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  Daily Search Forum Recap: April 2, 2010

  Posted: April 2nd, 2010, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Search Forum Recap  

  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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  (Text) Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: April 2, 2010

  Posted: April 2nd, 2010, 3:04pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Search Buzz RoundUp  

  I am skipping the video portion of the weekly recap and just offering you a text version due to being extremely tired. This week WebProNews posted a nice interview with Google's Matt Cutts. Bing told us they use hyphens as word separators in URLs. Google had issues paying Canadian publishers. Yahoo shut down their contextual ad program, Yahoo Publisher Network. We released four polls, one on real time spam, another on the canonical tag, also a poll on why SEOs got into SEO and how SEOs perceive PageRank today. Google and the industry went all out with their April Fools pranks. Finally, Google showed five doodles for Hans Christian Andersen. That was this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

  Select Topics For This Past Week:

  • Another Matt Cutts Google Video Interview to Watch
  • Bing Uses Hyphens As Word Separators in URLs
  • Google AdSense EFT Issue Impacts Canadian Publisher Payments
  • Yahoo Shuts Down Yahoo Publisher Network, No One Surprised
  • 77% of SEOs Say Real Time Results Are Spammy
  • 14% Say The Canonical Tag Doesn't Work on Google, Really?
  • Why SEOs Got Into SEO? Poll Results
  • Webmasters Still Judge Sites Based On Google PageRank
  • Google & Other's April Fools 2010 Jokes
  • Breaking: Google Caffeine Now Live, Renamed 'Kaffein'
  • Hans Christian Andersen Gets 5 Google Logos / Doodles

  Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

  
  

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  Hans Christian Andersen Gets 5 Google Logos / Doodles

  Posted: April 2nd, 2010, 2:42pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Search Engine  

  Hans Christian Andersen, a famous children's author and poet from Copenhagen, Denmark would be 205 years old today - if people lived that long. He was born on April 2, 1805 and died on August 4, 1875 at the age of 70. Since it is 205 years later, Google decided to not just show one Google Doodle (or logo), but instead, they showed five of them. To see them, go to Google and just click on the logo. Eventually, Google will take you to a search result for [Hans Christian Andersen].

  Here are the five Google logos for Hans Christian Andersen:

  Now, if you can name which doodle represents which of his stories, then you get a gold star!

  Today is also Good Friday and there are some Christians who are upset that Google is not showing a logo for this day, as opposed to a logo for Hans Christian Andersen.

  Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

  
  

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  Small Google Navigation Bug

  Posted: April 2nd, 2010, 2:38pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Search Engine  

  Try this out:

  (1) Go to Google News
  (2) Search for something
  (3) Then click on the "Web" link at the top of the page
  (4) Then click back to the "News" section
  (5) Clear the search box and hit "search news"

  You will be taken to the Google home page, but it will show "News" highlighted in the top bar. A weird, small, but nevertheless, a navigation and usability bug.

  Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

  
  

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  Google AdSense EFT Issue Impacts Canadian Publisher Payments

  Posted: April 2nd, 2010, 2:30pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google AdSense  

  There are dozens of complaints, that I found, of Canadian Google AdSense publishers complaining about issues about being paid this month. It appears that Google used the wrong exchange rate, which is not uncommon, and then cancelled certain payments to fix the issue. Somehow this technically caused EFT, or electronic funds transfers, settings to go bad in some accounts and stop payments from going forward.

  I have not seen an official Google response outside of someone posting the transcript of an email he received from Google. That email said:

  We're writing to let you know about an issue with your March 2010 AdSense payment. As you know, the full amount of your most recent Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) payment was not transmitted all at one time, due to the use of an inaccurate exchange rate. You’ve already received a payment, which is the bulk of the amount you're owed. The remaining amount will be sent in a separate transaction in a few days.

  In order to process this second payment, you’ll see several transactions on your Payment History page which we will explain below. You may also notice a hold on your account and/or a change in status to your EFT account, however we kindly ask that you disregard both of these, as we’re working on a resolution on our end.

  Your Payment History page in your AdSense account will show the following over the next few days:

  1) A 'Payment issued' line posted on March 25, 2010 calculated in USD. (If you click on the 'details' link next to this line you'll find this payment was calculated in CAD with an exchange rate of 1 USD : 0.950 CAD.)

  2) An 'EFT not successful - earnings credited back' line has posted today, March 31, 2010. This doesn't mean that your EFT was unsuccessful and please rest assured that no money is being withdrawn from your bank account. It's only displayed to balance the amounts within your AdSense account.

  During this time, you may happen to see messaging that your account is on hold and to select a new form of payment. Rest assured this is a normal part of the process and we kindly ask that you do not make any such changes until both these payments have been finalized.

  3) Then, a 'Payment issued' line will also post, for the actual USD amount of the initial deposit that was sent to your account on March 25th. (If you click on the 'details' link for this payment you'll find this payment was calculated in CAD with an exchange rate of 1 USD : 1.026 CAD.)

  4) In a few days, an additional 'Payment issued' line will post when the additional payment is processed for the remaining amount that you are due. (When it posts, if you click on the 'details' link for this payment you'll find this payment was calculated in CAD with an exchange rate of 1 USD: 1.026 CAD.)

  The sum of these two last 'Payment issued' lines will reflect the correct amount of your payment. So next week, your Payment History page will appear something like the following example:

  Payment issued (US $100.00)
  EFT not successful - earnings credited back US $100.00
  Payment issued (US $96.00)
  Payment issued (US $4.00)

  Please be assured that the remainder of your payment will be deposited into your account soon.

  Once again, we appreciate your patience as we work to fix the error.

  Sincerely,

  The Google AdSense Team

  I am sure Canadian publishers will get paid in full soon, so hang tight.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google AdSense Help.

  
  

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  Another Matt Cutts Google Video Interview to Watch

  Posted: April 2nd, 2010, 2:26pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Optimization  

  Mike McDonald from WebProNews has an excellent interview with Matt Cutts of Google. In the video, Matt and Mike discuss the latest changes taking place at Google and go over many hot SEO topics.

  Here is the video:

  
  More WebProNews Videos

  Definitely worth setting 20 minutes of time aside to watch or listen to it.

  Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.