cause of increased activity - more newbie affiliates than I can recall seeing in around five years of activity on this forum.

So what do you think? Does Google deserve this rating?

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

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: February 19, 2009"

The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog has officially announced the launch of video and image ads within the search results. Currently, you can see the results for searches at Yahoo on esurance or pedigree. Here is a screen shot of it in action:

A search for Pedigree returns a video ad at the top:

Clicking on the video will open up a video player:

Yahoo has been testing video outs with select partners for a while. We saw it with Honda video ads in March of last year.

Google has also been doing this, the most recent post we have on that is also from March of last year.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

We reported earlier that Google AdWords is sunsetting the AdWords API version 12 on February 23, 2009. Google has been forced to extend that deadline to March 9th, due to the Perl library not being updated until recently.

The Perl library is managed by a third-party, outside of Google and it just took him extra time (of his free time) to get this done. So, Google decided to push off the deadline to March 9th, to give people a chance to update their applications. The Perl library is now updated and can be read about at this thread.

Jeff Posnick of the Google AdWords API Team warns that version 14 will "contain numerous fundamental changes. All of the client libraries will need significant updates to support the next release." So be prepared.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

If your Google Sitemap file is in "pending" status and you are worried that it will never come out of that status, I would not worry. Google recently posted an announcement that this is a known issue and they are working to resolve it.

The announcement was posted by Google's JohnMu:

Some new Sitemaps submitted via Webmaster Tools may remain in a "pending" state. We are aware of this issue and are looking into it; you do not need to take any action. This will have no effect on your site's performance in search results.

We have some worried webmasters, who I have notified not to worry. There are threads on this topic at WebmasterWorld and Google Webmaster Help, amongst others.

Like I said yesterday, Google Webmaster Tools is buggy, so don't let the bugs, um... bug you out (sorry, I had to).

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Webmaster Help.

By nature, people are often more likely to write a complaint about something than to write a positive letter of encouragement for a job well done. I recently spotted a positive note left by a Google advertiser in the Google AdWords Help forum and I thought it would be nice of us to highlight this thread.

The advertiser was basically commenting on the topic of click fraud and how he/she feels Google is doing a great job on quality of the ads and the quality of the leads generated through the ads. Let me quote that post here:

Amidst all of the angst on the forum, I want to give them their props for keeping the fraudulent clicks to a minimum. I've been very impressed with my latest round of ads, even exploring their content network--which I was reluctant to do after trying it with a different provider-- and so far I have no complaints about the quality of the clicks.

A 2 minute post like that can really brighten up the day for some of the people who work so hard at Google to make a good product for advertisers.

Kudos to Google and to their advertisers!

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

I often see a post here or there, on a daily basis, of an AdWords advertiser complaining their quality score has significantly dropped and they have been "Google Slapped." But in the past few days, I have seen an influx of these types of posts. So I suspect a new quality score algorithm was pushed through that Google did not deem significant enough to mention on their blog, but which did have significant impact on many advertisers.

We have two new threads that have complaints from advertisers. One is at DigitalPoint Forums and the other is at WebmasterWorld. Here are some isolated posts from those threads:

I have woken up today to find 2 very profitable campaigns with no sales. So after checking google adwords it looks like someone has done some sort of manual review of my site or something as all my major campaigns have either got:

9/10 quality scores click through rate of around 2% but getting hit with £2 bids on a niche that has been operating fine for the past few months.

On the other main campaign I have quality scores of 1/10 for almost all keywords dispite prior to this 4-5%ctr ads and landing page optimised for the terms I am targeting.

A lot of our keywords have dropped QS from 8ish down to 1/10.

The diagnostics say that the ads and ad text are fine but landing page needs improving. Google have told me lots of times before that the site is great so a bit confused.

Hopefully you were not hit by this latest slap.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

Some of you may have seen the post at TechCrunch which has a screen capture of Google Translate translating the name "Vimeo" into YouTube. Vimeo is a popular competitor to YouTube and as you can imagine, Vimeo's owners and fans don't consider Vimeo to be YouTube. But yet, when you plugged in the name Vimeo to Google Translate, it returned the translation of YouTube.

In fact, a Vimeo representative posted a thread at Google Web Search Help asking for assistance. Andrea Allen, Vimeo Community Assistant, said:

I almost filed this under the libel and slander section, but figured I'd post it here first. ;-)

Anyone at Google care to comment on this highly unexpected result?

Andrea Allen
Vimeo Community Assistant

Andrea also posted in the Google Groups for Google Translate. Soon after, Google Translate stop translating Vimeo into YouTube. I assume it happened soon after the TechCrunch post.

This incident got me thinking. We know Google Translate is not a pure dictionary. It uses search data and their knowledge of words on the web to pick different translations. I can see how Vimeo would algorithmically be translated into YouTube. Which made me think... Can Google Translate terms be hijacked or Google Bombed to convert your brand name into your competitors name?

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help and Google Groups.

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: February 18, 2009"

Searchers and SEOs have recently been noticing Google offering searchers tips on how to search better at Google.com. Two recent threads have popped up about this, one at WebmasterWorld and the other at Google Web Search Help. Thankfully, I found the thread at the Google forum because WebmasterWorld does not allow examples.

In the Google Web Search Help thread, the example given was for a search on Charlatt NH. At the bottom of the first page of the Google results, Google shows a line that reads, "Tip: These results include the word "charlotte". Show results that include only "charlatt"." Here is a picture:

Clicking on the tip, changes the search query to a [+Charlatt NH] search and appends the following parameters to the URL, "&sa=X&oi=stemming_tip&ct=title".

Now, this is something that doesn't come up all that often. It seems to be a new feature Google is trying out. But what can SEOs and webmasters learn from this? How can they use this stemming data to write better page copy and so on? The discussion seems to be headed that way at the WebmasterWorld.

In any event, it is interesting to see Google aiding searchers in using more advanced search queries. It is interesting to see when this is being offered, what queries trigger it and what advanced query operator Google is returning in this cases.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Web Search Help.

We have several business owners complaining in two different Google Maps Help Threads that the upload picture feature in the Google Local Business Center is not working.

Basically, they are trying to upload pictures to their business listing but they keep getting an error returned that says, "We are unable to store your image at this time" or "Image Not Available."

I personally tried this yesterday and it worked fine for me using Apple's Safari browser. But many folks are having issues, so I don't think I should dismiss it now.

In fact, the picture I uploaded yesterday is already visible on my business listing. To see it, go to rustybrick, 10901 in Google Maps, see the screen capture below or the embedded live map below:

View Larger Map

So, I am, not sure if this is a wide spread bug or if it is impacting only some account or some browsers.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help Threads.

SEOs and Webmasters should all be huge fans of Google Webmaster Tools, it provides data and insight into our web sites that we did not always have. SEOs and Webmasters that are educated know what to make from these reports and use the data in an educated manner. There was a good quote at SMX West last week, it went something like, "data is not the same thing as wisdom."

Google Webmaster Tools has often had major issues with bugs, especially in the reporting side of things. The latest bug has to do with the external link reports. Google confirmed the issue saying:

The data shown in your link reports in Webmaster Tools may not currently show links or allow you to download these links for all sites. We are aware of this issue and are looking into it; you do not need to take any action. This will have no effect on your site's performance in search results.

Personally, I am able to see my external links but downloading the report is just lagging for me. I suspect this will be fixed eventually, but just be aware that these types of issues are common in this tool.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Tools.

Google is trying really hard to educate business owners to validate their business listings in Google Maps. If every business owner did this, it would solve a lot of issues for Google. That being said, Google just announced in a Google Maps Help thread that they released a new glossary named Understanding Your Local Business Center Account.

The glossary has the following 15+ terms defined for people who are new to the Local Business Center:

• Active
• Awaiting next update
• Awaiting verification
• Delete
• Disapproved
• Edit
• Flagged
• Impressions
• Not currently showing
• Processing
• Request another letter
• Suspended
• The PIN you entered is invalid
• Validate by mail
• Validate by phone
• Views

To access the Google Local Business Center, go to google.com/local/add.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

In December, Google expanded the AdSense for Domains product to all US publishers. Today, we are hearing reports in several forums that it has now been expanded to international publishers as well.

I was very concerned to learn in December that this extremely controversial program was expanded then. But to be honest, I have not seen many complaints since the expansion. For my perspective, things did not get worse by opening up. In fact, maybe things have been getting better with Google and fighting off certain types of MFAs and arbitrageurs. Opening this program internationally does worry me, but let's see how Google handles it.

Right now, we have very little feedback on the implications of this move. The best thing is to wait and watch. Oh, trust me, as soon as I see complaints, I will bring them to you.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, Google AdSense Help and WebmasterWorld.

Update: Google has confirmed with me that Google has indeed opened up AdSense for Domains internationally.

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: February 17, 2009"

If you visit Google Video today, you might be missing some of the old features we had just a short while ago. It seems like we are missing videos categorized as "Movers & Shakers," "Hot videos," which showed most viewed, most shared and so on. Where did it go? Just take a look at the Web Archive of the March2008 Google Video and you will see it is missing a lot from what we currently see on Google Video.

