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: April 30, 2009
Posted: April 30th, 2009, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Poll: Do You (SEMs) Currently Have a Job?
Posted: April 30th, 2009, 3:52pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Industry News
I wanted to run a quick poll to see how many of you are employed in this deep recession. The poll is completely anonymous and it would help others gauge how safe or unsafe the search marketing industry is during this recession. Please take the poll below and tell your friends to take it.
SEMs: Are You Employed?(online surveys)
A Search Engine Watch Forums thread seems to believe that the search marketing industry is doing excellent these days. In fact, this person says that there are plenty of job openings and very few skilled SEMs to fill those positions. Do you agree?
Are you currently employed or looking for work in the SEM field? Please take the poll above and tell your colleagues and friends to take the poll.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 24, 2009
Posted: April 24th, 2009, 11:00pm CEST 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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Optimizing Sites For Search Engines For 10 Years
Posted: April 24th, 2009, 3:52pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: SEO Forum News
There aren't many people out there that can say they have been in the SEO industry and optimizing sites for search engines since 1999. But there are probably a hundred or so people who can say that. Personally, I joined the "SEO industry" in 2002 (been in the internet industry since 1995), what is known as the second wave of personalities who joined the industry. Danny Sullivan, Chris Sherman, Daron Babin, Greg Boser (I better stop naming names before I insult people) were part of the first wave - people who were in the industry before it may have been known as SEO.
That being said, a YouMoz post named SEO Since 1999 takes you through the history of one quiet SEO, who was optimizing sites for ten plus years. Can you imagine? In any event, this write up should interest anyone who loves the industry.
Here is the introductory paragraph:
Monday, April 20th, 2009: Today I celebrate the completion of my first decade in search. I have been waiting for this day with some trepidation for the past 6 months or so. I am not really sure why or even what this anniversary really means. Does it mean that I am some sort of expert? Well, anything is possible. Or does it mean that I have wasted the past decade with little to show in an industry that my friends and family can hardly even understand? Hmm, I hope not. In truth, it means I not only have a job that I like, but a career that I love.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
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Global Live Search Local Listings Coming Soon
Posted: April 24th, 2009, 3:46pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Microsoft MSN Search
Live Search Maps is still gaining ground and currently, the only businesses that can verify their listings are those in the US. For US businesses, you can go to Live Search Local Listing Center and update your listings. But if you are outside of the US, you are out of luck.
A WebmasterWorld thread has a UK business owner who was upset he was unable to verify his listing. MSNDude, an official Microsoft representative has finally come in to respond. His response:
Unfortunately, we currently do not support local listings outside of the US. However, I believe the local listings team is working to expand this in the near future.
You hear that? It might be here in the "near future." Who knows how long that really means, but "near future" to me, would mean within the year.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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SEOs Excited For Google Analytics API
Posted: April 24th, 2009, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Tracking Conversion Measurements
Google announced the public availability of the Google Analytics API this week and SEOs are very happy about it.
SEOs thrive with data and even better SEOs have ways to automatically build software that uses this data to improve their conversions. Dynamically creating new pages based on search query data or A/B testing landing pages based on bounce rates and conversions in an automated fashion, simply makes sense. There are just an incredible amount of opportunity with this new API and SEOs are excited about it.
To be fair, most SEOs who realized this benefit already built internal systems to handle most of the tracking and dynamic creation of content and landing pages. But maybe Google Analytics gives them new ways to peal away at the data that they haven't had the time or resources to get at as of yet?
If you have technical questions about the API, you can check out the new Google Analytics API Group. There is a dedicated Googler there to help.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Yahoo Shuts Down History: GeoCities To Be Closed
Posted: April 24th, 2009, 3:34pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Yahoo Topics
Shouldn't there be some laws about removing historic landmarks from the Internet? I mean, we have laws about physical historic landmarks in the U.S. but not on the Internet?
If you visit GeoCities, you will notice a message that reads:
Sorry, new GeoCities accounts are no longer available.
After careful consideration, we have decided to close GeoCities later this year. We'll share more details this summer. For now, please sign in or visit the help center for more information.
In short, Yahoo is shutting it down and current GeoCity customers have to find a new hosting solution. Yahoo is of course pushing their paid small business hosting service.
Clearly, Yahoo has to turn their business around but to close down history? Maybe Obama has something in his budget to take over the historic GeoCities? ;-)
Personally, I have never used GeoCities - but it was incredibly popular. Googler, JohnMu, Tweeted "Surprised at how many serious sites are hosted on GeoCities: get a domain name and move your stuff out NOW!" Now he would know the value of some of these GeoCities sites.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
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Filter Google AdSense Ads By Category
Posted: April 24th, 2009, 3:15pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
The Google AdSense Blog announced they are beta testing a new feature for publishers that allow them to filter ads based on category. So if publishers don't want ads that are about dating, religion or "get rich quick" type of ads, they can block those ads from showing on their site by blocking the whole category.
Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? In fact, They shared a screen shot that details the various categories. In addition, it even shows you how much money you are making from each category. This way, you don't block your most profitable category.
So what is the issue? A WebmasterWorld thread asks a very important question. Who is classifying the ads into categories? Is it Google or the advertiser? One member said that when someone asked a Google rep about this at the ADSPACE conference (where this was announced), Google said the advertiser is categorizing their ads.
Here is the post from the thread on that:
Someone asked this question at the google panel at adspace today, and the way i heard the answer is that the _advertiser_ sets the category.
Both the questioner and the answerer were not too clear, but this is what i gathered from the exchange.
The concern is that advertisers will make sure not to categorize their ads in certain categories that might be perceived as negative towards publishers. Now, I am not 100% sure if advertisers to categories their own ads, we will have to wait and see how this all works.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 23, 2009
Posted: April 23rd, 2009, 11:00pm CEST 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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The Google Content Network Whitepaper Seen As Marketing Material
Posted: April 23rd, 2009, 3:54pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
Google released a whitepaper titled "CPA Performance Trends on the Google Content Network." The whitepaper has the following findings, all very positive about how Google AdSense performs:
- Ads on the Google Content Network are likely to be as cost-effective - or even more cost-effective - than ads on the search network.
- The median advertiser has a content CPA that's about 2% lower than their search CPA.
- The Content Network drives a significant share of total conversions.
- The Content Network drives nearly 20% of total conversions for the median advertiser.
- Conversion rates are higher for advertisers who used either of two AdWords campaign management controls: the Conversion Optimizer and site exclusion.
Thing is, no one believes the report. A WebmasterWorld thread has real advertisers saying they don't see this in their daily use of Google's content network and this seems to be a Google backed study that would bias the results.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
- Ads on the Google Content Network are likely to be as cost-effective - or even more cost-effective - than ads on the search network.
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Is AOL Gearing Up To Create Automated Search Spam?
Posted: April 23rd, 2009, 3:45pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Spam
A WebmasterWorld thread spotted an interesting paragraph in an Reuters article on AOL possibly using automated tools to create an infinite number of niche sites, targeted at driving users to the site via search and having them click on the ads on the site. The article says:
AOL, for example, is embarking on a strategy of creating a plethora of niche websites through automated methods on which to place ads, partly through its own ad platform. It has called this "leaning into the fragmentation of the Web.
