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 24, 2010
Posted: May 24th, 2010, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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AdSense Publishers Earn 68% of Revenue Says Google
Posted: May 24th, 2010, 6:48pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
I am shocked that Google is revealing the revenue share split of the AdSense content and search network. Google said today they give publishers 68% of the ad revenue earned on the content ads and 51% of revenue earned on the search ads.
Google told me on the phone that this is the same share worldwide for all publishers who signed up online. There are special deals made for partners, I guess such as Amazon.com. But the majority of publishers make 68% or 51% depending on the network type.
I did expect Italian publishers to get this information. But I guess Google felt it was easier to just share it with everyone.
Google promised to add these revenue share details to the reports within the AdSense console within the upcoming months.
A very active WebmasterWorld thread already has a lot of discussion around it. Most people are saying they are surprised Google gives so much. 68% is pretty high, but I think our estimates show overall it was about 70 to 75% share. Keep in mind, our estimates included special partners, which obviously have a higher share of revenue, when compared to the 68% shared with most publishers.
Do you think 68% revenue share on the content network is high or low?
68% AdSense Revenue Share Is...online surveys
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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PDF ReCrawling Takes Longer Than Web ReCrawling
Posted: May 24th, 2010, 3:58pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
A Google Webmaster Help thread has a nice little crawling tidbit for advanced SEOs. Did you know that it typically takes a long time for a PDF document to be recrawled and indexed by Google? Exactly how long, I am not sure, I wonder if someone has done some tests on that.
But JohnMu from Google made a comment about this topic, saying:
Reprocessing a PDF can generally take a bit of time, so if it is urgent that you have this information removed from all places, it would be necessary to do a normal URL removal. One way to do this would be to do as Squibble suggests, simply renaming the PDF file so that you can request that the old URL be removed. Apart from that, there is no way to speed up these processes for a single URL.
So when you have PDF documents on the web, keep in mind, do it right or it can take a while for those PDFs to be recrawled.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
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Buying Domains For Link Building
Posted: May 24th, 2010, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Link Building
A WebmasterWold thread has discussion on the strategy of buying domains, expired or soon to expire domains, to build links quickly.
A member of the forum asked if people still use this as a strategy. The SEO said:
A few years ago I developed the strategy of buying dropped domains with good backlinks and pagerank, and either 301-ed them to one of my main sites, or host them with a bit of content, and link them to my sites. Now, years later, some of those still bring in nice traffic and PR.
My question: Is anyone still using this strategy (for the traffic)? I assume PR indeed does not pass through anymore, as was announced? Any thoughts on retribution from Google?
There are many articles discussing how Google handles expired domains. Danny has a nice one with Google's Matt Cutts over here, plus we have at least two pieces on this topic.
Wheel in the forum suggested, "that there are places where you can grab a domain as it drops (i.e. before it actually drops). That's probably the way to do this." Moderator, martinibuster, agreed but added:
Whatever backlinks dropped domains had won't count toward ranking. Backlinks get reset. This has been the case for several years now. Previous to the change the backlinks would acquire whatever PageRank they formerly had prior to the drop. After the change, which happened quite a few years ago, the backlinks got reset.
This change also affected typos with pre-existing backlinks. The pre-existing backlinks get reset.
I'm not saying you can't rank a dropped domain. Just that the backlinks get reset and this has been going on for years now. I remember when it happened, it was literally like overnight the expired domain market changed. I was fairly active buying dropped domains until this change happened. If I buy an expired domain nowadays it's for whatever traffic the links may bring, not for the equity.
This is an excellent thread on the topic of expired domains and link building.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWold.
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Google Site Performance in Webmaster Tools Updating Often Now
Posted: May 24th, 2010, 3:38pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
There were some Google Webmaster Help thread with reports that the site performance reports in Google Webmaster Tools was not updating that often. Normally, it should update every other day or so but recently it has not been doing so.
A Google Webmaster Help thread has confirmed reports of the issue and that it should now be resolved. sreeram from Google said:
Yup, there was another temporary glitch. Things are back to normal now.
I checked several site performance reports and they all seem to be within two days or so old.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
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Links Return To Yahoo Site Explorer
Posted: May 24th, 2010, 3:29pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo Search Optimization
On Friday we reported that Yahoo Site Explorer links went missing and literally about a 100,000 of the links were lost to this site. Well, I guess it was a bug, because our links are back and so are everyone else's.
Here is a screen shot from today:
Here it was from Friday:
As you can see, I acquired 100,000 or so links over the weekend - not bad.
Clearly there was some sort of bug and now it is fixed. Yahoo has not confirmed the issue.
Forum discussion continued at Search Engine Watch Forums.
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Google SSL Search Is Here
Posted: May 24th, 2010, 3:18pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
As expected Google on Friday launched the https version of Google search at [https:].
SSL Google Search allows you to search with less or no worry of people sniffing around to see what you are searching for. All this does is encrypt the searching you do, it stops once you leave Google and head over to a web site. I should note that https by definition prevents referrer data from being passed along.
Here are some notes about SSL search from Google:
- SSL encrypts the communication channel between Google and a searcher's computer. When search traffic is encrypted, it can't be read by third parties trying to access the connection between a searcher's computer and Google's servers. Note that the SSL protocol does have some limitations — more details are below.
- As another layer of privacy, SSL search turns off a browser's referrers . Web browsers typically turn off referrers when going from HTTPS to HTTP mode to provide extra privacy. By clicking on a search result that takes you to an HTTP site, you could disable any customizations that the website provides based on the referrer information.
- At this time, search over SSL is supported only on Google web search. We will continue to work to support other products like Images and Maps. All features that are not supported have been removed from the left panel and the row of links at the top. You'll continue to see integrated results like images and maps, and clicking those results will take you out of encrypted search mode.
- Your Google experience using SSL search might be slighly slower than you're used to because your computer needs to first establish a secure connection with Google.
Google still sees everything that is going on and still stores this in your web history also.
There are also some people reporting that Google SSL Search works in China.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help, Google Blogoscoped, WebmasterWorldand DigitalPoint Forums.
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Google Keeps PacMan Logo Live & Adds Mute
Posted: May 24th, 2010, 3:09pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Google shocked their users in both a good and bad way this past Friday with the Pac Man Google Doodle for the 30th anniversary of the game. Google received so much feedback on the interactive game Doodle that they decided to keep it live at google.com/pacman.
The bad feedback was mostly around the noise of the game. People, many of them, didn't like it, and wanted a way to turn it off. Google at some point totally killed the sound but then brought the sound back with a mute button. Here is a picture of the mute button, which was not part of the game's interface by the way.
I should note that Mike from my team built a way to embed the Pac Man Google Doodle on your own web site. Which I did over here. Our version doesn't have sound.
Another thread asks if there is a way to always opt out of Google Doodles. Some people just want to see the Google logo as is and never see the special Doodles. Currently there is no way to go to Google.com, without a browser plugin, and guarantee you never see the Google Doodles. Maybe Google can add that?
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help & Google Webmaster Help.