Why did Google get rid of these features? You can no longer seem to see the Most blogged, Most shared, Most viewed, Movers & Shakers at Google Video. We know Google removed uploading to Google Video, but should that impact the other features? I guess so.

There is a very upset group of Google Video users ready to boycott Google over this.

Forum discussion at Google Video Help.

Over two years ago, Google started testing AdSense optimization reports, also known as automated AdSense tips. They can be found when you go to your AdSense Inbox.

A WebmasterWorld thread asks, why does Google not send AdSense optimization report every month? Personally, I have not received one since December 2008 and I am happy that I have not received one. Here is a screen capture of my reports in my AdSense inbox:

I assume the tips don't show every month because (1) they are often repetitive and (2) can be dead wrong on occasion.

One WebmasterWorld member offers another possible reason, "They laid off the tip writer." Of course, he is joking.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Are you one of those webmasters that simply cannot get out of the Google penalty box? Are you convinced you have a penalty that is keeping you from the first page of Google? Have you tried everything and still cannot achieve high rankings in Google?

A WebmasterWorld thread shows one webmaster who has gone through the exhaustive list of changes to his, what he calls, white hat site, to make it even more clean, if that is possible.

Check out this exhaustive list of changes he made to 'fix' his site:

- Fix trailing slash duplicate content issue through a 301
- Fix 'index.php' duplicate content issue through a 301
- Fix 'www' subdomain canonical duplicate content issue through a 301
- Remove all defective and/or thematically irrelevant links
- Added a privacy policy
- Added a creativecommons licensing statement
- Checked robots.txt -> nothing wrong
- Checked safebrowsing tool -> nothing wrong
- Checked meta tags -> nothing wrong
- Added noindex,follow to news index and category pages
- Added rel="nofollow" to a button of a thematically relevant high-quality top50 listing
- I NEVER purchased or sold a SINGLE link
- I added 'nofollow' to my free thematic business listing, just in case G might be thinking I'm selling these positions.
- Built a couple of nice high-quality links through guest posting.
- Added new quality content on a regular basis
- Added a tagcloud to improve crawlability
- Added a great deal of relevant wikipedia-like internal linking (as per Ronburk's classic post)
- Added noindex,follow on the individual tag-pages to prevent duplicate content
- Added the new canonical tag (yep, I am desperate)
- Removed interlinking (it was only minor anyways)
- Added valid XML Sitemap

He has submitted reconsideration requests to no avail. What should he do? What should you do if you are in this situation?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I spotted a pretty funny HighRankings Forum thread where an SEO is joking around that being his/her own client is not fun. This SEO said that when you provide SEO services, it is easy to tell your client to not check your rankings 20 times per day, or not to check your site index rate 10 times per day, but when it is your site, you do the same thing.

Here is how this SEO put it:

I have come to realise that I am my own worst client, what's worse is I do everything I tell clients not to do! Having finally decided to go it alone and start my own consultancy i finally launched my site on friday, I have check Google 20 times to see if I have been indexed yet (seriously, I know this is just ridiculous, but I can't help myself) and i have been checking my emails every hour!

But if you think about it, it is less about being your own worst client and more about being obsessed about your new venture. You want the best for your new baby and you go overboard early on to make sure you are giving your baby the best you can. Over time, you will become more hands off, but will you ever be as hands off as you are with another baby?

Many SEOs can't stand working with clients. Some SEOs love working with clients. Which would you rather do? Work with clients or do your own work?

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

We are being forced to migrate our feeds off FeedBurner's legacy servers and on to the new Google servers. Yes, Google bought FeedBurner a while back and now they are requiring all FeedBurner users to move from feedburner.com to feedburner.google.com by the end of this month.

So this morning, we hit the migrate button. It is still migrating. Most of you should be fine, because we used the MyBrand service, which meant our feed URLs were at http://feeds.seroundtable.com/[feedname-goes-here] but some of you may be subscribed to the old URL, which would be at http://feeds.feedburner.com/something.

If so, the new URL will remain to be at but is hidden behind a CNAME of http://feeds2.feedburner.com/ or likely at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/SearchEngineRoundtable1

Bottom line, if you don't get feed updates from us tomorrow or the next day, then there is an issue with your feed subscription and you will need to resubscribe. You can subscribe over at this page fairly quickly.

To be honest, I am terrified of making this switch. We track threads and we track the FeedBurner Group and all I see are complaints about feeds getting lost or subscribers numbers diving. So I am a bit nervous about this migration, to say the least.

Oh, if you have never subscribed to us via RSS, maybe it is a good time to do that now over here.

If anything goes wrong, please comment here or contact us or if you are a Twitter person, over at twitter.com/rustybrick.

Thanks for reading, as always!

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: February 16, 2009"

Today is President's Day, a legal holiday in the United States. It is around the time of Washington's birthday and it is used to celebrate all the Presidents of the United States every year. But today, Google and Yahoo do not have logos for the day.

We know Darwin one upped Lincoln at Google on their birthdays, but to go silent completely on President's Day? It should not come as a surprise for those who have been tracking Google or Yahoo logos. Last year, Google and Yahoo did not show their American pride either.

In any event, we did have logos from AOL, Ask.com, Live.com, DogPile and we have our own theme. Plus Google did have a logo up for a short period of time, more on that later.

AOL's logo:

Live.com's Theme:

Ask.com's Theme:

DogPile's Theme:

Search Engine Roundtable's Theme:

As you can see, most went with Mount Rushmore.

Google did have a special logo up for a short period of time. It was up on February 13th. Here is that logo:

Philipp Lenssen explains, "at 2009-02-13 23:31:30 UTC specifically, the Unix time stamp in decimal was 1234567890. "For the occasion, Google very briefly put up a special logo," Philipp added. Check out some more details on this at 1234567890day.com.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

A search in Google News for santa cruz storm brough up a fake Google News item via the Google AdWords ads for some searchers. Here is a picture sent to me by a reader:

Google started showing ads in news results a while back. One advertiser tried to use this as a way to scare people around the world, by saying the new United States President, Barack Obama, was killed. Clearly, that is not true. Here is the ad copy, if you cannot make it out from the image above:

Latest NEWS President OBAMA was KILLED Potential killer is Russian Spy www.lolnews.usnewnews.com

I personally did not see this ad and I am glad it was removed. But clearly, this leaves Google open to a whole new level of spam and hate ads.

Why now? Maybe because it is President's Day?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that some Yahoo advertisers are upset with what they call a recent drop in traffic from Yahoo's ad network.

Others confirmed what this advertiser said, saying that his traffic is "way down" from the Yahoo Search Marketing network.

We know Yahoo has cancelled the content network in the UK and there are many rumors that Yahoo will cut more in this area.

If you are a Yahoo advertiser, please take the poll and let us know:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

According to a DigitalPoint Forums thread, Google has updated their AdWords policy to require that all ringtone ads contain pricing details directly in the ad copy.

I tried to find any official updated documentation from Google on this new policy, but was unable to do so. Thus, this is not confirmed yet by Google but honestly, it would not surprise me, if this was indeed a new policy.

The email received by this advertiser was:

"...we will require text and image ads for these services to display the price and billing interval (such as per week or per month) in the ad text, e.g., '$5.99/month.' We will no longer accept text or image ads that don't contain the price and billing interval when promoting mobile content services..."

As you can imagine, some ringtone advertisers are upset about this policy change. Supposedly, all ads without this that advertise for ringtones, will be rejected.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Over the weekend, there were hundreds of posts and dozens of threads with complaints from both Google AdWords advertisers and Google AdSense publishers. The complaints were that the reports were not being updated. Google has confirmed the issue in Google AdWords Help discussions area saying:

• There was a stats issue in the Ads system that affected stats related to Adwords and AdSense.
• The issue started at roughly 4AM PST on Sat 2/14/09 and lasted several hours.
• The issue only affected stats and reporting. AdServing was not affected and all ads continued to run as normal.
• Account access was normal during this time.
• AdWords engineers are working to get all stats back online/up-to-date ASAP. The update process has started.
• No stats have been lost
• It is anticipated that by the end of today all basic stats at the Adgroup, Campaign, and Account level will be current.
• Advanced stats such as Product Placement Reports and Query reports for Friday, Saturday, Sunday are anticipated to be available by Tuesday 2/17/09

Like I said, there is a lot of discussion around this issue. Here are the threads:

• Alert: Account stats were delayed Saturday, February 14, 2009, Google AdWords Help
• Adsense on Valentines Day, DigitalPoint Forums
• Adwords Drop. Is anyone else seeing this?, Search Engine Watch Forums
• Are everyone's stats really lagged right now?, WebmasterWorld
• Saturday Feb 14th stats stuck, WebmasterWorld
• Stats stuck?, DigitalPoint Forums

I am shocked to see this! Google seems to be testing part of SearchWiki, Google's way of promoting and removing results, to be spotted in the AdWords or sponsored ads section of the Google search results. Some people are noticing the X icon, which allows searchers to delete results from Google, in the sponsored listings.

