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Daily Search Forum Recap: February 26, 2010

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

(Text) Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: February 26, 2010

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 10:04am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Buzz RoundUp

This week, I am currently in Jerusalem, Israel, so I won't be producing a video. Here is a text recap instead of the video recap.

The European Union has opened an investigation to make sure Google isn't stepping over their boundaries by penalizing potential competitors in the web results. Google said they will launch the Caffeine index in the upcoming months. Google had a Webmaster Tools bug in the index URL report. Google may verify your web site in Webmaster Tools without you specifically requesting it. Google has updated the Jazz interface slightly and more people are seeing it. MySpace (and also Facebook) is now in Google's real-time search results. Bing is having trouble with their spiders again. Twitter users don't click on AdSense. Google AdWords has a new "target" CPA feature. AdWords is closing their old API in less than 60 days. Yelp was sued for allegedly removing negative reviews. SMX West is next week, I won't be there, but we got the coverage for you. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Select Topics For This Past Week:

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

Google May Verify Your Sites in Webmaster Tools Without You Clicking Verify

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:47am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A Google Webmaster Help thread has a report that someone noticed their site was verified in Google Webmaster Tools without them actually clicking the "verify" button. How did this happen?

Well, first of all, the www version of the site was verified. The non-www version they did not manually click verify for. So, Googler, Dennis G. explained in the thread:

Sometimes we can tell that you have a site verified even if it does not show up in your site list in Webmaster Tools. Usually this is because you verified the site a while ago and removed it from the list, or because the verification bot detected that its the same site (common for www/non-www URLs) and had the same verification tokens in place. That latter check doesn't happen in most cases any more, so you're more likely to have to explicitly add and verify the non-www site. You can then delete the site from Webmaster Tools if you like; we'll know you're still verified. On the other hand, sometimes there is useful feedback about your "other" site, so it's not a horrible idea to leave it there and check on it every now and then.

Pretty neat, at least I think so.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Twitter Users Don't Click on Google AdSense Ads?

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:37am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

A WebmasterWorld thread has Google AdSense publishers talking about how well traffic from Twitter converts in terms of clicks on AdSense ads.

The overall consensus from the thread is that Twitter users are too cool to click on AdSense ads. One person even kept tabs on that, saying:

Created about 500 targeted follows, got 120 followers, this converted in about 40 visits to my sites and 1 click.

I can tell you that for both this blog and my personal blog, which receives traffic from Twitter in the top ten of their referrals, that traffic does not convert into the top ten referrals for AdSense revenue. Let me explain again. For this site, Twitter is within the top 5 sources of traffic to this site. However, if I sort that traffic by top referrer by revenue earned with AdSense, Twitter is not in the top ten list.

Do you agree?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google 302 Redirects Secure iGoogle To Unsecure iGoogle

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:29am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

If you visit https://www.google.com/ig, it will redirect you to [www.google.com], without the https for secure. Yes, Google is making sure no one can access the secure version of iGoogle.

Here is a server header check from SEO Consultants:

#1 Server Response: https://www.google.com/ig
HTTP Status Code: HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Location: http://www.google.com/ig
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:29:08 GMT
Server: igfe
Content-Length: 221
X-XSS-Protection: 0
Redirect Target: http://www.google.com/ig

There are several complaints about not being able to access the secure version of iGoogle at the Google Web Search Help forums. Paul from Google explained why this is the case. In short, the gadgets on the secure iGoogle were not always secure, which led to confusion. Here is the detailed explanation:

As you noticed, we've recently started redirecting any users who attempt to visit an iGoogle page using "https" to an "http" page. The "https" on the iGoogle page that some users visited may have caused these users to believe that any activity performed on their page was protected by https, when in fact only gadgets that are built to support https provide the corresponding encryption protection to users. We made this change to clarify that only activity using gadgets that support https is transmitted over a secured https connection on iGoogle.
For example if you're using Google's official iGoogle gadget for our free email service, Gmail, you can continue to use it with https protection unless you have turned off the default setting on your Gmail settings page.

Valid excuse, but what would be nice (I know it is more work) would be to give gadget developers a way to create https enabled apps. If they are enabled, they work on the secure iGoogle, if not, Google explains why they are not working on the secure iGoogle.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Yelp Sued Over Accepting Money For Removing Negative Reviews

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:21am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Local Search

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the allegations that Yelp has been burying negative reviews in exchange for advertising dollars.

MediaPost writes:

A California veterinary center has sued review site Yelp for allegedly promising to bury bad reviews in exchange for purchasing $3,600 worth of advertising on the site.
"Yelp frequently exercises its control over the Yelp.com listing application to modify business listing pages to the advantage of businesses that purchase Yelp advertising subscriptions, and the disadvantage of those that decline," Cats and Dogs Animal Hospital owner Gregory Perrault alleges in a complaint filed in federal district court in the central district of California.

Greg at Search Engine Land writes:

Two class action law firms have filed suit in Los Angeles federal court claiming that Yelp has attempted to “extort” money from small businesses by offering to remove negative reviews in exchange for payment.
The truth will out of course but I would be stunned if these claims were based in truth rather than the frustrations and misunderstandings of the plaintiff in this case.

I hope Greg is right - we covered reports of this via the forums back in November 2008. Back then, I was told it:

Reviews are purely algorithmic and that only one positive review can be emphasized. Reviews can come down if the person writing the review closed his/her account or the account was terminated due to violations. A third reason why reviews would be hidden is due to suspect behavior; the review is removed from the actual business but not from the reviewer's profile page.

I guess time will tell us if this is true - unless this is settled out of court and no one really finds out the truth.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Report: Google To Launch Caffeine Index In Upcoming "Months"

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:10am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Search Engine Land's Matt McGee reports Google will be launching the Caffeine index update, the one many believe is already live, in the upcoming months.

He received a statement from Google saying:

We expect to roll it out to all data centers over the coming months.

Why didn't it launch after the holidays? What is the hold up with Caffeine launching? Google sent a statement about that:

We run lots of tests with this big a change to our infrastructure. We want the new system to meet or exceed the abilities of our current system, and it can take time to ensure that everything looks good.

Again, many people will swear it is live. It is live, but only in one of the many Google data centers. So just be patient and hopefully it will go live before Bing powers Yahoo fully.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google AdWords Now Allows Only VIPPS & CIPA Pharmacy Ads

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 8:58am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

Google announced they are now allowing certain pharmacy and drug ads on their search results. Google AdWords will only accept advertisements from VIPPS and CIPA certified pharmacies, and that these pharmacies can only target ads within the countries where they are accredited.

Of course, for those running ads on the topic of pharmacy and drugs and health, that may have been running ads in the realm of those topics - may also be hit by some algorithm that blocks these ads.

A WebmasterWorld thread has at least one complaint from an advertiser:

Once again, Google used an automated process to "clean house" it appears.
I had no idea that I ran an "Online Pharmacy"

To be honest, I always thought that Google disallowed all pharma ads - I guess I was wrong?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 25, 2010

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Google Jazz Slightly Updates It's Look

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:55pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

Google has been experimenting with the Google Jazz Interface (I know Google doesn't call it Jazz internally) since November of last year. It appears that Google has slightly updated that look from what we originally saw.

A Google Blogoscoped Forums thread has a picture from one user of the new Jazz look.

Here is the new look:

Here is the old Jazz look:

They are very similar but there are slight differences.

In the thread, they also share how you can get this user interface on your Google. Here is how:

Go to Google.com (Press Go to Google.com if you are brought to a localized version of Google, this won't work for localized versions evem if you change the code to .google.ie or whatever instead of .google.com)
Put
javascript:alert(document.cookie="PREF=ID=496cfd992ab9f273:
U=a77c3a4da3815c1d:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1260896352:
LM=1267013388:DV=8atQZBunt08B:GM=1:IG=1
:S=1ebLUyXkRkBnJMYi;path=/;domain=.google.com")

into your addressbar (NOT the Google Search Box) and press return.

Searches on Google.com should now use the new layout.

Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums.

Hat tip to Michel.

EU Probes Google Search Penalties

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:42pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Upset you were penalized by Google? You are not the only one. Tons of sites are penalized by Google each day, on some level. But this time the European Union is opening an antitrust investigation to make sure Google is not penalizing web sites for their own gain.

Over the years, Google has got into business lines that compete with normal webmasters. From web analytics to selling mortgage leads, Google on some level, competes with the sites they rank, unbiasedly, in the search interface that made them so popular.

The Telegraph reports:

The European Commission has launched an anti-trust investigation against Google after three online companies alleged that the internet giant’s search functions were penalising their businesses.
The investigation comes under the Lisbon Treaty’s “abuse of dominant position” powers and is the first time that Google has been targeted by the European Union.

Foundem claims that Google lifted the “penalty” in December, resulting in an increase in traffic from Google searches of “10,000pc overnight”.

Foundem is owned in part by Microsoft and Ciao is owned by them, which is why Greg Sterling suggests that Redmond is the puppet master behind this investigation. Greg does an excellent job taking you through many of the points and angles of such a claim. The Google EU policy blog also comments:

Though each case raises slightly different issues, the question they ultimately pose is whether Google is doing anything to choke off competition or hurt our users and partners. This is not the case. We always try to listen carefully if someone has a real concern and we work hard to put our users’ interests first and to compete fair and square in the market. We believe our business practices reflect those commitments.

Google comments specifically about Foundem and Ciao as well.

As you can imagine, something like this drives a lot of SEO and webmaster discussion.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Buying Links Can Get Your Site Penalized

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:28pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Link Building

A WebmasterWorld thread discusses the topic of link buying versus link selling. One person made a bold claim that link buying will not hurt you, but link selling can hurt you. I don't think anyone would argue that Google proactively goes after link sellers. But do they proactively go after link buyers?

From what I see in the various forums, including the Google Webmaster Forums, Google does actively penalize sites for buying links. Time after time, I see a webmaster complain that his site does not rank well and a Googler coming in linking to the page about link schemes and/or paid links. On the paid links page, Google does not hide the fact that:

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.

In fact, in 2007, Google added a report paid links form to encourage competitors to report paid links to them.

But what about competitors hurting your rankings? Google has a page about that as well. In the old days, Google said competitors can never really hurt your rankings, but now they said, "almost" never.

There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. If you're concerned about another site linking to yours, we suggest contacting the webmaster of the site in question. Google aggregates and organizes information published on the web; we don't control the content of these pages.

In any event, there are many SEOs that successfully purchase links to gain rankings. They do it differently then normal link buying. So if you are going to purchase links, be smart about it and be creative. Otherwise, just write content that attracts normal links - it might just be safer and in the long run, easier.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google AdWords Let's You Target a CPA

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:24pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion about a possible new bidding feature in AdWords. Honestly, I am not sure how new it is, but it basically allows you to set a target CPA (cost per acquisition) and Google will try to optimize your bids to achieve it.

The advertiser wrote that he was presented with this option after logging in to manage his AdWords account. Google told him:

This new option allows you to bid based on the average amount you would like to pay for a conversion. For example, if you want to achieve an average CPA of $25, you could use this option and set your bid to be $25. Advertisers with CPA targets they would like to reach may prefer to use Target CPA so they can specify those goals directly.

