Search Engine Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: May 24, 2013

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:00:00 -0400

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.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: May 24, 2013
Very busy week with Google releasing the major next generation Penguin update, Penguin 2.0. Bing also may have made a search update a few...
Google Penguin 2.0 Goes Deep - But What Does That Mean?
As you know, Penguin 2.0 #4 is live and webmasters and SEOs are buzzing about that. The thing is, some misconceptions about Penguin 2.0 are driving me absolutely crazy. Matt Cutts, in his video about this update, talks about how Penguin 2...
Google AdSense Let's Publishers Modify Ad Code For Responsive Design & Other More
One of the largest wants/needs of Google AdSense publishers is to be able to make their AdSense ads work with responsive design web sites. Although Google won't do it for you automatically...
Bing Search Update On May 22nd?
Over the past few days I spotted two webmasters asking about a Bing Search update. With all the domain clustering and penguin chatter dominating the SEO space...
AdSense Publishers Like The New Google Publisher Toolbar
Google announced they have made a major update to the Google Publisher Toolbar for Chrome. The toolbar works as a Chrome extension and lets you view your DoubleClick for Publishers...
Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Spends One Hour Trying To Contact A Hacked Site
Gary Illyes, a former webmaster and SEO, converted Webmaster Trends Analyst working at Google Switzerland...
Android Bathroom Signs
Brandon Badger, a Product Manager at Google, posted a picture on Google+ of new bathroom signs at one of the restroom locations at Google. As you can see, a male and female Android image, representin

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

Whoâs the most searched basketball team on Google? What popâ¦, Google - Google+
- Google Updates Top Charts In Trends: Most Searched People, Places and Things, WebmasterWorld
Updated Google Certified Partner (GCP) exams and s..., AdWords Community
Welcome New Top Contributor MatyB!, Google News Help
You can now search emails, Google Drive files, Calendarâ¦, Gmail - Google+
Penguin 2.0 Is Good And My Penalty Recovery Success Story, blackhatworld.com
Twitter Introduces Two-Factor Authentication To Help Thwart Phishing, WebmasterWorld

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: May 24, 2013

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 24 May 2013 10:10:00 -0400

Very busy week with Google releasing the major next generation Penguin update, Penguin 2.0. Bing also may have made a search update a few days ago. Sprint was served a user generated content penalty by Google. Google pushed out a domain clustering update, which impacted the site command. Google launched conversation search on their desktop. Google supports 6 new data types for the data highlighter tool. Webmasters are upset that Matt Cutts responds specifically to large brands, but Googlers also spend a ton of time helping smaller ones. Google Maps is back to five star reviews. Google AdWords launched keyword planner and flexible bid strategies. Google AdSense lets publishers modify their ad code but only in specific cases, like responsive design. Yahoo spent $1.1 billion to buy Tumblr. Google Glass is now available for #ifihadglass winners. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

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Search Topics of Discussion:

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Google Penguin 2.0 Goes Deep - But What Does That Mean?

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:56:00 -0400

As you know, Penguin 2.0 #4 is live and webmasters and SEOs are buzzing about that. The thing is, some misconceptions about Penguin 2.0 are driving me absolutely crazy.

Matt Cutts, in his video about this update, talks about how Penguin 2.0 will be "more comprehensive," how this version "goes deeper" and will result in "more of an impact" than Penguin 1.0.

The SEO community is translating "goes deeper" to mean that Penguin 1.0 only impacted the home page of a web site. That is absolutely false. Deeper has nothing to do with that. Those who were hit by Penguin 1.0 know all to well that their whole site suffered, not just their home page.

What Matt meant by "deeper" is that Google is going deeper into their index, link graph and more sites will be impacted by this than the previous Penguin 1.0 update. By deeper, Matt does not mean how it impacts a specific web site architecture but rather how it impacts the web in general.

For example, Ross Hudgens tweeted "Penguin 1 targets homepage, 2 goes "much deeper." I said back no and ended at that. But he and others did not get it. The WebmasterWorld thread has webmasters confused about it also, where someone said "I don't understand this idea that Penguin 1.0 just looked at the home page." You are right, it is completely wrong to think that way.