Here is a picture from Rehan via WebmasterWorld:

Why am I surprised to see this on the AdWords results? Well, one, I was surprised to see them on the main results for all Google users. Second reason, these are paid ads. But I guess they can use the feedback as part of the overall quality score.

Got that? Quality score metric. A new way to perform competitive sabotage on the Google ads. Well, not yet at least.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Here is a statement I received from a Google spokesperson:

As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation, we are currently running an experiment in which users can customize the ads that appear in the "Sponsored Links" section of the search results page by deleting ad results. This experimental feature is only visible to a small number of users, and we have no news to announce at this time regarding developments in our AdWords product offering.

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Here are the logos from the various search engines:

Google had two logos, depending on where in the world you were:

Yahoo's animated logo:

AOL's animated logo:

Live.com's Theme:

Ask.com's Theme:

DogPile's logo:

YouTube's logo:

Cre8asite Forum's Logo:

BruceClay's logo:

Search Engine Roundtable (us) Theme:

For the past years, see Valentines 2008, Valentines 2007, Valentines 2006 and Valentines 2005.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

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: February 13, 2009"

This week was SMX West, and I shared my personal favorite sessions and our new way of live blogging them. I would love to hear your feedback on our new live blogging platform, so please let me know what you thought. The search engines announced a new tag to help with duplicate content, a canonical tag. Google Japan got penalized for buying links. Google got into pornography trouble twice with maps and once with search suggestions. Google had a bug that stopped payments to publishers. Google tells some advertisers to take a hike. Some SEO companies instill fear in their clients. Google is testing images in Google Blog Search Alerts. That recaps the news in the past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed (note: If YouTube shows a video not found message, just refresh the page and play it again, it is a YouTube bug):

For the original iTunes version, click here

Some Of The Topics Discussed:

• Search Marketing Expo 2009 West Archives
• Webmasters Skeptical But Loving New Canonical Search Engine Tag
• Google Slaps Google Japan With PageRank Penalty, Webmasters Cheerfully Surprised
• Adult Spam Makes Its Way Into Google Maps
• Google Maps Showing Adult Images From Panoramio
• Should Google Search Suggestions Show Adult Suggestions?
• Google Bug Halts Payments to AdSense Publishers
• Google Tells Suspended AdWords Advertisers Not To Try Reversing The Suspension
• SEO Companies Continue Using Fear Tactics To Keep Clients
• Google Testing Images In Blog Search Results?

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

I spotted an interesting exchange of words in a Google AdWords Help forum thread. An AdWords advertiser who had his account suspended due to terms of service violations asked if there was a way to reverse that.

Google's AdWordsPro Sarah had a pretty strong response. Let me quote her:

To be honest, its really hard to reactivate an account that is suspended because Google reserves the right to permanently terminate all AdWords activity if you ever violate the Terms and Conditions. If I were you, I would pursue other advertising channels.

Now, I don't know the details of this specific suspension, but in general, don't you think Google should be more open to this? I mean, don't most people deserve a second chance?

This advertiser was told to "pursue other advertising channels," now that is a bold comment. Personally, I find it a bit cool that Google would say that, but that is me.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Google started testing audio ads back in December 2006. In May 2007, they launched it to the masses and we saw some early feedback on those ads.

But yesterday, we got news that Google will discontinue those ads and will likely fire the team of 40 people in that group.

Since the announcement, we saw at least two sad advertisers. In two Google AdWords Help Threads we saw complaints that Google dropped the program.

In fact, one person noticed something was wrong before the announcement when he said that he wasn't receiving any estimates from stations anymore. A Google representative was just as surprised to hear the news, saying:

Yes - I just learned of this today, myself. I would want Kathy to note, though, that ads will continue to run through the end of May.

It is sad to see things fail, but Google should focus on what they do best.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help Threads.

Yesterday, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft announced together a new way to handle internal duplicate content issues with a new "canonical" header tag. Vanessa Fox does an excellent job explaining what it is all about in her piece at Search Engine Land.

So for all duplicate pages, you insert this tag in the header elements of those pages, specifying the main URL. The tag looks like this:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/true-url.html" />

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have detailed explanations of how they work.

Three main things:

(1) This works only internally, not across domains.
(2) Treat this like you would a 301 redirect, so be careful
(3) Search engines consider this a "hint" and do not have to abide by it (just yet)

Outside of that, there is good recaps on this at Techmeme.

We have a ton of Q&A on this from our live coverage of the Ask the Search Engines panel from SMX West. I am sure your questions are answered in that panel or in the discussions below.

This tag can be confusing, because it is new. But after webmasters begin to understand where, if and how to use it, they are more likely to love it.

JohnMu said in a forum post:

Here are some examples where this could be used: - Web-shops (mutliple URLs depending on how you got to a page) - Sites that work with Session-IDs within the URL - Ad-tracking URLs (eg using AdWords + Analytics) - Affiliate tracking URLs - News sites with multiple URLs per article - Forums with multiple URLs per thread/page (eg "&highlight=", etc)

Plus, Yoast already posted plugins to support this for Wordpress, Magento and Drupal.

Forum discussion Google Webmaster Help, Cre8asite Forums, WebmasterWorld 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: February 12, 2009"

Below is live coverage of the Productivity Tips For The Busy Search Marketer from SMX West 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by both Barry Schwartz, the editor of the Search Engine Roundtable and Keri Morgret of Morgret Designs.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed. In addition, you can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog.

Productivity Tips For The Busy Search Marketer

(02/12/2009)  Powered by: CoveritLive

  

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2:47	Barry Schwartz:  Matt McGee mods up this panel

2:47	Barry Schwartz:  Thomas Schmitz is up first from Portent Interactive

2:48	Barry Schwartz:  Tools - Prepacked - Written by smart people - Save time - Avoid aggravation

2:49	Barry Schwartz:  Tools - Limited to program abilities and outputds - Stuck with programs faults - Can be expensive

2:50	Barry Schwartz:  Scripts - Save time - Save money - Avoid aggravation - Custom & targeted - Use anything you cfind and can gather on the net

2:50	Barry Schwartz:  Scripts - Limited to accessible data - Limited by scripting ability

2:51	Barry Schwartz:  Start with PHP or MySQL if your getting startted

2:52

2:53	Keri Morgret:  He's talking about brute force tools.

2:53	Keri Morgret:  Go into Word, replace characters with other characters so you can then dump it into Excel and run things without Excel choking on those first characters.

2:53	[Comment From Pedro Sttau] Looking foward to this. Hello Barry and Keri. :)

2:54	Keri Morgret:  Access is worth the learning curve, since it's relational.

2:54	Barry Schwartz:  KEyword research example will bring this all together...

2:55	Keri Morgret:  He uses iMacros, a firefox addon that automates repetitive tasks.

2:55	Barry Schwartz:  He shows a script to grab data, parses it and then adds a macro code to automate repetitive tasks

2:56	Keri Morgret:  He's showing a lot of great things, but I'm not able to write it down fast enough. This is why you should come to the conference. ;)

2:57	Keri Morgret:  You do need to do hand filtering, you can't automate everything.

2:57

2:58	Barry Schwartz:  David Wallace is next up, he is the picture above

2:58	Barry Schwartz:  David will share more of his routines to be productive

2:59	[Comment From Pedro Sttau] I used to use Macros on My Excel sheets to handle pretty much everything that needed calculations done, but today most of the "repetitive tasks" are repetitive but not so much "automizable", dont know if you have the same experience.

2:59	Keri Morgret:  Begins day with email, bloglines, and twitter.

2:59	[Comment From Prashant] can you give an example of what you would use these macros for? i'm a little confused

3:00	Barry Schwartz:  @prashant to help automate the clean up for the data grabbing tool

3:00

Keri Morgret:  - Take care of new emails that don't require a lot of time -- get it out of the way. - Categorize blog feeds, can sift through those based on current priorities - Open new posts in separate tab that I want to write a post about. - Click on TwitterFox icon and look for DMs or @ replies only.

3:01	Keri Morgret:  Writing New Posts: Creative or resourcevful posts can be scheduled anytime. Posts covering industry news need immediate attention Read, write, and publish.

3:01	Keri Morgret:  Everything else: can be client projects, RFPs, finances, etc.

3:02	[Comment From Prashant] sorry, which data grabbing tool? i feel like i'm missing a piece of information

3:02	Barry Schwartz:  @Parshant, he writes his own with scripts

3:02	Keri Morgret:  Managing email overload: Uses outlook express. Has extensive category structure Only keep "pending" emails. If it's done business, saves it to hard drive. Non-important, non-pending emails are discarded. Outlook Express Backup Genie

3:03	Barry Schwartz:  David's inbox slide looks like a post I wrote at my personal blog http://www.cartoonbarry.com/2007/05/i_have_email_ocd.html

3:05	Barry Schwartz:  He uses bloglines !!! ugh! why why why

3:05	[Comment From Pedro Sttau] OutlookExpress? Am a bit surprised there. Thunderbird is so superior at organizing email , prioritizing it and making it "actionable"

3:05	Keri Morgret:  He shows the multiple social bookmarking sites he uses.