The debate in the thread is two fold:
(1) Is this simply bad journalism and AOL is not trying to go this route? If not:
(2) What will search engines do to combat such a large site creating such spam?It is no doubt that there are many "authority" sites that create these types of pages and get by for doing so because of their "authority" status. In fact, many SEOs have called out these type of sites before.
AOL can make a lot of money if they did go this route, but are they really going to go the automated route when they do a pretty good job at creating unique content already?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google Maps Bug Prevents Certain Locations From Loading in Internet Explorer
Posted: April 23rd, 2009, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
There are two large threads at Google Maps Help Forums with reports from Internet Explorer users receiving errors when trying to view and link to Google Maps.
The error some of these IE users are seeing is:
Webpage error details User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; GTB5; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) Timestamp: Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:26:06 UTC
Message: 'elem' is null or not an object
Line: 5
Char: 372
Code: 0
URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wlGoogle has confirmed the issue in the threads. Mike CH from Google said:
I wanted to update you on the "elem is null or not an object" error that some of you have been seeing. This is a recently introduced bug which only occurs on Internet Explorer when loading certain locations. Thanks to your (very!) helpful reports, we were able to quickly locate the problem. It's being treated as a priority fix and will hopefully be live shortly.
Workarounds for now include:
- Not using Internet Explorer
- Using the link I provided above to open MapsI assume a bug like this will be fixed pretty soon. I personally tried to replicate the issue on my PC, but was unable to.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help Forums.
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How To Show Google Base Products in Google AdWords Ads
Posted: April 23rd, 2009, 3:28pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
A reader, Brad from Set Solid, sent me new information about Google showing products in AdWords ads. We covered this topic a few times, reporting on seeing such ads in Google several times in the past. Here is a screen shot of the ad:
Well, a reader sent me an email with an image of the Google Base administrative console. In the admin panel, it shows a new link to "Share with AdWords." Here is a screen capture of that section:
If you enter in your AdWords customer ID, it will link up your products with your ads. There is actually a new help document on this at Google. It reads:
You can now specify your AdWords account information in your Google Base account. By doing this, you can surface your Google Base product information in your AdWords ads. AdWords campaigns that are linked to Google Base accounts will receive the benefit of richer, more specific product information in their creatives; including images and prices.
I don't believe there has been an official announcement on this new feature by Google yet. Google has admitted this is a beta test in the past.
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
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Google's Clock Is Wrong in Pakistan
Posted: April 23rd, 2009, 3:20pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
A Google search for time in pakistan should give you the current time in Pakistan, but it doesn't. On April 15th, Pakistan advanced their clocks by one hour, but Google did not. So instead of it showing me 6:19pm, it is showing me 5:19pm.
Big deal? Yes, it is. This is not just impacting people looking for the current time in Pakistan. Is is reportedly also impacting Pakistan users of Gmail, Orkut, AdWords and other Google properties. A Google Web Search Help thread reports that it is showing emails as being received and sent an hour earlier then it is suppose to show.
I hope Google fixes this soon. It has already been a week since it has been first reported as an issue.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 22, 2009
Posted: April 22nd, 2009, 11:00pm CEST 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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Google Video Search Results Redesign Upsets Searchers
Posted: April 22nd, 2009, 4:29pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
It appears Google has launched a redesign of the search results pages on Google Video. For example, a search on barry schwartz returns search results on the left side and the video on the right. If you click on a search result, it shows the video directly on that page and gives you the option to click through and watch it on the site it came from.
Here is a picture:
A Google Web Search Help thread (note, the Google Video help forum is no longer, they moved it to the web search section) has a couple users who are unhappy with the new layout. The new layout is due to the fact that Google doesn't allow video uploads on Google anymore. It is now just a search engine for videos, while YouTube is their upload and user generated content (video) section.
One user said:
I am seeing a redesign of TV view when I search for a video in Google Video. The video description is takes up a lot of space, the video is smaller (and not expandable) and there is no way to rate videos (or even see video ratings!).
Alex Chitu said, "the new interface has a lot of flaws: the video player moves as you scroll down, the list of related videos is not always visible, Google Video no longer displays ratings and there's a lot of unused space."
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
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Microsoft To Open adCenter Content Ads As Public Beta
Posted: April 22nd, 2009, 4:11pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: MSN ContentAds
I spotted a member in a DigitalPoint Forums thread with a level of certainty that Microsoft will be announcing at adTech San Francisco today that they are opening up ContentAds (also may be known as PubCenter) as a public beta. ContentAds is Microsoft's competing Google AdSense product.
An open beta means that virtually anyone should be able to sign up for the product and test it against Google AdSense. It is also rumored that Microsoft will set up a companion blog for the ContentAds (PubCenter) today, April 22nd.
In March 2008, Microsoft began accepting beta users via a sign up form. Since then, it has remained fairly quiet except for some comparisons made by beta users between ContentAds & AdSense. ContentAds began being tested in June 2007 by a few publishers and some really early tests in October 2006. The earliest rumors of this product came in December 2005 and then again in February 2006.
Hopefully the big beta launch is today.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Update: Microsoft confirms this and adds more details.
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Yahoo (YHOO) Reports 1st Quarter 2009 Earnings
Posted: April 22nd, 2009, 4:02pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo Search Engine
Yahoo announced their first quarter earnings for 2009 and it was pretty bad. Here are the highlights:
Yahoo! Inc. today reported revenues of $1,580 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, a decrease of 13 percent from the first quarter of 2008. Excluding the impact of currency rate fluctuations, revenues for the first quarter of 2009 would have declined 8 percent from the first quarter of 2008. The Company’s non-GAAP operating cash flow for the first quarter of 2009 of $409 million exceeded the midpoint of the outlook range provided by the Company last quarter.
Plus, Yahoo will be cutting 5% of the staff, that is an additional 600-700 employees from the layoffs they had earlier this year and last year. Sounds like Yahoo is bleeding to me.
But the thing is, Yahoo beat Wall Street Estimates and the stock is up a bit in pre-market conditions.
In any event, you can read more about this at Search Engine Land or on Techmeme.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google Begins Pushing New AdWords Interface on Advertisers
Posted: April 22nd, 2009, 3:53pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
Starting yesterday, many Google AdWords advertisers began noticing a message in the AdWords console asking them to give the new user interface a try. Google began beta testing the new AdWords UI in November 2008 and expanded the beta in March 2009. More recently, they asked advertisers to experiment with the new UI early because it will be here soon.
Well, now it is here and most advertisers can switch over to it. When you login to your AdWords account, you should see a bubble notification that looks like this:
Note, when I upgraded, I was told my browser (Safari 3.2) may not be fully supported and I should use Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, or Chrome to manage my campaigns. In any event, you likely can upgrade but before doing so, if you want to learn more about the UI, see this resource for more information.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Microsoft To Fix Fake Referrer Data From Live Search
Posted: April 22nd, 2009, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Microsoft MSN Search
Since August 2007 Microsoft has been sending out weird referrer data to people's log files. The spam like referrers were official cloaking tests from Microsoft and should have been resolved in 2007. But they came back in January 2008 and then again in July 2008 without explanation.
We are now seeing them again, starting last month. A WebmasterWorld thread said it is coming from search.live more than MSN bots.
Microsoft's Jason chimed in the other day suggesting Betsy Aoki at Microsoft via this form. But soon after, Brett Yount from Live Search's Webmaster Center came in as MSNDude and said:
I would like to apologize for the inconvenience this is causing. We are working to correct this issue ASAP.
Hopefully it will get resolved soon and forever.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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How To Verify My Google Profile
Posted: April 22nd, 2009, 3:16pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Google announced you can now create verified Google Profiles that potentially can show up in the Google web search results. Danny Sullivan has the ultimate guide on how these Google Profiles work. For example here is my profile as displayed in the Google web results:
It can also show up in this format:
To have your profile displayed in the Google web results, you likely need to have a verified listing. How do you verify your profile in Google? It isn't that easy.
Here is a picture of my profile, there are two verifications. (1) The profile itself (aka "verified name") and the (2) email address.
Let's start with verifying the profile (aka the name):
(1) You must go to Google's Knol site and sign in.
(2) Then go to your profile settings.
(3) Click on the "Name Verification" tab
(4) Then choose to verify by phone or via credit cardIf you verify by phone, you enter in your phone number and Google will call it. When you get the call, Google will display a pin code followed by a pound sign on the Knol web site. When prompted, enter in the pin code and pound sign and you should be verified. If you verify by credit card, just enter in your credit card information. Note, Google currently can't verify American Express or Debit cards.
Verifying your email address:
(1) Go to your Google Profile and click "edit profile"
(2) Midway through the page it says "Verified domains" and explains:You can verify email addresses and choose which domains (the part after the @) you'd like to appear on your profile. Your email addresses will not be displayed. This will help visitors to your profile know that you are the real you. Learn more
If your email is already verified, it should read:
You have verified email addresses at the following domains. Check which domains you'd like to appear on your profile. Your email addresses will not be displayed. This will help visitors to your profile know that you are the real you.Learn more
Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft and other free email accounts cannot be verified as domains. You need your own domain. You can add a non Gmail alternative to your Google account to verify your email.
That is basically how to get the verification labels on your Google Profile.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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'09 Earth Day Logos From Google, Yahoo, AOL & Others in Search Industry
Posted: April 22nd, 2009, 1:21pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Industry News
Today is Earth Day and many of the search engines have created special logos to remind people of the day! We have Earth Day logos from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft's Live.com, AOL, Ask.com, DogPile and others!
Yahoo (animated):
AOL (animated):
We covered the logos for the past several years including 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums & Cre8asite Forums.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 21, 2009
Posted: April 21st, 2009, 11:00pm CEST 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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54% of SEOs Believe in Artificial Google PageRank
Posted: April 16th, 2009, 2:34pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google PageRankSERP Updates
About a week ago, we wrote a piece about getting PageRank without links. In that write up, we wrote how Google may give pages temporary or artificial PageRank to make up for the page being new.
We decided to poll our readers, asking if they believed in such a concept or not.
54% of our readers, 83 of the 153 responses, said they believe that Google does give web pages artificial PageRank. 44% of our readers, 67 of the 153 responses, said they do not believe in an artificial PageRank concept.
Interesting break down. Personally, I do believe Google does give new pages a temporary or artificial PageRank value early on.
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 16th.
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Most SEOs Believe Google Has Keyword Specific Penalty
Posted: April 16th, 2009, 2:22pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
About two weeks ago, we polled our audience asking if they thought Google had a keyword specific penalty. By the I meant, does Google penalize a site from ranking well for a specific keyword phrase, while allowing the site to rank well for other keyword phrases. There are now well over a hundred-sixty responses, with the majority, seven-eight percent, saying Google does have such a filter.
I went as far to break down the poll by asking if you do believe in such a filter, is the filter or penalty algorithmic or manual. Meaning, does Google give these keyword penalties by hand or is there an algorithm that does this automatically?
86 of the respondents or 53% said it is done algorithmically, while 41 of the respondents or 25% said it was done manually. Only 35 respondents or 22% said there was no keyword specific penalty. I wonder how Matt Cutts voted. :)
Forum discussion continued at HighRankings Forum.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 16th.
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80% Say SEOs Need Some Coding Abilities
Posted: April 16th, 2009, 2:15pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: SEM SEO Companies
Last week we asked if SEOs need coding capabilities based on a controversial Sphinn thread. The results are now in and I am surprised to see just about 80% of the responses said that to be considered an SEO, you need some coding abilities.
Here is the break down of results for the question, Do You Need Coding Skills to be an SEO?
:: Yes, Some Coding Abilities To Be Called An SEO said 100 respondents or 65%
:: No, No Coding Abilities To Be Called An SEO said 33 respondents or 21%
:: Yes, Expert Coding Abilities To Be Called An SEO said 21 respondents or 14%I would have thought more would say that SEOs need no coding experience to be labelled an "SEO." Of course, having coding skills helps, but a requirement?
Forum discussion continued at Sphinn.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 16th.
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Google Releases Stable Toolbar for Internet Explorer
Posted: April 16th, 2009, 2:10pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
If you have been like me and been tracking the Google Toolbar Help discussion area, you may have noticed complaint after complaint on how buggy the Google Toolbar was in Internet Explorer.
Google announced they have released a stable version of the Google Toolbar 6 for IE. Version 6.1.1518.856 is the stable release, which removes the beta tag from this toolbar.
Internet explorer users can download it at [toolbar.google.com]. Improvements include:
- Find bar is no longer a separate toolbar that overrides IE's Find feature
- Word find and Highlight buttons are back
- AutoFill works on most login pages, like the Gmail homepage
Forum discussion at Google Toolbar Help.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 16th.
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Two New Conferences: ADSPACE & Found
Posted: April 16th, 2009, 2:02pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Conferences
There are two new conferences coming up that I thought I let you know about. One is focused specifically around contextual ads, and is named ADSPACE. The other is focused on the technical side of SEO and is named Found.
The ADSPACE conference is an adTech conference taking place in San Francisco on April 22nd. The speaker list is impressive, including keynotes from Brad Bender, Product Management Director at Google, Will Martin-Gill, Director of Internet at Marketing eBay and Tim Kendall, Director of Monetization at Facebook. The Google AdSense blog posted a promo code that can save you 20%, the promo code is ADSPACED.
The Found conference is an O'Reilly Media backed event, organized by Vanessa Fox and Nathan Buggia of Microsoft. Speakers include Matt Cutts of Google, Nick Cox of Yahoo, Alessandro Catorcini of Microsoft, dozens of other search reps, and SEO celebrities such as Danny Sullivan, Jill Whalen, Greg Boser and others. I have a 15% discount code if you register using fd09ser code.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 16th.
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Tuesday Mornings: Best Time To Send Out Link Request Emails
Posted: April 15th, 2009, 2:41pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Link Building
A week ago, we ran a poll asking when is the best time to send out link requests. We know, we don't recommend bombarding people with link exchange or request emails, but if you had to, when would you do it?
The hundreds of responses are in and it seems like most people suggest sending it on Tuesday mornings. Here is the breakdown in pie charts.
Best day to send link request emails:
Best time to send link request emails:
Not sure if this will help you, but the results are interesting.
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 15th.
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Factors That Search Engines May Use to Rank Your Web Pages
Posted: April 15th, 2009, 2:19pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Optimization
SEOMoz created the first and second comprehensive search ranking factors document. We now have a new one, a shorter one, from HuoMah.com.
Dave lists out dozens and dozens of factors and adds commentary around them. Here are some of them, without the commentary:
- PageRank (or relative nodal link valuation)
- Link text (internal and external)
- Link relevance (global and page)
- Also see Temporal, Personalized PageRank and Phrase factors.
- Page TITLE tag
- Meta-description tag
- Document inception/age data
- Link velocity
- Link age
- Viral/Current news (QDF)
- Time of year (niche trends)
- Content update rate
- Domain history
- Inbound links (global)
- Outbound links
- Named entities (products, brand, author)
- Contact information (also important for geographic signals)
- Location of client device
- Location of webpage hosting
- Contact / location information
- Inbound/outbound link geo-factors
- Linguistic indicators (language and nuances)
- Heading (H1-5)
- Bold
- Italic
- Lists
- Font attributes (size, color)
- Related phrase ratios
- Categorization of content (clusters)
- Occurrences (probabilistic)
- Duplication dampening (filters)
- Personalization (phrase based)
- Link analysis (inbound)
- Global site relevance
- Term proximity (for multi-term queries)
- Image tagging (in content segment/related terms)
- Search History
- Web history (pages/sites we visit)
- Query revision (and analysis)
- Search intent (informational, navigational)
- Explicit data (favourites, reader,wiki)
- Interaction with advertising
- Surfing frequency/ time of day
- Personalized PageRank (yahoo and google)
- SERP and document interactions
- Duplicate issues (structural/content)
- Link devaluations (segmentation, link text, recips)
- Poor architecture/coding
- Reviewer penalties
- Redundant meta-data (such as meta-descriptions)
- Canonical / URL issues
- Server reliability (can be de-indexed)
- Phrase based detection
- Cloaking
- Boilerplate
- Domain history
- Query analysis
- Network proxy detection
- Link based (link spam and excessive recips)
- Client type (browser, mobile)
- Toolbars and browser (Google Suggest, web history)
- Application focus (email, instant messenger, RSS etc..)
Exhausting list, but it is nice to have an updated version in one place.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 15th.
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AdSense "Orientation" Webinar on April 18th
Posted: April 15th, 2009, 2:18pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
This coming April 18th, at 11am PST, Google will be hosting a free AdSense Webinar on the topic of "Orientation" for the first 500 people who sign up. To sign up, go to this URL and click on the "Sign Up" link in the middle of the page.
The first Webinar is to give you the "understanding of the basics of your AdSense account. Learn more about the program and get familiar with your account."
AdSensePro Obair said in a Google AdSense Help thread, you can expect to learn the following from this Webinar:- Learn how to make the most of your AdSense account
- Get an opportunity to chat with some AdSense Specialists
- Get detailed insight in to different account features
Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 15th.
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Are One Line Sitelinks Here To Stay: A Deeper Look
Posted: April 15th, 2009, 2:12pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
Google has been testing showing classic (one line) Sitelinks in the search results for a while now. The one line Sitelinks are interesting in that they seem to differ some from the Sitelinks we are typically accustomed to.
Melanie Phung posted very interesting observations of these Sitelinks. Let me bullet point the key points, but feel free to check out the post for more details.
One Line Sitelinks Can:
- Show for non-branded terms
- Can show multiple times on a single search results page
- Can show up at the bottom of the search results page
- The Sitelinks can differ based on query
- One line Sitelinks can be displayed with typical 8 Sitelinks
- Show for sub folders
- Can show for sub domains
Those are just some of the insights this post showed. Some of these insights also apply to the 8 Sitelinks version. I do wonder if Google has a name for these. I.e. Does Google call them Sitelinks? Will these replace the Sitelinks we know?
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 15th.
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A Video of Google's Data Center
Posted: April 15th, 2009, 1:58pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
Google is pretty off limits to showing off their data centers and engineering floors. But Google created a presentation on April 1st for the Google Efficient Data Centers Summit to show off their data centers. Here is that video:
The video is extremely interesting in how they try to squeeze as much out of every CPU they have, including how they maximize the energy they use to power them.
This is a rare look inside of Google's data centers.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 15th.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 14, 2009
Posted: April 14th, 2009, 11:00pm CEST 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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How Google Treats Affiliates in the Web Search Results
Posted: April 14th, 2009, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
A detailed Google Webmasters Help thread has discussion around how Google perceives affiliates and how they need to go above and beyond to warrant ranking well in the Google search results.
Googler, JohnMu, answers one affiliate, as to why he is not ranking as high as he would have liked:
I believe one of the issues that you might want to work on is to make sure that your site provides unique and compelling content to the web. It's important for us that the site not only contains "rewritten" descriptions and articles, but that it actually provides something more than just "different words" for the same content. In other words, given the choice between your site and the company providing the products, what could your site offer to make Google want to show your site instead?
John then links this webmaster over to a Google document on Affiliate programs for webmasters. The document explains how you can make your site stand out from the other affiliates:
- Affiliate program content should form only a small part of the content of your site.
- When selecting an affiliate program, choose a product category appropriate for your intended audience. The more targeted the affiliate program is to your site's content, the more value it will add and the more likely you will be to rank better in Google's search results and make money from the program. For example, a well-maintained site about hiking in the Alps could consider an affiliate partnership with a supplier who sells hiking books rather than office supplies.
- Use your website to build community among your users. This will help build a loyal readership, and can also create a source of information on the subject you are writing about. For example, discussion forums, user reviews, and blogs all offer unique content and provide value to users.
- Keep your content updated and relevant. Fresh, on-topic information increases the likelihood that your content will be crawled by Googlebot and clicked on by users.
Does this mean you must do this to rank your affiliate site well? Not necessarily but for the long term, it might be best to follow these strategies.
Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.
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Video SEO: Host Internally or on YouTube?
Posted: April 14th, 2009, 3:11pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Optimization
A HighRankings Forum thread asks if one should host videos on their own server or host them on YouTube.
I do a lot of videos here in my Search Buzz Video Recaps, which are weekly digests of what we covered here over the course of the week, so I have some experience with this topic.
Let me start off by saying that Google and most search engines have a very tough time understanding the content within the video. Yes, they are testing out speech recognition and other factors, but right now, these search engines don't rank videos based on the words spoken in a video. They determine the relevancy of the video based on meta data, content around the video, links to the video, the video title and so on.
That being the case, duplicate content is not really much of an issue in videos then it is with standard content on the web. Why do I say this? I publish our videos both on YouTube and on my own server because I am not currently worried about duplicate content in the video search space.
YouTube videos simply rank incredibly well. I also want my videos hosted internally so that I can publish an iTunes feed and gain subscribers not only to YouTube but also to my video feed, which can be subscribed to on your favorite RSS reader or via iTunes or other video/podcast readers.
If you had to make a decision on where to host your videos, I would tell you to host them both on YouTube and on an internal server (I use Amazon S3).
Here is my process for syndicating my videos:
- Upload video to YouTube and write descriptive title and description, plus link to my blog via YouTube
- Upload video to S3
- Create blog post, embed both YouTube video and a link to the raw video on S3.
- Create video XML feed file for iTunes and other podcast readers, which includes the YouTube video in description, but also S3 download URL for readers
- I make sure the XML file contains description, title, S3 URL, YouTube embed, link to blog post and other meta data
You can see my latest video on April 3rd, you can subscribe directly on iTunes or via your favorite RSS reader on watch it on YouTube or on my blog. Yes, I give a bunch of options and they all work well.
Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.
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Google Creates Local Business Center User Guide
Posted: April 14th, 2009, 3:07pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
Google has created a comprehensive user guide for the local business center. You can via the user guide over here.
It is broken down in seven sections:
- Getting started
- Adding a listing
- Adding more than 10 listings
- Verifying a listing
- Your Local Business Center homepage
- Editing or removing a listing
- Other features
Here is the user guide's introductory video:
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.
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April 2009 Google Webmaster Report
Posted: April 14th, 2009, 3:03pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
Every month we report on a monthly WebmasterWorld thread that discusses the current state of the Google web search index. This month, the WebmasterWorld thread has very little to report. If you want to see last month's report click here.
Instead, I thought I highlight the most important posts here over the past couple weeks, in relation to Google's web search changes.
- Google Gets Generic on Local Web Search Queries
- Google Releases Major Blog Search Blogroll Algorithm Update
- Google Blog Search Updates Link Query Algorithm
- See Google "Classic" Sitelinks In Action (One Line Sitelinks)
- Google Still Showing Different Results Based on Query Case
- April Fools Google PageRank Update
- Google Adds More Search Refinements & Detailed Snippets
- Google Pushing More Search Options On Searchers?
Those are some of the more important Google related updates over the course of the past few weeks.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google Blog Search Updates Link Query Algorithm
Posted: April 14th, 2009, 2:57pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
A few weeks ago, we reported that Google released a major blog search update. That update fixed the issue with Google Blog Search finding content in the blogroll and thus showing irrelevant search results. It directly impacted the "blogroll detector" aspect of the algorithm.
Today I learned via a Google Groups thread that Google has finally updated the link operator aspect of that algorithm in Blog Search. That means, if you come up in the blogroll as a link, you won't be shown in a link operator on Blog Search every time that blog writes a new blog post.
Jeremy Hylton explains:
We deployed our latest improvements for blogroll detection late last week. The change affects link: queries. We now drop most or all of the links that occur in the blogroll or in other parts of the page that are just boilerplate. I'm sure there are lingering problems, but our internal metrics suggest that its a big increase in quality for link: queries. We've got a few more improvements in the works, but I think this recent change fixed the biggest part of the problem.
As always, please send me specific examples where things have gone wrong. We'll do our best to fix them.
The link command and blogroll issue with Google Blog Search has been an issue since November 2008 and I hope this update resolves it. Honestly, over the past day or so, it does seem to have been removing many (what I call) false positives in the search results.
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 9, 10 & 13, 2009
Posted: April 13th, 2009, 11:00pm CEST 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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Case Study Shows Pushed SEO Works Better Than Natural Site Development
Posted: April 13th, 2009, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Optimization
A very helpful WebmasterWorld thread shares insights from a long time SEO who decided to pin two sites, competing in the same industry, with each other. He took two different strategies for each site. One site was pushed using old school SEO tactics, including doorway pages, paid and reciprocal links, content development and so on. The other site was to build a site with no paid links, unique content, no doorway pages, but add videos, blogs, rss feeds, Twitter integration and so on.
Let's call the first site the "SEO'ed Site" and the second site the "Quality Site." Guess which one is earning money and getting quality Google traffic? You got it, the "SEO'ed Site."
The member said:
Site 1 (AKA "SEO'ed Site"): after just 3 months it was skyrocketing past some pretty hefty competition with traffic increasing well each month. The site was making £10,000+ a month for the last six months we had it and just sold for a rather nice figure.
Site 2 (AKA "Quality Site"): has struggled to rank anywhere, even for it's own name, and traffic has been stagnant since the outset - it made a loss for the first 8 months and made just under £3000 in it's best month which was last month.
So what is a webmaster to do? Of course, this is just one single case study. To see exactly what tactics were used on each site, see the WebmasterWorld thread.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google Releases Maps for Mobile Update to Resolve Bugs
Posted: April 13th, 2009, 3:41pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
Google has announced a Google Maps for Mobile update in the Google Mobile Help discussions area that fixes the bugs with version 3.0 for Symbian and Windows Mobile devices.
Googler, Christopher, said:
A new version of Maps for mobile is available to download. This update includes many fixes and updates for both Maps and Google Latitude based on your feedback here in the Help Forum.
Please see the following Release Notes for more details about what's been changed in this version or go directly to m.google.com/maps in your mobile browser to download it now: [www.google.com]
It seems like early feedback on this release shows that some users of these applications on the devices are still having some issues. If you are having any issues with Google Maps for Mobile on Symbian and Windows Mobile devices this is the place to be.
Forum discussion at Google Mobile Help.
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Yahoo's New Local Targeting Feature Showing Poor Quality Traffic?
Posted: April 13th, 2009, 3:36pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo Search Marketing
A month ago, Yahoo made some serious enhancements to the search marketing platform, improving the local targeting capabilities amongst other features.
WebmasterWorld moderator, werty, has been gathering local data since the feature has been released and has posted the somewhat disappointing results. werty said in a WebmasterWorld thread:
Currently we are using "North American YSM" and should only be getting North American traffic, but if I look through our logs I can see that 29% of the traffic is coming from foreign countries.
I could see how maybe 2-3% could come from proxies or things like that, but this traffic is highly suspect.
Werty goes on to share:
Of those 2061 that we received we were billed for 1894. This is roughly 8% of "bad traffic" that is being caught or screened by Yahoo!
There is another 21% that is not being caught, screened or refunded.
The scariest/funniest part of this is; Of the 2061 clicks, only 43 came from Yahoo! or ca.search.yahoo.com. That is 2.1% of traffic we received or 2.3% of traffic we paid for.
These are some serious insights and hopefully this is only a bug that is impacting this individual advertiser. I do highly doubt it though and I wonder if Yahoo will respond to this.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Update: Yahoo responded in the thread asking:
werty, are you using the Blocked Continents tool? It allows you to select the continents from which you do not wish to receive traffic. (Our lawyers make me say this next part: The accuracy of the Blocked Continents feature is not guaranteed, and may vary depending on a number of factors, such as the quality and type of data in the traffic stream that we receive. For example, if a searcher is using a product or service that makes the IP address "anonymous," our systems will be unable to determine his/her location, and therefore will be unable to apply continent blocking.)
Follow these steps to turn on or modify Blocked Continents:
- Click on the “Administration” tab.
- Click on the “Account General Information” link
- In the Blocked Continents field, select the checkbox for each continent to block. You cannot block your own continent, meaning the continent included in the market of your account.
- Click “Save Changes”.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 6, 2009
Posted: April 6th, 2009, 11:00pm CEST 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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Tracking Search Bot Activity
Posted: April 6th, 2009, 5:08pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Tracking Conversion Measurements
Back in the day, tracking how bots accessed your site was a bit of a crave. Now, you don't hear about it much. The old Google Analytics, aka Urchin, had a section for displaying bot activity on your site. It did this because Urchin also analyzed your log files, in addition to the method Google Analytics uses to track based on JavaScript. Since most spiders don't load JavaScript, popular analytical software, such as Google Analytics, won't track the bot activity.
To track bot activity, you need to use analytic software that analysis your log files. There are other methods, including writing your own database script to track all bot activity. Back in the day, Darrin Ward (founder of SEO Chat, who sold it years ago) created a script that looked for bot activity and stored the data in a MySQL database. I forgot the name of the software, but I bet it is still out there now or there are plenty of alternatives.
If you don't want to instal anything but you still want to track bot activity, there are ways.
In Google Webmaster Tools, you can go to the "Crawl Stats" section under "Statistics" and get data from Google on how active GoogleBot is on your site. Google will show you data and time based graphs for:
- Number of pages crawled per day
- Number of kilobytes downloaded per day
- Time spent downloading a page (in milliseconds)
Here is a screen shot of our graphs:
If spiders are not crawling your site, you might have to worry. Otherwise, this is often a metric not discussed often by SEOs.
Forum discussion at HighRankings Forums.
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Google's Tips on Unranking For Keywords
Posted: April 6th, 2009, 4:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Optimization
Reverse search engine optimization - unranking for keyword or keyword phrases you work well for. Why in the world would you want to rank less in the search engines? Well, people have their reasons. We actually covered this topic twice in the six plus years of writing about SEO topics:
A recent Google Webmasters Help thread has a question from an SEO blogger named Gab Goldenberg of SEO ROI. He said he ranks too well for [advertising presentation] in Google and wants to not rank as well.
Why does he want to rank lower? He feels that his page that ranks well for advertising presentation is not what people are really looking for. This leads to those readers being dissatisfied with what they see and also leads to a high bounce rate. Some believe bounce rates influence rankings of the entire site, so it might be detrimental the rest of the site to have a high bounce rate on a specific page (I don't believe that). But the main reason Gab wants to rank lower is because he only wants happy readers.
Googler, JohnMu, offered advice on how to rank lower in Google. John said:
If you rank for a phrase that you don't want to rank for, there's not much you can do other than make sure that your content does not include this phrase. Adjusting the description meta-tag and the title element to give more information about what you are really writing about can be helpful as well, although this may not affect your ranking for that phrase. Adding a "not" qualifier won't really help to change the ranking, but it might help users who are looking for something particular.
One trick you could try is to replace individual letters with alternate glyphs that look very similar. For instance, you could replace a lower case "L" with the number "1" (or use cyrillic characters that look very similar, eg "e"/"е", "r"/"г", "i"/"і", etc.). While this would make it harder for us to understand your content (say if someone wanted to use Google Translate to read it in their own language), it would likely also prevent your content from ranking for those words.
Simply, complete unoptimize that page. Or try to target the page towards a more relevant keyword phrase.
Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.
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Getting PageRank Without Getting Links
Posted: April 6th, 2009, 3:42pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Link Building
A WebmasterWorld thread has interesting discussion around the topic of pages earning Google PageRank with little or no links to those pages.
The discussion was started by a webmaster who asked, how can his page have a PageRank score of four, when Google webmaster tools reports the page has zero links? The obvious answer is that Google is not reporting all the links yet and it is very possible the page has links, but just not being reported yet. But that might not be the full answer.
WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, feels that Google gives "mom and pop" sites an artificial PageRank boost, in some cases. Let me quote Tedster:
My assumption is that this unusual PR boost is one of the ways that Google helps "mom and pop" sites compete - something that Matt Cutts made a side comment about on his blog a few years ago. He never said WHAT Google does specifically, only that they do a few things.
It seems like many top names in the thread believe in this "artificial PageRank boost." The question is, what is the artificial part? Is it the score shown, how the score is made up, or how Google sees the page in terms of trust and popularity?
In any event, do you believe in the artificial PageRank boost? Take the poll below:
Is There a Google Artificial PageRank Boost?
( online polls)Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Bad Idea: Google AdSense Twitter Units: Twitter Streams in AdSense
Posted: April 6th, 2009, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
On Friday, I reported on an AdAge article that showed Google was testing incorporating Twitter streams in AdSense units. The first test, which was confirmed by Google as a limited beta, would show TurboTax's Twitter stream in AdSense units, likely on pages about taxes.
If you scan the recent @turbotax communication via Twitter, you can see why I am nervous about this implementation. If it was purely marketing speak, showing promotions or helpful tax tips, then I would understand it. But as you can see from the stream, TurboTax is having disconnected conversations with other Twitter users. If you see the latest five Tweets from TurboTax in an AdSense unit on a page on taxes, you would have no clue what the ad meant - in this case.
I have asked Google to provide a sample of what this ad unit looks like, but they did not comply. They did give me this statement:
To provide more marketing opportunities for our advertisers to reach users in moments that are relevant and useful to them, we are currently testing different ways that allow advertisers to better update their ads in real time. We are currently in a limited test with a small number of advertisers and publishers.
I understand that Intuit wants to grow a following for @TurboTax on Twitter, but is this the best way to do it? A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around this news. Many are skeptical, but skeptical for the wrong reasons. I am fairly confident I understand Twitter well, I have been on it very early, before most people and I am fairly active on it, under @rustybrick, but using it in this manner, at least the way I understand how it is being used, seems off.
Problems with showing your last five or so Tweets in an AdSense unit?
- The Tweets may not be relevant to the content of the page
- You may display disconnected conversations that the public won't be able to understand
- Many people still are clueless as to what Twitter is
- Followers are great, but will it lead to sales (many cases, yes, it will)
In this case, I am very skeptical that this type of ad unit will work for Google and advertisers. I am sure publishers won't like to see someone else's Twitter stream on their pages.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Ultimate URL Shortening Guide
Posted: April 6th, 2009, 3:22pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Link Building
Danny Sullivan's Analysis: Which URL Shortening Service Should You Use? has an excellent overview of the various URL shortening services available. In Danny's write up, he goes over about 15 different services and rates them based on how they handle the following:
- Redirect
- Tracking
- Client Support
- Domain Chars
- Custom URL
- Sharing
- Path Chars
- Total Chars
- Country
- Service
There is some very good discussion around the piece at Sphinn and in the comments area in the article.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
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Google AdSense Bug Still Holding Payments For Publishers
Posted: April 6th, 2009, 3:15pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
It has been about five to six months now of us reporting that Google has a bug that holds payments to some publishers. In fact, many publishers have been waiting months to be paid and some seem to still be waiting.
