Search Engine Roundtable

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: March 19, 2010

rustybrick — 2010-03-19T18:10:00-05:00

In this week's recap I thank Rhea and the others who helped save the term "SEO" from being trademarked. Matt Cutts was interviewed by Eric Enge and he uncovered a nice amount of information, including PageRank information. A poll we published show only 13% felt Google PageRank was "very important." Some are speculating that the Caffeine index is now live. Google has more pornography issues that they had to deal with. Google opened up the "Google certified ad network" to all AdSense publishers. Google asks publishers if they would show pharmacy and alcohol ads. Ask Sponsored Listings is now hiding referrers. Google and Viacom go it in court over YouTube. SES NY is next week, we will be covering 41 sessions. In our logo roundups, Google showed the wrong colors on Hungary National Day. I also showed you the logos from St. Patrick's Day and Google's Pi Day logo. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

For the original iTunes version, click here or to see the YouTube version in higher quality, click play & hit "HD."

Search Topics of Discussion:

Industry:

Why The SEO Industry Is Special

SEO:

Searching:

Google's Porn Issue With Children Related Keywords

Google AdSense:

Ask Sponsored Listings:

Ask Sponsored Listings Stops Sending Referrer Data

Legal:

Google & Viacom Go At It In Court Over YouTube

Conference:

SES NY 2010 Live Blogging Schedule

Search Logos:

Please do subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don't forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 19, 2010

rustybrick — 2010-03-19T16:00:00-05:00

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.

Only 13% Say Google PageRank is "Very Important"

rustybrick — 2010-03-19T08:35:28-05:00

A week ago, we asked our audience to vote on how important Google PageRank is in the overall SEO picture. After a week of time, I wanted to share the 300 plus responses.

What I am happy to say is that only 13% said that Google PageRank is very important. I believe two years ago, 40% would have said it is very important. In fact, 18% said PageRank is not important at all. Let me give you the pull break down.

How Important is Google PageRank in 2010?

Do you agree with this break down?

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Google Webmaster Tools Users Get Spanish Version

rustybrick — 2010-03-19T08:30:20-05:00

A thread at Google Webmaster Help reports a few users complaining that when they go to Google Webmaster Tools it shows them everything in Spanish.

The first report came yesterday and it read:

Yesterday everything was fine, but today when I go to www.google.com/webmasters everything is in Spanish, since I do not speak or read Spanish this is a problem. I've searched but can't seem to find any answers on why this is happenning or what to do to change it back to English.

A few other webmaster tools users said they experienced the same thing. It worked in English the day before and then when they tried it yesterday, it took them to a Spanish version.

A fix, which Cristina posted in the forums was to append hl=en to the end of the URL string, after you are logged in. That fixed it for everyone, but why did it switch over in the first place?

Google has not yet chimed in on the thread, so I am not sure how big or small of an issue this is.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google & Viacom Go At It In Court Over YouTube

rustybrick — 2010-03-19T08:17:24-05:00

About two years ago, Viacom sued Google over videos being uploaded and kept on YouTube. It was a big stink then because of the value of the lawsuit and the technology to follow to help copyright owners locate and remove content either manually or automatically from YouTube.

Now, the court documents have been released and things are looking nasty between the two companies. Here is a PDF of the documents on Google.

Google blogged their two cents on the case, saying:

Yet YouTube and sites like it will cease to exist in their current form if Viacom and others have their way in their lawsuits against YouTube.
For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom. And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt "very strongly" that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube.

Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

Given Viacom’s own actions, there is no way YouTube could ever have known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site. But Viacom thinks YouTube should somehow have figured it out. The legal rule that Viacom seeks would require YouTube -- and every Web platform -- to investigate and police all content users upload, and would subject those web sites to crushing liability if they get it wrong.

So Viacom responds later with their own post, saying:

YouTube was intentionally built on infringement and there are countless internal YouTube communications demonstrating that YouTube’s founders and its employees intended to profit from that infringement. By their own admission, the site contained “truckloads” of infringing content and founder Steve Chen explained that YouTube needed to “steal” videos because those videos make “our traffic soar.”

This is all pretty serious claims on both sides.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Does the Canonical Tag Work Well on Google?

rustybrick — 2010-03-19T08:03:32-05:00

Google introduced the Canonical tag a while back now. It basically is a 301 redirect, but without redirecting individual users. We know it has yet to be supported on Bing or Yahoo, but Google supports it and they even support cross domain canonical instructions.

A WebmasterWorld thread has some SEOs discussing how effective it is. Some say it is really slow but ultimately works, some say it is very fast and works well. What do you say?

How well does the canonical tag work on Google?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Gaps In Roads on Google Maps, Don't Drive Off Virtual Cliff

rustybrick — 2010-03-19T07:56:12-05:00

A Google Maps Help thread reports that although there is a road that completely connects to each other, Google thinks the road has a gap in it. Since Google thinks there is a gap or ending to the road, the driving directions will not take someone all the way around.

Here is a screen shot of the virtual gap:

As you can see, the satellite imagery shows the road continues on, but Google seems to end at the arrow (which I added to the image). You can see the full driving directions laid out on Google Maps over here and you can zoom in to the gap over here. What is interesting is that if you do switch to walking directions, the gap is noticeable, but the directions continue.

Since this is an issue in the UK, Google's mapping provider will have to fix the issue.

But I do not believe I have seen an example of this before.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 18, 2010

rustybrick — 2010-03-18T16:00:00-05:00

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.

Google Says Ads Should Not Open in New Windows, Unless You're In China

rustybrick — 2010-03-18T08:43:12-05:00

Via a FAQ on Google, which asks "Can I open the ads in a new window?" It says that you are not allowed to force the ads into a new window. But Google may open these ads in a new window for specific users, if those users are in China.

Here is what the answer Google provides for this question:

Generally, it is our policy to not allow Google ads to open in a new window. However, in a few markets, including China, we've found that opening ads in a new window better aligns with expected internet behavior and provides a more consistent, intuitive user experience.
Keeping in mind the importance of the user experience, we've enabled Google ads to open in new windows in locations where this is expected browsing behavior. This functionality is determined by the IP of the user, and is not an option you can select your AdSense account.

We also ask that you don't modify the AdSense ad code or alter the result of clicking on an ad on your website, as such behavior violates our program policies.

I guess Google would know what most U.S. based users expect, they have crawled most of the web and know how many ads open in a new window and how many do not. So I trust Google on this.

However, netmeg said in a WebmasterWorld thread that you can use Google Ad Manager to display AdSense and you can set those AdSense ads to open in a new window via Ad Manager. However, please read all of what netmeg said, he said:

If you use Ad Manager, you can set them to open in a new window. I did find this seemed to drastically inflate impressions, leading to lower CTR though. And I don't know if CTR has a direct influence on smart pricing, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. It's pretty important on the advertising side.

I doubt all my readers would agree that (1) it's best to keep users in the same window and (2) it impacts CTR.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google's Porn Issue With Children Related Keywords

rustybrick — 2010-03-18T08:29:41-05:00

I have covered way too many issues with porn on Google. But let me show you two recent examples that impacts children.

(1) A Google Web Search Help thread has a report from a searcher who is disgusted that Google will not remove a pornographic image of two girls for a search on [babysitter]. What upsets me most is that this person said he/she reported the image three or four times. Of course, I have no way of verifying that, so I am going by this person's word but nevertheless, the image should not be there.

If a kid goes to Google to find a picture of their babysitter, the last thing you want coming up is a picture of two naked women on a bed together. Here is a censored image to prove this comes up with normal moderate SafeSearch on:

(2) A second thread at the Google Web Search Help forums reports that when you type in "little girl" into Google Images search, Google auto-suggests "little girl no cloths." Here is a picture:

Yes, these suggestions are pulled from what people search for but Google does censor certain types of suggestions. We had issues like this before, such as with little kids having sex and other porn examples. Google does censor adult oriented suggestions and most people agree that is what Google should do.

For Google, this is a constant battle between those trying to inject porn in their search results and Google trying to keep their search results clean. It is not a fun battle.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

What's a Link? Is It an Email?

rustybrick — 2010-03-18T08:24:34-05:00

For all you out there that deal with clients every day, I figured I share with you a fun thread at WebmasterWorld. Let me just quote the post:

I was doing some link building for my local sites where people need to copy a paste a link which is on our site in a textarea.
I'm really shocked how many people don't know how to do this. Most of them don't even know the difference between an email address and a web address.

Can anyone reading this post tell me they didn't run into a client that didn't know the difference between an email address and web address? You all have, be honest.

I just hope those reading this all know the difference between an email and web address.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

YouTube Sets Thousand of Videos as Private

rustybrick — 2010-03-18T08:17:47-05:00

Hundreds of YouTubers are complaining that their videos that they are uploading are being set from the public status to private status. Obviously, if you set a video to private, most people won't be able to see the videos and thus the video views that YouTubers really seek out, will be way down.

Liz from YouTube support confirmed the bug in a YouTube Help thread. She said:

We've seen your posts about recently uploaded videos being converted to private (and not appearing as public as intended).
This situation has been reported to our engineering team and they're currently working on a fix for the bug. Rest assured that the team is aware of the issue and that the bug should be resolved soon.

Thank you for your understanding, and for reporting this situation to us!

There are literally dozens of threads on the issue, some of those threads, like this one has about a hundred posts or complaints in them.

As a side note, another YouTube bug is also impacting video views. There is confirmed issues with the AutoShare feature with Facebook. Liz explained:

Just a quick update from YouTube that there is currently a bug with AutoShare and Facebook. Our engineering team here is aware of the issue, and is working on getting AutoShare between YouTube & Facebook back up and running as usual again soon. In the meantime, thank you for your patience, we really appreciate it.

Forum discussion at YouTube Help.

Bing Maps Adds WorldWide Telescope & Google Maps Updates Android App

rustybrick — 2010-03-18T08:04:45-05:00

We have two different mapping announcements, one from Bing and one from Google. Bing's is the most interesting, in that they launched WorldWide Telescope data in their mapping software. Google updated their Google Maps for Android app to enable search 'n swipe, a latitude widget, and other changes.

Bing's telescope feature works by going to Bing Maps, and simply panning the maps up to the sky. Here is a screen capture:

Bing has partnered to get a ton of data about the sky maps, to learn more about it click here.

Google released version 4.1 of their maps app for Android. This version updated search results page, added a swipe feature, added a Latitude widget, plus a Maps live wallpaper, and lets you switch easily between Google Accounts. For more information about this update click here.

Forum discussion on Bing at WebmasterWorld and Google at Google Mobile Help.

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 17, 2010

rustybrick — 2010-03-17T16:00:00-05:00

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.

St. Patrick's Day Logos from Google, Yahoo, Bing & Others

rustybrick — 2010-03-17T08:46:12-05:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! We typically post a collection of the various logos from the search industry, including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask and others for the special day. To see the past years logo see our 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004 archives.

Now, for the 2010 logos for St. Patrick's Day:

Google:

Yahoo:

Bing:

Ask.com:

Orkut:

PPC Hero:

Search Engine Roundtable:

This year, DogPile and AOL do not seem to have special logos up. DogPile is sporting a March Madness suited up dog.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Update: DogPile added a logo for the day a bit later: