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
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Daily Search Forum Recap: May 21, 2009
Posted: May 21st, 2009, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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What You Should Do With Black Hat SEOs?
Posted: May 21st, 2009, 4:13pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Industry News
This is a great video posted at SEOptimise on what should Google do with black hat SEOs. The video interviews 50 SEOs at SES London.
Really funny stuff - great job!
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
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AdWords Advertisers Get More Transparency But Don't Care About It?
Posted: May 21st, 2009, 4:02pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
A couple days ago, Google announced that they will now show all queries that resulted in an AdWords click as opposed to grouping some of the less popular keywords in a category called "other unique queries."
This clearly provides more transparency for advertisers to know how each and every click is being spent.
This is really a great thing that I know advertisers have been asking from Google for a while.
But I have yet to see any threads or discussion on this feature outside of a single post at WebmasterWorld. Do advertisers not care or did they miss the announcement?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Opening a Can of Worms To Find Search Spam
Posted: May 21st, 2009, 3:51pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Spam
I often see threads at the Google Webmasters Help discussion forum of people who have sites that were penalized for having issues with their site in the Google Webmaster guidelines. But it is not often where you see a thread that one issue then opens up an other issue, then an other issue and so on.
A recent Google Webmasters Help thread has just that. It starts off by looking like the site has a copied privacy policy, which isn't nice, but normally doesn't warrant a penalty. It then looks like there are way too many link pages, so that should be removed. We then notice that some of this person's sites have duplicate content amongst themselves. So fix that.
Then I see this from the webmaster:
My partner's brother had muscular dystrophy. He made several md sites based on personal knowledge as well as medical facts. These are examples of our sites which are useful and deserve to be indexed.
www.typesofmusculardystrophy.com
http://duchennemusculardystrophycure.com/We have hundreds of sites like this.
Okay, to have hundreds of sites in different topics make sense. But to have hundreds of sites on exactly the same topic? Well, that just seems redundant to me.
In any event, the thread is an interesting read in that this webmaster is getting advice from both SEOs and Googlers on several layers of issues.
Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.
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Google Launches New Search Suggestions & Drops Counts
Posted: May 21st, 2009, 3:34pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
After some testing, Google has finally announced that they will be launching changes to their search suggestions. The key changes include:
(1) Search Ads in Search Suggestions:
(2) Improved "navigational query" support:
(3) Search Suggestions even on search results pages:
(4) No estimated count numbers, as you can see from the screen shots above. Here is a screen shot of the old way:
(5) Search suggestions are now personalized based on your search history and other factors:
(6) Google bolds the query words in the search suggestions drop down.
I don't see this feature live yet, but it should be soon.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Want Your Listing to be Approved in DMOZ? Use Real Titles
Posted: May 21st, 2009, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Open Directory Project
There is an excellent thread at WebmasterWorld on the topic of web directories. Moderator, incrediBILL, runs directories and he goes off on how many of the submissions are not able writing your titles and descriptions to be click worthy, but rather they are stuffed with keywords for the SEO benefit, if any.
There is a key point in this thread which explains why possibly many DMOZ listings that are reviewed (many are not even reviewed) are not approved. Most SEOs who think of web directories don't think about the possible traffic benefit, they think about getting a keyword rich anchor text link. But they should not think that way. Why?
(1) Keyword rich links won't necessarily encourage a person to click on your listing
(2) Directory editors hate submissions that are not designed for the directory user, but rather designed to improve the ranking of a web site in GoogleJim Noble, an experienced DMOZ editor, said:
As a DMOZ editor, I don't mind them doing that at all. It's an indicator that the site is likely to be a content mill/MFA/affiliate link farm - none of which we knowingly list.
Even if it's not, we need to amend almost all suggested titles & descriptions to make them guidelines compliant anyway. Of the tens of thousands of sites I've listed in DMOZ over the years, I guess I've only accepted around 50 without change.
When faced with a pool of listing suggestions, some spammy and some not, and limited time, guess which ones I process first :).
These are just tips to keep in mind when submitting your site to a web directory. Yes, getting those keywords in the hyperlink is a good thing, but honestly, it should not be your primary goal.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Funny SEM Thread: Google's Fault I Got Scammed
Posted: May 21st, 2009, 3:07pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
I rarely share funny threads, but I seriously need to lighten things up today, due to the lack of sleep I have been getting. A Google AdWords Help thread has a sad story of someone who was scammed for 1,000 rupees. The funny part is that this was done in person, by someone claiming to be a Google advertising representative.
What appears to have happened was that a person claimed to be an authorized agent of Google. The person said, give me 1,000 rupees as a starter balance and I will get your ads going. It turns out, this guy took the money and ran off.
Clearly, the person who was scammed is upset. But who does he blame? Google! Since this guy claimed to be an authorized Google agent, Google is responsible for the loss. Seriously.
The person then goes off cursing at everyone for telling him that Google is not responsible and that he has been scammed. Google has seriously modified the thread to keep it somewhat clean. But it still is a funny read.
Personally, I am willing to repay this guy his 1,000 rupees, which is $27. In fact, I'll make the offer to him, since I did use his story for this site.
Lessons learned:
(1) Don't fall for scams, do your homework before giving anyone your money
(2) Don't blame others for your own problemsForum discussion at Google AdWords Help.