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: May 7, 2010
Posted: May 7th, 2010, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Google Adds Average Position & Stars To Search Query Report
Posted: May 7th, 2010, 3:53pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
Less than a month ago, Google wowed webmasters by adding more queries, neat charts, impressions, clicks and click through rate data to the search query report. Last night they added the "average position" data to the report, renamed the report from "Top Search Queries" to "Search Queries" and let webmasters star queries. Staring queries sorts those starred queries at the top of the report.
The Google blog post said:
This provides a quick at-a-glance way to see where your site is showing in the search results for specific queries. The other change you'll notice is that we're showing a "Displaying" number for Impressions and Clicks. This number represents a total count of the data displayed in the Search Queries table. The number in bold appearing just above it is a total count of all queries including the "long tail" of queries which are not displayed in the Search Queries table. When the "Displaying" number is not visible, such as when you select a specific country from the "All countries" drop-down menu, then the bold number is the total count of the data displayed in the Search Queries table.
Have an issue with this report, join the Google Webmaster Help thread where there are two Googlers responding to questions.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
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Google Maps Hijacking Getting Out of Control?
Posted: May 7th, 2010, 3:46pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
A Google Places Help thread reports some business owners complaining that their business listings on Google Maps continually gets hijacked by competitors. One person said, "on almost a daily basis my client's listing gets hijacked."
Google Maps hijacking is nothing new, we saw it back in 2007 and 2008, but it does routinely happen. In fact, Google is aware of it and is looking for a way to prevent it from happening.
Linda from the Google Maps team said in the thread:
Sorry for the trouble you're experiencing. Thanks for notifying us of this issue. We are looking into this.
For others that are experiencing similar issues, please post your business listings URL from Google Maps.
So if you have experienced this, join the Google Places Help.
Forum discussion at Google Places Help.
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When Does Google Prefers 302 Redirects?
Posted: May 7th, 2010, 3:39pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
A Google Webmaster Help thread has a discussion around using redirects. Typically, you should always use a 301, permanent, redirect when you are redirecting a page to another page. But Googler, JohnMu, said there is one occasion where it is preferred to use a temporary, 302 redirect.
When is it preferred to use a 302 redirect? John said:
A 302 redirect is the correct redirect from a root URL to a detail page (such as from "/" to "/sites/bursa/"). This is one of the few situations where a 302 redirect is preferred over a 301 redirect.
But he does add that when possible, try to avoid the redirect all together and show the detailed content on the main root URL. John added, "if you were hosting this yourself, you might want to look into saving an additional jump by just serving the content directly (it's not necessary, but if you can do it, it's always nice to save the user a redirect)."
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
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Teoma Is Back, But Still Run By Ask's IAC
Posted: May 7th, 2010, 3:24pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Ask.com
Teoma is a search engine that was a search engine founded by Professor Apostolos Gerasoulis in 2002 at Rutgers University. I personally like Apostolos Gerasoulis very much and think he is a serious genius. I also like the technology behind the search engine.
On September 11, 2001(yea, I know), Teoma was acquired by Ask Jeeves in order for Ask Jeeves to focus more on competing with Google, but I wasn't confident. Eventually Ask Jeeves was rebranded as Ask.com and then Ask renamed the Teoma technology as ExpertRank and code named it project Edison. As you know, I think they failed and you can read about that more over here.
Yesterday I learned via a Sphinn that Teoma.com was relaunched. Try is at Teoma.com and you'll see. A blog asked IAC why and IAC said:
As we announced in November, we are focused on building the best service for answering questions and delivering the best results for searches posed as questions on Ask.com. We re-launched Teoma.com in mid-April to provide a simplified interface for everyday keyword web search. Teoma.com's organic results will be similar to, but not exactly the same as, those on Ask.com, primarily for testing purposes, but also to provide a more simplified search experience.
So do the results differ from Ask.com? They do. Try both out but essentially, they should be similar minus all the paid content Ask pushes on their home page and all the ads you see on both.
Is this a big deal for Ask or IAC? I doubt it. I still think they should donate it back to Rutgers so Apostolos can get back to some serious work.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
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Google Doodle For Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 170th Birthday
Posted: May 7th, 2010, 3:15pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Today is the 170th Birthday of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, a Russian composer of the Romantic era. Google said the doodle was produced with San Francisco Ballet. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840, yes, 170 years ago and he died November 6, 1893. You can learn more about him at Wikipedia.
Here is a picture of the doodle:
This Google Logo can be found on every Google property now. To me, it looks like someone is looking in a car's rear view mirror, but I doubt that was done on purpose. The doodle here specifically is of his Swan Lake ballet, which he composed between 1875–1876. For more on Swan Lake, yes, see Wikipedia.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help and Google Blogoscoped Forums.
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Google Posting Warnings To AdSense Publishers
Posted: May 7th, 2010, 3:07pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
A WebmasterWorld thread reports Google has been sending warning notifications to some publishers via the AdSense console. The publisher said, "I just happened to log into adsense today and noticed a warning from yesterday about adsense on some adult focused pages." He even posted the warning:
Google AdSense: You have 3 working days to make changes to your website.
This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
Hello, While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our policies. For instance, we found violations of AdSense policies on pages such as *********Birmingham_Fun:_An evening_with_an_Escort_Girl. Please note that this URL is an example and that the same violations may exist on other pages of your website. As stated in our program policies, AdSense publishers may not display Google ads on pages with adult or mature content. While we understand that it may be challenging to monitor user-generated content, such as comments, on your site, we require publishers to check that the webpages containing their ad code complies with our program policies. Please make any necessary changes to your webpages in the next 72 hours. We also suggest that you take the time to review our program policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) to ensure that all of your other pages are in compliance. Once you update your site, we will automatically detect the changes and ad serving will not be affected. If you choose not to make the changes to your account within the next three days, your account will remain active but you will no longer be able to display ads on the site. Please note, however, that we may disable your account if further violations are found in the future. Thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely, The Google AdSense Team
Issue ID# 1000033 ----------------
For more information regarding this warning email, please visit our Help Center: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=113058.Indeed, there is some interesting information in the help center about these notifications. They have them broken down into three groups:
(1) Ad serving has been disabled to your site
(2) You have 3 working days to make changes to your site
(3) Your Google AdSense account has been disabledHave you ever received a warning from Google? If so, were they different from the three listed above?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.