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: January 7, 2010
Posted: January 7th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Google Caffeine Results Now Going Live?
Posted: January 7th, 2010, 2:59pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
This is not a Caffeine update, Caffeine is not live. More coming soon.
There seems to be a lot of buzz going on at the forums about Google's Caffeine index going live on more and more Google data centers.
Let me give you some history on Caffeine. It went live as a public preview in August. Then in early November there were rumors of it going live before the holiday season. Matt Cutts said no way, it won't go live until after the holidays. But it did go live on a single data center, in the Google wild, in late November.
Now, it is after the holidays, after the new years and everyone is waiting for Google to flip the switch. Did Google flip the switch in the past twenty-four hours?
I am seeing tons of threads with people talking about major ranking changes. But there are only a few threads specifically thinking it is Caffeine related. We have threads at DigitalPoint Forums and an updated WebmasterWorldthread. The suspected data centers that Caffeine has been moved to, include:
I emailed Google, Matt Cutts and his team for confirmation - so stay tuned.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.
Update: A Google spokesperson told me, "we have nothing to announce today regarding Caffeine." Basically, it is not live yet and when it does go live, they will let us know.
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Google Sends Me & Others Wrong Local Business Center Reports
Posted: January 7th, 2010, 2:59pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
This is a pretty bad slip up by Google. The Google Maps and Local team seemed to have sent out a batch of updates on how well a business's Google Maps listings are doing, but to the wrong businesses.
Last night, just before 10pm (EST), I received an email from Google about how well my local business listing is doing in Google. The issue was, it was not for my business! It was for a place called Polk Mechanical based in Texas. That is exactly 1,576 miles away from my business's location and would take me a full day to drive to, according to Google Maps.
Here is how well Polk Mechanical is doing in Google Maps:
I am not the only one who saw this. There is a report of it in Google Maps Help forum, David Dalka got one, so did Mike Blumenthal and Danya Henninger.
I emailed Google about this and I hope to get an understanding of why this happened.
The data shared by Google here is not all that sensitive, but it is still data.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.
Update: Google sent me a statement, it reads as follows:
As you're aware, we send a monthly newsletter to our Local Business Center users, featuring product news and a glimpse at the Dashboard statistics which show the traffic Google properties drive to their listing. Shortly after sending the newsletter to a small portion of our users last night, we discovered that some emails included incorrect business listing information. We promptly stopped sending any further emails and investigated the cause, which we found to be a human error while pulling together the newsletter content. We'd like to sincerely apologize to all the business owners impacted and assure all our users that we're working hard to ensure that nothing similar will happen again.
Update #2: Google sent an automated apology to those who received other companies information:
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Google Back Tracks a Bit on Dropping SEOs & Webmasters from Local Results
Posted: January 7th, 2010, 2:49pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
A week or so ago, we reported how Google removed SEOs from local pack in the search results. The move caused a pretty big debate in the industry where many SEOs felt this was a nail in the coffin for Google really hating the SEO industry. Personally, I think it is a fun debate, but I don't think all of Google hates the industry.
In any event, Joel H. from the Google Maps team updated the Google Maps Help thread with a revised statement, implying that Google may change their minds on this decision. He said:
I think I understand both sides of the issue: I understand that local search results can have a positive impact for some businesses. But I also see that some SEOs/web designers want their website, not a local listing, to be the primary destination. And I want to clarify that today we think this is a better user experience - to display primarily web search results for some of these queries. Using words in or near seem to be suggestive of a different intent. In the end, these search results will fluctuate as we fine tune our results pages to get the user the best answer.
Again, he said, "I want to clarify that today we think this is a better user experience." He also then went on to explain why the words in or near don't always provide a clear indicator of local intent.
In any event, if I had to guess - Google will wait to see how both searchers approach the missing SEO or web design related local packs. They will also see if SEOs and web designers calm down over this change. I assume if SEOs don't calm down about the change, Google might consider adding it back. But clearly, Google finds the categories either not relevant or too hard to handle from a spam perspective.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.
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Microsoft Bing Says They Are "Fairly Slow"
Posted: January 7th, 2010, 2:42pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Microsoft MSN Search
One of the latest comments to come from Microsoft's Bing representative in the Bing Forums was that they consider themselves to be "fairly slow." Fairly slow at indexing new sites and new pages, that is.
Brett Yount, the Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center, said in a Bing Forums thread:
It is well known in the industry that MSNbot is fairly slow.
Did he just say that? For real?
So what is Microsoft's solution to get new sites into their index? Well, either spam Digg or Yahoo Buzz to be discovered or post a message in the Site not in index thread at Bing Forums and they will manually add you. Yes, there is a forum thread pretty much acting as a URL submit form. How 1995 of them.
Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
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Google Maps To Allow Businesses To Request Replacement Decals
Posted: January 7th, 2010, 2:17pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
Google Maps Guide, Cecelia wrote in a Google Maps Help thread that Google will be enabling Google Local Business Favorite places to reorder lost or damaged Google QR code decals.
Ever since Google has been sending these out, I have seen threads from business owners asking how they can get replacement decals. For one reason or another, these people have lost or damaged the decals, and had no way to replace them.
Cecelia said in the thread:
We're working to create a way for you to request a new Favorite Places decal if something happened to the original one. In the meantime, please hold tight and know we're working on this.
Seems like it is coming soon, probably within the Google Local Business Center. When it does go live, we will let you know.
She also answered a frequently asked question:
Can a business which didn't receive a decal request one?
No, it is not possible for a business to request becoming a Favorite Place. Businesses can sign up for Local Business Center to become eligible and if they meet our criteria, they may receive a decal in the next wave.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help
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Jill Whalen Takes a Look at 10 Past Years of SEO
Posted: January 7th, 2010, 2:05pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Industry News
I love it when you have the old geezers (in the SEO world, that means 10 years old), take a look in the past at how the industry has evolved. Danny Sullivan has done it and so have others. I personally have only been covering search for over six years, but I have been involved in the web development since I was 16, which was in 1996 (yea, I turn 30 this year).
In any event, Jill Whalen posted her A Decade of 21st Century SEO. She goes through each year, starting in 2000, and pulls out her notes of SEO thoughts and best quotes for that year. I cannot summarize them all, and although it is 10 years long, it is a quick and fun read. So make sure to check it out.
There is a Sphinn thread on the topic as well. Danny Sullivan let the cat out of the bag that his decade in search post will be out over the weekend. He is currently up to 2007.
I'll just end this post with a quote from her ending remarks:
It's important to note that my ideal of SEO even before the year 2000 has always assumed that search engines will someday be perfect. Through the years, Google has given credence to my mantra during the times when they haven't allowed the crap-hat SEO stuff to work. By the same token, they have also made me look silly at the times when it does still work. My hope is that Google (or any other search engine) never gives up trying to find the best, most relevant results for their users – the searchers – because my SEO methods are based on that ideal.
There are only a few in this industry who have stood up, given themselves to the community for as long as she has. I won't name them all, but Jill deserves huge credit for not just practicing SEO for over 10 years, but for being involved in the industry, actively, every day, for the past 10 years plus. You can't say that about many people in the industry.
Thank you Jill.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
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Google AdWords Contact Form Extensions Beta : CPC Based CPA
Posted: January 7th, 2010, 1:55pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
The PPC Hero blog discovered a new beta by Google AdWords named contact form extensions. It basically lets AdWords advertisers have the chance to show a lead capture form in the Google ads shown in the search results. Here is a picture, because a picture will explain this in a second:
As you can see, the ad has a plus box, clicking it, opens a lead capture form.
The interesting parts are that:
(1) Google is charging the maximum cost-per-click on each lead captured. So they are charging a CPC based price for a CPA-like lead.
(2) Google is handling the leads much like any lead management company. They make you go through them to contact the lead. In short, Google gives you a lead ID number, you call the Google 800 number and enter the lead ID number into the Google prompt. Then Google connects you to that lead.
PPC Hero has a lot more detail on how this all works. So check it out at PPCHero.com.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.