3:05	Barry Schwartz:  His blog reader folders looks very similar to mine also :)

3:06	Keri Morgret:  He tries to be selective, avoids time wasters.

3:07	Barry Schwartz:  He uses TwiterFox, never uses the Twitter web page

3:08	[Comment From Prashant] i heart twitterfox. makes the whole "process" of twitter so much quicker

3:08	Keri Morgret:  Tries to make sure all scheduled work is done by the 20th of the month to make sure you have time for your stuff in addition to client stuff.

3:09	Barry Schwartz:  Next up is Jennifer Slegg, JenSense

3:09

3:10	Keri Morgret:  How to make non-desk time productive. COmmuting time, waiting time, kids' activities.

3:10	Barry Schwartz:  OMG! She uses notebooks and pens and paper!

3:11	Barry Schwartz:  I am the anti-paper, so this is weird

3:11	[Comment From Pedro Sttau] Getting client related tasks done 10 days before the month is over? Dear me I am definitely doing something wrong with my time here.

3:12	Keri Morgret:  This is a way to keep you on task -- if you just write something down on paper, you're not going to get on and check twitter and email and get your spouse to give you a nasty look when you want to write a quick reminder note to yourself.

3:12	Barry Schwartz:  She makes an excellent point, my wife won't yell at me if I open a small notebook, but when I open my laptop or my iPhone -- oh boy

3:12	Keri Morgret:  Personal voice recorder. New ones are great. You can dictate blog post ideas, reminders for yourself, etc. It's digital, so you can copy it to your computer.

3:13	Keri Morgret:  Dragon Naturally Speaking. Converts words to text, imports into word, dreamweaver, wordpress. Can either dictate directly into computer or use a digital voice recorder to convert your voice file into text that you can import.

3:14	Keri Morgret:  Buy the best rated recorder you can afford. Dragon rates many from expensive to top of the line. If you plan to dictate while driving, buy one of the better recorder / microphone options.

3:14	Keri Morgret:  Dragon's website is the one that rates the recorders.

3:14	Keri Morgret:  Dragon is trainable, so it can understand SEO, PPC, AdSense, etc.

3:15	Keri Morgret:  Netbooks and MiniLaptops. It's a fast bootup, easy to carry anywhere, can work on it during downtime. Can upload to webserver or thumdrive .Can't run World of Warcraft or anything, but most business things you need. You've got great battery life with it.

3:15	Keri Morgret:  BBs, iPhones, etc. She loves it, wonders how she got along without it (so do I! km).

3:16	Keri Morgret:  At Jott.com you can leave a phone message and it is sent in an email to yourself. It starts at $3.95 a month.

3:16	Keri Morgret:  She's never had a problem with the transcription. They can also go into your voicemail and transcribe your voicemail to text.

3:17	Barry Schwartz:  Stephan Spencer is the last speaker, here is a picture

3:17

3:19	Keri Morgret:  URL for downloading his powerpoint: http://www.netconcepts.com/learn/productivity-tips.ppt

3:20	Keri Morgret:  GTD-getting things done. Best thing that's ever happened.

3:20	Barry Schwartz:  http://www.davidco.com/

3:20	Barry Schwartz:  http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280

3:21

Keri Morgret:  Multiple action lists running concurrently in your brain? Ideas buried w/in files, folders, emails, Post-Its, to-do lists? Bad, bad, bad! GTD stands for Getting Things Done, the best-selling book by David Allen Get stuff out of your head & into a trusted system that also tracks the “open loops” you’re waiting on Reach a state of flow, i.e. “Mind like water”

3:21

3:21

Keri Morgret:  - Processing: For this project/idea, what is the “Next Action”? What is its context? - Contexts: @home, @office, @errand, @computer, @email, @blog, @tweet, @read/review, @agenda, ... - Review your Next Actions by context. Do in batches. - In addition to Next Actions, you can also have Projects, Someday/Maybes, Waiting For, Deferred, Agendas Project = anything requiring more than one action

3:22	Keri Morgret:  You get things into an in-tray of sorts, and you process it as you put it in. YOu process it and decide the context.

3:22	[Comment From Pedro Sttau] One of the best productivity sessions I have ever seen was done by Prof. Randy Pausch on Time Management. Changed my life. :) Anyone mention it so far?

3:22	Barry Schwartz:  @Pedro, not yet

3:23	Keri Morgret:  For contexts, this means you can do a task list that's just for your phone -- here's stuff I can do on my phone. You only have 15 things on this list, instead of trying to sort through 300 to dos.

3:24	Barry Schwartz:  Selling your home is an "actional item" it is not something you put on your "to do list"

3:25	Keri Morgret:  Project can be something like "buy a house", to do is "contact neighbor about the agent she used"

3:25

Keri Morgret:  - Horizons of focus: runway (next actions), 10000 ft view (projects, this yr), 20000 ft view (areas of focus), 30000 ft (1-2 yrs), 40000 ft (3-5 yrs), 50000 ft view (life goals) - Weekly review: a weekly appt with yourself. The key to successful GTD, though most neglected. 1-2 hrs long. -- "Process" your intray -- Revisit Someday/Maybes, Projects, Waiting For, Next Actions - Two minute rule: if the item can be completed in < 2 minutes, do it right then, rather than process it for later

3:25	[Comment From Prashant] @pedro where did you see/attend that productivity lecture?

3:26	Are you productive? Yes  ( 20% ) No  ( 80% )

3:26	Keri Morgret:  Horizons of focus is the big picture.

3:27

Keri Morgret:  Calendar: Only what must be done on a certain date. Tickler file: 43 folders, labeled 1-31 and January-December. Use it to park physical items like bills not yet due. Look at the current day’s file. On the new month, look at that month’s file and if necessary move those into the appropriate 1-31 folders. With GTD, easy to fall off the wagon. Also easy to fall back on.

3:27

[Comment From Pedro Sttau] So from what I understant its all about breaking things down into small little actions. I tried that aproach, but it seemed that my "actionable to do list" was so large and time consuming that it simply didn't work. I had to break those little tasks into actionable groups and then sort those groups by relevance. Sounds freaky, but it worked for me. Keri: "Horizons of focus is the big picture". Wont forget that one, nice. :)

3:27	[Comment From Prashant] you have to admit, that "are you productive" question was a bit funny...i am assuming everyone who is here reading this live blog isn't really being too productive :)

3:28	Keri Morgret:  Mac: Things, Journler, OmniFocus, iGTD PC: GTD Outlook Add-in, ClearContext for Outlook, MyLifeOrganized, TimeTo, Easy Task Manager, ThinkingRock Web-based: Tracks, GTD V2, Backpack, MonkeyGTD, ActiveCollab Paper: “Hipster PDA”

3:28	[Comment From Pedro Sttau] Prashant: Why not? Learning to be more productive is itself productive.

3:29	Keri Morgret:  He's showing us screenshots of the software he uses.

3:30	Keri Morgret:  Non-GTD productivity tools: ActionMethod.com RememberTheMilk.com Both of the above are web-based (SaaS)

3:30	[Comment From Prashant] @pedro because personally speaking, i could be working on a client's project but instead i am viewing this live blog which i could read later too when i know i have time ;)

3:30	[Comment From Pedro Sttau] Keri, can you post some of the software in the screenshots?

3:30	Barry Schwartz:  @Pedro you can download the PPT

3:30	Barry Schwartz:  URL for downloading his powerpoint: http://www.netconcepts.com/learn/productivity-tips.ppt

3:31

Keri Morgret:  Read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss fourhourworkweek.com Your secret to success: Delegate everything! Let go! Tim even outsourced his online dating – successfully! Hire 1 or more “VAs” at < ½ what you earn per hour Calculate your hourly rate. Annual income is a very deceptive number that people use to justify unsustainable workloads. Repetitive task? Delegate it.

3:32	Keri Morgret:  Be sure to download his presention. There are lots of great things there, very well written.

3:33	Barry Schwartz:  That ends the speaker presentations, time for Q&A.

3:33	Barry Schwartz:  ~10 mins for Q&A

3:33

3:34	Barry Schwartz:  Someone asked David, how would Stephen's idea fit in his schedule?

3:35	Barry Schwartz:  David said he has to read the book first...

3:35

3:36	Barry Schwartz:  Matt talks about the difference between working at home vs in an office...

3:36	[Comment From Pedro Sttau] Any tips on managing constant client phone calls that you simply cant "filter"?

3:37	Barry Schwartz:  Stephen said he is more productive in an office, at least when he worked in NZ

3:38	Barry Schwartz:  Now he has his own office to get stuff done... So agree, you need to close the door.

3:38	Barry Schwartz:  Thomas said, set "busy" on your IM

3:39	Barry Schwartz:  Get yourself headphones, so you wont be distrubed

3:39	Barry Schwartz:  The bigger the better

3:39	Keri Morgret:  Get yourself BIG headphones so they don't come up to you.

3:40	[Comment From Prashant] i like using a separate computer all together for any chat/email. that way i can turn off the monitor/close the lid of the laptop and only check when i can instead of constantly seeing a flash/hearing new email sounds and being impelled to check out what's going on.

