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 14, 2010
Posted: January 14th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
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What's The Hold Up With The Google Caffeine Index?
Posted: January 14th, 2010, 2:50pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
About 6 months ago, the Google Caffeine public preview went live. In November, they took the Caffeine preview offline and since then, webmasters have been on their toes worried about when Caffeine will go live. We had rumor after rumor with speculation that it was live, as recently as a week ago - but each time, they were false alerts.
The question people are now asking in the long WebmasterWorldthread is where is it already? What is the hold up? A good question. For all I know, it may go live a minute after I post this and make me just look bad. But let me quote you one WebmasterWorld member:
Do you remember waaaay back in late Nov./early Dec when MC told the world that Caffeine was being delayed to "save stress on webmasters before the holiday" and it would be rolled out soon afterwards?
Do you remember what I said was the reason back then?
So here's the question for you, IF as MC said Caffeine was "ready" a month and half ago, where is it now?!
We're halfway done with January...what's the hold up?
A solid question and a question that can be asked. Google does not have to answer but it is a good question. Are there major issues with Caffeine? Are there underlying flaws that will prevent what we know Caffeine to be to be launched? Can the failure of such a launch make Google look somewhat inferior to Microsoft Bing?
All questions that Google's executives and PR team would hate to have to answer. But as time goes on, these questions will begin to be asked.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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I Now See Favicons in Google Webmaster Tools
Posted: January 14th, 2010, 2:32pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
Two days ago, I reported that people were seeing favicons in Google Webmaster Tools. I personally did not see the favicons until last night.
Here is a picture from my Google Webmaster Tools account:
I like it and so do many others. It isn't a big change, but does help you find the right site in a batch of dozens or more.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.
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Google AdWords Click Through Rates: 2% is Average But Double Digits is Great
Posted: January 14th, 2010, 2:25pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
I don't believe you often see Google AdWords representatives talking about click-through rates. But in a Google AdWords Help thread, I spotted AdWordsPro, an official Google representative, taling about averages.
In short, he said that a good average to aim for in an ads click through rate (CTR) would be 2%. But he/she has seen CTRs in the double digits for campaigns that are constantly tuned and tweaked by advertisers. Let me quote AdWordsPro:
On the other hand, to give you a point of reference to shoot for, an average CTR is probably in the neighborhood of 2% - meaning that for every 100 impressions, you would have received 2 clicks. I personally don't think that a CTR statistic is particularly meaningful or even valid until about 1000 impressions have been received, however.
Advertisers who have really taken the time to learn how AdWords works, and who spend lots of time managing their account and tuning things up often 'earn' a CTR in the double digits.
Then, once you become a little more comfortable with AdWords, then it is time to stop focusing mostly on CTR, and instead focus on ROI or your Return On Investment.
I have heard of incredibly high CTRs, especially for Google ads with thongs in them. But outside of that, you know what to generally aim for.
Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.
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If Microsoft / Yahoo Deal Goes Through: adCenter Will Replace Yahoo Search Marketing
Posted: January 14th, 2010, 2:14pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: MSN Microsoft adCenter
There seems to be a lot of confusion out there in the paid search ad space. If the Microsoft & Yahoo do end up closing their deal, which seems likely to me, Yahoo Search Marketing will no longer exist.
The Yahoo Search Marketing console and campaigns you currently run will be either automatically imported into Microsoft adCenter or you will have to manually make that change. Microsoft adCenter will power the ads on Yahoo, Yahoo won't power those ads.
A WebmasterWorld thread seems to have a lot of confusion over this point. Advertisers seem to not want to spend too much time on either adCenter or YSM optimizing their campaigns in fear that the deal will go through and that time would be wasted. I for one think that this is still going to take a really long time, so go ahead and optimize the campaigns. But if the deal does go through and they do begin the migration, the migration will be from Yahoo to Microsoft, not the other way around.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google China's Office Becomes a Shrine
Posted: January 14th, 2010, 2:04pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
If you happen to visit Google China, you may notice that there are people who are placing flowers and candles by their Google sign outside the building. There are actually a ton of pictures of this being done inside and outside of the Google China office on Flickr.
Here is one picture taken from DigitalPoint Forums.
This is clearly the reaction by some Chinese searchers on Google's decision to back out of China if China continues to censor them.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
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Want To Rank High in Google's Real Time Search? Get More Twitter Followers
Posted: January 14th, 2010, 1:54pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
A month ago, Google added real-time search results in the form of Tweets from Twitter and other real-time search related sources. Yesterday at Search Engine Land I covered an interview with Amit Singhal of Google via Technology Review. The interview explains how Google ranks those real-time search results - on some level.
Want to rank high in those Google real-time results? It seems like all you need is a lot of followers and you should be set.
From the interview:
"One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation," Singhal says. "As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well."
Obviously, Google needs to figure out the value of the followers of followers, but that shouldn't be too hard in this equation.
Another interesting point was in regards to the use of hashtags in Tweets. The interview wrote that hashtags may "serve as red flags to lower tweet quality and attract spam-like content."
Of course, this does not mean anything you Tweet will show up in Google's search results. For that, they need to be trending topics, and a good way to see what is trending is to look at Google Trends.
Honestly, there are some interesting thoughts in the comments on my post at Search Engine Land.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorldand Google Web Search Help.
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Google UK Showing US Based Spelling Suggestions
Posted: January 14th, 2010, 1:44pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
If you search at Google UK for keywords such as [search engine optimisation] or [personalised napkins] or the like, you will get US based spelling suggestions from Google.
Here are some screen captures:
The old S vs Z in US vs UK English.
As you can imagine, this is not just annoying for UK searchers but also can be a bit insulting. So far, Google has not commented in any of the threads I have seen report this.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums & Google Webmaster Help.
Update: Google seemed to quietly fix this in the past 24 hours.
Update 2: Here is a statement from Google over 24 hours later:
We recently introduced a change to the spell correction feature on the google.co.uk domain. This change introduced a bug where we were suggesting American English spelling refinements. We have temporarily rolled back the change while we fix the problem.