I believe that this was originally a limited test, but if you run Google Conversion Optimizer you can opt for this target CPA now or soon.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Google AdWords Help.

Yahoo Partners With Twitter Again

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:10pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Engine

It seems like for every search company to remain cool, they need to have a partnership with Twitter. And since Yahoo is no longer a search company, I guess they need to be very cool and announce yet another partnership with them.

This partnership includes three primary elements:
1) People will be able to access their personal Twitter feeds across Yahoo!'s many products and properties, including the homepage, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Sports, and others, letting them check in more easily on what's happening with the people and things they care about while on Yahoo!.

2) People will be able to update their Twitter status and share content from Yahoo! in their Twitter stream, so they can easily share their Yahoo! experiences with their friends and followers on Twitter.

3) Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! media properties like News, Finance, Entertainment, and Sports will include real-time public Twitter updates across a variety of topics. Yahoo! Search users will immediately see real-time Twitter results today; go to Yahoo! and try it out.

Let me quote some of my favorite lines from the WebmasterWorld discussion:

This is getting stupid now. I can see some good stuff coming from twitter like emergency stuff, news of world events and so forth, but these tweets may account for only .00001 of all tweets. The rest are IMO complete garbage.

I'm not onboard with the movement that considers Twitter an ultimate site or tool, to me it's trivial and a waste of time, but I had a first happen to me as a webmaster so this announcement is not all that surprising to me.

Hey, if you don't follow me on Twitter, feel free @rustybrick - I want to be cool too!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Three Google Execs Convicted In Italy Over YouTube Privacy Issues

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 10:03am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google PageRankSERP Updates

Honestly, I am shocked that Italy prosecuted and convicted three Google executives in Italy over a YouTube video. The news was all over Techmeme yesterday. I'll quote Reuters:

A Milan court has convicted three Google Inc executives for the 2006 transmission of a video showing the bullying of a youth with Down's syndrome, the judge in the case told Reuters on Wednesday.
The three were sentenced to six months in jail after being convicted of invasion of privacy, the judge said. A fourth executive was found not guilty.

Google wrote on their blog that this is a serious threat to the web in Italy. Google said:

But we are deeply troubled by this conviction for another equally important reason. It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming. European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.

Clearly, not everyone agrees, and the judge did not agree. No matter who you agree with, this does change Google's stamp in Italy going forward.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 24, 2010

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Google Webmaster Tools Bug In Indexed URLs Report

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:26pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There was a brief time where Google Webmaster Tools was reporting the wrong number of indexed URLs for a web site. JohnMu from Google confirmed the issue in at least two Google Webmaster Help threads. He said:

We recently had a small issue with the indexed URL counts in Webmaster Tools for some sites. This should be resolved now and back to normal for most sites that experienced this issue (it might take a day or two to catch up everywhere).
Thanks for your patience!

So if you feel your index count is wrong, it certainly may be wrong.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Note: I just landed in Jerusalem, after an 11 hour flight. I am typing as fast as I can, so please excuse typos, grammar and any non-sense.

Wired Article Implies Google Caffeine Is Live But It's Not

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:21pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

An article at Wiredhas a ton of details about how Google's search algorithms, index, crawlers and so on evolved over the years. I highlighted many of the points in my Search Engine Land write up on it.

A WebmasterWorld thread quotes a piece on the Google Caffeine index, asking if that means it is live.

"The most recent major change, codenamed Caffeine, revamped the entire indexing system to make it even easier for engineers to add signals."

One webmaster asked, "Does this mean that Caffeine is now live:)?"

We thought it was live dozens of times, but nothing really has changed since then. I fully believe that when it goes live beyond one data center, Google will let us know. I just don't think that the quote above can fully mean it is live. I believe Search Engine Land will post a statement from Google on this topic later today - but as far as I know, it is not live.

Meanwhile, reading the Wired piece is both fun and educational.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Note: I just landed in Jerusalem, after an 11 hour flight. I am typing as fast as I can, so please excuse typos, grammar and any non-sense.

60 Days Left on Old Google AdWords API

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:16pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

There is only 60 days left to migrate off the old AdWords API and to version v200909.

Jason for the AdWords API team posted a thread at the AdWords API Forum warning API users once again about this upgrade.

Jason said:

Last month we reminded you that on April 22 most v13 services will be turned off. In 60 days, the following v13 services will no longer be accessible (read more over here)
- CampaignService
- AdGroupService
- CriterionService
- AdService
- InfoService
- KeywordToolService
- SiteSuggestionService

Jason Shafton, Product Marketing Manager

Forum discussion at AdWords API Forum.

Note: I just landed in Jerusalem, after an 11 hour flight. I am typing as fast as I can, so please excuse typos, grammar and any non-sense.

Xerox Wants To Copy Some of Google's Money

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:09pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

I covered the news that Xerox is suing Google & Yahoo over an alleged patent infringement. In short, Xerox has two patents they feel Google and Yahoo is using, in some form, and they want money.

Xerox is known for their copy machines, by the way and that business, as I understand it, is not doing too well. For more about the law suit, see my article linked to above.

Here are comments from WebmasterWorld on the lawsuit:

There are two sides to every side of the story.

Wreaks of Xerox trying to do a cash grab.

xerox ... isn't that a printer company?! ;-)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Note: I just landed in Jerusalem, after an 11 hour flight. I am typing as fast as I can, so please excuse typos, grammar and any non-sense.

Google Adds Two New Support Reps to AdWords Forums

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:03pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

A Google AdWords Help forum announced the addition of two additional AdWords support representatives to the forums. Both representatives have been working at Google for "several years" and decided to take the plunge in forum help.

The names are AdWordsPro Sarala and AdWordsPro Rasika.

AdWordsPro Sarah introduced them in the Google AdWords Help and AdWordsPro, as well as the new forum reps, said hello. Here is Sarah's introduction:

I am happy to announce that we will be adding two new AdWordsPros to the forum this week. Please take a moment to give a warm welcome to AdWordsPro Sarala and AdWordsPro Rasika. Both of them have been working in AdWords for several years and they should be a great addition to the team.
I'll let them jump in and say their "hellos"- but if you see them around the forum, be sure to say hi.

Welcome new reps, we will be watching you!

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Note: I just landed in Jerusalem, after an 11 hour flight. I am typing as fast as I can, so please excuse typos, grammar and any non-sense.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 23, 2010

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

YouTube Update: Bulk Uploader Discontinued & Misc Bugs

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 2:11pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

There are several new things going on with YouTube and since I am a big time YouTube director (kidding), they interest me.

(1) The YouTube Bulk Uploader tool will be taken down shortly. Liz from the YouTube team explained that Google is improving their normal updated to support Google Gears. She said:

In order to consolidate engineering efforts, the team has decided to retire the bulk-uploader and concentrate on improving the regular uploader moving forward. Please note that the regular uploader also lets you upload up to 10 files at the same time.
We suggest that you use the following link to upload your video files:
http://upload.youtube.com/my_videos_upload?restrict=gears

Make sure that you have Google Gears installed - you can get Google Gears by visiting: gears.google.com

(2) AudioSwap feature is causing a black screen in the videos. This is a known issue that should be resolved now, if not, let them know.

(3) Some YouTubers that are trying to upload are not succeeding. There is another known issues thread that is discussing just that. Liz said:

Some of you may have experienced recent upload processing delays, and then the file you're trying to upload eventually fails. This is a known issue and our engineering team have been working on resolving the situation. For those of you who were impacted and the video failed to upload to the site, we recommend re-uploading your file.

The team is working on a fix so that the files will not fail in the future and you should also receive clearer messaging explaining what occurred.

(4) If your account was hijacked or compromised in some way, Liz announced there is a new way to report the issue. A new document details the steps on how to contact Google/YouTube about hijacked accounts. Liz said:

The information you provide in the form will go directly to the Team here and we will investigate the matter. Once we've looked into the case, you will receive an email update letting you know your options and whether we were able to help you retrieve the account.

There you have it, four quick YouTube bytes for you.

DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) To Replace Google Ad Manager

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 2:03pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Google announced a new product named DoubleClick for Publishers. In short, this is ultimately going to replace Google Ad Manager, a product we use here to manage and deliver our ads.

More tools is nice - but we will see when I get migrated over to it, how smooth that is and how much I, the publisher, benefits from it.

This is from the announcement:

DFP comes in two flavors, tailored for different publishers' needs: DoubleClick for Publishers, for the largest online publishers, and DFP Small Business, a simple, free version designed for growing online publishers. We'll be upgrading current DART for Publishers publishers to DoubleClick for Publishers over the next year as we continue to add features and modules, and we'll be moving Google Ad Manager customers to DFP Small Business in the coming weeks.
To reflect our continued investment in DoubleClick's products, as well as the central role of DoubleClick's technology products within Google's display advertising business, we're also today unveiling some changes to the DoubleClick logos — including typeset changes, incorporating a new "by Google" theme and retiring the "DART" brand.

A WebmasterWorld thread has some comments from publishers:

Yet another way to track what you do when you do it and ... .dare I say it who you do it with....

They cater to the advertiser, ignoring the User's privacy. Period. Due to the fact they own Doubleclick. Try watching major TV stations over the NET without coooooooockie/URI of Doubleclick.NET blocked...

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

SMX West 2010 Live Blog Coverage Schedule

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 1:55pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Marketing Expo 2010 West

SMX West 2010 is next week, March 2nd, 3rd, and 4th to be exact. We are thrilled to be able to bring the event to you, even if you cannot make it, through our live blogging coverage.

I personally will be in Israel during SMX West, so this live blogging coverage will help me stay on top of what I will be missing. I am sad I won't be there, but I am hosting a small SMX event, SphinnCon, in Israel the week after. So that should be fun and yes - we (Israel) have been sold out for a month now.

Live blogging SMX West are Keri Morgret of Strike Models and Brian Ussery of Beu Blog. These are both seasoned and experienced live bloggers - so I am very confident you will love the coverage! Thank you both for volunteering to cover the conference for the industry!

Here is out SMX West 2010 Live Coverage Schedule:

March 2, 2010

9:00am-9:45am
Keynote Conversation: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer by Brian Ussery
10:45am-Noon
Mobile Paid Search Ads: Real Opportunities by Keri Morgret
1:15pm-2:30pm
Not Your Father’s AdWords: The New Google Ad Formats by Keri Morgret
3:00pm-4:15pm
Keyword Research: Beyond The Ordinary by Keri Morgret
Google’s Personalized Search Revolution by Brian Ussery
4:30pm-5:45pm
The Current State Of Social Search by Brian Ussery
Supercharging Your Descriptions With Sitelinks by Keri Morgret

March 3, 2010

10:45am-Noon
Paid Search Bullseye! Reaching and Closing Your Ultimate Customer by Keri Morgret
1:30pm-2:45pm
Free Ways To Market On Facebook by Keri Morgret
4:45pm-6:00pm
Optimizing Your Content On YouTube by Keri Morgret

March 4, 2010

10:00am-11:15am
Bringing SEO In House: How To Be Successful! by Keri Morgret
11:30am-12:30pm
PPC Tune-up Clinic with the SMX Mechanics by Keri Morgret
Ask The Search Engines by Brian Ussery
1:30pm-2:30pm
Analytics Action Plans For PPC & SEO by Keri Morgret
Ask The SEOs by Brian Ussery
2:45pm-3:45pm
Conversion Ninja Toolbox – A Review of Tools & Technologies by Keri Morgret

That is our live blogging schedule - it is subject to change last minute.

