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: July 6, 2010
Posted: July 6th, 2010, 11:00pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Frida Kahlo Google Logo
Posted: July 6th, 2010, 8:13pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Other Google Topics
If you visit Google today, you will see a special logo or 'doodle' for Frida Kahlo. The logo looks like:
Frida Kahlo was a well-known Mexican painter. You can learn more about her at Wikipedia. And you can also see there where this doodle was inspired from.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
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Google Testing Maps In Top Right Position, Above Ads
Posted: July 6th, 2010, 3:48pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google Search Engine
A reader, Morgan Chemij emailed me an image of Google testing a new maps position in the Google search results. His image showed a map in the top right position, above the Google AdWords ads, for a search on [florist]. Personally, I do not see it, but Mike Blumenthal shows others are seeing it.
Here is Morgan's screen capture:
As you can see, the map has one of those Google Maps Tags, which costs $25 per listing per month.
Mike goes through the new location in more detail and I posted a thread in the Google Web Search Help forum about this.
Personally, I kind of like it pushing down the paid results, as opposed to pushing down the organic results. But I am not sure advertisers will like it, unless they are in the map results.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
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SEOs & Publishers Mock Yahoo For Discovering Search Trends For News Creation
Posted: July 6th, 2010, 3:33pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Yahoo News
One of the most basic SEO strategies for content development is the process of determining what people are searching for in your niche so you can target those keywords. When it comes to news sites, even sites with a niche as specific of this one, you must look at search trends. SEOs and publishers have been using search trends reports, such as Google Hot Trends, Twitter Trends, Yahoo Buzz and other keyword tools to discover trending searches and benefit from them.
Like I said, we occasionally do it here and it works. You hit a forming wave on searches, and rank well on that wave, you can generate a ton of traffic quickly - which makes advertisers happy.
According to the New York Times, Yahoo, one of the biggest online news agencies in the world, just discovered this as a tactic. They are going to create a blog and staff it based on just writing content based on search trends.
Yahoo software continuously tracks common words, phrases and topics that are popular among users across its vast online network. To help create content for the blog, called The Upshot, a team of people will analyze those patterns and pass along their findings to Yahoo’s news staff of two editors and six bloggers.
The news staff will then use that search data to create articles that — if the process works as intended — will allow them to focus more precisely on readers.
Of course, SEOs and Webmasters are mocking this strategy at WebmasterWorld. Here are some comments:
Ahh, so now Yahoo's staff will start writing or aggregating content based on what people are searching for. Excuse me if I'm not excited by this. Should I expect we'll be seeing lots of celebrity gossip, erotica, discussions about the latest episode of Jersey Shore, and inane articles about Justin Beiber?
Wow, after all this time Yahoo discovered trend analysis?
What'll they think of next week, fire?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Google AdWords Ads New Tab Named Dimensions
Posted: July 6th, 2010, 3:27pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
If you login to your AdWords account, go to a campaign and click on the arrow down near the tabs, you will find a new option. The new tab option is named "dimensions" and provides a different look at your AdWords charts.
The reason for this change is because they are dropping the reporting section and adding more reports and filters to these campaign screens.
Here are pictures:
First reports of this came via Kim Clinkunbroomer and then via Jeremy Mercer-Deadman.
Personally, I am a fan of putting reporting directly in the interfaces you use most often.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
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Publishers Abusing Google's DMCA Policy?
Posted: July 6th, 2010, 3:16pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
A WebmasterWorld thread reports that some publishers have had their Google AdSense ads deactivated over bogus DMCA filings.
DMCA, is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and Google has a policy of "removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity and/or terminating subscribers," when in question. Google allows those served with a DMCA notice to appeal the process, but that can take several days. Several days can mean big money for some publishers.
The publisher in the WebmasterWorld explained his case:
We received a DMCA Notice this morning. The "infringing" article has been on our site since 2006 (this can be verified at archive.org). We BOUGHT a license to USE the article at constant-content.com in 2006. The article in question is still available at constant-content.com, for any person to purchase. There is no unique/full rights available on this article.
He said "it took two faxes, two electronic counter notices, and a few emails, but this morning I received the email from Adsense Support to say they have re-enabled ad serving." He was without ads for about 6 days and he will never recoup that lost income.
Should there be a counter-claim with financial penalty for filing false DMCA requests?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Would You Buy a Link From Link Brokers Like Text Link Ads?
Posted: July 6th, 2010, 3:10pm CEST by rustybrick
Tags: Link Building
Over the course of five plus years, the topic of link brokerage houses have been a popular topic in the forums. I often try to stay away from the topic, due to it being a very controversial and heated debate. But I have seen many threads over the years and two recent ones that encouraged me to post a poll asking for your feedback.
I have some people who swear by buying links from link brokers. I have others who would never go next to a broker, not even with a ten-foot pole.
One of the largest, if not the largest, brokers out there is Text Link Ads. I was wondering, as a show of hands, who would buy a link from them and why? Please take my anonymous poll below and have all your SEO buddies take it:
Would/Do You Buy Links From Text Link Ads?customer surveys
Forum discussion specifically about this at Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.