June 30, 2009 Archives

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

Continue reading "Daily Search Forum Recap: June 30, 2009"

About a week ago, we showed our readers many of the bing commercials and asked you guys if you liked them. To my surprise, about 60% of you said you do like them, while only about 25% of you said you don't like them. Here is the break down of the results:

Question: Do You Like The Bing Commercials?

:: Yes said 54 respondents or 59%
:: No said 24 respondents or 26%
:: Indifferent said 9 respondents or 10%
:: Other answer... said 4 respondents or 4%

Other answers include:

• I don't have any problems with google, so the commercials seem redundant to me.
• Annoying
• Who Cares
• Only the search overload ones

Forum discussion continued at DigitalPoint Forums.

About two weeks ago, we asked AdSense publishers what do you want to be called. Well, after almost 150 responses, I figured I share the results with you.

:: Web Marketer said 30 respondents or 21%
:: Web Publisher said 28 respondents or 20%
:: Webmaster said 27 respondents or 19%
:: Self-Employed said 24 respondents or 17%
:: Web Developer said 14 respondents or 10%
:: Web Editor said 6 respondents or 4%
:: Retired said 4 respondents or 3%
:: Other answer... said 10 respondents or 7%

Other answers include:

• Broke
• Additional source of income earner :)
• Disintermediator
• undefined
• Money Maker
• Entrepreneur
• SEO
• Spammer

What we learn from this is that AdSense publishers don't have a true title, they are simply AdSense publishers.

I am surprised no one said, "Google money maker," or something like that.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has new conversation on branded links. By that, he means, getting links to your web site for your brand name. For example, if you link to this site with the anchor text Search Engine Roundtable over something like best search blog or something like that. Honestly, I'd take either, but I kind of prefer the Search Engine Roundtable link, because it is the name of this site.

Why do I personally prefer Search Engine Roundtable over best search blog? Well, if someone is reading your site and you write best search blog, they might not click over or look at the URL, so they don't know that the best search blog is the Search Engine Roundtable. But if you write Search Engine Roundtable, that might stick, so I might prefer you write that the Search Engine Roundtable is the best search blog.

Buckworks, the WebmasterWorld moderator, added his advice:

New links from quality sites would help your cause even if the anchor text isn't SEO-perfect.

Be religiously consistent about what URL you ask them to link to:

http://www.example.com/
vs
http://example.com/

NOT

http://www.example.com/index.html or whatever

So, go ahead, link to us as the Search Engine Roundtable, I won't mind.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Since early February, Firefox users may have tripped on a Google AdSense security error. The error reads:

Security Error: Content at http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/ may not load data from example.com

It happens on some configurations of Firefox, where the security prompt seems to be warning you that content from a third party is loading on this web page.

There are threads as far back as February with this issue, specifically from Google AdSense Help. A newer thread at WebmasterWorld has more discussion around the security error.

I honestly don't think this is a Google specific issue. It seems to be a setting that warns surfers of third party content showing up on a web page.

HowToGeek.com has an article that describes how you can "fix" this security prompt from showing. But in the AdSense case, it might not work.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help and WebmasterWorld .

The Google News Blog is asking Google News publications to sign up for the YouTube Partner Program in order to get your videos more exposure.

If you use Google News, you would have noticed that they are playing up YouTube videos. Many of the results contain little YouTube icons, at least for the past month or so, to encourage people to view those videos. Here is a screen shot of how those icons are displayed in Google News:

Since we do weekly videos, I think it might be a good match for this site. Maybe I'll start doing more videos, if they bring in more traffic. We will see.

Right now, Google News only told Google News publishers to apply to the YouTube partner program. What happens afterwards is a bit of a mystery. Google said, "will do a separate review and follow-up about including your videos in Google News." So we are waiting further instructions.

A WebmasterWorld thread is not too happy about this request. One said:

And that's why I prefer Yahoo! News. Too many low quality blogs in there passing as "news".

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.