Defending Against Proxy Hijacks

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 1:53pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: spam

We haven't covered the proxy hijacks issue in a while, but a new WebmasterWorld thread has brought it back to life. The individual said his web site suffered a hijack in Google:

Iv just notice that a russian website has Proxy Hijacked our website and got it indexed in G results.. We have noticed a steady decline in our SERP positions since end of Jan. I found the copy site by doing a "quote" search of the tittle in G.

WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, links to the old 2007 thread on the topic and quotes the part on how to defend yourself from such issues.

How you stop this problem is to use REVERSE and FORWARD DNS to validate that Googlebot is coming from an actual Google IP, which returns a domain name that contains ".googlebot.com". If the reverse DNS of the IP that claims to be Googlebot doesn't contain ".googlebot.com", you simply bounce them.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 22, 2010

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

MySpace Results Now in Google Real Time Search

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:53pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

Yesterday, Google updated us on what is new at Google. One of those updates confirmed the images site command change we reported last week. Another update confirmed that Google is now showing MySpace results in their real time search results.

Google wrote:

Also in real-time news, starting this week we officially added MySpace content to real-time search. Now you can tap into the pool of news, photos and blog posts that MySpace users have chosen to publish to the world. These updates are all ranked to reflect the most relevant, freshest results, many of which are just seconds old. In all, real-time search includes more than a billion documents and processes hundreds of millions of changes daily. We're quite excited to offer this enhancement so that real-time search becomes even more useful. You can find the MySpace updates in our real-time mode by clicking on "Show Options" and then "Updates."

Want to see those results yourself? Click over here to see them or here is a quick screen capture:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Bing Masking MSNBot As Internet Explorer or a Rogue Bot?

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:46pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

A Bing Community thread reports from one webmaster that someone is masking MSNBot around as a browser, either Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. Here are the reported IPs and UserAgent's being reporting by this webmaster:

The following IP addresses are from MSN's search bots, but use what appears to be just normal user agents.
65.55.109.22
65.55.109.106
65.55.109.118
65.55.109.119
65.55.109.120
65.55.109.162
65.55.109.209
65.55.109.212
65.55.110.16
65.55.110.21
65.55.110.41
65.55.110.88
65.55.110.107
65.55.110.121
65.55.110.132
65.55.110.164

The user agent looks like this "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SLCC1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; InfoPath.2)"

This is not the first time Microsoft Bing has been accused of masking their bots as browser useragents. We had a similar report back in September where MSNBot was using Mozilla by way of UserAgent.

Brett Yount, Bing's representative, said, "Could you send this information to bwmc@microsoft.com and I will have the crawling team investigate?"

So currently, this is not confirmed, but it is weird.

Forum discussion at Bing Community.

Google Ranks "Piss Christ" #1 For Chris Image Search

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:35pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

Google does not stop with the insults, they insulted Michelle Obama, then Jesus and now also the name "Christ."

A Google Web Search Help thread has one person complaining that a search in Google Images for [Christ] leads to an image done named Piss Christ, the image is both number one and two on Google Images for that search. The story behind this image, as the poster says it "is the so-called artwork of a man who peed in a bottle, put a crucifix in, and called it the "pisschrist"."

Here is a picture:

Now, I am not Christian, but I even find this insulting and totally inappropriate. It is not nudity or illegal, but should this be there? I guess Google won't remove it, since they didn't remove the above insults, but does Google need to rethink their policy on this type of stuff - especially since this is coming up more and more often?

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Beware: Fake Google Job Resume Status Emails Contain Viruses

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:29pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

A Google Web Search Help reports several users receiving an email from resume-thanks@google.com thanking them for submitting their resume to Google. The issue is, the email is fake.

Emails from resume-thanks@google.com containing the subject "Thank you from Google!" are fake. They also contain a virus and they ask you to open the virus. Here is a copy of the text of the email:

We just received your resume and would like to thank you for your interest in working at Google. This email confirms that your application has been submitted for an open position.
Our staffing team will carefully assess your qualifications for the role(s) you selected and others that may be a fit. Should there be a suitable match, we will be sure to get in touch with you.

Click on the attached file to review your submitted application.

Have fun and thanks again for applying to Google!

Google Staffing

So whatever you do, do not open that attachement.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Why Do Google Webmaster Tools Messages Disappear?

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:19pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A WebmasterWorld thread has a report from a webmaster that he is missing a message in Google Webmaster Tools, which he normally sees. The message is:

Googlebot has succesfully accessed you homepage. Pages from your website are included in the google index.

Typically, sites would have this message in the dashboard when everything is in good order. But sometimes the message does not show.

Personally, I do not currently see the message myself, even for this site. So maybe something is up? Maybe Google removed it? Maybe there is a reporting bug of some sorts?

I doubt anyone should worry if they do not see this specific message, unless there are other issues being reported about a particular web site.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 19, 2010

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: February 19, 2010

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 9:20pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Buzz RoundUp

In this week's recap, we cover the big news that Microsoft and Yahoo received approval to move forward with their search deal - which means the end of Yahoo Search to me. Bing is crawling and indexing faster. Bing is going to fix their search filter in March. 60% of publishers say their earnings are down with Google AdSense. AdSense seems to be testing in-line video ads. Is Google mixing paid with free listings? Yahoo Search ads are not sending enough traffic to advertisers. Google Image Search is faster with their filter. Google changed how they show image sources. Are you Google PageRank Certified? YouTube will no longer support IE6 users on March 13th. We got your logos from President's Day, Valentine's Day and the Winter Olympics. That was this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

For the original iTunes version, click here or to see the YouTube version in higher quality, click play & hit "HD."

Search Topics of Discussion:

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

Facts For Webmasters & Advertisers: Yahoo Out Of Search, Bing Takes Over

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 2:25pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Industry News

It is official, Yahoo and Microsoft have approval to move forward with their search deal and they are not wasting any time with that. You can read many of the stories on Techmeme to catch up, but let me quote the official press release, at least a snippet:

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT - News) and Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO - News) announced today that they have received clearance for their search agreement, without restrictions, from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission, and will now turn their attention to beginning the process of implementing the deal.
Implementation of the deal is expected to begin in the coming days and will involve transitioning Yahoo!’s algorithmic and paid search platforms to Microsoft, with Yahoo! becoming the exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers globally. Once the transition is completed, the companies’ unified search marketplace will deliver improved innovation for consumers, better volume and efficiency for advertisers and better monetization opportunities for web publishers through a platform that contains a larger pool of search queries.

Important Facts for Webmasters & Advertisers:

Algorithmic search on Yahoo will be powered by Bing in the United States by the end of 2010.
Search advertisers will be migrated from YSM to adCenter prior to the 2010 holiday season, but may wait until 2011.
All global customers and partners are expected to be transitioned by early 2012.
Yahoo BOSS, Search Monkey & SiteExplorer are all still up in the air but if Yahoo is not crawling the web, Bing would have to build out their own tools going forward.
Also, check out the Yahoo Transition Center for additional details

Of course, most of you know my thoughts about where this puts Yahoo. Yahoo, in my opinion, is out of search now. And most of you agree, the poll we ran a week or so ago, has over a hundred responses (see poll pie chart above) and 60% said Yahoo is not in search, 20% are hoping they are but are unsure. Just sad.

Forum discussion at many places:

Search Deal Approved, WebmasterWorld
Microsoft-Yahoo search deal approved, DigitalPoint Forums
Yahoo and Adcenter Announcement, Search Engine Watch Forums
Microsoft And Yahoo! Team Up To Take On Google, HighRankings Forums
The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, Search Engine Watch Forums
The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, DigitalPoint Forums
The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, WebmasterWorld
Yahoo & Bing = ???, Google AdWords Help

Yahoo Search Ads Not Driving Necessary Traffic Volume

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Marketing

Yes, I know Yahoo and Microsoft got approval to move forward with their search deal (I'll link to my post on that, when I write it, in about 10 minutes from this post), but Yahoo Search Marketing has been a failure for many in the past few months. And since Yahoo Search Ads will likely continue to be powered by Yahoo until December of this year, this is still important.

A WebmasterWorld thread has posts from several disgruntled Yahoo Search advertisers. They are all pretty much complaining about the same thing - search volume. Yes, the number of people seeing and clicking on their search ads, compared to the previous years, has dropped significantly. Let me pull out some quotes:

This year we notice Yahoo PPC struggling to generate decent volume for us. Its getting worse and worse, and all the new measures they are taking to ensure good quality traffic are infact killing our traffic.

I think part of your PPC woes are exemplified in that YPN payouts completely died for me, removed it, which I'm sure many others have done, thus eliminating millions of page impressions previously available.

For the last two months we underspent our budget, so I have noticed this too.

Yahoo has been fully aware of the Microsoft deal - so why invest? Yes, Yahoo has added features recently, but those features should have been added over a year ago. In any event, by years end - this likely won't matter anyway. More on that shortly.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Images Change How They Display Sources?

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 2:02pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

I do not watch Google Images all that closely, but there is a guy in the WebmasterWorld forums who said Google images changed how they display the source of the image. I believe what he is saying is that if you use site:domain.com in Google Images, in the past, it would display not just the images hosted on that domain, but all images used on that domain and also show the source of it under it, i.e. like flickr.com and so on.

This is probably best explained using pictures. Let me first show you that a search for site:seroundtable on Google Images only shows images on the web site, but those images can be hotlinked (i.e. sourced) from off the web site:

Let's take the first picture as an example, that image is actually from searchmarketinggurus.com:

Google knows it, a similar images command returns the proper source:

Same with Flickr Images for standard searches. It will show the site the image is on but not where it is sourced until you click through:

By the way, that is a picture of me, not Lee Odden.

The original poster described it as follows:

Tonight I noticed a change in the image-search. Until yesterday google shows with the question "site:www.site.com" all pictures that are sourced in that domain.

But now it shows only pictures that link to the domain.

Again, I am not sure if this is new behavior of if am seeing the new behavior or not.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Google confirmed this change over the weekend, they said:

Based on feedback from users and webmasters, we have improved the [site:] operator for Google Images. In the past, the [site:] operator filtered based on the image URL, not based on the URL of web pages linking to the images. Now, the operator will run your search over web sites that include images, no matter where the images themselves are hosted, which removes a lot of noise from your results and gives you more control over what you're searching for.
Example searches: [site:digg.com space shuttle], [site:morbidanatomy.blogspot.com], [site:flickr.com/photos/polvero]

Bing Webmaster Tools Mysterious Missing Domains?

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 1:54pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

A Bing Community thread has reports that when webmasters authenticate domains within Bing Webmaster Tools, the next day, the domains are no longer listed. Supposedly there are several reports about this in the past week or so.

Here is one report:

I (for the very first time) submitted several URL's, and I also authenticated my website by adding a LiveSearchSiteAuth.xml to my website sites, and I also submitted a sitemap.xml. They all showed yesterday.
But when I login today, I don't see any of my URL's from yesterday.

