Search Engine Roundtable

Daily Search Forum Recap: December 1, 2009

rustybrick — 2009-12-01T16:00:00-05:00

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.

SES Chicago '09 Live Blogging Schedule

rustybrick — 2009-12-01T15:50:28-05:00

Did you know that the first conference we ever covered here was SES Chicago and that back six years ago in 2003? Since then we covered this conference every year but last. And we will be covering SES Chicago 2009 this year. For our past years coverage see SES Chicago 2003, SES Chicago 2004, SES Chicago 2005, SES Chicago 2006 and SES Chicago 2007. Next week, Monday, December 7th starts SES Chicago 2009.

We have several volunteers that will be helping with the live blog coverage on the CoverItLive tool. They include Brian Ussery aka Beussery, Marty Weintraub from aimClear, Chris Boggs of Rosetta and myself.

Here is our coverage schedule, which is subject to change at the last minute:

Monday, December 7 - Day 1
9:00am-10:15am
Jeff Jarvis, Author of What Would Google Do? covered by Barry Schwartz
10:30am-11:30am
Mixed Media SERPs covered by Barry Schwartz
Search Analytics covered by Brian Ussery
Search Industry Today covered by Chris Boggs
11:45am-12:45pm
How to Turn Your Web Analytics Into a Money-Making Machine covered by Brian Ussery
Search: Where to Next? covered by Chris Boggs
1:45pm-2:45pm
Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers covered by Barry Schwartz
3:15pm-4:15pm
SEO Through Blogs & Feeds covered by Barry Schwartz
Search and the Integrated Marketing Mix covered by Chris Boggs
4:30pm-5:30pm
Customer Insights via Search Engine Tools covered by Chris Boggs & Marty Weintraub
Ghost Blogging, Tweeting, Content Production - Ethical? Does It Matter? covered by Barry Schwartz

Tuesday, December 8 - Day 2
10:30am-11:45am
Developments in Information Retrieval on the Web covered by Brian Ussery & Marty Weintraub
Social Media Checklist covered by Barry Schwartz
1:00pm-2:15pm
Real Time SEO: No More Yesterday's News covered by Barry Schwartz & Marty Weintraub
Landing Page Optimization: The 7 Deadly Sins covered by Brian Ussery
2:30pm-3:45pm
Igniting Viral Campaigns covered by Barry Schwartz
4:15pm-5:30pm
How to Speak Geek: Working Collaboratively With Your IT Department to Achieve Business Goals covered by Chris Boggs
Turning Simple Change into Big Profit covered by Brian Ussery
Cool Mobile Apps, Augmented Reality - It's a Brave New World! covered by Barry Schwartz

Wednesday, December 9 - Day 3
9:00am-10:00am
Keynote: Dan Siroker, Former Deputy New Media Director, Obama Transition Team and Founder, CarrotSticks covered by Barry Schwartz
10:30am-11:45am
PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle covered by Chris Boggs & Barry Schwartz
12:45pm-2:00pm
Facebook Rockstars RoundTable: Marketing For the Other Internet covered by Barry Schwartz & Brian Ussery
2:30pm-3:45pm
Search Becomes the Display OS covered by Barry Schwartz

For those that will be there, I look forward to seeing you. For those that cannot make it, I hope we are covering the sessions you most want to hear about.

Google, Yahoo & Ask Honor World AIDS Day

rustybrick — 2009-12-01T08:44:15-05:00

If you visit Google, Yahoo or Ask.com today, you will see they are all honoring World AIDS Day with a red bow on their logo or on their home page. Bing, AOL, DogPile and others seem to be missing the mention today (we may put something up later).

Google has a ribbon under the search box which links to google.org/world-aids-day-2009.html (yes, Google.org):

Yahoo has an animated logo which links to yahoo.com/worldaidsday/:

Flash Version:

Static Version:

Ask.com is the only one linking to a search result (go figure):

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

How to Match Google Merchant Products in Google AdWords Product Ads

rustybrick — 2009-12-01T08:29:58-05:00

Recently, Google opened product AdWords ads all U.S. based advertisers and merchants. So now, if you use Google Merchant Center (aka Google Base), you can tie your AdWords account to it and show those fancy product images, pricing and so on, in your AdWords ads.

A WebmasterWorld thread has some advertisers a bit upset with the matching of the query, ad and the products actually displayed. Some are saying that the products being displayed for the query used is not showing the most relevant products.

Senior member, netmeg said, "Some of the products aren't matched properly (and I looked at some of my competitors, and theirs are even worse - lucky for me!)" A moderator, Buckworks, said "My AdWords rep said the system chooses which product to display based on parameters in the product's description but didn't say what those were and couldn't tell me how they could be tweaked."

