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.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Google Pleases Local Optimizers & Upsets AdWords Optimizers With Place Search
Yesterday, Google officially announced Place Search. We have seen signs of this coming with some tests in the past. In short, if your search contains anything that might signal local intent, Google may show a map above the AdWords ads on the right, and then automatically include some local results within the organic results. Plus, they added a "Places" link on the left hand navigation bar in Google's search results. If you don't see it - Google Confirms Major AdWords Quality Score Reporting Bug
If you visited any Google AdWords help forum in the past day or so, you would have seen dozens of complaints in the form of threads and posts from advertisers worried about their quality score. As you know, quality score is a major factor in determining the AdWords ad rank and price. Google confirmed the bug in a couple threads, including one at the Google AdWords Help forum and one at WebmasterWorld. Google said it - Gobble Gobble: Microsoft Bing/adCenter Swallows Yahoo Completely In US & Canada
As you know, Yahoo was planning on migrating everyone in the US and Canada over from their search ad platform to Microsoft adCenter by the end of this month. As Yahoo said, mission accomplished, Yahoo has successful handed themselves over to Microsoft on a platter. Ironically, well before the Thanksgiving holiday, which was their goal. Gobble Gobble! I summed up the news and what this means at Search Engine Land but I'll bullet point it - Google Creates Chrome Extension To Report Search Spam
Google loves when webmasters and SEOs report search/web spam to them. Although 70% of SEOs won't report spam to Google, there is still a huge number of people who would. To make it easier for those spam reporters, Google has created a Chrome Extension named the Google Webspam Report. I don't know for sure who made the extension at Google, but maybe it was Matt? Maybe? There is a Google presentation on how it works,
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- MySpace Redesigns To Target The Younger Audience, WebmasterWorld
- Facebook Supercedes Google Trademark Policy?, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Google & Traffic Shaping, WebmasterWorld
- Google now providing servants to its employees, Google Blogoscoped Forum
- How To Build Your Facebook Landing Page (If You’re Not A Programmer), Sphinn
