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  Daily Search Forum Recap: January 16, 2009

  Posted: January 16th, 2009, 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.

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  Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: January 16, 2009

  Posted: January 16th, 2009, 5:53pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Search Buzz RoundUp  

  In this week's recap, I discuss Yahoo's new CEO, Carol Bartz. I talk about how the recession is impacting Google. Google is testing out longer descriptions in the search results. Google Sitemaps gets credit for faster crawling and indexing. Google made a new Sitemap generator. Google is consistently showing search ads on image search. AdSense publishers had the optimization reports. The AdSense competitive ad filter doesn't work. Yahoo Publisher Network might be bust. Yahoo turns on the content network for some. If your Google Sitelinks disappear, do you freak out? I have screen captures of the new YouTube ads. Finally, I share the poll results, over 1,100, on Google's new favorite icon. That was this past week in search from 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 (note: If YouTube shows a video not found message, just refresh the page and play it again, it is a YouTube bug):

  
  For the original iTunes version, click here

  Some Of The Topics Discussed:
  

  • Carol Bartz To Take CEO Role At Yahoo, Decker On Out
  • Google Starts Cutting Projects, Employees & Offices
  • Google Showing Longer Descriptions For Longer Queries
  • Survey Says: Google Sitemaps Gets Credit For Faster Indexing
  • Google Creates Traffic Based Sitemaps Generator
  • Google Now Consistently Showing Ads on Image Search?
  • AdSense Publisher Find Optimization Reports To Be a Waste of Time
  • Publishers Feeling Screwed By Google AdSense Competitive Ad Filter
  • The End of Yahoo Publisher Network Nearing?
  • Yahoo Search Marketing Now Turning On Content Network? Yahoo Says No
  • Google Sitelinks Disappear? Should You Worry?
  • Screen Captures: Promoting Videos at YouTube Through YouTube Ads
  • Poll: Do You Like Google's 2009 Fav (Browser) Icon?

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

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  The End of Yahoo Publisher Network Nearing?

  Posted: January 16th, 2009, 2:33pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Yahoo Publisher Network  

  I am honestly surprised I have not seen more discussion around this topic in the forums recently. A couple days ago, I reported at Search Engine Land that Yahoo is shutting down Content Match in the UK, Germany and other locations outside of the US. The last day for advertisers outside of the US to bid on Content Match ads would be March 31st. That directly translates to less inventory for Yahoo to place in their Yahoo Publisher Network. Yes, the Google AdSense competitor.

  Yahoo sent an email to their advertisers, saying:

  As a valued client we are writing to give you advance notice of the closure of our Content Match product in Europe.

  The decision to close Content Match underlines our commitment to focus on our Sponsored Search and Display business and to simplify our solutions to deliver a high ROI for our advertisers.

  Content Match will close on 31 March 2009, after which the product will no longer be supported. All Advertisers should therefore opt out of the Content Match marketplace by this date. Your account manager will be happy to assist you.

  So, Yahoo has decided to commit their focus to "sponsored search" and the "display business" and then do away with their contextual ads? Really? Is this just an international commitment or is it a company wide change?

  Is Google going to be competitor free in the contextual space? I know, there are many small contextual ad networks, but the only ones that can really compete would be Yahoo and Microsoft. Microsoft's ContentAds are still in limited beta and currently have a long way to get up to par against Google. Many were not happy with Yahoo, but it was a great alternative.

  Are these the signs of the end to Yahoo's Publisher Network?

  Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

  Update: Yahoo emailed me to say that Content Match is only closing in Europe.

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  Publishers Feeling Screwed By Google AdSense Competitive Ad Filter

  Posted: January 16th, 2009, 2:21pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google AdSense  

  In late December, we reported that Google's AdSense Competitive Ad Filter stopped working for many publishers. Guess what, it is still not working for many of them and they are feeling very let down by Google. If you don't know what Google's competitive filter is, it basically gives publishers the functionality to block specific ads from appearing on their pages.

