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Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: January 22, 2010

On January 22, 2010, In SEO, by rustybrick

In this weeks recap, we go a bit all over the place to get through the most important topics we covered in the past 7 days. We talked about a study that showed the minor impact Google personalized search has on SEO. There may have been a Yahoo Search update this week. Microsoft says they will purge their search data within 6 months. Bing’s auto-search suggestions get more current. Bing also shows search results for related queries. Google increased the Sitemaps limit. Google AdWords now has four professional exams. Yahoo released the network distribution feature, finally. SEOmoz built Open Site Explorer, a neat new useful tool. Google Maps lets you add real time content to your business listing. Don’t use the same phone number as your competitor, if you don’t want issues on your Google local listing. Search for Jesus on Google Images and you’ll catch him smoking and drinking. Google continues to cash in, they announced awesome 4th quarter earnings. SEO is being trademarked again, but the story is different. Martin Luther King day was this week, we have the logos for you. 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:

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

In this weeks recap, we go a bit all over the place to get through the most important topics we covered in the past 7 days. We talked about a study that showed the minor impact Google personalized search has on SEO. There may have been a Yahoo Search update this week. Microsoft says they will purge their search data within 6 months. Bing’s auto-search suggestions get more current. Bing also shows search results for related queries. Google increased the Sitemaps limit. Google AdWords now has four professional exams. Yahoo released the network distribution feature, finally. SEOmoz built Open Site Explorer, a neat new useful tool. Google Maps lets you add real time content to your business listing. Don’t use the same phone number as your competitor, if you don’t want issues on your Google local listing. Search for Jesus on Google Images and you’ll catch him smoking and drinking. Google continues to cash in, they announced awesome 4th quarter earnings. SEO is being trademarked again, but the story is different. Martin Luther King day was this week, we have the logos for you. 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:

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

Google and Yelp Could Change Local Search

On December 18, 2009, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

It looks like Google is about to acquire Yelp. No surprise, really. Is there a vertical Google hasn’t made a purchase in?
Two things happen when Google makes an acquisition in a vertical. A competitor comes along and outdoes them or Google develops the vertical into a profitable enterprise for itself. Notice I didn’t say Google [...]

It looks like Google is about to acquire Yelp. No surprise, really. Is there a vertical Google hasn’t made a purchase in?

Two things happen when Google makes an acquisition in a vertical. A competitor comes along and outdoes them or Google develops the vertical into a profitable enterprise for itself. Notice I didn’t say Google improves the vertical.

Well, Yelp pretty much owns the local business review vertical. There are very few companies even competing over that space. So if Google does acquire Yelp it will be one more vertical the search giant owns by virtue of its bigness. That’s not saying that local business reviews and local search will necessarily improve. But it will change.

All the major search engines already have local business centers, but at present they are nothing more than directories with bells and whistles. Sites like Yelp actually are better at attracting the local business audience. So Google will naturally want to advertise to that market and capture that audience. How will local search change?

For one thing, I think it will become pay per click advertising centered. I’d look to see how Google marries AdWords and Yelp to better help local businesses reach their target market. Another marriage that could ensue is Yelp and YouTube – local video search anyone? I see many great possibilities for improvement of Yelp with Google muscle behind it.

Yes, I think local search would change forever. How drastically is really anyone’s guess.

Increasing The Scope Of Existing PPC Campaigns Effectively

On December 13, 2009, In SEO, by Ravi

The complexity of Google Adwords is always on the rise and it takes time, skill and effort to achieve good results with PPC campaigns in terms of finding the sweet medium of increased conversions and reduced costs.
If you have an existing PPC campaign and it is performing decently, you can still increase its scope [...]

Google Takes Google Money Scams To Court

On December 8, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

Google has announced they are now legally going after those companies who have been scamming unsuspecting people since March of this year. We first wrote about the Google Money Scams in March, then in June the scams got worse. In July, Google warned the public about these scams but still many fell for it. Some scammers took to the phone to scam more and more people. They even began banning scammers from AdWords in July and continued that bans throughout. In fact, they recently stepped up the bans and made them permanent, even this month there was a big ban event.