Brett Yount from Bing said that he is really not sure what is going on but he doesn't seem to be the only one reporting the issue. Brett said:

This is the third or fourth post I've seen today regarding this problem. I'm contacting our devs to find out more information.

This is not a confirmed report yet, but there seems to be something fishy going on here.

Forum discussion at Bing Community.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 18, 2010

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Are You "Google Pagerank Certification"? I Hope Not

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 2:33pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that one person spotted a product that is being sold under the claim that it is "Powered by Google PageRank Certification" of "PR=6." You say what? Yes, a product is claiming it has PageRank certification from Google with a PR of 6.

The product is on a site called ExamSoon.com and here is a screen capture:

How funny for those who know this is a joke or just there to fool some one. But to those unaware - there is no such thing as Google PageRank certification.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Bing Advertising On Intellitxt

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 2:29pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting that Bing is advertising their search engine on Intellitxt. Intellitxt are those ads you see inline articles, where you mouse over a word and an annoying ad pops up. I personally find those ads to be incredibly annoying, intrusive and invasive. But many publishers use them and according to the WebmasterWorld post, Bing is using it to advertise their search engine.

The thread said:

At a very popular UK website I noticed an Intellitxt ad featuring a Bing Search of the phrase in the ad. Good idea by Bing.

I do not have a screen shot, but if you see one, please send it my way.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Open Sources "Living Stories" Concept

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 2:18pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Google is open sourcing the Living Stories news article concept at Google Code. What is a living story? Well, instead of writing an article for each new event that happens on a certain topic, you update an existing story with the latest information. If you think about it, there are tons of articles out there on the web, that are stale, outdated and often useless. Having a single, constantly updated story, makes more sense, at least for web consumption - according to Google.

Google ran this experiment with some papers and decided to make it available to all. First, here is a video explaining it:

They are even incorporating it more in the new Google News design.

Fred from Google wrote in the Google News Help thread about it. He said:

The Living Stories project was originally the result of a one-time collaboration between Google, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Our goal was to innovate on existing presentations of journalism that take greater advantage of technological capabilities on the Web.
The general response was excellent. Since we launched this proof-of-concept test on Google Labs in December, 75% of people who filled out our feedback form said they preferred the Living Stories format to the traditional online news article. Users also spent a significant amount of time exploring stories. That tells us that there's a strong appetite for great journalism displayed in a compelling way.

In addition to the positive input from users, we've also heard from publishers interested in telling their own stories through the format. That's why we released Living Stories to the public to see what you can do with it. In February 2010, we open-sourced the code so all developers can build their own Living Story pages. (You can also use this Help Forum to ask and answer general support questions.) In coming months we're going to look into creating software tools that make Living Stories even easier to use for news organizations. Until then, we can't wait to see what fascinating works of journalism developers, reporters and editors, working together, create using the open-sourced Living Stories code.

You can get the Living Stories code here:
http://code.google.com/p/living-stories/

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

YouTube Warning IE6 Users To Upgrade Browsers

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 2:09pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

We knew Google was dropping support for IE6 and other older browsers, starting in March for some of their software. But what I did not know was that this would impact YouTube.

A YouTube Help thread reports that some users are receiving warnings that their browsers will no longer be supported by March 13th.

The YouTube help document linked to explains which browsers will be impacted. Yes, Internet Explorer version 6, IE6, will be on the chopping block. Google's YouTube says the following browsers will no longer be supported:

Any browser older than Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0
Any browser older than Mozilla Firefox 3.0
Any browser older than Google Chrome 4.0
Any browser older than Safari 3.0+

Ready or not, IE6 is dying - so just upgrade already to a new browser. Of course, Google would like you to use Google Chrome, but there are plenty of alternatives.

Forum discussion at YouTube Help.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 17, 2010

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Poll: 60% of Google AdSense Publishers Say Earnings Down

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 2:38pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

A bit over a week ago, we reported that AdSense publishers were complaining about lower earnings. So to get a better and wider count of those who agree that earnings are indeed down, I ran a quick poll.

We had just over 85 responses to the poll and I wanted to share the results.

I asked, Have Your AdSense Earnings Dropped in February, from January?

51 people or 59.3% said Yes, 31 people or 36% said No and 4 people had other things to say. Here is the chart:

So what do you make of this?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Bing Indexing New Content & Sites Faster?

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 2:27pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

A WebmasterWorld thread has some positive news for the Microsoft Bing team! The thread is praising Bing for speeding up their indexing and ranking of new pages, updated content and new web sites.

This comes several weeks after Bing declared they were slow at indexing new sites. So I am happy that webmasters, at least some, are happy with the speed of Bing's crawler and indexer.

Mack, the forum moderator summed it up, saying:

Bing is getting quick! Even when it comes to new sites/domains.

Two additional webmasters agreed. To be fair, I have seen a slow down of complaints in the Bing forums about complaints of their sites not being indexed. But that can be for many reasons.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld .

Google Book Search Dropped Search My Library

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 2:23pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

A Google Book Search user is upset that Google has dropped the search within your Google Book Search library feature. He expressed his complaints in a WebmasterWorld thread. He said:

Then a couple of weeks ago, I logged in and I can no longer restrict my search results to items in My Library.
For me, this is the primary way I use Google Books. First search my library. If I don't find it, search more broadly. If I find something good in general search, add that book to my library. If you will, it's like manually controlled personalized search.

It's true, I do not see a way to search only my library, even within the advanced search feature.

This must have changed when Google updated the My Library feature in late January.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Calculates Kelvin to Celsius Wrong: Thanks WolframAlpha

Posted: February 17th, 2010, 2:15pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

If you want to find out the conversion of kelvin to celsius, do not use Google. A Google search for [kelvin to celsius] returns the wrong calculation. Google returns 1 kelvin = -272.15 degrees Celsius.

This issue was brought up in a Google Web Search Help thread. Since I do not know the first thing about these types of conversions, I decided to see what Wolfram Alpha had to say about the calculation. The same search on Wolfram returns the correct calculation:

272.15 is wrong, but 273.15 is correct.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 16, 2010

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Is Google Mixing Paid Results With Free Results?

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 3:06pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

A few weeks back, Google started testing enhanced Google Maps results. Now, Silicon Valley Watcher noticed it and said that Google was doing something new, by not separating out paid results from free results. Truth be told, and as Danny explains very well at Search Engine Land, Google has been mixing those results, but labeling them.

Here is the search result in question:

* skateboards in houston

The thing is, this is not guaranteeing the top position. Just change the query slightly and you will get that same result, pushed down, because Google's ranking algorithm still determines the spot.

There is a lot of debate at WebmasterWorld that this is either a form of paid inclusion or not at all. I see both sides and I am not sure what to think, which is why we have forums.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Offers Free Online AdWords Training

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 2:54pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

A week or so ago, Google announced the availability of free online courses to learn more about AdWords. There are both live courses and 'on-demand' courses.

The first live online course is being given tomorrow, the 17th at 11am-12pm (PST) on Understanding Quality Score. You can sign up over here.

For a complete listing of both online and offline courses in North America click here and for UK & Ireland click here.

A Google AdWords Help thread has some more information on these courses. One person said:

I signed up for all three classes - even though I work with adwords daily I don't want to miss an opportunity to learn something new!

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Rumor: Google Search Updates Rolls Out First to Mobile Devices

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 2:46pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

There is a very non-factual rumor, with very little current backing, that when Google does search updates, it first updates the mobile phone index, the one that iPhone, Android and Palm OS uses, and then the main desktop index. I don't think they have different indexes for mobile phones to access versus desktops to access - but it is possible they show a fresher Google data center to mobile users or test things out first on mobile users.

Again, this is all early speculation, that even if true, could have happened once and could never happen again. Here is the first post from WebmasterWorld with this discussion:

Have any of you guys monitored your keywords via your mobile phone (I'm using the Droid phone) and noticed a difference in the SERPS between you cell phone and your home computer?
Since beginning of January, whenever a ranking change would occur, I would notice it first on my droid phone (after being logged out) and then a day or two later, in the SERPS when the same query was run on my home computer.

Is there any correlation between the two or am I just experiencing an anomaly?

Senior member, whitenight, said he was considering the same thing but didn't want to say anything yet. While administrator, Roger, found the theory to be "interesting."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Bing Leads Customers To Competitors With Their Best Match Information

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 2:32pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

A complaint from a Carpet store owner in the Bing Community shows how Bing is sending his customers to his competitors. If you search for [carpetswarehouse.com] on Bing, and mouse over the "Best Match Information" arrow on the right of the result, Bing will show the wrong information.

In fact, Bing is showing the phone number to his competitor. Here is a picture:

The Carpet guy said:

Bing is showing. "Customer service 800-686-2442." That is my competitor's phone number. How do I change to my number 1-800-565-5021.

Now, Google has had this problem in the past with Google Maps. In fact, this comes up on occasion with Google.

Bing's community manager, Brett Yount, explained how this can be fixed at Bing. He said:

Please contact support using the form located at:

[https:]

In the drop down box, please select, "Change Best Match Information"

I wonder how long this change will take? I also wonder how Bing got his competitor's phone number.

Forum discussion at Bing Community.

Update: Nice, Bing fixed it the same day.

Facebook Sent More Traffic to Yahoo & MSN Than Google: Is It Bad SEO?

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Industry News

Compete released statistics, which I do not see published on their site yet, saying that Facebook is now sending more traffic to major portals such as Yahoo and MSN, than Google sends to those portals. You can read about this at SFGate.com but here is a quote:

According to Web measurement firm Compete Inc., Facebook has passed search-engine giant Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the leaders for other types of sites.
This trend is shifting the way Web site operators approach online marketing, even as Google takes steps to move into the social-media world.

There is a lot of discussion around this report at WebmasterWorld. Some find this really hard to believe and some do not. Some fault MSN's and Yahoo's SEO efforts (no offense to the SEOs there). Here are some quotes from the thread:

How many links have you clicked on that a friend has added into their Facebook status? Not that many I guess. Maybe Yahoo and MSN need to focus more strongly on their own SEO?

Not all traffic is created equal.
In fact I don't even want the looky-loo type of visitor costing me money by clicking just to have a look. An interested buyer who's taking the time to search for something on the other hand, yes please.

Compete let's you compare traffic of sites, here is an embedded chart comparing visitors to Google and Facebook. Look at the growth:

Personally, I still think Google will dominate the traffic to most sites. The major portals have more "real time" content that is privy to Facebook clicks. But most web sites depend more on Google for less real time content - not that Google does not handle real time content - but you get my point.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Image Search Filter Now Faster?

Posted: February 16th, 2010, 2:09pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Zeus, a member at WebmasterWorld, is known by the members there as the guy who watches over Google Image Search. Whenever there is a Google Image Search change, he is aware of it and lets the rest of us know.

Most recently, he is reporting that Google Image Search's SafeSearch filter is getting a bit faster. In the past, it took three to six months for Google to update the images caught by their filter. Now, he said, it took less than two weeks. I am not sure if it is just a coincidence or something else, but this is what he said:

For about a year ago you could wait up to 3-6 Month if you have made some changes to your site to get more images listed under "Moderate search", last week I made a test with a website, which have been online for a long time, but no biggie. On the site there where a few bad comments to some images, the site lost a lot of images in Moderate search, went down to 91 from about 500.
Now i removed those comments and waited for only about 7-10 days and all images where back in moderate search, thats a VERY good improvement to the filter, still some images are lost in filter which should be shown, but I think thats ok a Images search algo is almost as if a blind person have to filter the images in good or bad, they cant see the images.

