Search Pulse 37: Pirate Day, AdWords Payouts, Google Spam, Google Books, Ad Penalties & More

The 37th edition of the Search Pulse is now available for download.In the 37th edition of the Search Pulse, Chris, Ben and I discussed several exciting topics. We talked about how some search engines celebrated Talk Like a Pirate Day. We also discussed some of the reaction towards Google stopping the commission payouts to AdWords agencies in Europe. We discussed the Chinese-like spam in Google, as well as how Google Book search results invaded some of the listings. We touched on many more topics including AdWords Quality Scores, link building, web directories, Microsoft's Live 2.0 search engine and then went into "lightening round." The topics we covered are listed below, in order of priority (based on search community buzz).

Update: They recovered the file, here is the MP3 file.

NOTE: The show MP3 file was corrupt, WebmasterRadio was unable to publish an archive of the show. I apologize, but I guess more of an incentive to listen live. But here is a summary of what we talked about.

Topics We Covered:

1. Talk Like A Pirate Day: Dogpile, Flickr, Roundtable & Others
2. Google to Discontinue Commission Payouts to European Agencies
3. Google Update Underway? Chinese Spam Impacting Google.com
4. Google Book Search Results in Google.com Organic Results?
5. Advertisers React to Google's Quality Score Penalty Definitions
6. Link Building is Getting More Difficult, but Why?
7. What Makes a Bad Web Directory?
8. More Signs of Live Search 2.0
9. Live.com Search Update & Design Update?

1. Yahoo Site Blocking: Block Sites from Displaying your Yahoo Ads
2. DMOZ Home Page Disappears from Google
3. Googlebot DNS Caching Issue Reportedly Resolved
4. Google Gadgets Ads Beta: Preview Honda Civic's Google Gadget Ad
5. Yahoo! Announces Widget Badges
6. Google Releases Adwords CPA Bidding Tool, Conversion Optimizer
7. "rc:0" in Google AdSense Code Represents Rounded Corners
8. Google Directory PageRank Update
9. Yahoo Link Domain Search Temporarily Down?
10. Yahoo Site Explorer Back & Link Counts Normal Again
11. Google Webmaster Tools Link Report Download Feature Not Working
12. Reporting Issues at Google AdWords & AdSense Consoles
13. Search Marketing Association of North America (SMA-NA) Dissolved
14. SEOmoz Scores VC Funding, Forum Members Rejoice

The topic list is in order of how I wanted the conversation to go. I felt that these were the most talked about and discussed topics in the search community.

Tune in next week on Tuesday, 5pm (EST) at WebmasterRadio.FM.

For our past shows, please visit the Search Pulse archives and browse through them all.