Google said they filed suit against Pacific WebWorks (here is PDF of complaint). Google said, “To fight back, we’re working to stop various fraudulent “Google Money” schemes, and this week filed suit against Pacific WebWorks and several other unnamed defendants.”

It is sad to see it got this bad where this had to happen, but I am glad Google is taking serious action.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Google has announced they are now legally going after those companies who have been scamming unsuspecting people since March of this year. We first wrote about the Google Money Scams in March, then in June the scams got worse. In July, Google warned the public about these scams but still many fell for it. Some scammers took to the phone to scam more and more people. They even began banning scammers from AdWords in July and continued that bans throughout. In fact, they recently stepped up the bans and made them permanent, even this month there was a big ban event.

Google said they filed suit against Pacific WebWorks (here is PDF of complaint). Google said, “To fight back, we’re working to stop various fraudulent “Google Money” schemes, and this week filed suit against Pacific WebWorks and several other unnamed defendants.”

It is sad to see it got this bad where this had to happen, but I am glad Google is taking serious action.

Forum discussion at Google AdSense Help.

Google AdWords: Beyond Text-Based Search Ads

On December 8, 2009, In SEO, by Search Engine Optimization, Google Optimization - RSS Feeds

This is the fourth and last article in a series that guides you in using Google AdWords. In this article we ll cover keyword strategy taking a look at the use of negative keywords consider the AdWords contextual network and see how to use image and banner ads….

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Building Landing Pages for Google AdWords

On December 7, 2009, In SEO, by Search Engine Optimization, Google Optimization - RSS Feeds

In the last article on Google AdWords we talked about three core pay-per-click elements keywords ad text and landing pages. In this article we will delve deeply into landing pages since that s where conversions actually take place. This article is the third part of a four-part series….

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Google AdWords Opens Product Ads To All U.S. Advertisers

On November 25, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

The day has come where Google has opened the product ads product to all U.S. advertisers.

I believe Google is running two types of product ads, although I am not 100% sure. I believe one is commission based product AdWords ads and the other is normal PPC based product ads. Here is some history:

Back in January 2008, Google began testing product (base) results in ads. They continued the test in October 2008 with expandable links to these ads. Then in February 2009, the ads became very well seen by many searchers. In May they tested one line product links and in August they tested open product ads. In April, I wrote how to get product images in AdWords ads. Keep in mind, some of these campaigns were not CPA driven, like the one I mention above.

Here is a picture of some product ads in the search results:

Forum discussion at Google Merchant Help.

The day has come where Google has opened the product ads product to all U.S. advertisers.

I believe Google is running two types of product ads, although I am not 100% sure. I believe one is commission based product AdWords ads and the other is normal PPC based product ads. Here is some history:

Back in January 2008, Google began testing product (base) results in ads. They continued the test in October 2008 with expandable links to these ads. Then in February 2009, the ads became very well seen by many searchers. In May they tested one line product links and in August they tested open product ads. In April, I wrote how to get product images in AdWords ads. Keep in mind, some of these campaigns were not CPA driven, like the one I mention above.

Here is a picture of some product ads in the search results:

Forum discussion at Google Merchant Help.

Blue Google Map Pins in Google AdWords Results

On November 23, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports seeing a new type of Google AdWords result. This AdWords result seems to be combined with a Google Maps result, where it shows a blue pin, and address information on the right hand side of the search results, where the AdWords results are. Here is a picture from the thread:

Mike recently spotted this as well, and believes this has to do with the local extensions feature Google Maps released.

Personally, I cannot replicate this at all. I tried dozens of queries and non took.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports seeing a new type of Google AdWords result. This AdWords result seems to be combined with a Google Maps result, where it shows a blue pin, and address information on the right hand side of the search results, where the AdWords results are. Here is a picture from the thread:

Mike recently spotted this as well, and believes this has to do with the local extensions feature Google Maps released.

