November 4, 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: November 4, 2009"

PubCon Vegas 2009 is next week and like we have done for the past five years, we are live blogging this event. You can see our past coverage at the 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004 live blogging of PubCon, WebmasterWorld's conference.

This year, we will be live blogging the event in real time, using the live blogging tool, CoverItLive.com. We have used this tool for the past few conferences and we enjoy it, so we are sticking with it.

For this show, we have several live bloggers volunteering their time to bring to you the conference. The live bloggers include Avi Wilensky & Sheara Goldenthal from Promediacorp, Brian Ussery aka Beussery, Marty Weintraub from aimClear and Carolyn Shelby aka Cshel. Oh, I will also be doing the live blogging.

Here is our schedule:

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - Day 1
09:00a 09:45a:
Kickoff Keynote Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos covered by Barry Schwartz
10:00a 11:15a:
In-House SEO covered by Brian Ussery
Twitter Landscape - Hot Topics and Trends covered by Avi Wilensky & Sheara Goldenthal
11:30a 12:45p:
Capitalizing on Twitter & The Microblogging Revolution covered by Barry Schwartz
What Every Webmaster Should Know About Code Installation covered by Sheara Goldenthal & Avi Wilensky
1:30p 2:45p:
Top-Shelf SEO: Hot Topics and Trends covered by Barry Schwartz & Avi Wilensky
Ecommerce and Shopping Cart Optimization covered by Brian Ussery
2:55p 4:10p:
How Do You Optimize For Universal and Personal Search? covered by Barry Schwartz
Enterprise Level Bid Management covered by Marty Weintraub
Experts on PR & Twitter covered by Brian Ussery
Hot Topics and Trends in the Affiliate Space covered by Sheara Goldenthal
4:15p 5:30p
SEO for Multimedia and Rich Media covered by Brian Ussery & Avi Wilensky

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - Day 2
10:15a 11:30a:
Local Search and Mobile Optimization covered by Sheara Goldenthal
How do Social Media & Search Intersect? covered by Barry Schwartz & Avi Wilensky
The Wonderful World Of Widgets covered by Marty Weintraub
11:30a 12:45p:
Understanding The Complex Social Marketing Playing Field covered by Brian Ussery
Viral and Video - Two Good Things That Go Great Together covered by Barry Schwartz
1:30p 2:45p:
SEO Design & Organic Site Structure covered by Brian Ussery
Effective Solutions to In-House SEO, PPC, and Campaigns covered by Carolyn Shelby
Social Media & Press Relations covered by Avi Wilensky
Lead Generation and CPA Marketing covered by Sheara Goldenthal
Domaining and Alternative Traffic covered by Barry Schwartz
2:55p 4:10p:
Mega Site SEO Sheara Goldenthal covered by Sheara Goldenthal & Avi Wilensky
Post Mortem - Banned Site Forensics covered by Barry Schwartz
How SEO Can Help Pull the Publishing Industry Back from the Brink covered by Carolyn Shelby
4:15p 5:30p:
Multivariate Testing and Conversion Tweaking covered by Brian Ussery
Hosting Issues and SEO/SEM covered by Carolyn Shelby

Thursday, November 12, 2009 - Day 3
10:15a 11:30a:
Linkfluence: How to Buy Links With Maximum Juice and Minimum Risk covered by Sheara Goldenthal & Marty Weintraub
The Top 50 Best Website Ideas We've Ever Seen covered by Avi Wilensky
Interactive Site Review : Organic Focus covered by Barry Schwartz & Brian Ussery
11:30a 12:45p:
Real World, Low Risk, High Reward Link Building Strategies covered by Barry Schwartz & Avi Wilensky
Starting a vBulletin Community covered by Sheara Goldenthal
1:30p 2:45p:
Social Media Measurement and Signals covered by Marty Weintraub
Real World Winning Tactics for Content Creation covered by Sheara Goldenthal
2:55p 4:10p:
Search Bloggers : What's Hot and Trending? covered by Brian Ussery
Community Hacking: 96 Baiting Strategies You Can Employ covered by Avi Wilensky
4:15p 5:30p:
Super Session : Search Engines and Webmasters - aka: The Search Engine Smackdown covered by Barry Schwartz & Brian Ussery

That is our schedule, I just hope there are no last minute changes to the PubCon side of the schedule.

Every month we give you a Google specific update on what webmasters are talking about at WebmasterWorld, complied with the past month of changes we reported, specifically at Google. To see last month's report, see the October 2009 Google Webmaster report.

