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  Vancouver 2010 Olympic Logos from Google, Yahoo, Bing & Others

  Posted: February 12th, 2010, 3:03pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Search Engine Industry News  

  The 2010 Winter Olympics kick off tonight in Vancouver and some of the search engines are already sporting their special logos for the event. Google, Yahoo, Bing and others have their logos up. We will post what is live now below and continue to add to them as other search engines create their logos.

  Google:

  It may be the widest Google logo in their history at 760 pixels wide.

  Yahoo:

  Bing:

  I am sure more search engines, like Ask.com and others will begin to post their logos. I hope to post our theme later today as well.

  Search Engine Roundtable:

  Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help & WebmasterWorld.

  
  

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  Google Is Not Offering SEO Services, They Help Webmasters Every Day

  Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:48pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Optimization  

  Yesterday, the SEO community went nuts after they learned about a Norwegian AdWords blog post announcing that Googlers will be providing site clinics to help webmasters on the SEO front. You can read the translated version over here.

  Yes, it is weird that an AdWords blog is talking about SEO site clinics. But it is not like Google is offering SEO services, where they provide link building services, make changes to your web site, give detailed site audits and you are paying for it. Google is basically offering best practice advice, which they do every day in their Google Webmaster Help forums, which comes in many languages.

  They have offered live chat events, they come to conferences, they have webmaster tools and more. They haven't done detailed site clinics like this in the past, but this is far from SEO services in my opinion.

  Matt and Danny put together a nice history on Google helping with SEO. It may be worth a look.

  In fact, I actually was emailed or saw a forum thread on this a while back. I forgot exactly why I did not cover it, but to me, this did not seem like such a big deal.

  Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums, Sphinn.

  
  

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  Google AdSense Now Using Previous Search Queries For Ad Relevancy

  Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:39pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google AdSense  

  The Google AdSense blog announced they are now using the query data in the referrer URL to better target and match the AdSense ads on your web site. Basically, if you go to Google, type in a query, click on a site that has AdSense on it, Google will use the query you entered on Google (or any search engine) to match the ads to the query and the contextual nature of the page.

  Supposedly, Google has been doing this for a while. I think that is news to me. But what Google said they recently changed was now storing the query for a few hours, so if you visit other sites with AdSense on it, hours later, it will continue to use your search history to match the AdSense ads on third-party web sites. Of course, Google said you can opt out of this.

  Google explained:

  Let's assume the user in our example leaves your golf website and browses through to a news website that is also an AdSense partner. Since [golf shop atlanta] is in a referral URL that was visited in the past few hours, we may use those query words, along with the content of the news webpage itself, to determine the most relevant ad to show the user on the news website.

  Google supposedly also emailed publishers about this change, but publishers did not understand it, from what I take.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

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  Condolences To Bing's Brett Yount

  Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:31pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Search Engine Industry News  

  This site has always been about the community. I try to share educational insights, news details, plus have fun when appropriate. I also have shared sad events that impact significant people in our industry, because - we are one large community that is impacted by the people around us.

  Recently, I asked where did the Bing webmaster representative, Brett Yount, go? He basically went off the forums and we didn't hear from him for a few weeks. It turned out that Brett lost his father in January and he took some bereavement time off.

  In a Bing Community thread, Brett shared this very personal event with the community. He wrote:

  Hi all,

  I was given some bereavement leave after my Father passed at the beginning of January.

  Thank you for your concern.

  Firstly, I would like to wish you and your family condolences on behalf of the search industry.

  There are times that I have personally said some negative things about what you say in the forums. So I would like to apologize, if any of that was taken personally. You were sorely missed during the leave and it shows how important your work is to the community at large.

  Thanks for everything and may you only have happy occasions in the future.

  Forum discussion at Bing Community.

  
  

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  Google Buys Aardvark, You Surprised?

  Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:23pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google News Press  

  Yesterday, TechCrunch broke the news that Aardvark, a human powered answer engine, was purchased by Google. Google confirmed the deal, but did not confirm the $50 million price tag associated with the deal.

  Aardvark basically allows you to send the network a question. It will then look at your network of people, figure out who is best to answer the question you asked and send them the question via IM, email or Twitter. If (big if) someone replies with an answer, it will then return you the answer via IM, email or Twitter. I used it a lot in the past, because it is a neat idea - but it didn't really stick with me for one reason or another.

  In any event, Google bought them. Why? Maybe for the talent, the people? Maybe for the technology? I am not sure. To be honest, I was a bit surprised by this acquisition - but clearly I don't see the big picture here.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & DigitalPoint Forums.

  
  

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  Picture of Google News New Home Page Test

  Posted: February 12th, 2010, 2:14pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Search Engine  

  A week ago today, we reported Google News was testing a new home page design. Since then, I have been begging those who have seen the test to post a picture so the rest of us can see what they see. Finally, yesterday, someone posted an image in the Google News Help forum.

  Here is that picture:

  Extremely different from the current Google News home page. You can click on the image to get a larger size or just click here for it.

  What do you think? Most people writing about it in the forums are not happy.

  Forum discussion at Google News Help.