Has anyone else noticed Google updating the image index faster, in terms of those images being filtered by SafeSearch?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 15, 2010

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Google AdSense Video Ads, Video Ad Overlays

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 2:57pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

Two DigitalPoint Forum threads have reports, of what I think are new ad formats by Google. These Google AdSense ads have a play button in them, that launch a video ads directly above the ad.

Here are pictures, one of the pictures is from rudefox.com:

I believe Google has test these types of ads in the past - but I do not see them all that often.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forum.

A Living Link Building Journal

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 2:47pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Link Building

There is an excellent thread at WebmasterWorld that is basically a webmaster's journal of his link building efforts for a specific site. Wheel, a senior member, started the thread about a week ago, saying:

I've just launched a new website and am going to back it up with a link building campaign. I'm going to document my link building here, and welcome any comments.

Notes:
- link building pros will find this boring. Perhaps small indie business owners will find this useful (which is what I am).
- I'm starting out with great content. I'm in a competitive niche and a regular old website won't cut it.
- I'm looking for 'people' to give me links, not 'sites'.
- I expect folks will find I don't have a lot of surprises.
- current stats, Google has

Since then, the thread is now 30 or so messages deep. The thread takes you through Wheel's link building journey for one of his sites. I am sure some of us can learn a thing or two from just reading through this thread.

Let me just quote one of the responses from another senior member at the forum:

Nice :) this thread should be printed and pinned on many many walls ..how to get links with style and intelligence :)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Get Your Google Maps Replacement Decals

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 2:36pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

A couple months ago, Google mailed businesses Google Maps decals that they can proudly place in their store windows. There was some early confusion about how they worked and some bugs that caused a bit of a panic amongst business owners, but overall, things on this topic have quieted down a bit.

Nowadays, one of the more frequent requests I see on this topic is that some businesses want replacement decals for either lost or damaged decals. Google promised there would be a way to order replacement decals, and a few weeks ago, they fulfilled that promise.

Google Maps Guide, Cecelia, explained in a Google Maps Help forum, how to get your replacement decals or report a broken QR code. She said:

Hurray, we have a form to report lost, stolen Favorite Places decals. You can also use this form to report a broken QR code.
Please note a couple of things about this form.
- This form is only for users who have already received a decal, and need a replacement. This form isn't a way to request a decal for the first time.
- We can't guarantee when you'll receive a new decal. Timeframe will depend on the number of requests we receive.

So....here's the form!

maps.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=decal_request

Thanks for your patience!
Cecelia

So if you need a replacement decal or you have a bug with your QR code, use this form to contact Google.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Bing to Fix SafeSearch Bug With Text Results

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 2:28pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

Brett Yount from Bing has confirmed a bug with Bing's SafeSearch filter in a Bing Community thread.

The issue is that when you set your Bing Search preferences to the SafeSearch setting of "Moderate Filter adult images and videos but not text from your search results," it doesn't seem to work as described.

It should only block out adult images and videos, but leave adult oriented text in the search results.

On Friday afternoon, Brett confirmed the issue and said a fix will come in March. He said:

I recieved word that this is a known issue with a fix scheduled for March.

I have not seen many complaints about this to date.

Forum discussion at Bing Community.

President's Day Gets Overshadowed By Olympics: No Google Logo

Posted: February 15th, 2010, 2:14pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Industry News

Today is President's day, you wouldn't believe the number of US based businesses that are closed today, including the post offices, banks and courts. But like every year, Google does not show a logo for the day. Just like 2009's President's Day and 2008's President's Day, Google and Yahoo do not have special logos.

This year, they have an excuse, it is the 2010 Winter Olympics, which is what Google, Yahoo and Bing are sporting logos for right now. To see those logos, see our post.

Here is the President's Day message from Ask.com:

And here is from the Search Engine Roundtable:

In addition, there are some complaints in the Google Web Search Help forums that Google China didn't have a special logo for the Chinese New Year.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

2010 Happy Valentine's Day from Google, Yahoo & Ask.com But Not Bing

Posted: February 14th, 2010, 2:27pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Industry News

Today is Valentine's Day but it is also the 2010 Winter Olympics. Google & Bing decided to stick with changing their Olympics logos, while Yahoo and Ask.com placed special Valentine's Day logos up today. I am constantly updating our Vancouver 2010 Olympic Logos, which is now up to thirteen logos from various search engines and forums - so make sure to check them out.

Meanwhile, here are the 2010 Valentine's Day logos - to see the previous years go to Valentine's 2009, Valentines 2008, Valentines 2007, Valentines 2006 and Valentines 2005.

Update: Although Google shows an Olympics logo, as Michel points out in the comments below, if you hover your mouse over the logo an Alt tag (alternative text tag) pops up saying Valentine's Day. Plus, the scatting marks shows a heart in the logo - nice touch Google:

Yahoo:

Ask.com:

DogPile:

YouTube:

Cre8asite Forums:

Search Engine Roundtable:

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 12, 2010

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: February 12, 2010

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 9:15pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Buzz RoundUp

In this week's search video recap, I start of with an overview of Google Buzz. I then talk about Bing's revised webmaster FAQs. Google is not offering SEO services, despite what people say. Also, when should you not use the canonical tag. Adsense is using previous search queries, they sent out Valentines day cards and publishers feel like they are earning less and less. AdWords has a bug with the billing information. We posted a picture of the new Google News home page test. Google is becoming an ISP and they bought Aardvark. Yahoo says they are still in search, while Bing extends their search deal with Facebook. Finally, the Olympics is tonight and we got the logos to prove it. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

For the original iTunes version, click here or to see the YouTube version in higher quality, click play & hit "HD."

Search Topics of Discussion:

Social:

Google Buzz...

SEO:

Google AdSense:

Google AdWords:

Google AdWords Bug: Can't Enter Billing Information

Google News:

Picture of Google News New Home Page Test

Search Business:

Olympics 2010:

Vancouver 2010 Olympic Logos from Google, Yahoo, Bing & Others

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

Vancouver 2010 Olympic Logos from Google, Yahoo, Bing & Others

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 3:03pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Industry News

The 2010 Winter Olympics kick off tonight in Vancouver and some of the search engines are already sporting their special logos for the event. Google, Yahoo, Bing and others have their logos up. We will post what is live now below and continue to add to them as other search engines create their logos.

Google:

It may be the widest Google logo in their history at 760 pixels wide.

Yahoo:

Bing:

I am sure more search engines, like Ask.com and others will begin to post their logos. I hope to post our theme later today as well.

Search Engine Roundtable:

Via Michel, Yahoo China has an animated theme with Tigers:

Baidu:

Sogou:

Google Day 2 Logo:

Luge Logo was up first, then taken down:

Then a snowboarder went up:

Here are some threads at Google Web Search Help.

Bing Day 2 Logo:

Google Day 3 Logo:

Bing Day 3:

Google Day 4:

Bing Day 4:

Cre8asite Forums:

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help & WebmasterWorld.

Google Is Not Offering SEO Services, They Help Webmasters Every Day

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:48pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Yesterday, the SEO community went nuts after they learned about a Norwegian AdWords blog post announcing that Googlers will be providing site clinics to help webmasters on the SEO front. You can read the translated version over here.

Yes, it is weird that an AdWords blog is talking about SEO site clinics. But it is not like Google is offering SEO services, where they provide link building services, make changes to your web site, give detailed site audits and you are paying for it. Google is basically offering best practice advice, which they do every day in their Google Webmaster Help forums, which comes in many languages.

They have offered live chat events, they come to conferences, they have webmaster tools and more. They haven't done detailed site clinics like this in the past, but this is far from SEO services in my opinion.

Matt and Danny put together a nice history on Google helping with SEO. It may be worth a look.

In fact, I actually was emailed or saw a forum thread on this a while back. I forgot exactly why I did not cover it, but to me, this did not seem like such a big deal.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums, Sph inn.

Google AdSense Now Using Previous Search Queries For Ad Relevancy

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:39pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

The Google AdSense blog announced they are now using the query data in the referrer URL to better target and match the AdSense ads on your web site. Basically, if you go to Google, type in a query, click on a site that has AdSense on it, Google will use the query you entered on Google (or any search engine) to match the ads to the query and the contextual nature of the page.

Supposedly, Google has been doing this for a while. I think that is news to me. But what Google said they recently changed was now storing the query for a few hours, so if you visit other sites with AdSense on it, hours later, it will continue to use your search history to match the AdSense ads on third-party web sites. Of course, Google said you can opt out of this.

Google explained:

Let's assume the user in our example leaves your golf website and browses through to a news website that is also an AdSense partner. Since [golf shop atlanta] is in a referral URL that was visited in the past few hours, we may use those query words, along with the content of the news webpage itself, to determine the most relevant ad to show the user on the news website.

Google supposedly also emailed publishers about this change, but publishers did not understand it, from what I take.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Condolences To Bing's Brett Yount

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:31pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Industry News

This site has always been about the community. I try to share educational insights, news details, plus have fun when appropriate. I also have shared sad events that impact significant people in our industry, because - we are one large community that is impacted by the people around us.

Recently, I asked where did the Bing webmaster representative, Brett Yount, go? He basically went off the forums and we didn't hear from him for a few weeks. It turned out that Brett lost his father in January and he took some bereavement time off.

In a Bing Community thread, Brett shared this very personal event with the community. He wrote:

Hi all,
I was given some bereavement leave after my Father passed at the beginning of January.

Thank you for your concern.

Firstly, I would like to wish you and your family condolences on behalf of the search industry.

There are times that I have personally said some negative things about what you say in the forums. So I would like to apologize, if any of that was taken personally. You were sorely missed during the leave and it shows how important your work is to the community at large.

Thanks for everything and may you only have happy occasions in the future.

Forum discussion at Bing Community.

Google Buys Aardvark, You Surprised?

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:23pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google News Press

Yesterday, TechCrunch broke the news that Aardvark, a human powered answer engine, was purchased by Google. Google confirmed the deal, but did not confirm the $50 million price tag associated with the deal.

Aardvark basically allows you to send the network a question. It will then look at your network of people, figure out who is best to answer the question you asked and send them the question via IM, email or Twitter. If (big if) someone replies with an answer, it will then return you the answer via IM, email or Twitter. I used it a lot in the past, because it is a neat idea - but it didn't really stick with me for one reason or another.

In any event, Google bought them. Why? Maybe for the talent, the people? Maybe for the technology? I am not sure. To be honest, I was a bit surprised by this acquisition - but clearly I don't see the big picture here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & DigitalPoint Forums.

Picture of Google News New Home Page Test

Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:14pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

A week ago today, we reported Google News was testing a new home page design. Since then, I have been begging those who have seen the test to post a picture so the rest of us can see what they see. Finally, yesterday, someone posted an image in the Google News Help forum.

Here is that picture:

Extremely different from the current Google News home page. You can click on the image to get a larger size or just click here for it.