3:40	Barry Schwartz:  Check email only a few times per day (I cannot do that)

3:41	[Comment From ian] You can, of course, turn OFF your IM.

3:41	Keri Morgret:  Thomas: use the simplest form of whatever you're working on. Use a shared Google Docs document instead of passing around a Word document in email.

3:42	[Comment From Prashant] @ian well if you are using IM to communicate with clients/colleagues on a project then it becomes a little difficult to simply turn it off because then (at least for me) i get phone calls which become even more distracting overall.

3:44	Barry Schwartz:  That wraps up the SMX West Live Blogging coverage. Thank you so much for reading and particapting. Hoping on a plane to NY tonight. Check www.seroundtable.com daily for news and subscribe to our feeds. :)

3:45	Barry Schwartz:  Thank you Keri for everything!

3:45

Below is live coverage of the Ask The Search Engines from SMX West 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by both Barry Schwartz, the editor of the Search Engine Roundtable and Keri Morgret of Morgret Designs.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed. In addition, you can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog.

Continue reading "Live Coverage of Ask The Search Engines at SMX West"

Below is live coverage of the Ask The SEOs from SMX West 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by both Barry Schwartz, the editor of the Search Engine Roundtable and Keri Morgret of Morgret Designs.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed. In addition, you can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog.

Continue reading "Live Coverage of Ask The SEOs at SMX West"

Below is live coverage of the Ask The Link Builders from SMX West 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by both Barry Schwartz, the editor of the Search Engine Roundtable and Keri Morgret of Morgret Designs.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed. In addition, you can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog.

Continue reading "Live Coverage of Ask The Link Builders at SMX West"

Below is live coverage of the Keynote: John Battelle from SMX West 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by both Barry Schwartz, the editor of the Search Engine Roundtable and Keri Morgret of Morgret Designs.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed. In addition, you can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog.

Keynote: John Battelle

(02/12/2009)  Powered by: CoveritLive

  

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8:57	Barry Schwartz:  Starting in 3 minutes!

9:02	Barry Schwartz:  Danny starts off by saying how Google banned Google Japan http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/019409.html

9:03	Barry Schwartz:  He mentioned Darwin beat out Lincoln in the Google logo http://searchengineland.com/sorry-abraham-lincoln-charles-darwin-gets-the-google-logo-16550

9:03

9:03	Barry Schwartz:  He introduces John Battelle now

9:04

Barry Schwartz:  John Battelle is author of the outstanding book on how search engines developed, The Search, in which he also coined oft-repeated description of search engines as a “database of intentions.” A veteran journalist and entrepreneur, this keynote conversation will cover how John sees search developing, the challenges ahead and searches greater impact on the internet and society.

9:04

9:05	Barry Schwartz:  He starts off about the book and how it wasn't named "The Google" :)

9:05	Barry Schwartz:  They let him call the book "The Search" and they took the title and put it into Google fonts and Google colors

9:05	Barry Schwartz:  He said in some countries, it is named "The Google" this or that....

9:06	Barry Schwartz:  Fundamental changes in companies since the time of the book?

9:06	Keri Morgret:  He got the idea to write the book after a meeting with Eric Schmidt.

9:07	Keri Morgret:  Battelle thought that search was the largest intersection of media and technology that ever existed, but was hard to convince Schmidt of this back in the beginning.

9:08

9:08	Keri Morgret:  There were 900-1000 employees at the time Battelle left the Google offices from this meeting.

9:08	Barry Schwartz:  Apparently, Google is losing a couple employees here and there, he said.

9:09	Keri Morgret:  There isn't an ocean Google hasn't boiled, or has tried to boil.

9:10	Keri Morgret:  Music industry is good example of a shift from one presumptive model to another.

9:10

9:11	Barry Schwartz:  He compares this industry to the music industry...

9:12	Barry Schwartz:  The music industry is now adapting to this world

9:13

9:13	Keri Morgret:  It may be true that you want to pay for the Wall Street Journal, but your local paper may not be worth paying for.

9:13	Barry Schwartz:  He thinks the newspaper business model is broken

9:14	Barry Schwartz:  he thinks you can monetize papers just with ads, and he disagrees with Walt on his write up on this.

9:14	Keri Morgret:  All of the search engines have benefited by all of the traditional media that has been put in the web.

9:14	Barry Schwartz:  http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1877191,00.html is Walt's theory

9:15	Will the newspaper business survive? Yes  ( 60% ) No  ( 40% )

9:15	Keri Morgret:  Keeping our government honest and keeping citizens informed is one things newspapers will keep rpoviding.

9:16	Keri Morgret:  Successful models abroad have newspapers as public trusts.

9:17	Barry Schwartz:  "Google has been doing pretty well on the balance sheet"

9:17	Barry Schwartz:  At the end of the day, there is a certain part to journalism that is above pretty profit margin but it needs to be honored by our culture... we need to get to at least break even point...

9:17

9:18	Keri Morgret:  There will always be a market for certain types of journalism. Hard to make a profit in straight news though.

9:18	Keri Morgret:  Danny reminds us that Battelle has a blog and a Twitter account that we should all visit.

9:19	Keri Morgret:  http://battellemedia.com/ and http://twitter.com/johnbattelle

9:20	Barry Schwartz:  HE thinks MSFT will grow 5 points in search share because they will "Buy it" -- not necessary buy yahoo or aol but buy distribution deals

9:21

9:21	Barry Schwartz:  Just the other day, another Yahoo exec went to Microsoft http://searchengineland.com/microsoft-continues-peeling-off-yahoo-search-talent-16547

9:21	Barry Schwartz:  He thinks Google will lose some share to Microsoft

9:22	Barry Schwartz:  Q: Do you think Microsoft will bull past Google?

9:22	Barry Schwartz:  A: Battelle said not this year...

9:22	Do you think Microsoft will bull past Google? Yes  ( 33% ) No  ( 67% )

9:22

9:24	Keri Morgret:  He gives an example of Shazam as a way of search. It's an app for the iPhone where you can have it listen to some music playing and it will tell you what the music was. It's search, but not what we think of search.

9:24	Barry Schwartz:  http://www.shazam.com/iphone

9:24	Keri Morgret:  He talks about how he thought that having a search engine (hotbot) in 1995 was a bad idea. We already have seven. Why do we need any more? Laughter from the audience.

9:27

Keri Morgret:  "three bump theory of interface culture". What Battelle argues is that in the interface between man and machine, the first interface was a non-grammatical foreign language that made no sense to most people. Gives example of COBAL or FORTRAN programmers. Then we got Windows and Mac. We got to what he calls the "hunt and poke" interface. Being in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, but you can "hunt and poke" by clicking icons to figure out what's going on.

9:27	Keri Morgret:  Fairly full house here this morning.

9:28	Keri Morgret:  We have so much information now that the hunt and poke method just doesn't cut it. We needed a new interface, and he argues that this interface is search. Using natural language to talk to computer.

9:28	Keri Morgret:  Right now, search is still the command prompt and blinking cursor. He thinks we're about to shift into a new interface.

9:29	Barry Schwartz:  There are problems with voice search, but it will get better...

9:29	Barry Schwartz:  Language is going to be huge in the next search interface...

9:29	Barry Schwartz:  It doesnt have to talk back to you, but we are just getting started in this area.

9:31	Keri Morgret:  Danny offers Battelle a Twitter break. John doesn't have his phone, but Danny needs to feed his Twitter addiciton. They start talking about Twitter and where this is taking things.

9:32	Keri Morgret:  He asks how many people here Tweet. Nearly everyone raises their hand. He talks about how hard it is to explain Twitter to people that aren't familiar with it, like trying to explain that you used FORTRAN.

9:32	Keri Morgret:  Once you figure out Twitter it's insanely useful.

9:32

9:32	Keri Morgret:  When you get to a critical mass of people talking about what they're doing, eating for breakfast, etc. you have a database of intenions with what is happening right now.

9:33	Keri Morgret:  Can be insanely useful to be able to query this database of realtime information.

9:33	Keri Morgret:  Gives example of someone going to Twitter to start asking for recommendations of purchases like cars instead of going to a search engine.

9:33

9:34

9:35	Barry Schwartz:  John then talks about his question on AT&T's network, here is his blog post on that http://battellemedia.com/archives/004822.php

9:35	Barry Schwartz:  Best use case for Twitter to adopt it, is the comcast cares

9:35	Barry Schwartz:  http://twitter.com/comcastcares

9:36	Are you own Twitter? Yes  ( 80% ) No  ( 20% )

9:36	Keri Morgret:  He's telling people to join Twitter, even if you only use it for Comcast customer services. Tweet comcast sucks, you'll get help right away.

9:36	Barry Schwartz:  Is paid search and SEO gaining on traditional media?

9:37	Keri Morgret:  He's talking about big brands realizing they need to own their name space.

9:39

9:40	Barry Schwartz:  "Conversational Marketing"

9:40	Keri Morgret:  Marketing online was stuck in two modes -- billboard mode and demand harvesting.