Google did mention in their FAQs that you should use the new product extensions attributes to help Google better match the products in your feed to the query and your ads. Google said on that page:

To help us better match your Google Merchant products to search queries, you may attach one or more optional attributes to your Google Merchant Center offers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google AdSense Bans Publisher For Copyright Infringement Over Their Own Copyrights

rustybrick — 2009-12-01T08:20:45-05:00

A Google AdSense Help thread reports that an AdSense publisher was banned or disapproved from Google AdSense because the content on their web site is copyrighted. This happens all the time, but in this case, the content that is copyrighted is copyrighted by them and they have the right to use this content - since it is theirs.

The publisher wrote:

I am the one and only owner of the copyright of all my books (they are in print for more than 10 years) presented on my site. However my site hasn't been approved for Google Adsense because "it contains copyrighted material". Yes, the material is copyrighted. But it is copyrighted by me.

The email that said that rigmarole to me is "noreply". How can I point out the silly mistake to the Google worker who made it?

You just have to laugh, don't you?

Googler, Jennifer, replied to the thread saying, "I'll look into this and get back to you."

Can't wait to see the outcome. Either this person is lying or something weird is going on.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Disputed Territory? Google Maps Localizes Borders Based on Local Laws

rustybrick — 2009-12-01T08:08:23-05:00

Did you know that there are countries out there that have a dispute on where their border begins and ends? Yea, you know that. But did you know that Google will show different borders depending on how and where you access Google Maps?

A Google Maps Help thread has a post from Brian from the Google Maps team who explains how this works. He said:

It is Google's standard practice to show all disputed regions around the world on its global properties, such as on maps.google.com. It has been Google’s consistent and global policy to depict disputed regions as per the claims made by the disputing/claiming nations on its global properties. This does not in any way endorse or affirm the position taken by any side but merely provides complete information on the prevailing geo-political situation to our users of global properties in a dispassionate and accurate manner. Products that have been localized to the local domain of a region such as maps.google.co.in may depict that country’s position as per the mandate of their local laws.

For example, compare Google India Maps to Google Maps and you will see the border lines look a bit different. Here are screen captures:

Google Maps India, The Border:

Google Maps US, The Border:

Notice the dotted lines in the US map, how it doesn't seem sure.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Google Suggest: "I Am Extremely Terrified Of Chinese People"

rustybrick — 2009-12-01T07:59:13-05:00

If you go to Google.com and just type in [I am] Google will then offer as the third suggestion, "I Am Extremely Terrified Of Chinese People" as a search suggestion. This is not new, it was reported back in February. But back then, you had to type in [I am extremely] to get this search suggestion, now all you need is [I am] to return the search suggestion.

Here is a screen capture:

Yes, Google's search suggestions are completely algorithmic. But Google has been known to remove search suggestions - unlike their policy for not removing search results.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Daily Search Forum Recap: November 30, 2009

rustybrick — 2009-11-30T16:00:00-05:00

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 Caffeine Index Now on a Google Data Center: 209.85.225.103

rustybrick — 2009-11-30T08:55:54-05:00

Friday, I reported that there was a possible Google update taking place. Truth be told, it was actually webmasters hitting on the data center which showed the Google Caffeine results.

Matt Cutts of Google confirmed that Caffeine was going live on 209.85.225.103, at least for 50% of the users hitting that data center. He also said that I was totally off in reporting that Google is doing a major update - they are not. What people are seeing is the Caffeine results on that single data center.

Google did tell us that they would not fully launch Caffeine until after the holiday season. In fact, they promised to launch Caffeine on a single data center, and this is what they did.

So the update is not a full update, just a Caffeine update on a single Google data center that should not have a huge impact on online retailers during this holiday season.

I should clarify that my post on Friday did actually say that this can be that Caffeine was live on a single data center and those reporting the update was indeed only looking at the data center. In any event, Caffeine is now live on that single data center (at least 50% of the time), so check it out at 209.85.225.103.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums, Google Webmaster Help and WebmasterWorld.

Google Patent on Anchor Based Google Sitelinks

rustybrick — 2009-11-30T08:50:45-05:00

If you are a patent junky, then you may like this relatively new one. A patent application submitted November 19th by Google named artificial anchor for a document may shed some light on the jump down Google snippets or anchor based Google Sitelinks we have seen creep into the Google search results in August and September.

As always, Bill Slawski converts the patent into English for all of us to read. But here is the abstract:

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for linking to an intra-document portion of a target document includes receiving an address for a target document identified by a search engine in response to a query, the target document including query-relevant text that identifies an intra-document portion of the target document, the intra-document portion including the query relevant text. An artificial anchor is generated, the artificial anchor corresponding to the intra-document portion. The artificial anchor is appended the address.

Currently, I am way too tired to look into this right now, so just hit the thread at WebmasterWorld to dig deeper.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Adult Escort Business Owner Looking for Fair Shot in Google?

rustybrick — 2009-11-30T08:40:30-05:00

We have reported a few times how Google Maps is being abused by seductive images and local results. What I found incredibly interesting was a thread at Google Maps Help where a Googler called out one person for spamming Google Maps and then reporting it.

Joel from Google asked:

V London & Jack London - you are both with the same domain: vlondonescorts.co.uk which is a source of this spam. What are you trying to achieve by reporting threads like this here?

I have seen many weird things in forums, but this is up there.

This person goes on to complain about the London Escort listings being at the top of the Google search results. I suspect his main business listing was removed or does not rank well for that search. The others keep coming in with new listings each day, in an effort to out spam Google's spam detection tools.

I don't fully get why he would come in and complain, especially in such a category - but what do I know.

Forum discussion at two Google Maps Help threads.

Public Transit Google Search Leads Teacher to Porn in Class

rustybrick — 2009-11-30T08:30:42-05:00

I might be exaggerating just a bit in the title of this post, but it appears that a teacher was searching for public transit information in class and was shown pornographic web sites instead. A Google Web Search Help thread says he/she searched for [is the tube free] in Google, while in class, and was shown a listing of pornographic sites.

The searcher said:

I don't even see the relevance of porn when asking a question about public transport. I know the tube isn't free, I was just curious if anyone said it was, stupidly.

Tube in this case was meant to be public transit, as in tunnels and roads like that. Not as in YouTube or TV or free television.

Most of the search results for that query lead to pornographic sites, here is a screen shot of the first two results:

Yes, my safesearch is set to the normal setting. There is no response from a Googler yet, but I see why these types of results came up for such a query - just in hindsight, not sure if they should have.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: November 27, 2009

rustybrick — 2009-11-27T18:00:00-05:00

There seems to be a major Google update going on, some suspect it is Caffeine related while others do not. Google said comment spam can hurt you bad. Rich snippets are now showing in other Google properties, such as Google UK and Canada. Don't waste your time with a banned domain. Bing and News Corp try to team up to bait Google on indexing their content. Is Bing now handling 301 redirects properly? If you are banned in AdWords, you likely will never be unbanned. Google opened product ads to all U.S. advertisers and then showed off all their new ad styles. Google Maps bug removed the local pack for web design like searches. Google AdSense bug showed weird HTML characters in the ads. Google is testing related search results in the top navigation bar. The Michelle Obama racist image reappeared and Google could not remove it, so they placed an ad as to why not. Finally, we posted all the Thanksgiving logos from Google, Yahoo, AOL, Ask.com, Bing, Dogpile and others - so check it out. 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
For the original iTunes version, click here or to see the YouTube version in higher quality, click play & hit "HD."

Search Topics of Discussion:
Google SEO:

Bing:

Google AdWords:

Google Maps:

Google Bug Removes Web Designers in Local Pack

Google AdSense:

Google AdSense Bug Displaying Weird Characters in Ads

Misc Google:

Community:

Thanksgiving Greetings 2009 From Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask & Search Industry

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Daily Search Forum Recap: November 27, 2009

rustybrick — 2009-11-27T16:00:00-05:00

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.

Major Google Search Thanksgiving '09 Update? Caffeine Related?

rustybrick — 2009-11-27T09:11:23-05:00

Update: Matt Cutts from Google confirmed that Caffeine is live 50% of the time in the 209.85.225.103 data center. See below for more info.

There are several threads reporting major changes in the Google search results, starting yesterday. We have threads at DigitalPoint Forums, Google Webmaster Help and an updated WebmasterWorld thread.

In short, people are noticing major changes in the search results. Some believe it is a Caffeine index rolling into their search results. Some believe it is just a normal update and not Caffeine related. We do know that Matt Cutts promised not to roll out Caffeine until after the holidays and a roll out at this time would be the worst possible time for online retailers (unless you rank very well in Caffeine.

We also know Google is eventually rolling out Caffeine to a single data center, which can be why many people are noting an update. But again, it might be that these folks are on this single data center or that this is not a Caffeine update. I certainly hope this was not a mistake and Google released the Caffeine update prematurely.

The data center people are talking about now is 209.85.225.103.

People are saying that their traffic is down because of it, but some are also noting that it is/was DigitalPoint Forums, Google Webmaster Help and an updated WebmasterWorld.

Update from Matt Cutts:

My plane landed and I had time to check. 209.85.225.103 as an IP address currently hits the Caffeine data center about 50% of the time, so that's probably what the person at DP was seeing.
I think it's really risky to take a few threads and turn that into a "major Google update." For example, one of the links you pointed to was asking about the rankings for their site webtlk.com. Given links like http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:iwkj8P8xoSEJ:teqtonik.com/+http://teqtonik.com/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a talking about data recovery and pointing to that site, I'm guessing that Google just got better at determining how much weight should be given to links to that site.

So 209.85.225.103 does hit the Caffeine data center more often than other IP addresses, but it's always been the plan that Caffeine would roll out at one data center (no more data centers will get Caffeine until at least January).

But I would avoid generalizing, at least as going by the one report that mentioned a specific site that I looked into. Of course, on a lot of the webmaster forums you can't tell what site they're talking about, so it's hard to do any debugging on what might have happened to individual sites there.