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.
Feeds
5540 items (5015 unread) in 3 feeds
Google
(325 unread)
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Official Google Webmaster Central Blog (325 unread)
SEO
(4690 unread)
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Emily Chang (347 unread)
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Search Engine Roundtable
(4343 unread)
Search Engine Roundtable (6 unread)
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Daily Search Forum Recap: March 9, 2009
Posted: March 9th, 2009, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Google Ignoring AdSense Font Selection
Posted: March 9th, 2009, 2:50pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
A few weeks ago, Google finally gave AdSense publishers a way to specify the font type they want to show on their web sites. AdSense publishers were really happy with the added control and Google was happy to give publishers this level of control.
So why am I seeing reports that Google is ignoring these AdSense font preferences and overriding them with something else?
A WebmasterWorld thread has several publishers complaining that Google is not using the font they picked in the AdSense ad set up.
One said, he doesn't mind, because it helps against "ad blindness." But why give the publisher the option. If I set my preferred font, then use it. If I don't set it, then feel free to experiment.
One publisher said:
just curious whether anyone else has set up their ads with a fixed font, only to see them carry on changing.
i know it's probably just google testing the fonts again, but why are they carrying on testing them when they've already given us the option to change them
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google's Keyword Tool Acting Funky?
Posted: March 9th, 2009, 2:40pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
Over the weekend, I heard some reports of issues with Google's keyword tool. I received a Twitter from @dalka, I spotted a Google Groups thread from the AdWords API forum and a Google AdWords Help forum thread with complaints.
They all surround the keyword tool, both via the API and via the external web based tool. Jeff Posnick from the AdWords API Team said:
Fresh search volume data is currently being pushed out and replicated globally, and the engineering team believes that the sporadic -1 results you were seeing is a side-effect of that process. Once it is complete there should be up to date data available globally. They mentioned that you should check again on Monday to confirm this.
AdWordsPro Stephen, an official Google representative said:
It sounds like the AdWords system is reacting to receiving many requests from you in a very short time. Using scripts or 'screenscrapers' to gather data from AdWords is a violation of the AdWords terms and conditions, and there are some automated monitors that enforce this.
There does seem to be minor issues with the tool, so be on the look out if you are using any of these tools today.
Forum discussion at Google Groups and Google AdWords Help.
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Frozen Google AdSense Stats Continues to Plague Publishers
Posted: March 9th, 2009, 2:32pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
Google AdSense statistics have been having issues updating since March 4th. In fact, we have seen reports prop up again and again since then. March 6th, people were complaining and people have been complaining since, including this morning.
We have two threads, one at WebmasterWorld and the other at Google AdSense Help. Each thread complains about the same thing, over the course of the weekend and today.
There are also dozens of threads at DigitalPoint Forums on the issue.
We have no official word from Google on these recent issues.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help.
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Google Docs Security Breach Should Encourage People Not to Use Google Health
Posted: March 9th, 2009, 2:18pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
Late last week, I saw dozens and dozens of threads in the Google Docs Help discussion forum, where Googlers were saying that they would contact these individuals directly, via email. Now, I saw a bunch of these, but didn't really look into them, simply because the issue was handled off the public forum.
Over the weekend, Google posted the details of the issue, which seemed to me to be a major security breach. Let me quote it:
We wanted to let you know about a bug (now fixed) that affected a small percentage of users who may have shared permissions between some documents in their account without their knowledge. This inadvertent sharing happened only when the document owner, or a collaborator with sharing rights, selected multiple documents and presentations from the documents list and changed the sharing permissions. (This issue didn't affect spreadsheets.) As part of the fix, we used an automated process to remove collaborators and viewers from the documents that we identified as being affected. We apologize for the inconvenience of having to re-share your docs. We have sent notifications to the owners of impacted docs, informing them of this fix and posted this information to the Apps Status Dashboard: http://www.google.com/appsstatus
Can you imagine if you were sharing financial information or personal medical information with someone and some how, it was shared with strangers? And Google wants you to use Google Health to share your most confidential and personal details with your doctor and family? I am all for sharing in exchange for convenience but what is stopping a security bug like this from happening on Google Health?
Forum discussion at Google Docs Help.
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URL Case in SEO Matters
Posted: March 9th, 2009, 2:10pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Optimization
Sometimes we forget or forget to look after basic SEO topics. The other day, I caught one of my programmers allowing both capitalized URLs and lowercase URLs result in having the same destination page. Let's take Twitter as an example, since it was brought up in a Google Webmaster Help thread.
Twitter allows both capitalized and lowercase URLs return the same page. For example, both [twitter.com] and [twitter.com] return the same exact page, content and information. But Google considers http://twitter.com/google and http://twitter.com/Google to be different pages, in many cases.
Now, Google isn't that dumb, just do a search for [www.google.com] (the capitalized version) and Google will know you really want the lowercase version:
But you don't want to make Google figure this stuff out. What you should do, is make sure there is only one version, preferably the lowercase version in my opinion. If someone does go to a capitalized version, 301 that page to the lower case URL.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.