What do you think? Most people writing about it in the forums are not happy.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 11, 2010

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Bing: "We Do Not Index 302 Redirected Pages"

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 3:15pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

A Bing Community thread has Bing's program manager, Brett Yount, saying that they do not index the destination pages of a 302 redirect. Let me quote you what he said:

We do not index 302 redirected pages, so this is probably the main issue for not indexing your home page.

The site in question here is www.kerala.travel. As you can see, as I write this post, the site is not indexed by Bing.

Now, I assume Brett meant to say that a 302 redirect to a page will not block the page from being indexed. But rather, if the only way for Bing to crawl to the page is via a 302 redirect, Bing will not index it. If there are other links to the destination page, then Bing will likely index it.

Or maybe I am wrong and Bing will not index 302 redirected pages.

Forum discussion at Bing Community.

Yahoo Says They Are Still In Search, Sure Thing!

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 3:01pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Engine

Yahoo is trying to convince everyone that they are still a search company. Honestly, if you do not power your own search results, if you do not crawl the web and own the ranking algorithms, you are not in search. Ask.com is more in search than Yahoo, in my opinion. Well, let me step back just a second.

When the Microsoft & Yahoo deal goes through, Yahoo will not power the search results on Yahoo Search anymore. They will power the look and display of those results, as far as I know. But in my opinion, if you do not crawl the web and index content and then power those ranking algorithms - you are not in search - you are a aggregator of some sorts.

If I said Ask.com isn't in search because they use structured data, for the most part, then the same applies to Yahoo.

Do you agree? Here is a poll:

Will Yahoo Really Continue in Search?(online surveys)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Sends Valentine's Day Card to AdSense Publishers

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 2:48pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

Valentines Day is around the corner and some Google AdSense publishers are reporting at WebmasterWorld that they received a card from Google, wishing them a happy Valentine's Day. The card also includes a $100 promo code to use AdWords.

The front of the card reads:

Others will fill your heart this Valentine's Day

When you open the card, it reads:

We want to overload your servers.

Because nothing says "I love you" like free traffic to your web site...

I found a picture of the front and inside of the card on Flickr from devanjedi. Here they are:

The best comment from the WebmasterWorld thread is, "who said romance was dead."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Bing Updates Webmaster FAQs Into 82 Questions

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 2:39pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

Microsoft's search engine, Bing, announced they have revised the Webmaster FAQs into a single 28 page PDF document. The document can be downloaded over here.

It has 82 detailed questions and answers, organized into 12 categories. The questions and answers are ironically hyperlinked in the PDF document, but not available as a web page. I guess those Q&As won't be indexed too well by their own search engine (yes, search engines do crawl PDFs, but you know).

Brett Yount, Bing's forum rep, posted a thread in the Bing Community announcing this as well. He said, "our Technical Writer, Rick Dejarnette, combined our FAQs into one PDF for easy reference."

Forum discussion at Bing Community.

Google, The Internet Service Provider

Posted: February 11th, 2010, 2:27pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Google announced they are going to try to become an ISP, a fast ISP, with gigabit fiber routing directly to your home. Greg Sterling has a lot of history on how and why this is happening.

I was asked why this is happening by some real reporters and I will link to their story later, when it goes live. In short, it is about getting more people to click on more Google ads.

We have threads on the topic at WebmasterWorld and Google Web Search Help. Probably my favorite comment is the first one at WebmasterWorld:

What's next with Google? Change your muffler?

Outside of that, there are some serious concerns about this project. Concerns on the business side, infrastructure side, privacy side and webmaster side. If I had more time, I'd write up a five page document on those concerns, but most of you are bright and can read my mind by now.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Web Search Help.

Update: Here is that USA Today piece with some quotes from me.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 10, 2010

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Google Buzz...

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 3:16pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

So Google launched Google Buzz yesterday at buzz.google.com. It is being rolled out now, I am some limited access now, but it is fun to play with. I will not write about what it does, there is exhaustive coverage about Buzz already, read it at Techmeme.

I did start a buzz topic which has a number of comments already, so check that out. Also, my buzz conversations should be linked up on my Google Profile - and you may be able to follow me there as well. So go do it.

Here is a short video explaining Google Buzz:

One thing that they said at least twice in yesterday's press conference about this service is that Google Buzz content will be "indexed immediately," in real time and available in Google web search results.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, Google Mobile Help & Google Webmaster Help.

Google AdWords Bug: Can't Enter Billing Information

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 3:10pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

There is a new, confirmed bug in Google AdWords that will prevent some people from adding their billing information to their account.

AdWordsPro Bindu, an official Google representative, posted the details in a Google AdWords Help thread. Bindu said:

There is a known technical issue where some advertisers are unable to enter billing information and are redirected to the AdWords homepage.

Google has documented it in the known issues section:

We are currently aware of a technical issue due to which some users are unable to enter billing information into their accounts. Our engineers are currently working to resolve this issue.

There is no estimated time for a fix, but Google is working on it.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Now Google Is Matriarchal Biased

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 2:59pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

I just love it when people make assumptions about political, race and other forms of bias and negativity based on the Google search results. We had political bias examples, race examples, a bit of both and so many examples of either Google search results or search suggestions implying a bias on Google's part.

Next up, Google is now being matriarchal biased. How so? A Google Web Search Help thread has one person who is feeling hurt by a search result. One guy said:

I just typed in "slavery and fatherhood" in Google, looking for a book of that name. On the page it says, "did you mean slavery and motherhood?" When I put in "slavery and motherhood" it doesn't ask "did you mean slavery and fatherhood.". Why is that?

It is true, give it a try with [slavery and fatherhood]:

I personally find this funny - which is why I bring it to your attention.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Obscure Google Webmaster Tools Verification Bug

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 2:53pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A thread at Google Webmaster Help has a confirmed report of a bug with verifying certain sites in Google Webmaster Tools.

The issue was reported by the webmaster of http://nhschoicespreview.nhs.uk/. The domain would not verify.

Googler, Dennis G., who is the man behind verifying websites in Webmaster Tools, said:

It looks like you found a bug in our code. It currently does not believe that nhs.uk is a valid domain. We'll get a fix out soon. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I am not sure if this is more widespread than a single domain, but I suspect so. I just enjoy reporting these very advanced topics.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google On Moving Servers & Hosting Companies

Posted: February 10th, 2010, 2:45pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A new WebmasterWorld thread asks about moving from one server to the next and what to expect on the SEO front, specifically with one's Google rankings. The thread is very timely, being that Matt Cutts of Google just posted a video on the topic yesterday. Here is that video:

Google also has a help document on the matter.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 9, 2010

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Google "Save Us From Berlusconi" Spam?

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 3:22pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

I spotted a very weird Google Webmaster Help thread that I honestly do not fully understand. If you search for URLs containing the words "Save Us From Berlusconi" in that order, in Google, you will find almost 4 million matches.

The webmaster who reported the issue, didn't first realize that this was beyond his web site. He wanted to know why GoogleBot was crawling all his URLs with adding on /?q=Save+Us+From+Berlusconi to the end of the URL. Some sites do not 404 or 301 redirect URLs that add on variables to the end of the URL, so he was suggested to do so in this case.

But the question goes beyond just a single web site. Is this some form of political message being sent around by those who do not like the curent Prime Minister of Italy? Anyone want to venture a guess?

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

When Not To Use Canonical Tags With Pagination

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 3:09pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Optimization

When Google announced support for the canonical tag just about a year ago, webmasters were excited for the possibilities of a serving a 301 redirect to spiders but not users. But when should you not use it?

A Google Webmaster Help thread has Google's JohnMu explaining some situations as to when you should or should not use it.

In summary, think of the canonical tag as a real 301 redirect for spiders. If a spider is redirected away from new content, then that is an issue. When it comes to paginating content, such as product category pages or article archives, you really need to give a way for search engines to find that content. If you set the canonical tag to redirect spiders from page 2, 3, 4, etc of your product category pages to page one, then the spiders might never be able to index the products on page 2, 3, and 4.

John explained this well, saying:

Pagination: this is complicated, I personally would be careful when using with rel=canonical with paginated lists. The important part is that we should be able to find all products listed, so at the very least those lists should provide a default sort order where we can access (and index) all pages. Since this is somewhat difficult unless you really, really know what you are doing, I would personally avoid adding rel=canonical for these pages. One possible solution could be to use JavaScript for paginated lists with different sort orders, for example, that way you would have a single URL which lists all products.

This is something to keep in mind when building out the canonical tag within your content management system.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Upcoming Google AdSense Webinars

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 3:03pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

Google's Ashley posted a thread at Google AdSense Help forums announcing upcoming AdSense Webinars. The upcoming webinars include:

AdSense Optimization Basics - Wednesday, February 10, 2010 5:00 pm GMT/ 9am PST
Advanced Optimization - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 5:00 pm GMT/9am PST
Improving AdSense Performance using GAM - Tuesday, March 2, 2010 10:00 am GMT
Realizing the potential of AdSense for Search (AFS) - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 5:00 pm GMT/9am PST

You can register for the webinars by clicking here.

Technical requirements: To participate, all you need is a computer with an Internet connection and speakers or a pair of headphones. Note to Mac users: The current version of WebEx Event Center does not support Internet Phone (VOIP) for Mac users.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

3 Months Later, Google Finally Fixes RSS News Feed Issue

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 2:49pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Six months after the Google News RSS feed validation issues were reported in Google News Help forums, Google has fixed the issue.

The first report came in a Google News Help thread on August 7, 2009. Yesterday, on February 8, 2010, Inbal from Google, said the issue was resolved. Inbal said:

This issue should be fixed. If you're still seeing issues, please send us the exact steps you're taking as well as the OS/Browser you're using. Finally, if you could either send a screenshot via a link or via the Report an Issue contact form, that should help us look into this further.

I am not sure why it took over 6 months to fix, but now it is resolved.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Google Turns Their Back on Boy Scouts, No 100 Year Anniversary Logo

Posted: February 9th, 2010, 2:29pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

100 years ago, yesterday, on February 8, 1910, the Boy Scouts was founded by William D. Boyce, Ernest Thompson Seton and Daniel Carter Beard. The Boy Scouts in America is a pretty significant foundation or club, with millions of members involved. 100 years is a significant milestone for any organization, which is why some people are upset with Google for not posting a special Google logo or Doodle.

We have several threads, one in Google Webmaster Help and a few in Google Web Search Help. If you read through some of these threads, you will see how upset and hurt some of these people are.

One person said:

Today (February 8th, 2010) is the 100 year anniversary of Scouting in the United States. Started earlier in England, it was officially created in the US 100 years ago today. I was dissappointed not to see a Doodle, so thought I might could suggest one and (hopefully) someone could get one up this week anyway.

Google likes to automate everything, but one thing they cannot automate is the creation of these logos. I suspect Google simply forgot about this event and I am sure they are upset they have. I doubt it was intentional, because a 100 year landmark for the Boy Scouts, for even someone like me who was not in the Scouts - seems significant and worthy of a Google Doodle.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help and Google Web Search Help.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 8, 2010

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Most Say, Google Should Not Censor Non-Adult Search Suggestions

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 3:04pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

About a month ago, we ran a poll asking should Google censor non-adult search suggestions? This was based on all the religion based controversy and political controversy. So I specifically asked our readers, should Google censor these search suggestions or not.

