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  Daily Search Forum Recap: June 2, 2010

  Posted: June 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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  Why You May Have To Use Google AdWords Even With Top Organic Rankings

  Posted: June 2nd, 2010, 4:07pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Optimization  

  A featured WebmasterWorld thread has a webmaster who is upset that although he has remained the number one ranking for a competitive term in Google for 8 years or so, he has seen his click-through rate from Google dwindle down and down as time goes on.

  He said, over the years he first noticed AdWords ads push down his organic listings. Now, he is not only being pushed down by AdWords but also by the Google local listings (Google Places). You also often have Google Shopping results push down listings as well.

  His CTR has dropped and that number one listing has become worth a tiny fraction of it was once worth. The webmaster said, "I'm surprised on how useless the organic result become so fast."

  Tedster shares some interesting data, one from AOL's data leak in 2006 and one from Chikita's recent report:

  • The 2006 AOL click rate for #2 was 3.5 times less than #1
  • The 2010 Chitika click rate for #2 was 2.0 times less than #1

  But Martinibuster tries to see what can be done to help the webmaster, he said:

  So here is one way to deal with a specific situation that may or may not relate to the OP. If the phrase is directly or indirectly related to products, but it's not an explicitly buy type of phrase (example: cheap widgets), then I can almost guarantee you that those advertisers are bottom feeding that phrase and it may be possible to push them out.

  Has your number one listing become less valuable over the years? What are you doing about it? Buying adds, doing local, adding shopping feeds or blog entries?

  
  

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  Google Sued Over Maps Walking Directions: Hit & Run

  Posted: June 2nd, 2010, 4:00pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Other Google Topics  

  Ad Danny Sullivan explained in his amazing story, Woman Follows Google Maps "Walking" Directions, Gets Hit, Sues, Lauren Rosenberg was hit by a car as she walked between two locations in Park City, Utah. Using her BlackBerry phone, she'd used Google Maps and its "walking directions" feature to generate a route. Those directions sent her down "Deer Valley Drive," an alternative name for Utah State Route 224. She was struck on that highway.

  Danny then had a follow up with Rosenberg's lawyer. I strongly recommend you read both stories when you have some free time. It is really an amazing story.

  Then to follow up, not only was this woman hit by a car, and then decided to hit Google back - but Danny's story, like so many times, was stolen without credit by numerous news organizations. This happens often, but Danny finally complained. So Danny was also hit by this as well.

  In any event, I really can't add much, but I wanted to make sure our readers saw this story.

  Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums and Google Blogoscoped Forums.

  
  

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  Google Webmaster Tools "Not Found" Errors Won't Hurt Your Rankings

  Posted: June 2nd, 2010, 3:55pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Optimization  

  A Google Webmaster Help thread has confirmation from Googler, Jonathan Simon, that the page not found errors found in Google Webmaster Tools won't necessarily hurt your Google rankings.

  Jonathan basically explained that if someone is linking to a page that is not found, there is not much you can do to prevent that from happening. Jonathan said:

  Since you can't control who links to your site these Not Found errors won't negatively impact your site's ability to rank in the search results. It sounds like you've got a reasonable workaround with the .htaccess redirect you mentioned. I'd just keep an eye on the Not Found errors in Webmaster Tools and add redirects when it's necessary.

  But it is important to track not found errors in both Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to make sure to redirect the page when applicable, so that traffic is not lost. And it is almost always a good idea to make sure you have a useful and pretty custom 404 page for those reasons.

  But ultimately, Jonathan said Google won't penalize you for 404s.

  Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

  
  

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  Google Maps New Direction Icons

  Posted: June 2nd, 2010, 3:49pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Other Google Topics  

  I am told this is about a week or so old, but I haven't really seen any posts on it yet. Google Maps has changed the way they let users pick the type of directions they want. Instead of showing a drop down, defaulted to car directions, they now show you icons above the directions box.

  Here is a screen capture of the new design:

  Here is the old design:

  I posted this at the Google Maps Help forum and top contributor, Barry Hunter (nice first name, btw), confirmed that they are new. He said:

  Yes definitely new. Last couple of weeks at most.

  They used to be presented as a dropdown under the text entry boxes.

  They definitely make the options stand out, which is a good thing.

  Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

  
  

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  Make Google SSL Search Your Default Search Engine in Chrome

  Posted: June 2nd, 2010, 3:34pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Google Search Engine  

  A Google Web Search Help forum thread asks how you can make Google SSL search your default search provider in Chrome. It is a good question that is a bit hard to answer in the forum, so I thought I do a blog post with screen captures to explain the process.

  Step 1: Right click in the URL bar and click on "Edit search engines...":

  Step 2: Click on the plus sign at the bottom of the manage search engines pop up and a new form will come up:

  Step 3: Fill out the form as follows and click "okay"

  Note: This is the URL you need https://www.google.com/search?%s

  Step 4: To make this new search engine the default, after you click okay, click on the Google SSL search engine within the manage search engines window and click on "Make Default":

  There you have it, Google SSL search as your default search engine in Chrome.

  Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.