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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Official Google Webmaster Central Blog (156 unread)
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Emily Chang (95 unread)
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Search Engine Roundtable
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Search Engine Roundtable (6 unread)
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Daily Search Forum Recap: February 3, 2010
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Learn SEO With the Google Webmaster Quiz Answers
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 3:01pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
A week or so ago, Google posted a webmaster quiz for people to answer. Today, they posted the answers to the quiz. The beauty of this is that you can really learn a lot about Google's SEO best practices by just reading the questions and answers.
You can read all the questions and answers or see how well you did on the test, if you took it.
Only three people got all 40 questions correct, they include ChrisRaimondi, theopeek and beussery from the forums.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
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Google Straw In Czech & Find Dead People
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 2:52pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
If you do not like images of dead people, then maybe you should shy away from this post. A Google Web Search Help thread reports that if you search for [sláma], which means straw in Czech, up comes an image of a dead old lady in the web results.
Here is a picture:
(FYI, I did crop the picture a bit)
I personally reported the image as offensive. Often we have issues with porn in Google but this is yet another issue that hopefully can be addressed soon.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
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Creating Internal Link Structure After Google Indexes Your Site
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 2:44pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
A WebmasterWorld thread has an interesting discussion started by senior member, Wheel. In short, he is expanding one of his sites from 21 pages to about 5,000 pages. He wants to take the approach of letting Google index the site and then use Google and the site command to figure out which pages he should then go back into and internally link to.
Let me explain what I think he is trying to accomplish here.
(1) He launches the new web site and waits for Google to index most of it.
(2) He uses the site command with keywords, i.e. [site:domain.com keyword+here]
(3) The pages that come up, he will then look into and try to boost by having other internal pages link to them with the keyword phrases in or around the anchor textHe explained why he is going about this, in a way that seems somewhat backwards to most SEOs. He said:
Because I've got so much content it's hard for me to sort through it to give myself internal links. My intention is to let the content get indexed first. Then I'm going to search my site using Google for the juicy terms I want to rank for, and order them by whatever Google feels is order of relevance.
Then I'll take a few of those top ranking pages for the term, find the term on those pages, and link to another page on my site that I want to rank for that term. Maybe even link to the homepage in some instances.
It is an interesting method, something I am eager to see how it works. To be honest, most SEOs deal with this already when taking on new clients that have existing sites. But it is still an interesting discussion.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google AdWords Hides Their Tax ID From Invoices?
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 2:27pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
Tax time is just around the corner and people are preparing their U.S. tax returns. Part of that, for some, is to document how much they spent on their Google AdWords campaigns. To do that, they typically want to know Google's tax ID number, to put on the IRS forms.
Google has an FAQ on how to locate Google's tax ID number. It goes as follows:
(1) Sign in to your AdWords account at https://adwords.google.com.
(2) Click the Billing tab and select Billing summary.
(3) Click Print invoice, which appears in the shaded area on top of the Billing Summary table.Google's tax ID appears below the Google address on the invoice.
The issue is, I don't see it there and others also don't see it there. A Google AdWords Help thread has one person complaining it is not there. That person got a canned response from a Google rep.
Maybe I am missing it, but I click on the print invoice link as I point to here:
Up comes the invoice, but it is missing the tax ID, which should be "below the Google address on the invoice."
Do you see it? I don't. It must be a bug?
Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.
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Google Double Pays Publisher, Apologizes Via Email
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 2:10pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
Google AdSense has paid a publisher twice as much in December, so they decided to apologize to the publisher and withhold the funds from their January check. A WebmasterWorld thread has the story from this publisher.
The publisher said:
I checked that I had ben paid the other day and thought did I really earn that much in December but didn't think any more about it.
Have just received an email from Google Ireland saying they paid me double and they will take the extra amount off the next payment - oh well!
We have seen reports of duplicate AdSense checks going out to publishers before, but never a case of where a publisher received twice as much as they should have in a direct deposit or on a single check. In any event, the publisher is not upset - since Google is letting the publisher hold the funds an extra month early.
There were two other publishers who claimed they received twice as much in December. Both expect not to get paid in January. One said:
I got a double payment too for December, but I wasn't going to say anything in the hope that it passed through the system. No such luck. At least I now have the next month's payment even before I earned it.
I am surprised I did not hear about the over payments earlier, I guess either publishers did not notice or they didn't want anyone to know.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.