Normally I don't get heated up about misconceptions in the industry - but seriously.

Update: I see now where the confusion comes from, via TWIG, right over here where Matt said Penguin looks at the home page of the site. Matt must mean Penguin only analyzed the links to the home page. But anyone who had a site impacted by Penguin noticed not just their home page ranking suffer. So I think that is the distinction.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Image credit to BigStockPhoto for penguin dive

Google AdSense Lets Publishers Modify Ad Code For Responsive Design & Other More

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:40:00 -0400

One of the largest wants/needs of Google AdSense publishers is to be able to make their AdSense ads work with responsive design web sites.

Although Google won't do it for you automatically, Google is allowing you now to modify your AdSense code to support responsive design web sites.

Google announced they have updated their modification of the AdSense ad code policy to make exception for responsive design and other things. Google is now allowing publishers to modify the code only if it does "not artificially inflate ad performance or harm advertisers."

This is specifically useful in these situations says Google:

Responsive design: Enabling publishers to create a single webpage that will adapt to the device on which itâs being viewed, whether itâs a laptop, smartphone or tablet, to maximize user experience.
A/B testing: Running a test by creating multiple versions of a page, comparing user behavior to see which page is the most effective.
Setting custom channels dynamically: Tracking performance of segments of users, sections of your site, or other behavior to maximize ad and user experience.
Ad tag minification: Enabling your site pages to load faster by reducing the amount of data to be transferred.

Publishers are extremely happy about this update and are excited to take advantage of this.

Forum discussion at Google+ & WebmasterWorld.

Bing Search Update On May 22nd?

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:31:00 -0400

Over the past few days I spotted two webmasters asking about a Bing Search update. With all the domain clustering and penguin chatter dominating the SEO space, it is possible that webmasters have been focused on Google and missed a possible Bing search update.

A single WebmasterWorld thread and single tweet directed at me seems to have a couple webmasters noticing a possible Bing Search update. Did Bing really update their algorithms or search results?

I checked SERPs.com and SERP Metrics and while both typically show a lot of fluctuation with Bing, the specific days called out by the webmasters (i.e. May 21st going into May 22nd) did show an uptick in changes at Bing. Here are those charts:

Have you noticed a change in your Bing traffic over the past few days?

The last possible Bing update we reported was in WebmasterWorld.

AdSense Publishers Like The New Google Publisher Toolbar

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:16:00 -0400

Google announced they have made a major update to the Google Publisher Toolbar for Chrome. The toolbar works as a Chrome extension and lets you view your DoubleClick for Publishers, AdSense or AdExchange Seller account data right from your browser's toolbar.

The new features include:

Pop-up account overview: Giving you quick access to your estimated account earnings summary for today, yesterday, this month and last month as well as information on your top 5 channels or sites by revenue over a variety of date ranges.
Ad Details: Giving you detailed information and full insight into a specific impression including buyer and advertiser details, the creative associated with the current view and now includes the ability to block the ad by buyer.
Feedback box: You can now share your feedback directly with Google through our new feedback box embedded in the user interface.

AdSense publisher, netmeg, wrote a short review in the WebmasterWorld forums saying:

Actually, it does look like they've significantly improved it. It's not as buggy, and doesn't keep making me sign in over and over. But the font is smaller, so there's that. I guess will trade that for better accuracy.
The reporting on the ad units is pretty cool. If you look at your site with the toolbar on, each ad unit has a little blue box that lists the size and the URL of the first ad. If you click on the blue box, it expands to tell you the estimated earnings from that ad unit for the past 7 days (you can change the time) the coverage, how many ad requests, the RPM and how many clicks. Looks like it also compares it to a previous time period, so you can see if it's going up or down. You also can see the ad's display URL, destination URL and click URL, and you can block or report a problem with the ad right there. It also tells you whether it's an AdWords ad, or one of the other networks'.

So give it a try.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google+.

Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Spends One Hour Trying To Contact A Hacked Site

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:07:00 -0400

Gary Illyes, a former webmaster and SEO, converted Webmaster Trends Analyst working at Google Switzerland, posted on Google+ that he was sad after he tried to contact a webmaster whose site was hacked.

He said he spent an hour or so trying to reach out to this webmaster but the site was not verified within Google Webmaster Tools, there was no phone number or contact us form on the site. The one email address listed bounced back when tried.

Gary wrote:

Today I was trying to contact a pretty neat site. They are hacked and all their pages are redirecting to some random "buy vi4gr4 in a casino online" spam site.
The site was not registered in Webmaster Tools. I could find one email address on the site which apparently was some PR person's. The email I sent there bounced. There was no contact form on the site. The WHOIS records were "protected". The email address in the SOA record also bounced.
After like 1 hour of hunting, I gave up. The owner of the site likely still doesn't know about the hack.
I'm sorry dude, we tried.

It is important I share this, it shows Google does try, even on a one-on-one basis to help webmasters. Although this approach doesn't scale, Google does employee a team of people whose job it is to do just that. We've talked about the challenges Gary goes through in his job before. But after writing about the unfair advantage big brands get with personalized Google support, I'd like to point out some of the smaller brands.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Android Bathroom Signs

Barry Schwartz — Fri, 24 May 2013 07:57:00 -0400

Daily Search Forum Recap: May 23, 2013

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:00:00 -0400

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.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Pushed Out The Major Penguin Update (v2.0 #4)
As I reported last night at Search Engine Land, Penguin 2.0 / 4 is now live - this is the next generation Penguin update. As Google's Matt Cutts added, this impacts 2.3% of English queries and also impacts other languages but the percentage depends on the level of spam in those languages...
Google Site Command Temporary Issue Due To Domain Clustering
As I reported yesterday at Search Engine Land, the site command may be a bit buggy for you right now and may not be resolved for about a week. In short...
Google Knowledge Graph Nudity Removed Quickly
A Google Web Search Help thread had a solo post from a user upset to see a nude topless image show up in the knowledge graph box for a search for [kierston wareing]...
How #ifihadglass Can Check To Pick Up Google Glass
As you may have heard, #ifihadglass winners are now being notified slowly that they can schedule a time to pick up Google Glass in NY or California. Google announced on Google+, "Over the next few weeks...
Congrats Doodle 4 Google Coming Home Winner: Sabrina Brady
If you visit Google today, on their home page is a special Google Logo, aka Doodle, created by Sabrina Brady of Sparta...
Bike To Work Day At Google Germany
Stefan Keuchel from the Google Germany office snapped a picture of Bike To Work Day 2013 at Google Germany's office. He wrote, "Google ist einfach ein geiler Arbeitgeber:-)" Which translates accordin

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

Google announces the shutdown of Google Checkout, WebmasterWorld
The Internship The movie start is only 3 weeks away, so…, Moritz Tolxdorff - Google+
The Return of Lycos?, WebmasterWorld
Announcement: Rising Star Program Launch, AdWords Community

Google Pushed Out The Major Penguin Update (v2.0 #4)

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:02:00 -0400

As I reported last night at Search Engine Land, Penguin 2.0 / 4 is now live - this is the next generation Penguin update. As Google's Matt Cutts added, this impacts 2.3% of English queries and also impacts other languages but the percentage depends on the level of spam in those languages.

Matt officially announced it while on This Week In Google see towards the very end of episode 199.

Matt said on his blog:

We started rolling out the next generation of the Penguin webspam algorithm this afternoon (May 22, 2013), and the rollout is now complete. About 2.3% of English-US queries are affected to the degree that a regular user might notice. The change has also finished rolling out for other languages world-wide. The scope of Penguin varies by language, e.g. languages with more webspam will see more impact.
This is the fourth Penguin-related launch Google has done, but because this is an updated algorithm (not just a data refresh), weâve been referring to this change as Penguin 2.0 internally.

As you know, we've been expecting this for some time, since its been over 6 months since the previous Penguin data refresh. Again, this is not just a refresh, but an algorithmic update.

