November 9, 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 9, 2009"

Today, if you visit Google.com, you will see Count Von Count as the Google logo (doodle) on the home page. This is the 6th day, and 11th Sesame Street logo, Google has posted in celebrating of Sesame Street's 40th anniversary. We have all the Sesame Street logos that have currently been posted over here.

Like, I said, today's logo is Count Von Count, another lovable Sesame Street logo:

But today, if you visit Google.de, you will see a logo commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, on November 9, 1989.

Personally, I felt it would be best to stop with Elmo, yesterday, on Sunday. There are several people upset that Google has not made the Berlin Wall logo more prominent by posting it on all of Google's properties. Especially since Google is on their 6th day and 11th logo for Sesame Street's 40th anniversary, which was 6 days ago. There are even some people upset Elmo usurped UK's Remembrance Sunday.

Clearly, Google likes to show fun logos over sad ones. But 6 days of Sesame Street?

Forum discussion at several threads at Google Web Search Help.

What appears to be a newbie, posted a thread at Google Webmaster Help asking why his site is not ranking yet. He also asked if he had something to do with the URL https://internal.google.com/spamteam/users/cutts/matt/ban_list/ showing up in his log files.

Got that?

https://internal.google.com/spamteam/users/cutts/matt/ban_list/

It appears to look like Matt Cutts' personal ban list at Google. But is it really?

(1) His site is indexed in Google.

(2) Why in the world would Google show those types of referrers in people's log files, especially those sites that are banned.

(3) The IP addresses noted by the webmaster did not seem to be from Google.

(4) Googler, JohnMu, said it is not Matt's ban list. JohnMu went on record, and I trust him, saying:

I can assure you that the URL in the title of the thread is not a Google URL -- where did you get it from?

Do you think the URL is real?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a post asking where do SEOs make the most amount of money? Is it by offering SEO consulting services? Is it by building web sites with affiliate models? Is it by offering SEO education? Is it by selling successful web sites? Or is it something else?

I assume the answer depends on how good the person is at the particular service. If someone is great at dealing with clients, then consulting might be the way to go. If someone is excellent at educating people, then go that way. If some one can anticipate trends and is able to sell a site for big money, then that is the way to go.

But if you had to pick one, which would it be? Take our anonymous poll:

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

There is a small thread at WebmasterWorld with two advertisers complaining that their US based ads are not running as often as their UK based Microsoft adCenter campaigns. In short, the US campaigns they were running, in comparison to the UK campaigns, were getting a tiny fraction of impressions and clicks.

One advertiser emailed Microsoft and received this interesting response:

We see that your program was opened in 2006.

We see that you are receiving some impressions but not nearly as many as you could be. Sometimes when a campaign or ad group is not getting very much activity for a long period of time the ad will start showing less and less because it is not performing. That may be what has happened with your campaign.

My suggestion is to start two brand new campaigns and copy all of the data over from your existing campaigns.

We know adCenter has hit campaigns for low quality ranking factors in the past, but to have two campaigns, exactly the same, with the difference being UK versus US, that seems interesting. What I find even more interesting is that Microsoft here is suggesting the advertiser build a brand new campaign and just copy over the data.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A disgruntled searcher posted a thread at Google Maps Help forum complaining that he spotted a nude photo on a Google Maps business listing for a London based escort service. I personally don't think I see a nude photo, but the photos are seductive in nature. You can see the business listing over here (also a screen capture).

The individual reported this on Saturday, November 7th, but no one really noticed (it was Saturday). Here is his post:

This is a serious breech of Google quality guidelines ever. Spammer added price £120 on the title of the listing . On the other hand spammer has added nude picture on the Gallery section to get more clicks from surfer .

What a shame, how could some do such things . Please take immediate action.

This is not the first time we found adult oriented content in Google Maps. We found adult spam in Google Maps listings in a much worse way, disguised as a normal business listing. That spam was cleaned up.

Now, I don't think escort services is an issue in Google Maps - I am not sure. But are these pictures an issue? Nudity is, but these?

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Update: There are some that actually do have nudity. Do not click if you do not want to see nudity. Here are some examples, this one, this one, and probably many many more. Even many in the US, such as this one, this one, this one and many more. So there is plenty of nudity on Google Maps Business Listings.

The Google AdWords team posted a photo help session, specifically to give tips on how to use the Google Content Network to the best of your ability.

AdWordsPro Sarah, the woman in the middle of the photo above, posted the details of the photo tips:

To help wish the AdWords Help Forum happy birthday, the Online Help team collected Googler's favorite tips and created several photo albums (so you can put a face to the tip!). Its our little way of saying "thank you" for a great first year on the forum.

Tip photo album: http://cli.gs/20RB5g

The first album in the series has tips for advertisers looking to place ads on the Content Network. If you look through the pictures and find a tip that looks interesting, some of the photos have URLs in the caption that will give you more information on how to implement this tip in your own account (it may be easier than reading our messy hand writing). And, as always, if you have questions about any of the tips, please feel free to leave them in this thread.

Happy Birthday Everyone!
AdWordsPro Sarah

There is a lot to say about giving online help for this product, but to show a smile when doing it - well, that adds a lot. To see all the tips, go to the Picasa album.

Very creative AdWords team!

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.