This month, via the WebmasterWorld, people are chatting about the following topics:

• Crawling deeper, discovering more pages and more links
• Universal results adding to, not subtracting to, the number of results on a page
• Increase in crawl rates noted on Google Webmaster Tools
• Some talk of Caffeine being rolled out by few

Here are the topics we covered here on Google over the past month (I tried to leave out many):

• Google October 2009 Toolbar PageRank Update
• Maybe a Minor Google Search Update (October 2009)?
• Google Removes PageRank Data From Webmaster Tools
• Google Labs For Webmaster Tools Launches: Fetch as Googlebot & Malware Details
• Google Names My "Deep Sitelinks" as "Forum Sitelinks"
• Google Showing Only 7 of 10 Local Results Now
• Google Adds "Is This Accurate" To Map Details on Web Search
• Google Now Indenting Two Results In Search Results
• Google Maps to Fix One Web Box Result Bug
• Google Geo Targeting Some UK Sites to France?
• Google Search Suggestions Smarter? Abbreviations Working?
• Google To Update Webmaster Tools API Verification Tag
• Blocking Google Sitelinks Can Take Two Weeks Or More
• Google Fixes Webmaster Tools Verification Issue With Google Sites
• Google Webmaster Tools Showing Sub-Sitelinks
• Google Webmaster Tools Verification Files Now Accepted With Hidden HTML
• Google's "Show More Results" Plus Box
• Why Don't I See 'Find Similar Images' in Google Yet?
• Google Soon To Allow Cross Domain Canonical Tag: This Is Big
• Google Wants To Index AJAX #!
• Google Social Search Now Live
• Google Asks For Feedback On 'Fade In' Home Page
• Google Pushes Fading Home Page Test To More, Adds Instructions
• Google's Home Page Instructs: "This Space Intentionally Left Blank"
• Google Finally Tries Page Previews

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A long, long, long time coming, Google is finally testing a page preview feature that shows snapshots of the pages on the search results before you click through. Yes, many search engines have had this feature for a while and yes, there are plugins that added this feature to Google - but Google never really had such a feature, until now.

As I reported yesterday on Search Engine Land via Google Operating System blog, the way to access this feature is to search on something and click on "show options," you can then look towards the button on the left hand side and click on "page previews," and walla!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Ronald from the Google Merchant Center (Base) team reported in a Google Merchant Center Help thread that there is a known issue with FTP uploads.

Specifically, if you are uploading new data feeds via FTP, the data won't show up in the dashboard. If your feeds are less than 20MB, then upload manually, otherwise, you are out of luck.

Ronald said:

We've noticed that a few users have reported that data feeds uploaded via FTP are not getting updated in the Google Merchant Center account dashboard. We are currently investigating this issue. In the meantime, if your data feed file size is less than 20 MB, please upload your data feeds manually. We appreciate your patience.

Forum discussion at Google Merchant Center Help.

The buzz of the day is that Microsoft unveiled a new home page design for MSN. You can see the new design at preview.msn.com. Let's compare the current and the preview:

Current:

Preview:

So much more refreshing! As Greg Sterling noted, the MSN portal drives nearly 50% of Bing queries - that is significant.

The MSN Blog takes us back through the years, starting from 1995 through today - looking at the various MSN designs.

Here is a video from the design team on the changes:

Overall, I think many are happy with the new design.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Back in August, Google began testing Sitelinks for AdWords, now it is official. The Google AdWords blog announced it last night, telling us this is a feature specifically designed to provide "users with more options, you can create richer, more relevant ads that improve the value of your brand terms and other targeted keywords." The feature will show up to four additional links under the main ad for ads that "meet a certain high quality threshold."

Of course, this is a lot like Google Sitelinks, the ones you see in the organic listings.

Again, not all advertisers get this option. To see if you have it, go to Campaign Settings tab -- it would appear as "Show additional links to my site" under the "Ad extensions" section. For more details, see the FAQs on Ad Sitelinks.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

So when I visited Google.com, I saw Big Bird's legs. It is the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street and Google made a Doodle for it. But then I noticed other Google properties not only sporting Sesame Street but also Doodles for other learning programs that are popular in those regions. We have Google logos for the 20th birthday of Wallace & Gromit, and these other regional characters: Abigal, Boombah Chamki, Ieniemienie, Abelardo Montoya and Kami.

Here are the logos:

Big Bird's Sesame Street found at Google.com, Google.ca, Google.es, Google.hr, Google.co.kr, Google.co.jp, Google.com.ly, Google.fr, Google.com.ph, Google.com.qa, Google.pl, Google.com.bh, Google.com.hk, Google.com.kw, Google.ps, Google.com.sa, Google.ae, Google.com.eg, Google.co.id, Google.jo, Google.com.lb, and Google.com.om.

Wallace & Gromit found at Google.co.uk, Google.com.tw, Google.co.th, Google.rs, Google.pt, Google.de, Google.ro, Google.ch, and Google.at.

Ieniemienie' Sesame Street found at Google.be and Google.nl.

Kami from Sesame Street found at Google.co.za:

Boombah Chamki from Sesame Street found at Google.co.in:

Abelardo Montoya from Sesame Street found at Google.com.mx:

Abigal (אביגיל) from Sesame Street found at Google.co.il:

I don't think I missed any, but you can check yourself at the bottom of this page.

Happy 40th Sesame Street and 20th Wallace & Gromit!

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Update: The Google Blog just posted about the peanut butter and sandwiches. :)

November 5th a Cookie Monster logo:

November 6th, an Ernie & Bert logo:

November 7th, Oscar the Grouch:

November 8th, Elmo:

November 9th, Count Von Count:

November 10th, the official anniversary day, seems to be the collage and last logo: