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: December 2, 2009
Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Six Years Covering the Search Marketing Community
Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 2:59pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Blog Administration
Today is the official six-year anniversary of the Search Engine Roundtable. To date, we have written over 10,700 (10,740 to be exact) articles here, and over 1,841 in the past year. But it is not about the quantity of posts, I feel we have always produced unique and useful content, day in and day out here for the past six years. If we couldn't provide unique and helpful content, I doubt I would be keeping this up. And like I always say, the content comes from the community (i.e. the forums), which has always determined what we write about and what I feel is important to highlight to a wider audience.
This article, being my 7,958th article since starting this site (1,754 over past year) will highlight some of what I feel are the most important changes over the course of the year in our industry. If you want to see the same type of post for the 2008 year, see my five year anniversary write up from last year.
I would like to thank all our contributing authors, the volunteer live conference bloggers, our sponsors, the search engines, and of course - you guys - the community. Finally, I would like to thank my wife for putting up with my addiction to search, especially after having our first child.
A quick reminder, if you have not yet subscribed to us via RSS or email, please consider doing so. Also, please consider subscribing to our weekly video recaps and on Twitter at both @seroundtable and @rustybrick.
Enough of that, let's get into the meat of the past year:
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Yahoo Search Unbanning Web Sites After Years?
Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 2:53pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization
Is it possible that Yahoo is unbanning web sites from Yahoo Search after years of being in the penalty box? A single post by an old time member at WebmasterWorld claims that two of his sites are now back in the Yahoo index after years.
He said:
Just noticed today two of our sites that were previously banned in Yahoo for 2+ years are now receiving traffic once again from Yahoo and are being reindexed. Anybode else noticing their sites being reindexed? Traffic was first noticed on the 25th of November.
Did anyone else notice that their sites that were banned from Yahoo is now back?
Again, this is a single post from one webmaster - so I am trying to see if this is a single incident or a larger one. Please join the thread or comment here.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Sphinn's New Editor, Matt McGee & Rob Kerry Steps Down
Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 2:45pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: SEO Forum News
Sphinn has a new News Editor, his name is Matt McGee, I am sure you have heard of him. Matt is a huge U2 fan, loves SEO (especially local SEO), he is the assignment editor at Search Engine Land and is now the new Sphinn News Editor. He replaces Rob Kerry who has been Sphinn's news editor for over two years now.
Both Rob and Matt are loved in the community. Rob promises in a Sphinn thread that he will continue to be active in the community. Rob said:
I'm sad to announce that I will be stepping down as Editor of Sphinn, as of today. I will however continue to take an active part in the Sphinn community and will stay on as part of the Moderator team.
Rob then announced Matt as his successor in another Sphinn thread:
Please join me in welcoming Sphinn's new Editor, Matt McGee. Matt is a familiar face to Sphinn, having already served as a Moderator and now moving up to manage the site overall.
Good to know Rob isn't going far! Best of luck Matt in the new role!
Forum discussion at Sphinn - Rob Leaving & Sphinn - Matt Joining.
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First Five Click Free Program: Google Revises FCF Program
Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 2:35pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Yesterday, Google adjusted their First Click Free program and wrote about it at both the Google Webmaster Central Blog and the Google News Blog.
In the past, the first click free program allowed you to show subscription content to Google even if you required users to login. The only requirement was that when users clicked from Google to the article, they should be able to see the content without having to pay or login. After that first click from Google, you can require them to login. The only issue was that anyone wanting to see any article on a paid subscription site, would simply go to Google and click over to the article from Google to the site to get it for free.
Google adjusted their policy to allow publishers to limit the clicks to the "five free accesses per user each day." So after five clicks, the publisher can decide to require that user to login. Google does not determine how to calculate or code the first five free accesses per user, and leaves it up to the webmaster to figure out. So that means you will have some publishers who are more lax on that rule, allowing more than five and some might allow up to five in whatever 24 hour period they decide. Do they use cookies, IPs, or something else to track that access, that is up to the webmaster/publisher.
The first click free program is old, it dates back past 2007 or further, as far as I know. In mid-2008, there was confusion if it could be used in web search as well and the ultimate decision is that is applies both to News and Web search.
For more technical details on this program, click here.
Forum discussion at Google News Help and WebmasterWorld.
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SEMs Claiming PPC Spend Has Little Impact on Revenue
Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 2:18pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
An interesting WebmasterWorld thread where e-commerce owners are claiming that even if they pull their PPC spend, their e-commerce earnings remain the same. Let me quote you some of the posts in the thread:
That quote is from another poster on another thread but we've done about the same thing in recent months and have seen only INCREASED revenue and profits. We do get bought traffic from G (at great expense) but very, very few orders.
We start PPC, stop it, start again, time after time and I never see much difference except in the buckets of ad cash we save whenever we stop.
We have reduced our PPC by about 50%, and have seen no discernable difference, our sales are about the same or better. We cut it down back in September and checked the stats today, and could see no real difference either way that I could attribute to PPC or lack of.
Over the next couple weeks I am going to reduce it a LOT more. Giving up on the "big" keywords, and anything that we show up in search results for. Going to target a bunch of the "down in the mud" keywords - those that usually sell for about 10-20 cents - for specific brand items and part numbers.
I am never a fan of relying solely on SEO or PPC alone. One day, your site can be hit by a Google update and drop in the rankings and with no PPC, you can suffer big time. Same on the reverse side - you just don't want to have all your eggs in one basket.
Curious, have you increased or decreased your spend in the past six years? Take our poll and use the comments to explain if you saw any change in revenue due to those PPC changes.
Spending Less on PPC Ads in Past 6 Months?(answers)
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google: Little Kids Having Sex, Dancing Dirty & Grinding
Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 2:10pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Yesterday, we highlighted a Google Suggest result for I Am Extremely Terrified Of Chinese People. Today, I spotted a new one via Google Web Search Help forums, where someone noticed that if you type in to Google, [little kids], Google then suggests the following results:
- little kids having sexs
- little kids dancing dirty
- little kids grinding
Here is a screen shot:
Jem from Google appreciated the report and said:
Thanks for reporting this to me -- I'll take a look.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
Update: I am glad to see Google removed these suggestions soon after I wrote about them.
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Google Confirms Bug With Sitelinks Where You Can Link To Competitors
Posted: December 2nd, 2009, 1:59pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
About two weeks ago, we reported on rumors of Sitelinks linking to the wrong site. Well, those rumors have just been confirmed by a Googler.
JohnMu in a Google Webmaster Help thread confirmed a long standing rumor where a Sitelink, can link to a third-party site, likely a competitor. John said:
This looks like something that happened long ago because of a bug on our side that's persisted because you're blocking the Sitelinks. Once you unblock them, they can go away on their own :). Sorry about the confusion!
So yes, there was a bug when you blocked a Sitelink that you did not want. You had to unblock them to make the Sitelink go away. Go figure.
I doubt most people will know how to do this or even think this is logical, so I do hope the bug is fixed and Google does this for all sites that are impacted.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.