9:42	Barry Schwartz:  we now know what engagement online means

9:43

Keri Morgret:  Conversational marketing -- You have to have a practice in figuring out how to create media that adds value to the conversation online. If someone runs in and yells that IBM servers are wonderful and runs out, it wouldn't work well. If you were from IBM and sitting there and answering a question and can talk about yes, I'm from IBM, and I think that x might work and here's why, that's much better.

9:44

9:44	Barry Schwartz:  Chris Silver Smith snapping pics right in front of me....

9:44	Barry Schwartz:  Last two questions...

9:45	Keri Morgret:  "The Conversation Economy" is the name of his next book.

9:47	Barry Schwartz:  Web 2.0 Expo coming this March

9:47	Barry Schwartz:  They don't have the theme, 100% for the next show

9:47

9:47	Barry Schwartz:  Lots of industries are being forced into being reborn, such as banking

9:48	Barry Schwartz:  People laughed there, did you?

9:48	Barry Schwartz:  That is all folks, in less then 15 minutes we will be covering Ask the Link Builders live... should be fun...!!!

9:49	Barry Schwartz:  That is all we got for this session. We will be ending the live blog session but you can reply or view the transcript immediately after I end this broadcast. Thanks for tuning in to the Search Engine Roundtable's Live Coverage!

9:49	Barry Schwartz:  More at http://www.seroundtable.com/

9:49

A Google Web Search Help thread has a group of searchers complaining about a single pixel that shows up when you click the next or previous buttons in Google Search. This only seems to show up for a second, when you click the next or previous button, but it also only shows up in Firefox 3.

Here are pictures:

As you can see, I circled in red, the pixel that seems to be really bugging some searchers.

Funny how the smallest little thing can really get on your nerves.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Yesterday, we reported that Google's Local Business Center was injected by Google Maps Help thread with a complaint from a person who lives in Ave Maria, Florida that an adult-like image shows up in the "Explore this area" section of Google Maps for a search on Ave Maria, Florida.

Here is a screen shot:

When you click on that image, it shows up larger in the map:

It is here where you see that it is from Panoramio and the quick solution is to report that image as inappropriate in Panoramio.

So a proud city member is upset that this woman's underpants shows up for her city in Google Maps. I can understand that.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Ever conduct a search at Google and be presented with a "We're sorry" error from Google? The image on the right is what you would see and Google thinks you are a machine conducting automated queries and they want to validate you as a human.

Well, over the past few days, I have been noticing a much larger number of threads with complaints from searchers that they have been getting this message. I typically see threads on the issue but not the number and volume I have been seeing over the past few days.

I then spotted a Google Web Search Help thread that has confirmation from Google that this is an issue on their side. Skylar from Google said:

Hey! Thanks y'all for sharing this strange behavior in your Google's search results. This is an issue (we're working on it) caused by computer worms that search for vulnerable sites to infect. These nasty annoying computer worms will use certain search queries or patterns to find those sites. When we detect these abusive queries, we display the 'We're Sorry' page to stop the worms. Once in a blue moon, your search queries can coincidentally match the search patterns that worms use, and you get blocked as a result.

A quick fix you could try is simply adding another key word to make your search queries more unique (and different from the queries worms use). By making this change, you're less likely to be blocked. Check out http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2007/07/reason-behind-were-sorry-message.html to read an interesting blog post on reasons behind the 'We're Sorry' page.

So it seems like Google is aware of showing this message to real humans, a bit too often and they are working on a fix.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

A HighRankings Forum thread has discussion around a topic I have never seen before. Should you ever consider using abbreviations in a title or description of your search ads? Here is the question from the advertiser:

I'm writing a PPC headline and would like to know about abbreviating a word in the title instead of spelling it out completely.

For example; 'flr' instead of 'floor'...Reason is to save space in order to fit copy all on one line.

I would say that this would be a no no, in this case. But in some cases, you might be able to pull it off. Stock symbols work in many cases, some abbreviations are really well known, such as FYI.

The issue isn't with Google not allowing it but your CTR dropping due to people not understanding your ad. If your CTR drops, your quality score may drop and it may result in paying more for a ad position you would have otherwise paid less for. Plus, often, a lower CTR leads to less sales.

But as nethy said, it is something you can experiment with and see if it works for your campaigns. Just watch it carefully and be ready to pull the plug if you notice a drop in your metrics.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Last night at Search Engine Land I reported that Google Penalizes Google Japan For Buying Links. In short, the Google Japan team took on a marketing initiative to of paying bloggers for reviews, that turned out to be paid links, which they did not know was against Google's guidelines. In turn, Google's search quality team slapped Google Japan with a PageRank penalty, from a PR9 to a PR5.

Matt Cutts of Google twittered the event and you can see the surprise in the FriendFeed comments.

Danny came back into my post and added some history to the discussion, which is valuable if this is new to you.

There is a lot of discussion around this news at the forums, including DigitalPoint Forums, WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.

Many don't understand why Google would penalize themselves. But some suspect it is a PR stunt (public relations). Others think it is just Google manning up to their own policies and doing what is right.

It will be interesting to see how long the penalty lasts. If it was an ordinary site, they could submit a reconsideration request and Google can restore the PR fairly quickly. Would Google make their own sister site wait even longer to appease the public? Or will Google treat this like any other site?

There are many implications to this and this is not the first time Google penalized themselves. They did so with when they found themselves cloaking content.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, WebmasterWorld 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: February 11, 2009"

Below is live coverage of the 301 Redirect, How Do I Love You? Let Me Count The Ways from SMX West 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by Keri Morgret of Morgret Designs.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed. In addition, you can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog.

301 Redirect, How Do I Love You? Let Me Count The Ways

(02/11/2009)  Powered by: CoveritLive

  

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4:35	Keri Morgret:  Carolyn Shelby is up first in this nice technical session that they saved for the last session of the d ay.

4:36	Keri Morgret:  She's giving a case study of a site that was written the wrong way, authority transfered to horrid URLs, and lots of nasty things.

4:36	Keri Morgret:  Their challenge was that you can't do 301s easily when you don't have consistent URL naming patterns.

4:38

Keri Morgret:  Review of what 301s are. - redirect users and bots from old URL to new URL - redirect users from old domain to new domain - redirects users from alternate tlds (.org to .com, for example) - fixes www vs non www - Keeps unauthorized users and bots from accessing live development environments, redirects them to main site. (IP specific delivery).

4:38	Keri Morgret:  For the last instance, this was used internally when you can't have a separate dev server. in-house IPs could see new site, but nobody else.

4:40

Keri Morgret:  A basic relaunch -- new frosting, but the cake is the original recipe. - Possibly moving to a new domain - URls changing file extensions - New pages, but few new pages are replacing old pages - Few of your old pages are disappearing - No significant changes to pre-existing information architecture or nomenclature

4:41	Keri Morgret:  Basic Relaunch and 301s Small number of redirects required The naming scheme from old site had consistent, easily defined patterns Get by with a simple htaccess file

4:41	Keri Morgret:  Complicated Relaunch. The frosting is all new and ethe cake is a different flavor, a different shape, and has jelly filling instead of bad peanut butter filling. And lots of other stuff that went by too quickly.

4:43

Keri Morgret:  Before you start: Spreadsheet: All current indexed pages and URLs All current indexed pages with backlinks Relationships/translations from the old to the new. You should also have an understanding of: - how your redirects will be added to your system - how you will be watching'/tracking your 404 - any weirdness or quirikiness unique to your CMS or web server

4:43	[Comment From Sunny D] if a site was 301ed to a new domain and after 4 months the 301 is taken off..how to get that domain indexed again? have tried submitting sitemaps, get new links to the domain as well

4:44	Keri Morgret:  Prep: Find a software package to do some of the reports for you Tracking 404 - learn to read some of the server logs, install software Other reports -- this is why God makes interns

4:45

Keri Morgret:  Why is the prep important? Because you want your site to not be a fail! Your lists will help you write the redirects The patterns (or lack of) determine the method you use -- either .htaccess or hash table If a URL isn't in yhour reports, skip it. Fewer redirects = faster response times

4:47	Keri Morgret:  What to expect when you're done: Major site overhauls will see anywhere from a 20% drop in traffic to being completely dropped from the index. Recovery time is generally 6-18 weeks The long tail traffic will suffer more than anythign else

4:48	Keri Morgret:  They had someone sitting looking at the logs, watching for incoming 404s. Soon as another one hit, he'd add another redirect in the file.

4:49	Keri Morgret:  Yes, it's a pain to do this, but it is worth it to get over a bad site.

4:50	Keri Morgret:  Stephan Spencer is up next with soem more technical details.

4:52	Keri Morgret:  Time to drink from the firehose! Look at the powerpoint URL www.netconcepts.com/learn/301-redirect.ppt

4:52	Keri Morgret:  km: i covered this one a year ago, he's got a lot of great stuff here. Pull up the PPT!!!

4:52	Keri Morgret:  He prefers rewrite rules as opposed to redirects

4:54	Keri Morgret:  Here's my coverage of this session from last year: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/016390.html

4:57	[Comment From Susan Reed] What's the advantage of using a rewrite rule instead of a redirect?