We received 113 responses, where about 75% said, no, Google should not censor these results. 23% said they should and the rest said "other." Here is the break down of the few other responses:

Should show only when safe search filter is off!
Doing what the big companies want is taking away free speech
They should censor what they choose, not what anyone tells them

So there you have it, a completely unscientific poll from our readers.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Donate Your Google AdSense Earnings To Haiti

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 2:44pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Since the devastating disaster in Haiti, companies and individuals are looking for creative ways to help. Several AdSense publishers asked via WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help if there are ways to donate their AdSense income.

Last Thursday, the Google AdSense blog announced a way to do just that. Google said, "you can donate a portion or all of your entire unpaid balance as of the end of January. Whether you have a balance of $0.10 or $100 in your account, we invite you to participate within the next week."

To do so, you need to fill out a donation form. The donation form, if you are logged into your AdSense account, will pre-fill your AdSense unique IDs.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help.

Google's Mysterious 1e100.net Ruling the Web

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 2:31pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Back in December, I spotted a WebmasterWorld thread with a webmasters asking why Google is pulling in commands from 1e100.net, as opposed to Google.com. At first, I thought it was nothing and let the thread go.

But now, it appears that this is a significant domain. Back then, Tedster, the administrator at the forum said:

Some thoughts about the domain name itself. Google probably wanted to use 10e100, since that character string means 10 to the 100 power - in other words, a googol. Not sure why they settled for 1e100, because that only comes out to a measly 1.

The Register today reported that this domain, 1e100.net, "is now visited by nearly three per cent of all net users, making it the 44th most visited domain on the interwebs." The Register asked Google about this, and reported back:

Asked for comment, Google merely said the domain is used to "identify the servers on our network," and it hinted that such identification involves reverse DNS lookup - the process of determining which domain name is associated with a particular IP address. Reverse DNS is often used by anti-spam services to verify email senders, but it's also used a general means of ensuring a network is working as it should be working.

Might just be one of those geek factors, Google is so well for.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Bing Powers More of Facebook Search

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 2:23pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

I reported this last week at Search Engine Land, that Microsoft furthered their search deal with Facebook. In short, Bing will now power global Facebook searches and include fuller search results.

Now that the search industry had some time to digest the news and here are some quotes from the WebmasterWorld thread:

Each page view with a search "powered by Bing" will be a tiny advertisement for Bing. Google will be hit hard by this. Finally, Google gets what it deserves, after having ignored important needs (like transparency and privacy) from publishers and webusers for so long. What joy!

I would have serious issues with FB if I knew Google had access to the FB data coupled with their famous virtually non-expiring, unique tracking cookie.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google AdSense Publishers Upset Over Recent Earnings

Posted: February 8th, 2010, 2:06pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

Since late January and early February, I have been seeing sporadic complaints about Google AdSense earnings and how they have plummeted for many publishers. I received these complaints via email mostly, but all I saw were random threads from disgruntled publishers.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a thread from over the weekend with tons of feedback from publishers on this issue. The thread creator said:

I would really like to know if anybody else has experienced collapse in CTR+ECPM+CPC-wise starting in February (Jan 31 was totally normal day).

Facts:
- Same traffic
- Same advertizers with the same budgets (small niche, everybody knows everybody)
- Everything was rock solid the last year
- Last minutes of January looks normal

... then... February starts and CTR drops 20%, eCPM 25% in one second and has stayed at the new level every since.

This is exactly the type of reports I heard via email and from several friends in the industry.

Most people in the thread are saying "me too" type of responses. But some are saying they are not seeing any drop at all. I am not sure exactly what is going on, because I have seen some examples sites that seem legit and should not have a reason to have a reduced eCPM from the looks of it.

Have your earnings with Google AdSense dropped significantly (as a percentage) in February from January?

Have Your AdSense Earnings Dropped in February, from January?(survey software)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: February 5, 2010

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 10:20pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Buzz RoundUp

In this weeks search recap, I cover the past month of Google SEO related topics, in the February Google Webmaster report. Bing spoke up on how important redirecting your canonical URLs are. Google is disapproving AdWords ads for "artificial ad traffic." Google is sending payment notifications to some AdSense publishers. Some publishers got paid double last month. Google may disclose the AdSense revenue split, and yes, most publishers want to know. AdSense has a reporting glitch with Blogger. Google is testing a new Google News home page and they also added a starring feature. Google Images previews now have a flip image feature for some. Finally, it was Groundhog day and only Bing and us had themes, Google, Yahoo and others did not. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

For the original iTunes version, click here or to see the YouTube version in higher quality, click play & hit "HD."

Search Topics of Discussion:

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 5, 2010

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Most AdSense Publishers Want Google To Disclose Revenue Split

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 3:11pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

Earlier this week, I ran a poll asking AdSense publishers should Google disclose the revenue ad split. Most people in the thread I covered then, did not want to know the revenue split. But I found that to be a bit odd. So I posted an anonymous poll asking publishers their thoughts on the topic.

The majority of Google AdSense publishers do want to know the revenue split. Of the 80 responses, 66% said they want to know. Only 6% said they do not want to know. 27% said they do not care.

So clearly, only a small percentage of those who replied do not want to know. Whereas the majority do want to know.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Google News Tests a New Design

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 2:57pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

There are several threads at the Google News Help Forums with reports that Google News has updated their home page.

I personally do not see the new home page, and I can't track down a picture of it. If you see one, please post a comment with a link to a picture. Here is the best description of the new layout that I can find:

The format of news.google.com inexplicably changed on one of my PCs, and I don't like it. The version that I don't like focuses on only one category of news at a time, such as Top Stories. In order to get any news in other categories such as World, U.S., Sports, etc., you have to click on that category. The only other categories shown on this page are "Recent," "Spotlight," and "More News." I prefer the old format. I know that it's still available because when I load Google News on two other PCs, this old, familiar format appears. Here's a description of it: At the top left of the page is Top Stories with 3 headlines. Directly to the right of Top Stories are six or eight links to some of the top headlines from Google News; usually about nine links to names in the news; and lastly, links to Living Stories. Also appearing in the old format (underneath Top Stories) are the following categories with usually about three headlines per category: World, U.S., Business, Sci/Tech, Entertainment, Sports, Health, and Spotlight. At the bottom of the page is Google Fast Flip. In the old format, if you want to view more than the three top headlines highlighted in a given news category, all you have to do is click on the category name, and you are taken to another page with more news stories for that category. Can someone please tell me how to return to the old format? There must be some way of resetting or formatting the web page because, as I mentioned, I'm still able to use the old format on two other PCs.

I will keep looking for a picture, but Google basically confirmed the test is happening. Inbal from Google said:

At Google, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments at any given time on our websites all over the world. Right now, we are running a small test of a new Google News homepage design. More information about how Google runs experiments can be found at:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/search-experiments-large-and-small.html

We'd love to hear your feedback. Please let us know what you think at:

http://www.google.com/support/news/bin/request.py?contact_type=report_news&source=redesign

Regards,

The Google News Team

Forum discussion at Google News Help Forums.

February 2010 Google Webmaster Report

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 2:26pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google PageRankSERP Updates

Here is your monthly update on Google from an SEO's perspective. You can find last month's update at the January 2010 Google Webmaster Report. These updates are based mostly off the ongoing WebmasterWorld thread, jammed packed with SEOs and searchers obsessed with watching Google's every move.

The thread this month is pretty lacking. Most, if not all, the discussion is around Caffeine related questions. Some are saying it is live, some are saying it is live on some data centers and some don't see it. Outside of that, just normal ranking fluctuation complaints from SEOs.

Here are the important Google related topics we covered since our last report:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Some Insight Into How Bing Handles WWW vs Non-WWW Canonical SEO Issues

Posted: February 5th, 2010, 2:16pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

Canonical URLs and domains to most SEOs are a common issue they run across. How each search engine handles the various patterns of URLs that seem or are duplicate to each other, may differ.

In a Bing Community thread, there is a comment from Brett Yount, a Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center, on how Bing typically handles WWW vs non-WWW issues. By that I mean, if you both the http://example.com/ and http://www.example.com/ URLs return the same page, without redirection. Brett said:

It really doesn't matter if the site your link is residing on is www or non-www. More important is the structure of the URL they are using to link to you--especially if your site is not canonicalized using 301 redirects. When not redirected, we treat the non-www and the www version of your site as two different sites, so if you have links out there with and without the www, your whole site rank is affected. Canonicalizing your site to one or the other will automatically cause us to combine all the links and apply them to the chosen version of your site and may help increase your site rank.

Forum discussion at Bing Community.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 4, 2010

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Linking To Your Home Page With Anchor Text You Want to Rank For

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 3:08pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Link Building

A WebmasterWorld thread has a new conversation on an old topic. The topic is to link to your home page, off your home page, using keyword rich anchor text that you want to rank for. The example given by one member is:

So I put up a paragraph on the homepage talking about say 'red widgets in oklahoma'. Then I link those words (red widgets in oklahoma) right back to the homepage. In other words, my homepage links to itself, with some nice juicy text.
And guess what? Despite no other backlinks with text to do with oklahoma, my site ranks #1 or 2 for red widgets in oklahoma.

I actually see this fairly often on the web. Clearly done for SEO purposes. I am surprised it works so well. Of course, the topic of the first anchor text counting or not. But Matt Cutts of Google published a video just the other day on this topic, watch it below:

Anyway, the SEO discussion is interesting.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Sending Emails Notifications to Publishers Regarding Payments

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 3:03pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that many publishers have received an email recently from Google notifying them that they have been paid. Some, initially, felt the email was spam or a phishing attempt, but after closer review, the emails do appear to be coming from Google.

I personally did not receive such an email. Some reported the email being sent to their junk filter. Some reported not receiving it at all, like me. Some felt it was spam, like I said above. I do not have a copy of this email to share with you.

Google did not yet chime in about this email, but from what I am seeing, it does seem to be a new feature. It is nice that Google lets publishers know, via email, when they were paid - but they can give publishers a way to opt out of such notifications.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Maps Accidentally Removes Send to Garmin GPS Feature

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 2:55pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

A Google Maps Help thread reports that Google accidentally removed the send feature to Garmin GPS. Here is an old video that shows how that worked:

The bug was first reported on January 31st and a Googler replied a day or so ago, saying:

I wanted to let you all know that the Maps team is aware of this issue and is working to fix the feature soon. I know this is an important feature for several users and I can assure you that it's not our intention to remove it from Google Maps.
I'll post an udpate here when I hear more news!

It is still not fixed, as far as I can tell. In any event, Google will likely be adding it back soon.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

YouTube Video Uploading Delay

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 2:48pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Yesterday, there were several reports on You Tube Help forums that uploading videos to YouTube would have a delay.

Liz from YouTube support posted a notification about the issue. She said:

We're seeing many of you reporting that you're having trouble with uploads- your uploads are not processing completely and are getting stuck before going to live.
Our team is aware of the issue and has a fix in the works. Uploads should return to normal soon.

In the meantime, please be aware that trying to re-upload your video will not resolve the situation. Your original upload will go through and complete processing, its just somewhat delayed and will take longer than usual to go live (as you've noticed).