A Google AdSense Help thread has confirmation from Googler, Obair, who is still manually removing the hold status on publisher accounts.
It is sad to see that publishers are still experiencing major slow downs in being paid. In fact, if they don't reach out to Google via the help section, they may never get paid. The issue goes back months and months, but was initially confirmed in January 2009.
Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.
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Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: April 3, 2009
Posted: April 4th, 2009, 12:35am CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Buzz RoundUp
Google and the rest of the search industry had a lot of fun with April Fools' Day hoaxes, I recap them in the video. Google had a PageRank update on April 1st, no foolin. Yahoo Search updated earlier this week. Google continues classic, one line, Sitelinks test. Publishers accuse Google of stealing AdSense earnings. AdSense gives more email preferences to publishers. Google drops the video ad units from AdSense. AdWords encourages you to use the new beta interface now. Microsoft drops Ms. Dewey, the fun and witty search character. FeedBurner stats go haywire again. 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 at hit "HD."Some Of The Topics Discussed:
- April Fools Day & Search Industry
- April Fools Google PageRank Update
- Yahoo Search Update: March 2009
- See Google "Classic" Sitelinks In Action (One Line Sitelinks)
- AdSense Publishers Accuse Google of Taking More Per Ad Click
- Google AdSense Adds Email Preferences Details
- Google AdSense Dumps Video Ads, Saw It Coming
- Make Sure to Beta Test New Google AdWords Interface
- Microsoft Drops Ms. Dewey
- FeedBurner Subscriber Reports Bug: Major Drops In Counts
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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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 3, 2009
Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 11:00pm CEST 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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FeedBurner Subscriber Reports Bug: Major Drops In Counts
Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 3:19pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Tracking Conversion Measurements
FeedBurner is having a reporting failure yet again. I have received at least four emails and several IMs since April 1st from concerned bloggers that their FeedBurner subscribers numbers have dropped. I personally saw this myself, where FeedBurner is reporting only 8,000 or so subscribers to this site, when in fact, we normally have 20,000+.
The issue? Googler Matt S. confirmed the issue in a Google Groups thread, saying that FeedBurner is having problems retrieving the accurate numbers from Google Feedfetcher. Google notified the Google Feedfetcher team and they hope it is corrected soon. Here is a screen shot showing the huge discrepancy between March 31st and April 2nd, in terms of the numbers reported from Google Feedfetcher, typically people's most popular RSS syndication service. The difference is 9,842 subscribers versus 18 subscribers.
Here is Matt's post:
If you compare individual days (e.g., March 31 vs. April 1) in Analyze > Feed Stats > Subscribers, I'm guessing most of the missing subscribers are from Google Feedfetcher. We've notified that team of the temporary drop in subscribers we're seeing reported by them and will work with them to resolve the issue.
These issues happen fairly often, so when you see it, don't worry. It is very rare that you would lose 50% of your subscribers overnight, even if you did touch the Queen of England.
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
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Google Docs Fixes Unpublished Bug
Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 3:13pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
Christine from the Google Docs team posted an announcement in the Google Docs Help discussion area that two bugs have been fixed.
- The first bug was that published Google spreadsheets were becoming unpublished by themselves. This should now be resolved.
- The second bug was that 'Share with the world'/''Let anyone view without signing in' did not work, now it does.
Google Docs is very often plagued with bugs, some minor and some serious. The last major security bug shared private documents with others. Yet, Google and the US Government wants you to use Google Health to share your private medical history with others.
Forum discussion at Google Docs Help.
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Google AdWords API Suffering From 502 Server Errors
Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 3:07pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
AdWords API users out there, you may have noticed that Google is returning errors for some of your operations and calls. Reports came in on April 1st at a Google Groups thread, which has been confirmed by Google.
Googler, Jeff Posnick from the AdWords API Team said:
I'm sorry that you're running into this. Our core engineering team has noticed a recent spate of 502 errors in our Production services, and are taking steps to isolate and resolve the problem.
502 "Bad Gateway" errors are most common in our environment when one of our backend servers has trouble communicating with another internal server, and is normally not something that you as an end user can do to avoid. There shouldn't be any connection to whether you're running your code in the debugger or not, though if you code hits a different set of backend servers in between calls you may or may not see the errors.
There have not been many complaints. That can be because of three possible reasons:
- This is not a major issue and is only impacting a few people.
- Few people use this feature
- People have not yet looked at their automated reports to see these errors yet.
Forum discussion at Google Groups.
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Is There a Keyword Phrase Specific Penalty?
Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 2:58pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Spam
Throughout my many years (makes me sound old) in the search industry, I have heard about many filters and penalties, including a filter or penalty to prevent a site from ranking well for a specific keyword phrase. For example, if I want to rank well for big blue pineapple chair and I create a page about a big blue pineapple chair but Google never ranks me for that term, I may consider my site to be penalized from ranking well from that specific term.
A HighRankings Forum thread has a couple webmasters asking about such a filter. They say they rank well for everything they want, but not for a single keyword phrase that they once ranked well for. The question they asked does a search engine, such as Google, penalize a site for a specific keyword phrase?
Here is a poll, let me know what you think about this topic:
Does Google Penalize For Specific Keyword Phrases?
( surveys)As you can see from the poll, I have two Yes answers and one No. You can select all or none. Yes algorithmically means that Google has a filter that is automated. Yes Manually means Google does filter for keyword phrases, but a human does it. No, means, no, Google does not penalized in this way.
I'll vote but I won't tell you what my thoughts are until after I post the results.
Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 2, 2009
Posted: April 2nd, 2009, 11:00pm CEST 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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See Google "Classic" Sitelinks In Action (One Line Sitelinks)
Posted: April 2nd, 2009, 3:15pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
About a month ago, we reported Google was testing classic Sitelinks, i.e. one line Sitelinks. Well, now it seems like we can reproduce the single line Sitelinks.
A Google Webmasters Help thread shows how two different queries return different types of Sitelinks for the same site.
A search for cashforgold returns the standard Sitelinks:
A search for cash4gold returns the classic Sitelinks:
Both are the same site, but showing only half the number of Sitelinks shown on the current Sitelinks format. Plus, the Sitelinks are shown on a single line, as opposed to four lines in two columns.
I wonder if Google will be going back to the classic user interface for Sitelinks?
Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.
Update: Dennis Dornon commented pointing to a blog post that shows for a search on internet marketing blog on Google returns classic Sitelinks with numbers. Here is a screen capture:
The thing is, Sitelinks are normally made up anchor text of the links and the numbers might just reflect that and nothing more.
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Google Local Business Center Not Functioning For Many
Posted: April 2nd, 2009, 3:11pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
It appears that the Google Local Business Center is not working for many businesses interested in updating their Google Maps/Local business listing. A Google Maps Help thread (well, there are a few) reports the issues from several users.
In short, it seems like when some try to access their local business listing they are presented with the following error:
System Error
We're sorry, but we are unable to serve your request at this time. Please try back in a few minutes.
This has been plaguing some business owners for over three days. There is no word from Google on the issue yet.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.