4:58	[Comment From Susan Reed] No.. I don't "see that"

4:59	Keri Morgret:  He talks about greedy expressions -- basically he's trying to tighten up expressions so you're not rewriting things you odn't want to rewrite.

5:00	Keri Morgret:  As if that wasn't bad enough, we're going on to a more complex example!

5:01	Keri Morgret:  He's showing how to do non-www to www that is super geeky to do wonderful things.

5:03	Keri Morgret:  You can do great stuff with tracking parameters.

5:04	Keri Morgret:  Yet more fun with tracking parameters? You can do things with cookies before doing a 301. Invoke a script that cookies the user then 301s them to the canonical URL.

5:05	Keri Morgret:  See the powerpoint for the information. He sais to note the lack of a R=301 flag above. That's on purpose. No need to expose this script to the user. Use a rewrite and let the scdript send the 301 after it has done its work.

5:05	Keri Morgret:  You can 301 retired legacy URLs.

5:08	Keri Morgret:  This is great information, and it's stuff I (km) could really use, but I can't explain what he's saying well enough to have it make any sense in this liveblog.

5:11	Keri Morgret:  A common problem is https canonicalization. He has great fixes.

5:12	Keri Morgret:  You can optimize a bunch of post slugs without going to each page.

5:12	Keri Morgret:  If you're on microsoft IIS there's stuff you can do, including getting pity from everyone.

5:12	Keri Morgret:  It's risky to do conditional redirects. Read Stephan's search engine land article on redirects.

5:13	Keri Morgret:  There are almost always ways to do what you want to do without conditional redirects. Matt Cutts is talking about this topic tomorrow in Ask The Search Engines.

5:15	Keri Morgret:  You cancapture PageRank on Dead Pages. Look at this slide, cool stuff here.

5:17	Keri Morgret:  Now after Stephan we have Jordan Kasteler, Utah SEO Pro.

5:17	Keri Morgret:  He'll be covering the redirects from a social media aspect.

5:18	Keri Morgret:  Michael Gray did a case study at http://searchengineland.com/do-social-media-links-translate-in-organic-rankings-15745

5:19	Keri Morgret:  The case study is about social media links and organic rankings.

5:20	Keri Morgret:  Did a 301 so that a site submitted to Digg would go to the front page -- the destination URL was an SEO site, which wouldn't have gone to the front because Digg people hate SEOs. They did a 301 redirect, was all good.

5:20	Keri Morgret:  He's talking about internal redirects from overstock.com. I missed this.

5:21	Keri Morgret:  Some of these redirects can be considered gray hat.

5:21	Keri Morgret:  Whitehat 301 social media strategy Use multi-part story strategy consolidate all the parts into one larger story 301 redirect to transfer and consolidate all of the inboudn inks into that single location

5:22

Keri Morgret:  Example multi-part aarticles: Top Free SEO Tools Top Paid SEO Tools Top Free PPC Tools Top Paid PPC Tools What if each of those got on to the front page of Sphinn for a couple of days? Then put everything into a main article of Best Internet Marketing Tools, then redirect to that main article, get lots more links that way that you would have if you had submitted just one article.

5:23	Keri Morgret:  Choose your (linikbaiting) hook wisely. News hook contrary hook attack hook resource hook (can keep building links over a long period of time) humor hook ego hook incentive hook

5:23	Keri Morgret:  Wait for links to come to a stop before 301 redirecting

5:24	Keri Morgret:  Don't always use redirects as a solution to pass link value.

5:25	Keri Morgret:  Don't redirect to your home page -- anchor text does not seem to be passed to the home page when a page is deleted and moved to the home page.

5:25	Keri Morgret:  Use your keywords in your page and social media submission titles

5:27	Keri Morgret:  He goes over canonical domain issues and how people can mess up links to your site.

5:27	Keri Morgret:  Other resources: urlrewriter.net isapirewrite.com and more jordan@searchandsocial.com can answer your questions.

5:27	Keri Morgret:  Jonah Stein is up next.

5:28	Keri Morgret:  Here's here to tell us why teh answer isn't always a 301.

5:29	Keri Morgret:  Goes through a history of using redirects for spam.

5:30	Keri Morgret:  Focusing on redirects that are NOT 301 redirects.

5:31	Keri Morgret:  Legit uses of 302: Display user0friendly URL but the content lives deep inside within the information architecture. The vanity URL doesn't have to 301.

5:33	Keri Morgret:  A 302 could be good for matching a keyword in the URL.

5:33	Keri Morgret:  Geo-location redirection without changing the ranking for the underlying page.

5:34	[Comment From manfmnantucket] actually, that last one is questionable - goog will consider it cloaking

5:34	Keri Morgret:  I didn't include the comment about making sure the spiders and users saw the same page.

5:34	Keri Morgret:  He talked about it in such a way that it wouldn't be considered spamming.

5:34	[Comment From manfmnantucket] with geolocation you can't.

5:35	Keri Morgret:  Getting around IT Roadblocks. When you are calling legacy applications or have an application with parameters contained in the URL and you want to create search-friendly URLs.

5:35	[Comment From manfmnantucket] googles spiders all appear to simulate a user based in mountain view, which messes up geo sites big time

5:36	Keri Morgret:  @manfrmnantucket He gave a more complete explanation, but I missed it.

5:37	Keri Morgret:  Third party shopping carts. When you are calling a third-party shopping cart and don't want to display the URL in the code of the page.

5:37	Keri Morgret:  Pretty affiliate links. When you are calling an affiliate link within the target page. Warning: google quality raters have specific instructions to look for hidden/misleading redirects, so use with caution.

5:38	Keri Morgret:  307 might be the right answer. Might be a bit of a mythical beast, he hasn't seen one in the wild. He's going to try to give us a bit of clarification, and does treat it differently than a 302.

5:38	Keri Morgret:  302 defaults to a 303 get method while a 307 uses a post method. He hopes Stephan can explain that to him.

5:39	Keri Morgret:  In general, Jonah wants us to consider that 301 isn't always the perfect answer.

5:40	Keri Morgret:  Q&A time.

5:44	Keri Morgret:  Q: Is there a test site where we can go to test our rules before we go live with them. A: Stephan puts them on a site with very little traffic or a dev site and tests is there. Carolyn does this as well. Mess up, just change the htaccess file back.

5:44

Below is live coverage of the Search & The US Presidential Campaign from SMX West 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by Barry Schwartz, the editor of the Search Engine Roundtable.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed. In addition, you can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog.

Search & The US Presidential Campaign

(02/11/2009)  Powered by: CoveritLive

  

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4:29	Sara Holoubek is introducing this panel

4:33	Jeff Lane appiled to be the SEO for Obama and got it, he saw the listing on CLickZ

4:34	Justine Lam for ROn Paul helped out for the campaign and did this

4:34	Bill Tancer is also on the panel, he is "the data guy"

4:34	How was the process different from a typical retailer?

4:35

4:35	Jeff said he didnt do much budgeting, but they were ROI focused on the PPC side

4:35	He was given an order and told to go

4:36	The guys above him decide to do X and he typically implements it

4:37	Justine's people were nervous to spend on SEM back then, so they did very little

4:37	She did what ever she could for free, relying on social media mostly, she said

4:37

4:38	Jeff came in by the general election, and they proved SEM would work to generate donations... so he was instructed to spend as much as he can

4:38	Jeff had issues with SEO, cause there was not enough time to get SEO going.

4:38

4:39	Bill what were the voter behaviors...

4:40	until general election, searches for ron paul were greater then obama, until Obama appeared on Opera

4:40	People visiting RonPaul.com were a spread of political loyalists

4:40	The success of RonPaul online was mostly due to early adopters

4:47	One of Obama's best donation days was when Sarah Palin was announced, interesting..

4:50	Bill said the search data he was seeing was very depressing, searches for how much obama weighs, etc, its not important.

4:51	Sorry this session isn't so "actionable" so hard to live blog it...

4:53	Obama negative keyworded "husain" type of keywords, so Obama wouldn't come up and other keywords like it.

4:53	Room is also not so full

4:53

4:54	Political candidates used geo targeting tools

4:55	Jeff said Obama geo targeted big time, between swing states and non swing states

4:56	Obama also used Google's custom geo targeting tool and drew out the exact area that had a higher density of specific type of voters

4:56	They also used DMAs

4:56	Sara asked if it made a difference, he said it did

4:56	Jeff said it got very targeted, espesially in Google

4:57	But mostly by state

4:57	Bill pulled data from November 2007, showing searches by candidate name by state...

4:58	You can see any given week, how searches change by week, after candidates visit states

4:58	They used Google Analytics and Website Optimizer, mostly free stuff

4:59	Worker hours were like 10 hours days, 6 days a week or so... people would be there until 2am every day

4:59	It is not all work Justine said, they are talking all night about nothingness sometimes

5:00	What was different?

5:00	Jeff said lots of similarities

5:01	You got to be careful with the ads you make and keywords you target

5:02	Competitive analysis?

