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.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: November 18, 2008
Posted: November 18th, 2008, 10:00pm CET by Tamar Weinberg
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Video: Google Launches Mobile iPhone Voice Application
Posted: November 18th, 2008, 4:13pm CET by Tamar Weinberg
Tags: Other Google Topics
Guess what, iPhone owners? The Google Mobile Blog has some great news for you. Google has released an iPhone application with voice recognition that will return searches formatted for your phone. This eliminates the need for you to have to type any queries.
Barry has illustrated how this works:
Cool, isn't it? Most people do think so. One defines this move as "cutting edge technology," though I'd have to attribute that to Apple's superior iPhone rather than Google. Jill Whalen is looking for an iPhone application that does voice recognition dialing; you'd think Google would have thought of that!
All in all, the application has been very well-received.
Forum discussion continues at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.
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Google AdWords Tip on Negative Keywords
Posted: November 18th, 2008, 3:54pm CET by Tamar Weinberg
Tags: Google AdWords
AdWordsPro Sarah is not done giving Google AdWords subscribers great tips. In yesterday's tip #8 on Google Groups, Sarah tells us about how to take advantage of negative keywords.
She explains that if you are using a negative keyword like -fast blue, any keyword iteration that utilizes both words will not show up, including terms like "blue fast". Essentially, consider an "AND" operation. Therefore, if you use a key phrase like "fast car mercedes," and there's no mention of "blue," an ad will show. But with the inclusion of "fast car mercedes blue," the ad will not show because both terms are included in the negative keyword.
On the other hand, if you had a negative keyword like "-fast blue", which is a negative phrase match, you won't get ads that show "fast blue" in the actual keyword list. But if you had an ad like "fast green blue", it would show up.
Sarah goes through examples for negative exact match also.
Understanding negative keywords and how they are applied in different scenarios should help you get an understanding of how to maximize your campaign and make sure to generate the most targeted impressions.
Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.
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Is Yelp.com Paying for Positive Comments?
Posted: November 18th, 2008, 3:32pm CET by Tamar Weinberg
Tags: Social Search
Yelp.com, the review site, is reported to have been engaging in some shady activity with business owners. In one example quoted by the linked article, a business owner was told by telemarketers that if she paid $300, reviews can be rearranged where the negative reviews would be essentially placed "below the fold." However, Yelp doesn't actually allow that.
At Cre8asite Forums, it's suspected that Yelp.com's employees may even have a hand in writing bad reviews for local businesses to encourage them to purchase into the paid program. A pretty shady operation, don't you think?
In fact, if telemarkers engage in a practice that Yelp obviously approves of (they're reading from a script, after all) and Yelp gets a negative review by business owners for actually engaging in these shady operations, is it legitimate for Yelp to remove those negative reviews? In another article, a business owner states that her negative review about Yelp itself was removed by Yelp.com. (But wait, she can't remove her own negative reviews, so why doesn't it work both ways?)
Is this practice extortion? Is Yelp.com legit? Is it time for a new company to take over and do it better and ethically without greed of money being on the mind?
Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.
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Yes, Google Will Index & Rank Your XML Sitemap File
Posted: November 18th, 2008, 2:22pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
Every day that goes by, I become a bigger fan of setting up an XML Sitemap file for Google and the other search engines to chew on. I think Sitemap files are important for sites to take full advantage of being indexed in Google. Clearly, submitting a Sitemap file is just one small step you need to do to enjoy ranking well in Google. You can often submit a sitemap file and Google won't index all your pages. We discussed this topic yesterday with My Pages Are Dropping Out of Google: What Do I Do?
What I find interesting is not only does a Sitemap help you tell Google about your pages, it also gives Google another document to index and include in their search results. Yes, Google may index your XML sitemap file and rank it in the search results. For example, a search on inurl:sitemap.xml returns Google's XML Sitemap towards the top of the search results for me:
That being said, hundreds of Sitemap files are indexed and in the search results. They typically only come up for very specific searches, that likely won't impact the normal searcher.
Two Google Group threads are discussing this. One, JohnMu of Google replied to, saying:
It does look like we have some of your Sitemap files indexed. It's possible that there is a link to them somewhere (or perhaps to the Sitemaps Index file). At any rate, I wouldn't worry about this since these are generally not URLs that will come up in the search results, so apart from people like you who look at the details, nobody will really be seeing them.
If you really don't want them to show up in the Google results, you have a way out. Here is how according to JohnMu:
If you do want to have them removed from the index, you could have your server send a "x-robots-tag" HTTP header tag with the contents of the file. Since they all appear to be originating from a single script, I imagine adding this would be fairly easy. For more information on the "x-robots-tag", please see our blog post.
Is Google indexing your Sitemap file? Do you care?
Forum discussion at Google Group.
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Google Maps for Mobile Working On Preloading Maps
Posted: November 18th, 2008, 2:12pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
Google Maps for Mobile has become an essential tool for maybe mobile warriors. I have spotted a Google Groups thread that asks Google if they would be willing to allow users to download maps to the application and then use those maps while being offline or not connected to the Internet.
This comes in handy when you:
- Don't have a data plan but have wifi
- Your internet connection is in a dead zone
- When you are on an airplane with airplane mode on
Google Maps Tom, an official Google Maps representative has almost confirmed Google is working on it. He said:
There have been a number of posts in this group specifically requesting this functionality, and we're working to meet your needs - but for now, Google Maps for mobile requires a data connection for use.
How soon? Who knows, but it does seem like Google is working on this.
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
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Google Promises They Don't Cap AdSense Earnings
Posted: November 18th, 2008, 2:07pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
We have questioned if Google limits how much an AdSense publisher can earn in the past. We even ran a poll where the majority of publishers felt Google did not have a glass ceiling for AdSense earnings.
Now, a WebmasterWorld thread pulls out a quote from the new AdSenseAdvisor that Google does not cap publishers. Let me quote you:
I 100% guarantee that there are no earnings caps on AdSense accounts. I will swear it on a big stack of Google search results. No earnings caps.
That is believable to me. Do you believe it?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Jerry Does What Is Best For Yahoo By Stepping Down From CEO Role
Posted: November 18th, 2008, 1:59pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Yahoo Topics
Jerry Yang, from what I hear about him, is a kind, gentle, caring and giving person. To see the news that he is stepping down form the CEO role, for the betterment of the company, is sad but yet necessary. It is sad, cause he is a good guy, but if it was anyone else, I don't think I would be upset about it. Don't get me wrong, Yahoo needs a new CEO to step in and get the company back on track.
Between all the back and forth with Microsoft and Google, all leading to failure, it is a necessary step. Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel as CEO in June 2007.
I like Mack's take at the WebmasterWorld thread, where he said, "I think Jerry's main problem was he was to attatched. In business you realy need to think with the head, not the heart. Yahoo! was clearly his "baby"."
Overall, I don't think anyone is surprised. Most wonder what took so long and many are not too confident about Yahoo's future.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Sphinn and DigitalPoint Forums.