Personally, I cannot replicate this at all. I tried dozens of queries and non took.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Google Poland: Scam Ads in Polish AdWords

On November 18, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

This site rarely ever has guest posts, but I wanted to make an exception for a long time reader and SEO who often sends me tips and advice. Kasia Bauer, a search marketer from Poland, author of Magiczne SEO & SEM blog and co-owner of Divbi.com has written a guest post on Google AdWords scams in Poland. We hear about Google AdWords scams in the U.S. often enough, to the point where Google took action. In fact, just yesterday we reported how Google is getting stricter, but does this apply to outside the U.S.? What type of scams are occurring on Google there? So we have this guest post just on that topic.

Scam Ads in Polish AdWords

Recently, scam ads gained noticeable presence in Google AdWords across Central and Eastern Europe. Polish AdWords is currently experiencing a wave of campaigns that are preying on naive users. It has been at least 11 months since we have noticed first suspicious ads appearing on Google Network. It looks like Google is doing very little, or even nothing, to prevent them from showing.

How Do These Scams Work?

All the scams are based on premium SMS service. A user is lured to fill up a test and, in order to see it’s results, has to send a text message to number provided on the landing page. After getting the verification code the website will allow him or her to see test results with the “service”. Everything would be OK if only:

The ads would appear only with searches regarding related keywords
The landing pages weren’t misleading
The service would provide some real value
The service would not violate Google AdWords TOS

The AdWords advertising policies states:

Don’t use phishing or other scamming tactics.

Advertising is not permitted for sites collecting sensitive personal information or money with fake forms, false claims, or unauthorized use of Google Trademarks. Examples of personal information include email addresses, user names, passwords, and/or payment information. In addition, advertising is not permitted for ‘run your car on water’ programs or content.

The most popular “service” is the ”find out when will you die” test.

The ads are showing up both on search and content network. Here are screen captures:

After clicking on one of the ads, user will find himself on a landing page, which asks to fill up a test in order to find out date of his death. It consists of about 20 ridiculous or often very personal questions.

After finishing the test, user finds out that results are not free. He or she is presented with a prompt to pay for “the date of your death”. Sometimes the end pagesshow the information to send the money via SMS only. The cost of 1 text message is stated with very small font in the footer and is about 23 PLN (~$8.34).

Some landing pages are formatted in a misleading way. The price for paying via credit card is enlarged and bolded, and so is the information “pay via SMS”. Such design suggests that the price of the SMS is the enlarged one. However, the real price is stated further below, again with small font.

Polish Google representatives in Warsaw do not comment on the situation officially with anything else than “it is a really big problem”. This is hard to believe, since majority of those ads have similarities in their ad texts which could be flagged by a simple keyword filter. It is really disappointing to see how the leading ad network is not only being polluted this way, but also artificially increases CPC for legitimate advertisers. Whole situation makes one think that having 97%+ of local search market made Google less likely to act.

You can find more on this topic in my Polish blog post: Scam Ads in Poland.

In classic Search Engine Roundtable style… Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help, Golden Line and Gazeta.pl Forum.

This site rarely ever has guest posts, but I wanted to make an exception for a long time reader and SEO who often sends me tips and advice. Kasia Bauer, a search marketer from Poland, author of Magiczne SEO & SEM blog and co-owner of Divbi.com has written a guest post on Google AdWords scams in Poland. We hear about Google AdWords scams in the U.S. often enough, to the point where Google took action. In fact, just yesterday we reported how Google is getting stricter, but does this apply to outside the U.S.? What type of scams are occurring on Google there? So we have this guest post just on that topic.

Scam Ads in Polish AdWords

Recently, scam ads gained noticeable presence in Google AdWords across Central and Eastern Europe. Polish AdWords is currently experiencing a wave of campaigns that are preying on naive users. It has been at least 11 months since we have noticed first suspicious ads appearing on Google Network. It looks like Google is doing very little, or even nothing, to prevent them from showing.

How Do These Scams Work?

All the scams are based on premium SMS service. A user is lured to fill up a test and, in order to see it’s results, has to send a text message to number provided on the landing page. After getting the verification code the website will allow him or her to see test results with the “service”. Everything would be OK if only:

The ads would appear only with searches regarding related keywords
The landing pages weren’t misleading
The service would provide some real value
The service would not violate Google AdWords TOS

The AdWords advertising policies states:

Don’t use phishing or other scamming tactics.

Advertising is not permitted for sites collecting sensitive personal information or money with fake forms, false claims, or unauthorized use of Google Trademarks. Examples of personal information include email addresses, user names, passwords, and/or payment information. In addition, advertising is not permitted for ‘run your car on water’ programs or content.

The most popular “service” is the ”find out when will you die” test.

The ads are showing up both on search and content network. Here are screen captures:

After clicking on one of the ads, user will find himself on a landing page, which asks to fill up a test in order to find out date of his death. It consists of about 20 ridiculous or often very personal questions.

After finishing the test, user finds out that results are not free. He or she is presented with a prompt to pay for “the date of your death”. Sometimes the end pagesshow the information to send the money via SMS only. The cost of 1 text message is stated with very small font in the footer and is about 23 PLN (~$8.34).

Some landing pages are formatted in a misleading way. The price for paying via credit card is enlarged and bolded, and so is the information “pay via SMS”. Such design suggests that the price of the SMS is the enlarged one. However, the real price is stated further below, again with small font.

Polish Google representatives in Warsaw do not comment on the situation officially with anything else than “it is a really big problem”. This is hard to believe, since majority of those ads have similarities in their ad texts which could be flagged by a simple keyword filter. It is really disappointing to see how the leading ad network is not only being polluted this way, but also artificially increases CPC for legitimate advertisers. Whole situation makes one think that having 97%+ of local search market made Google less likely to act.

You can find more on this topic in my Polish blog post: Scam Ads in Poland.

In classic Search Engine Roundtable style… Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help, Golden Line and Gazeta.pl Forum.

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: November 6, 2009

On November 6, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

Google shows about ten Sesame Streets logos over three days for their 40th anniversary. Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL and others dressed up for Halloween. Google’s home page fade adds “this space left blank,” and it is ridiculous. AdSense is testing out a new interface. AdWords keeps banning advertisers. We got the detailed November 2009 Google webmaster report. AdWords now officially has Sitelinks. Publishers need to update their Sitemaps for Google News within six months. Google Maps updated the business listing quality guidelines. Google created a single dashboard. Google adds page previews to search options. MSN previews a new design. Matt Cutts drops WebmasterWorld cold. Sphinn leaves beta and adds premium features. PubCon is next week, we will have live real time coverage of the sessions. 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.”

Some Of The Topics Discussed:

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

Google shows about ten Sesame Streets logos over three days for their 40th anniversary. Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL and others dressed up for Halloween. Google’s home page fade adds “this space left blank,” and it is ridiculous. AdSense is testing out a new interface. AdWords keeps banning advertisers. We got the detailed November 2009 Google webmaster report. AdWords now officially has Sitelinks. Publishers need to update their Sitemaps for Google News within six months. Google Maps updated the business listing quality guidelines. Google created a single dashboard. Google adds page previews to search options. MSN previews a new design. Matt Cutts drops WebmasterWorld cold. Sphinn leaves beta and adds premium features. PubCon is next week, we will have live real time coverage of the sessions. 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.”

Some Of The Topics Discussed:

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

Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: January 22, 2010

Google and Yelp Could Change Local Search

Increasing The Scope Of Existing PPC Campaigns Effectively

Google Takes Google Money Scams To Court

Google AdWords: Beyond Text-Based Search Ads

Building Landing Pages for Google AdWords

Google AdWords Opens Product Ads To All U.S. Advertisers

Blue Google Map Pins in Google AdWords Results

Google Poland: Scam Ads in Polish AdWords

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