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.
Feeds
5540 items (5015 unread) in 3 feeds
Google
(325 unread)
-
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog (325 unread)
SEO
(4690 unread)
-
Emily Chang (347 unread)
-
Search Engine Roundtable
(4343 unread)
Search Engine Roundtable (6 unread)
-
Daily Search Forum Recap: May 27, 2010
Posted: May 27th, 2010, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
-
Matt Cutts Outed Again As GoogleGuy?
Posted: May 27th, 2010, 4:21pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
Back in the earlier days of the SEO industry, there was a mystery Google representative who participated at WebmasterWorld forums under the alias of GoogleGuy. Back then, very few people knew the true identity of GoogleGuy, but yet many speculated his identity.
Then in August 2006, reports came out that Matt Cutts confessed to being GoogleGuy during a session at SES. Danny Sullivan said:
I moderated the panel, and the confession came out when a member of the audience flat out asked Matt if he was GoogleGuy. Matt hesitated just a moment, and I could swear I could almost hear the internal debate of "should I finally confess or not." And then he did, saying as Rand notes that he sort of backed into being the GoogleGuy who posts on forums and blogs. Matt then added that today, GoogleGuy might be one of many different people from Google commenting in public areas.
But if you look at the Wikipedia page for Matt Cutts, it links specifically to this post and Matt said he "was quoted out of context."
To this day, you will not find Matt admitting in writing that he was GoogleGuy. But a comment from WebmasterWorld's founder, Brett Tabke, a person who would know the true identity of GoogleGuy said:
When Matt was on wmw as GoogleGuy for all those years, that is what we had to deal with daily.
He is referring to Matt Cutts as being GoogleGuy. Back in 2006, Danny reported that Brett told him "Matt's been wearing a "Google Guy" name badge at PubCon for the past two years now, and Thomas Bindl notes this was the case last November at the show, as well."
So although Matt has been outed a few times as being GoogleGuy, Matt has never officially come out as the legendary GoogleGuy.
Forum discussion continued at, oh, GoogleGuy hasn't made a post at WebmasterWorld since July 24, 2008.
-
Google Testing Pink Background For AdWords Ads?
Posted: May 27th, 2010, 3:34pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting one user seeing the background color of the Google AdWords ads for the features ads as being gray pink and not yellow.
Now, we have seen Google move from the old blue background to the yellow one in 2007. We have also seen Google test green backgrounds and then even test going back to a flavor of blue and yellow backgrounds together.
But now I am seeing reports of a gray background behind the AdWords ads. I have not seen it myself, nor have a seen a screen shot, but I do hope to post one as soon as someone sends one to me.
There are even additional reports in the WebmasterWorld as seeing a "light pink background" but that might be similar to seeing blue by someone with color blindness?
In any event, have you seen the gray background?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Update: Here is a pink background picture from @marcoziero:
-
Google Maps New Documentation On Merging Duplicate Business Listings
Posted: May 27th, 2010, 3:22pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
There has always been a lot of confusion around how to handle duplicate listings in Google Maps. Recent Google Maps Help threads have been pushing Google to give us a clear guide on what to do in this situation.
Brianna from the Google Maps team announced in a thread that they have released a brand new help document on how to handle these situations.You can find the help document over here. It breaks the duplicate issues into two categories.
(1) Do multiple results for your business appear in Google Maps search results?
(2) Are there multiple listings in your Google Places account for the same business location?The answers on what you should do depend on the above.
(1) Do multiple results for your business appear in Google Maps search results?- Make sure you've claimed one of the listings in Google Places. Verify that there’s only one active listing in your account by logging in to your Google Places account.
- If there's more than one listing in your account for the same business, you’ll first need to fix that problem by following the steps in the section below.
- If you don't have a listing for it at all, you should claim your business. For every extra result for your business, go to its Place Page, click the Report A Problem link, and select "Place has another listing". If you can, include a link to your claimed place page in the comments section.
- Google will review these reports and fix duplicate business listings.
(2) Are there multiple listings in your Google Places account for the same business location?- Choose the listing that you'd prefer to keep in your account.
- Make sure that you have all your enhanced content (photos, business hours, description) attached to this listing.
- Make sure that its status is "active".
- Delete all other listings for the same business from your account. Choose the "Remove this listing from my Google Places account" option
- These changes can take several weeks to appear in search results
- If there are multiple results for your business in Google’s search results, follow the instructions above.
Let me know if this doesn't solve the issues out there.
Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.
-
Bing Forums Top Contributor Quits Over Frustration
Posted: May 27th, 2010, 3:05pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: SEO Forum News
Every forum lives and dies based on their members and how active and helpful they are. That is why it is critical for forums to make sure their top members (the most giving members) are heard and listened to.
Recently, a Bing Forum thread has one of the top contributing members publicly expressing his dissatisfaction with the forum, ultimately leading in him announcing he is done with helping out in the forums. Let me quote his message:
this forum is just deliberately trying to annoy me - I just spent over half an hour writing a response to a thread, and when I attempted to post it, guess what? Yes, I get the BLOODY ANNOYING MODERATION MESSAGE!!!!!!!
Meaning that my post wasn't published and my time was completely wasted.
And it's not as though it's the first time... this has been going on for AGES!!!
I've tried to patiently wait for the numerous issues with this forum to be fixed; I'm not waiting any longer - I am wasted hours of my time if I try to help people here and my posts don't get published.
I will be posting in Google's forums from now on
Goodbye Bing
Brett Yount the Program Manager of Bing Webmaster Center emailed this member offline, which is likely his best move. But the damage has been done. I know many moderators who leave forums, most over getting too busy with work but some over frustrations similar to this.Forum discussion at Bing Forums.
-
Doodle 4 Google: The Rainforest Habitat Google Logo By Makenzie Melton
Posted: May 27th, 2010, 2:59pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
Today you will see a special Google Logo (Doodle) on the Google home pages. The logo was designed by Makenzie Melton of Missouri and is named the "Rainforest Habitat." Makenzie won this year's Google 4 Doodle competition beating out 33,000 student submissions. Here is the Doodle:
The inspiration for this design was "the rainforest is in danger and it is not fair to the plants and animals," said Makenzie.
Congrats Makenzie and really really nice Google Doodle!
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help and Google Blogoscoped.