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April Fools Google PageRank Update
Posted: April 2nd, 2009, 3:06pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google PageRankSERP Updates
Yesterday, as well as today, I spotted dozens of threads on Google updating their site's toolbar PageRank scores. I didn't want to post the details until today, simply because it was April Fools. But the PageRank update seems to be here and like always, too many people care.
We have threads at Google Webmasters Help, WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums (dozens there), and HighRankings Forum.
Yes, it seems like Google did push out a toolbar update. I will quote one post from all of these threads. The post is from Googler, JohnMu in the Google Webmasters Help thread:
I'm pretty sure we'll have another Toolbar PR update this year. However, as touched upon by the others, this is generally not something you need to worry about.
Enough said.
Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help, WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, and HighRankings Forum.
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Google Analytics Not Tracking AdWords Data Properly? Link Accounts
Posted: April 2nd, 2009, 3:01pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
There is a thread at WebmasterWorld and several in the Google Analytics Help forum with complaints that Google Analytics is no longer tracking Google AdWords data properly.
The WebmasterWorld thread has this complaint:
In two of my analytics accounts for sites which I use adwords to drive traffic all of the data is being recorded as direct and not google(cpc)...and it not reporting any traffic from adwords (which my wallet tells my otherwise!)It is only for the past two days including today. Is anyone else seeing this? Is it a glitch?
The simple answer is that in February, Google notified us that we need to link our analytics account to our AdWords accounts to pass this information. So if you have not done so, and your Analytics data is looking a bit empty, go ahead and link up those accounts. Brad has a good post explaining how to link up your accounts.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Analytics Help.
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Make Sure to Beta Test New Google AdWords Interface
Posted: April 2nd, 2009, 2:55pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
Google began beta testing a new AdWords interface about 6 months ago. Recently Google expanded that beta test and is going as far to encourage AdWords advertisers to sign up for the beta, in order to get accustomed to it before it becomes the default.
AdWordsPro Sarah said in a Google AdWords Help thread, "everyone's account will migrate to the new interface, so, to make sure you are ready, I highly recommend signing up for the beta test." She also gave us a teaser of what new stuff we can expect:
- Performance graphs: Spot trends over time with custom graphs on every campaign management page.
- Insight across ad groups: Focus on the high-impact areas of your account with new roll-up tabs on every page. You can see and edit keywords, placements or ads from all ad groups on a single tab.
- In-line editing: Want to change a keyword or bid? Click on it and make changes in-line instead of loading a separate page.
- Easier content network management: Improve content network performance through a new Networks tab. Look at statistics for the placements where your ads have appeared, and then take action by setting unique bids or excluding placements directly from the report.
Sarah asked that if you are participating in the beta, you should provide feedback, of all kinds, in this Google AdWords Help thread.
Ready or not, here it comes.
Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: April 1, 2009
Posted: April 1st, 2009, 11:00pm CEST 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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April Fools Day & Search Industry
Posted: April 1st, 2009, 3:33pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Industry News
I wrote a big write up at Search Engine Land on the various search related April Fools gimmicks over here. Here, let me focus on the forum threads I found related to questions on the various April Fools jokes.
Google went back to 1990 with CADIE: Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity. In short, the intelligently designed this awesome blog. Honestly, I am not too much into the joke. The funny part is that someone asked "How can I install Gmail Autopilot by CADIE in my gmail account?" Hmm, April Fools!
Cre8asite Forums renamed to Cre8abanana:
Finally, you may have noticed that visiting this site, will spring you for an April Fools hoax. The hoax changes if you are on a PC or Mac.
Mac users (or linux) get the ever so scary kernel panic:
PC users users get the blue screen of death:
Hope it didn't freak you out too much. Honestly, every time I visit this site and get that hoax, I get nervous. Something about seeing the kernel panic that scares me, even though I know it is a hoax.
I wrote a big write up at Search Engine Land on the various search related April Fools gimmicks over here.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help, Cre8asite Forums and Search Engine Roundtable Forums.
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Funny & Sometimes Evil Google Ads
Posted: April 1st, 2009, 3:26pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
A DigitalPoint Forum thread has a collection of "weird" or "funny" ads people spotted through Google AdSense or AdWords. I thought I share them in text format, but feel free to see the thread to see screen captures.
- AdSense shows ads on a skydiver accident for American Airline with the slogan, "we know why you fly."
- AdWords shows ads for Big Daddy and Big Juicy Butts
- AdWords ads for used toilet paper
- Hillary Clinton Naked ads?
- Amazon selling "human remains."
- A search for world of warcraft showing an ad for virgin males (I guess that makes sense)
- You can visit hell on ebay
- Or sell your kids on ebay
Feel free to add more to the forum.
Forum discussion and pictures at DigitalPoint Forum.
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How Long Should It Take To Rank Well in Google?
Posted: April 1st, 2009, 3:23pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
A WebmasterWorld thread asks how long does it take to rank well in Google? A good question, but typically, a new site might rank well in the short term and then drop off the radar until it begins ranking again. This is sometimes known as a temporary PageRank feature of some sort.
So let me poll our audience, you tell me how long you think it takes to rank well in Google?
How Long Should It Take To Rank In Google?
( surveys)Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Multiple Robots.txt Files for Single Domain
Posted: April 1st, 2009, 3:13pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Optimization
A HighRankings Forum thread asks why do some people use more than a single robots.txt file to control and instruct search spiders how to crawl and access their content. That is a good question. Typically, the spiders will only listen to the robots.txt file found in the root level. So technically, if you place a robots.txt on a subdomain, the search engine will likely ignore it. I do not believe the same applies to subdomains, where subdomains have their own root levels.
HighRankings administrator, Randy, said:
robots.txt anywhere but the Root level will be ignored by the spiders. In fact it would surprise me if it's ever even queried. robots.txt is not like .htaccess where you can control things on a per directory level.
The only way a subdirectory robots.txt might be valid is the rare case where someone has a domain name parked on a subdirectory of another domain. Or possibly if the subdirectory is really a subdomain, though that one too is questionable in my mind and isn't something I've tested to see if spiders look for a robots.txt for each subdomain.
I love what Ron Carnell added:
FWIW, I almost always back up a file before modifying it. My ex-wife always said I had trust issues? At any rate, I probably have a few copies of robots.txt laying around on more than a few sites. I don't worry about it because, as you pointed out, the only one that counts is in the root.
I believe Google often uses individual sitemaps per subdomain, to control their content.
Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.
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Google Maps Incredibly Slow? Troubleshoot Issues With Google
Posted: April 1st, 2009, 3:08pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
There are several people who are complaining that Google Maps is incredibly slow for them. If you have slowness issues with Google Maps, you may be in luck. A Google Maps Help thread has a Googler helping these users by troubleshooting issues with them.
Googler, Mike CH, believes there are certain firewalls that may be causing the issue. There seem to be two issues, the first is loading the map tiles and the second is trouble loading the JavaScript "brain" of the site.
Mike is asking these users to run traceroutes and disable their firewalls. If you are also having issues with Google Maps, you may want to participate in the thread.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.