Here are the previous updates:

Penguin 1 on April 24, 2012
Penguin 2 on May 24, 2012
Penguin 3 on October 5, 2012

There are lots of people complaining about ranking declines and some about boosts. It is too early to tell and I do expect to post a poll next week asking you if you were impacted or not.

I deeply hope you only were positively impacted by this update.

Forum discussion at Google+, Cre8asite Forums, WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, Black Hat World and Google Webmaster Help.

Update: Matt Cutts tweeted that you can submit feedback to Google via this form about spammy sites this update missed.

Google Site Command Temporary Issue Due To Domain Clustering

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:43:00 -0400

As I reported yesterday at Search Engine Land, the site command may be a bit buggy for you right now and may not be resolved for about a week.

In short, some SEOs and webmasters began noticing that conducting a site command in Google for large sites would only return 30 results. I personally have not been able to replicate it but I've been getting random complaints about this on Twitter. Justin Briggs has a screen shot showing this in actions, where a site command for amazon.com only returns 30 results.

Google's Matt Cutts told us at Search Engine Land:

This is a temporary side effect of the domain clustering change that I mentioned in my video. We expect that site: will be back to showing lots of results by sometime next week.

The domain clustering change was something Matt announced last week in his ten SEO changes coming to Google.

So don't panic, your site is probably still indexed by Google.

Forum discussion at Google+ and Twitter.

Google Knowledge Graph Nudity Removed Quickly

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:28:00 -0400

A Google Web Search Help thread had a solo post from a user upset to see a nude topless image show up in the knowledge graph box for a search for [kierston wareing]. I checked it last night, when it was first mentioned in the thread and indeed there was a topless image of Kierston Wareing showing in the top right section of the knowledge graph.

This morning, when I checked again, to my surprise, the image was completely removed. Here is a screen shot:

Last time this happened, it took days for it to be removed. Typically when people report inappropriate images in Google, it takes Google a lot of time to remove it.

I wonder if this was removed manually or Google has better checks in place to remove inappropriate images based on some sort of reporting algorithm?

In any event, it is nice to see Google clean up this nude knowledge graph image within 24 hours.

Some of the past cases of porn or nudity on Google where it should not have been:

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

How #ifihadglass Can Check To Pick Up Google Glass

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:18:00 -0400

As you may have heard, #ifihadglass winners are now being notified slowly that they can schedule a time to pick up Google Glass in NY or California. Google announced on Google+, "Over the next few weeks, weâll be slowly rolling out invitations to successful #ifihadglass applicants. If you were one of the successful applicants, please make sure you have +Project Glass in your Circles so we can send you a message." They made a similar announcement on Twitter.

Are you paranoid about missing your direct message or Google+ message?

Well, you should be able to spot check the get glass page to see if you got the invite to pick it up. Twitter users can sign in to see if they did get the pick up invite and Google+ users can just visit that page to learn more.

Some #ifihadglass have already scheduled their pick up and picked their colors. One person scheduled it June 2nd. Although I am not sure when is the earliest pick up slot available.

Did you get your #ifihadglass invite to pick them up yet? If so, let us know what slots are the earliest availability to pick them up.

Forum discussion at Google+ & Twitter.

Congrats Doodle 4 Google Coming Home Winner: Sabrina Brady

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:04:00 -0400

If you visit Google today, on their home page is a special Google Logo, aka Doodle, created by Sabrina Brady of Sparta, Wisconsin. Her Doodle won out the competition this year for the Doodle 4 Google award. The contest was "My Best Day Ever..." and Sabrina described her best day ever in this Doodle.

Her Doodle told the story of her reunion with her father as he returned from an 18-month deployment in Iraq. How heart warming.

Not only is her Doodle on the Google home page for millions to see, but also she will be receiving a $30,000 college scholarship, a Chromebook computer and a $50,000 technology grant for her school.

Congrats Sabrina and I bet this is your second best day ever!

To see the other finalists, see the Google Blog.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help & Google+.

Bike To Work Day At Google Germany

Barry Schwartz — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:57:00 -0400