We appreciate your understanding, and as always, thank you all for your reports alerting us of this situation.

So, upload the video as you would, but don't worry, the videos will be published eventually. There is no need to reupload your videos.

Forum discussion at You Tube Help.

Google AdSense Blogger Reporting Bug

Posted: February 4th, 2010, 2:43pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

A Google AdSense Help thread has confirmed reports of Google AdSense reports not showing earning values.

It was reported several times in the forum, but a top contributor confirmed the issue on January 26th.

Many publishers using Blogger have been reporting that their earnings are not displayed under the Monetise tab. If you have this problem, please post here, so that the scale of the problem can be gauged, and avoid duplicate questions and answers.

Yesterday, a Googler said they are aware of the issue:

Our engineers are aware of this issue and are working on a solution. In the meantime, you can access your earnings data by logging into AdSense directly.
I apologize for the inconvenience.

There is not estimated time as to when Google will fix the issue, but they are aware.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 3, 2010

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Learn SEO With the Google Webmaster Quiz Answers

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 3:01pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A week or so ago, Google posted a webmaster quiz for people to answer. Today, they posted the answers to the quiz. The beauty of this is that you can really learn a lot about Google's SEO best practices by just reading the questions and answers.

You can read all the questions and answers or see how well you did on the test, if you took it.

Only three people got all 40 questions correct, they include ChrisRaimondi, theopeek and beussery from the forums.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Straw In Czech & Find Dead People

Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 2:52pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

If you do not like images of dead people, then maybe you should shy away from this post. A Google Web Search Help thread reports that if you search for [sláma], which means straw in Czech, up comes an image of a dead old lady in the web results.

Here is a picture:

(FYI, I did crop the picture a bit)

I personally reported the image as offensive. Often we have issues with porn in Google but this is yet another issue that hopefully can be addressed soon.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 2, 2010

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Blue Pale Stars on Google News Confuses Users?

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 3:02pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Yesterday, Google announced a new feature for Google News. The feature lets users "star" news items. You can "star" news clusters by clicking on the blue pale stars.

Here is a picture:

What does starring news items do?

(1) It lets Google know that you're interested in that subject.

(2) When there are significant updates, Google will alert you by putting the headline in bold so you can get more information.

(3) You can also follow your 20 most recent starred stories in the "Starred" section of Google News.

It also confuses some people. A Google News Help thread had one person ask:

Why are there pale blue stars in front of main stories?
Nothing is wrong: I'm just puzzled.

Forum discussion at Google News Help.

Google AdWords Disapproved For "Artificial Ad Traffic"

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 2:44pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

Some Google AdWords advertisers are reporting that their ads are being disapproved due to what is called "Artificial Ad Traffic." There are two thread at Google AdWords Help on the topic.

At this point, no one really fully understands the issue behind those warnings. An advertising policy guideline on Inflating Ad Clicks or Impressions was hyperlinked to by one AdWords helper. Then a Google representative, AdWordsPro, said that this was the correct answer to such a warning.

It says:

Don't promote inflating ad clicks or impressions.
Advertising is not permitted for the promotion of inflating clicks or impressions on ads, such as pay-to-click, pay-to-view, auto-surfing, automated ad clicking, and other guaranteed traffic programs.

An "Artificial Ad Traffic" disapproval has to do with the Inflating Ad Clicks or Impressions guideline.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

A Week Later, Google Fixes Webmaster Tools iGoogle Gadgets

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 2:38pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

A week ago, we reported that the iGoogle Webmaster Tools gadgets were broken. Google confirmed the issue then and said they would be working on fixing them.

Yesterday, Jonathan Simon of Google said it was fixed. He said:

Good news...the Webmaster Tools' iGoogle Gadgets should be functioning as expected again. Thank you for hanging in there while we worked on getting this fixed.

Some confirmed the fix is indeed working. But when I checked it this morning, it doesn't seem to be fixed for me. Hopefully it is just me and it did not break again.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Old Time Forum Personality, MakeMeTop, Acquired Partially

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 2:31pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Industry News

Possibly the first "Barry" in the SEO industry, Barry Lloyd, aka MakeMeTop, has sold the MakeMeTop brand, software and analytics business to Unica. Barry Lloyd has been in the industry for a really long time and he has been somewhat quiet recently, but has given so much to the industry over the years.

He joined the WebmasterWorld forums back in 2000. It is over there where he used the MakeMeTop username for years and years. There is now a forum thread at WebmasterWorld discussing the acquisition.

It is over there where he thanks everyone for their wishes and explains the situation a bit more. He said:

Thanks everyone and I suppose (and hope) I am permitted one more post under the MMT name before I transform into another ID!
Just one clarification, the MMT trademark, software and analytics business has been acquired, but my company Microchannel Technologies (which owned the MMT brand and trademark) is still here and will be doing SEM consultancy, a bit of affiliate stuff and the odd thing in this space. I can just afford to be way more selective about what I do!

For the past 10 years MMT enabled me to be part of this industry in many forms, SEO, SEM, affiliate marketer and lately SEM software provider. It has also enabled me to have a somewhat more decent standard of living than I probably deserve and allowed me to travel the World meeting like minded individuals.

For that, in no small part, I have to thank the people I have met here both virtually and in person. Some of you have been an inspiration and all have been a pleasure to enagage with in lively discussion.

As MMT rides off in to the rosy future I fully expect it to have (although under new ownership) I will be able to be able to choose what I want to do a lot more and that, of course, means I can get back to going to PubCon. Now that is something to look forward to!

Congrats Barry!

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Groundhog Day: Bing Theme But Nothing From Google, Yahoo, AOL & Others

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 2:20pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Industry News

Today is Groundhog Day and in the past we have seen special logos from AOL, DogPile, Bing and others. But we never get a theme or logo from Google and Yahoo for the day.

In any event, here is Bing's theme for Groundhog day:

We also have a theme up, here is how it looks:

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Google May Disclose AdSense Revenue Split, But Publishers Don't Care

Posted: February 2nd, 2010, 2:12pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

Jeff Jarvis wrote that Google is considering disclosing the share of AdSense revenue they share with their publishers. In fact, we have been reporting the approximate revenue share almost every time Google releases a financial statement. Some publishers seem to want to know how much Google is keeping and how much they are giving to their publishers.

A WebmasterWorld thread threw me for a bit of a loop. Many publishers in the thread don't want to know how much Google is giving publishers of the revenue. They simply do not want to know. One publisher said:

Maybe I've glossed over the arguments for knowing the revenue splits, but I have no idea how this would benefit publishers.

Most people agreed with that statement. BillyS backed it up saying:

I really don't care about the split - it's meaningless to me. I have no idea how much it costs Goolge to maintain the integrity of the system.

I am really curious if this is the popular vote. I have set up an anonymous poll. Please take the poll and have your publisher friends take it.

Should Google Disclose AdSense Revenue Split?(trends)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 1, 2010

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

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.

Google Images Preview Flip (Slider) Feature

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 2:24pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

It seems Google is testing a new user interface for Google Images image previews. There are reports of this test at both WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums. As you can see from the image below, after you click on an image from Google Images, you are then taken to a page that lets you click on left or right arrows, to slide through the various images.

I personally cannot replicate it. It seems to be something being tested from outside the US.

As you can imagine, webmasters are not happy with this new feature. They believe it will result in a drop in traffic from Google Image search. One webmaster said:

This changes everything! - before - a well placed image would bring in traffic - and a enough revenue to cover costs - etc. Now the image is in a gallery (Bing style) - I imagine click through rates will be negligible to the host page, context is lost, any copyright notifications gone, and no protection for the image.

The information from the site is just a small panel to the right.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

Google AdWords Changing Reports-Only Access To Read-Only

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 2:18pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

An email has started going out to Google AdWords advertisers about a change to privilege access in AdWords. The email basically says that the "report-only" access is changing to "read-only" access.

Here is a block of the email that went out to advertisers.

We're going to replace reports-only access with a new read-only access. In your account, all reports-only users will become read-only users automatically. This change will allow your reports-only users to have a more complete view of your account's performance. Read-only users will have access to advanced reporting tools, available in the Campaigns tab -- for example filters and data segmentation, and this will make it easier to notice performance trends and find areas for improvement.
Read-only access will still be limited to browsing and viewing reports. These read-only users will not be able to make edits to campaigns, but they won't be restricted only to using the Reports tab. They'll be able to view statistics anywhere in your account, including the Campaigns tab.

These changes will be made in the next few weeks. No action is required on your part, if you're comfortable with the changes. If you don't want your reports-only users to see the Campaigns tab, you can update your account access preferences...

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Says Goodbye to Internet Explorer 6

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 2:08pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Google announced they will be phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6 browsers on their apps. Google said:

Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products -- as well as new Docs and Sites features -- won’t work properly in older browsers.

Of course, there are so many companies that only run IE6 on their computers. Plus there are tons of home bound computers that use it. By Google dropping IE6 support when users are trying to access their software, it may force users to upgrade to a newer browser. Guess which browser Google will recommend?

A WebmasterWorld thread has lots of discussion around this move. Some can't believe people still use the old browser. Some people say their company forces them to use it. Some can't wait for IE6 to die so they can stop testing for it. Some ask, whey Microsoft isn't doing a better job moving people off IE6 and onto IE8 or a newer browser.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Complaints: Google Maps Users Hit With Porn Email?

Posted: February 1st, 2010, 2:02pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Over the weekend, there were four reports of Google Maps users complaining that they received spam emails, containing pornography, from Google. The complaints come via a Google Maps Help thread and to be honest, it is not clear what exactly is happening. I know that Google is not sending out pornographic emails, but is someone targeting Google Maps local listings with spam? Why are these users complaining?

The first complaint came in on Saturday and read:

I just got a porn spam email sent via Google Maps. How did that happen? How did they find me? I DO NOT want to be on Google maps and I certainly DON'T need spammers emailing me from there. How do I stop this?

Maybe a spammer is using the email link feature, and somehow using a Google Maps URL to redirect unsuspecting users to pornographic sites? This happens often with Google Sites URLs.

There are more details, with email headers - which shows me the emails don't appear to be coming from a Google server - in the threads.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Web Design News » Search Engine Roundtable » February 2010

Feeds

Search Engine Roundtable (121 unread)

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 10:04am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Buzz RoundUp

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:47am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:37am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdSense

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:29am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:21am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Local Search

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 9:10am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: February 26th, 2010, 8:58am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:55pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:42pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:28pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Link Building

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:24pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 1:10pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Engine

Posted: February 25th, 2010, 10:03am CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google PageRankSERP Updates

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:26pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:21pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:16pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:09pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Posted: February 24th, 2010, 12:03pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google AdWords

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 2:11pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 2:03pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 1:55pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Marketing Expo 2010 West

Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 1:53pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: spam

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:53pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:46pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:35pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:29pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Other Google Topics

Posted: February 22nd, 2010, 2:19pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Optimization

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Forum Recap

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 9:20pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Buzz RoundUp

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 2:25pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Search Engine Industry News

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Yahoo Search Marketing

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 2:02pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Google Search Engine

Posted: February 19th, 2010, 1:54pm CET by rustybrick

Tags: Microsoft MSN Search

Posted: February 18th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick