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.
Feeds
5540 items (5015 unread) in 3 feeds
Google
(325 unread)
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Official Google Webmaster Central Blog (325 unread)
SEO
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Emily Chang (347 unread)
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Search Engine Roundtable
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Search Engine Roundtable (7 unread)
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Daily Search Forum Recap: January 18, 2010
Posted: January 18th, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Martin Luther King, Jr Logo from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, Dogpile & Othersin 2010
Posted: January 18th, 2010, 3:15pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Engine Industry News
Every year, the search engines post special logos for Martin Luther King, Jr. This year is no different, we have logos from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com, Dogpile and others. MLK, Martin Luther Kind, Jr needs no explanation. It is a legal US holiday today and a day celebrated by many around the world. Here are the logos:
Google's MLK Logo:
Yahoo's Flash MLK logo:
Bing's MLK Theme:
Ask.com's MLK Theme:
DogPile:
Search Engine Roundtable:
Also see the 2009 MLK logos and 2008 MLK logos for a bit of the history with these logos and doodles.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
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Google AdWords Certification Program Now With Four Exams?
Posted: January 18th, 2010, 3:03pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
If you go to the Google AdWords Certification Program Learning Center you will now see that Google is offering 4 exams, not one exam - to take and to earn your certification with Google AdWords. The exams include:
- Google Advertising Fundamentals Exam
- Search Advertising Advanced Exam
- Display Advertising Advanced Exam
- Reporting & Analysis Advanced Exam
There is actually a whole grid of courses you can review before taking the exams. I am not sure if you can actually take all four exams yet, but it seems like you will be able to do so soon.
We actually expected the tests to get harder over time, plus Google told us to expect this as well.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google Maps Street Views Embed Broken For Some
Posted: January 18th, 2010, 2:53pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
A Google Maps Help thread has reports of some map developers having issues embedding the street view versions of Google Maps on their web site.
The issue was first reported 9 days ago by a guy who runs StreetViewing.com. The old embeds are no longer working for him, so now he has to go in and replace all of those with the new code. That can take a lot of time.
Brian from the Google Maps team actually confirmed the issue on Friday and said he notified the team. Brain B from Google said:
Just wanted to hop in here and assure everyone that the team is looking into this issue. When I have information to share, I'll post it here.
Thanks for all of the detailed reports.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.
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Selling SEO: Pitching Page Rank As a Metric Over Conversions?
Posted: January 18th, 2010, 2:44pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: SEM SEO Companies
An interesting Cre8asite Forums thread has discussion started by someone looking to hire an SEO company. The person is responsible to find an SEO company that can achieve his CEO's requirements. The issue this person has is that no-reputable SEO company would guarantee rankings (that is his qualifier). So if you cannot use rankings as a metric when trying to measure one SEO proposal to another, what do you use?
Clearly, in my mind, SEO is often (not always) about fixing sites that were built in an not search engine friendly manner. But SEO has adapted to conversions and increasing sales not just by building new leads, but building targeted leads that will convert.
The issue is, when a CEO hires someone to improve their search engine listings - they want to see improved search engine listings. If no-reputable SEO company can guarantee rankings, then what is one to do? How can you convince your CEO to hire an SEO company based on no guarantees? How can you hire an SEO company that will guarantee SEO rankings?
This dilemma is nothing new to the SEO space - but I thought I cover it again, in light of this thread.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums?
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Add Real Time Content to Your Google Maps Listing
Posted: January 18th, 2010, 2:32pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
The Google Lat Long Blog announced businesses can now add real time information to their business listings. How does it work? It is honestly a bit tricky.
You would think you would "Edit" your business listing in Google Local Business Center. But no, instead you click on the "View report" link under the statistics section of that page. Then you are presented with a box to add a quick real-time message to your business listing (Places Page) on Google Maps.
On the top right of the statistics page is this box where owners can add information:
Here is me adding some info that may expire soon:
And here is that information showing up on my business listing in minutes:
Clearly, if you have a very active Google Maps listing, this can come in handy.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
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Bing Showing Related Search Results By Default
Posted: January 18th, 2010, 2:22pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Microsoft MSN Search
A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion about a search on Bing for [digital camera]. If you search on Bing for that query, you will not only see search results that match [digital camera] but Bing will show you other related queries and their search results.
Bing will show you 3 additional results for each of the following related queries, they include: Digital Camera Brands, Digital Camera Types, Top 10 Digital Cameras, Digital Camera Repair and Digital Camera Accessories. Here is a video showing this:
The interesting part here is that this is somewhat like the Google knows best but not fully. Here Bing is showing you what you queried for first and then shows you other search results that they think would be useful.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.