5:03	Jeff said they often checked out blogs of competitors for insights, he isnt sure if it helped them

5:04	Did tons of testing on landing pages and had 8 guys to just do analytics for them, using mostly google optimizer, lots of AB testing

5:04	They have seen 50% increases in changes

5:05	Justine had zero AB stuff, no testing...

5:05	Obama said Blue buttons worked well

5:06	Q&A Time, I am so tired, I am not covering Q&A, sorry

5:06	Tune in tomorrow for more live coverage of SMX West 2009!

5:06	That is all we got for this session. We will be ending the live blog session but you can reply or view the transcript immediately after I end this broadcast. Thanks for tuning in to the Search Engine Roundtable's Live Coverage!

5:06

Below is live coverage of the Tapping Into Image Search from SMX West 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by both Barry Schwartz, the editor of the Search Engine Roundtable.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed. In addition, you can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog.

Continue reading "Live Coverage of Tapping Into Image Search at SMX West"

Below is live coverage of the Just Behave, A Look At Searcher Behavior from SMX West 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by Keri Morgret of Morgret Designs.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed. In addition, you can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog.

Just Behave, A Look At Searcher Behavior

(02/11/2009)  Powered by: CoveritLive

  

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3:04	Keri Morgret:  Jenni Tafoya, VP of comScore is up first.

3:05	Keri Morgret:  Overview of their methodology: Their qSearch share tracking universe reports on search activity observed from over 150 properties worldwide where search activity is observed. The have a lot of data.

3:06	Keri Morgret:  She's showing some statistics that are coming across the screen too fast to write down.

3:06	Keri Morgret:  Heavy searchers account for 63% of the volume of sarchers.

3:06	Keri Morgret:  Why is search in general up? More people online this year than last A larger percentage of them are searching.

3:07	Keri Morgret:  Consumers are being even more reliant on search than they used to be. they're on search two more days per month, and more searches per day.

3:07	Keri Morgret:  Both search engines and site search contributing to overall search growth

3:08	Keri Morgret:  Opportunities to expland search marketing campaigns outside of traditional search engines: Videos local image social networking

3:09	Keri Morgret:  Strong click growth, driven by organic click growth.

3:10	Keri Morgret:  Trying to hook up iPhone camera so I can upload pictures, which may put me briefly offline.

3:10	Keri Morgret:  When we look at just those searches wthat had a paid click, we find that peopla re clicking on fewer paid links -- maybe finding what they want the first time?

3:11	Keri Morgret:  What are consumers searching for? - top categories are directories and resources, retail, and entertainment.

3:12	Keri Morgret:  Where are they clicking? The most paid clicks occur on retail sites than in any other category.

3:12	Keri Morgret:  Other categories have a higher paid CTR, but retail has a higher monitization rate.

3:14	Keri Morgret:  She shows some demographic information for different types of searches.

3:16	Keri Morgret:  Takeaways: The search market remains strong marketers may want to consider moving some of their budget outside of the traditional engines, but engines still reign at driving traffic and quality leads.

3:17	Keri Morgret:  Gordon Hotchkiss is up next.

3:18	Keri Morgret:  We search, therefore we are. He shows trends for searches on foreclosures, recession, mortgages.

3:18	Keri Morgret:  It's a golden triangle slide!

3:20	Keri Morgret:  Small, Bookheimer, and Moody did a research study using fMRIs and searching.

3:20

3:22	Keri Morgret:  Looked at internet naive vs. Internet savvy. Had people read text, search internet. The internet naive had the same amount/place of brain activity when reading vs. searching, but internet savvy had a lot more brain activity when they were searching vs when reading text.

3:25	Keri Morgret:  He's giving us a brief lesson in neuranatomy, and giving me flashbacks to my anatomy and physiology classes.

3:26	Keri Morgret:  He's talking about peoples' brains get on autopilot when we do the same things over and over.

3:29	Keri Morgret:  Google did an eyetracking study four years after enquiro's classic golden triangle eyetracking study. Results look very much the same.

3:29	Keri Morgret:  He's showing a time-lapse of the heat map. Where do we look in first .5 seconds, next .5 seconds.

3:33	Keri Morgret:  Things to think about: - much of our search behavior is done on "auto pilot" - we search by habit - as we learn to do this, we free up our brain to more fully interact with the results we see - we become "fluent" in search - we may "pattern match" to determine relevancy

3:33	Keri Morgret:  @outofmygord is his twitter address.

3:33	Keri Morgret:  Larry Cornett of Yahoo is now up.

3:34	Keri Morgret:  Yahoo! has a large amount of aggregate data, but none of it substitutes for getting out into the field and talking to real users.

3:35	Keri Morgret:  talking to users: -explore issues users are having with current search experiences - get their responses to products we've launched

3:35	Keri Morgret:  Methodology of recent study. - Qualitative exploratory research - 150 consumers - Six cites in the US - Asked what they desire in their ideal search experience

3:36	Keri Morgret:  What they heard: - information overload - text overload - impresonal experiences

3:37	Keri Morgret:  Information overload: They're overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information returned. A user doesn't think w00t! when they see 2.4 million responses when searching for joe's restaurant in chinatown new york

3:37	Keri Morgret:  Text-heavy search results pages provide meager decision0making information

3:39	Keri Morgret:  Searchers are having to do a lot of work -- taking ntoes on paper for example. Search engine should be the one to do it.

3:39	Keri Morgret:  Impersonal experiences: the user repeatedly needs to introduce themselves to their search engine. If I say haircut I'm likely looking for a place to get a haircut, not a history of haircuts.

3:40	Keri Morgret:  What they need: - The internet supports their life activity and search needs to keep pace - understand their true intent - provider richer, more personally relevant experiences.

3:41	Keri Morgret:  Richer experiences is a good thing. This is where something like an image in a regular SERP can help people know if they've found what they're looking for.

3:42	Keri Morgret:  If you sign in, Yahoo can give you personalization, at least on a geolocation level.

3:42	Keri Morgret:  Yahoo! Search Blog, SearchMonkey, and BOSS are places to learn more information.

3:43	Keri Morgret:  Ramez Naam is up next. He's the group program manager.

3:43	Keri Morgret:  He's going to go home and ask for a promotion, considering he's on a panel with a president and two VPs.

3:44	Keri Morgret:  How can you use data about the customers you have, their visits with you, etc. to improve your business and so on.

3:45	Keri Morgret:  He's going to try to tie back some of this information back to what the audience can use.

3:46	Keri Morgret:  Research on image search. On web search, about 10% of queries lead to a click on next page. 50% of image queries lead to a click on the next page.

3:47	Keri Morgret:  For live image search, they don't force user to go to the next page at all. This works for image, but not for sure.

3:47	Keri Morgret:  Takeaway: understand what your users do, then use this knowledge to help improve your business.

3:48	Keri Morgret:  We have wrong impression of searchers. It's not just one individual query, but we're seeing: - most customer time is not on single-queries - definitely not on easy queries - customers engage in whole tasks - tasks involved -- trigger -- research --action

3:49	Keri Morgret:  An example is a search for merrell shoes.

3:50

3:53	Keri Morgret:  Possible lessons: Assume people will hunt around before they act. Help them hunt - good content - tools for hunting Draw them back - good content - stickiness of your product Look at conversion in a new light Thaink long term relationship and brand

3:55	Keri Morgret:  Q&A Time

3:56	Keri Morgret:  q: has there been a shift of the number of users who are more willing to go beyond the first page of results?

3:57	Keri Morgret:  Ramez: hard to quantify. When they improve relevance, number of people who click on next page drop. Larry: people are more likely to requery rather than go to next page

3:58	Keri Morgret:  Ramez and Gordon also say that other langauges have different behaviors. When it's hard to type queries, people are more likely to click through to the next page. People spend a lot longer looking at the search results page, too.

4:00	Keri Morgret:  Not too many pictures for this session, the iPhone doesn't have the best quality in this situation.

4:01	Keri Morgret:  Question about demographics. comScore does have a way to profile demographics for specific search terms. Ramez has tools on the backend, but nothing to public.

4:02	Keri Morgret:  Ramez suggests looking at the analytics tool on the site, as there is a lot of information there.

4:05	Keri Morgret:  Gordon asks the panel if they've noticed behavior differences by age, looking at digital natives. Larry has seen differences with clicking on sponsored ads, but can't share exact data.

4:05	Keri Morgret:  Younger demographic has less patience, clicks back and forth, rather than examine serp.

4:06	Keri Morgret:  Ramez hasn't looked at the data in that way, but does look at things like how they got to the site, what browser they're using, etc. This does make a big difference. Someone running IE8 beta vs. IE6 has a very different behavior.

4:09	Keri Morgret:  Gordon asks what panelists are seeing about mobile trends. Market in general is exploding, particularly outside of US. There is the advantage of more reliable geographic data of user. It's a lower volume of searches, but it's a great chance to enhance loyalty with your customers.

4:10	Keri Morgret:  Ramez has an Amazon app for his iPhone, with 1-click ordering. Amazon has a great thing here, making it more likely that he'll use Amazon when ordering from his mobile phone.

4:10	Keri Morgret:  For search engine use on mobiles, the bundle of the engine that came with the phone is