  Successful AdSense publishers depend on the competitive filter to block out the MFAs and poor quality sites from displaying on their sites. But since late December, the filter stopped working for many. Here are some of the continued complaints in the WebmasterWorld thread:

  I've managed to keep earnings up by constantly monitoring and blocking ads but my filter is filling up with garbage. Once it's full and my site visitors see nothing but crap ads and stop clicking, that's it, buh bye AdSense.

  I'm with coach. This is pretty sad.

  I let it go a few weeks to see what would happen- Sounded like ASA was all over it. I guess not. I tried blocking a few more today and they were already in the ad filter. Nothing can be done I guess.

  I am surprised the ASA has become quiet over this. It is not as if he/she isn't aware of the problem.

  Is it intentional? Is Google doing this to earn more money? They recently cut jobs and products, plus they have been spewing ads everywhere and anywhere. Time will tell.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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  Google Sitelinks Disappear? Should You Worry?

  Posted: January 16th, 2009, 2:09pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Optimization  

  The first week of January, when we wrote about the Major Google Search Results Changes, January 2009, I noticed the Google Sitelinks for this site, disappeared. Today, I noticed they are back. Today, also, many webmasters are noticing they have lost their sitelinks.

  A WebmasterWorld thread has two webmasters noting that their Sitelinks disappeared both in the Google search results and in Google Webmaster Tools. They both are concerned and asked if they should be.

  One noted his/her traffic is up 30% month over month and rankings seem to be steady. But still, he/she is concerned.

  Personally, I was a bit taken back - but I did nothing. I decided to see what would happen with my traffic. I just checked my traffic now, and it is up from a week ago, but it is fairly level from a month ago. See, I forgot to even look to see if those Sitelinks had an impact and now they are back. But the smart thing would be to check in and see the impact on traffic and then maybe even rankings. I would be concerned until you see a negative impact over on that site. There can be many reasons why Google would temporarily drop the sitelinks for your site. Many of those reasons might be an issue on Google's side.

  I agree with Tedster's comment in the thread:

  Seeing Google traffic up by 30% is a very good thing. I would not have major concern about the loss of sitelinks if search traffic goes up (especially well-targeted search traffc), but certainly do keep a watch on the situation. It sounds rather odd, especially that potential sitelinks don't show in WMT. If you haven't made structural changes to your site, this might well be a Google bug.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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  What Happens When Google Does Not Catch a Site Hack?

  Posted: January 16th, 2009, 2:00pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Optimization  

  A Webmaster posted a thread at Google Webmaster Help groups asking why his description for his site shows porn related terms in the snippet. The clear answer was that his site was hacked.

  The question was posed by a concern webmaster:

  The description showing on google for etceteraonline.eu is for a porn site, the link works fine but the description is wrong and not contained on my site please help.

  Several top contributors replied, showing that the site was hacked and had tons of porn content on it. Here is the first response by Aaron:

  you had most likely been hacked.

  i see the indexed content as well:

  http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aetceteraonline.eu+porn

  Google has pulled the site a few hours ago, but you can see the concern this webmaster had that his site was showing up as a porn site in Google. Not only is it upsetting to the webmaster, it would also be very upsetting to the unsuspecting searcher. Plus, who knows if this site had malware that can infect one's computer.

  These are one of the many reasons why Google acts so fast to remove hacked sites from the index. And we all know Google reincludes hacked sites after they are patched, fairly quickly.

  Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

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  Google Now Consistently Showing Ads on Image Search?

  Posted: January 16th, 2009, 1:51pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google AdWords  

  Since 2005, we have reported signs of Google placing ads on their image search service. In May 2008, Google said they would run ads on image search and then signs of text ads on image search back in December. But it has really not stuck and people saw the ads on and off.

  I think for the first time, we are now seeing ads for many queries in image search. Here are some examples of Google showing text ads in image search. I believe you can reproduce this yourself:

  + ipods:

  + computers:

  + ford mustang:

  Many other keywords all seem to work, such as blood pressure, gloves, baskets and even seo or buy text ads.

  The big question is, can advertisers opt out of showing their ads on Google images?

  So it looks like they are now here to stay.

  Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.