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Chrome support for Greasemonkey

On February 8, 2010, In SEO, by Matt Cutts

Back in December, I happened to click on a Greasemonkey script in Chrome and was shocked that it just worked. At the time, I wrote a note within Google that said

Whoa. I just clicked on a Greasemonkey script in the latest dev version of Chrome (4.0.266.0 on Linux). Chrome offered to install the GM script, [...]

Back in December, I happened to click on a Greasemonkey script in Chrome and was shocked that it just worked. At the time, I wrote a note within Google that said

Whoa. I just clicked on a Greasemonkey script in the latest dev version of Chrome (4.0.266.0 on Linux). Chrome offered to install the GM script, so I said okay. The script ran perfectly in Chrome with no changes at all! I don’t know how many Greasemonkey scripts will run in Chrome unchanged, but at least some will.

Last week brought that news as an official announcement. My guess is that scripts that don’t use specific Greasemonkey APIs should be fine.

(Side-note: I found a good post from November that claims that ~60% of Greasemonkey scripts don’t use any sort of special API calls at all. The top API calls appear to be GM_getValue and GM_setValue (16.5% of Greasemonkey scripts), plus GM_xmlhttpRequest (15.5% of Greasemonkey scripts). It’s unclear which of these functions might be worth supporting. Some could have security implications (GM_xmlhttpRequest). Others like the get/setValue functions could be done by using other ways to store data.)

So this is cool. There’s a good chance that your favorite Greasemonkey script might just work in Chrome. Personally, I recommend the dev channel version of Chrome. It gets all the cool features early, and it’s been very stable/fast for me.

Google Suggest Leads to 14 Year Old Stripping

On January 11, 2010, In SEO, by rustybrick

We asked earlier today if Google should censor non-adult search suggestions. Google does censor out adult-oriented or illegal suggestions. But often they do not get censored unless someone really points it out in a public setting.

A Google Web Search Help thread points out the next upsetting search suggestion found on Google. Now, it isn’t upsetting to me that Google is showing it, it is upsetting to me why Google is showing this. I’ll explain in a bit. Here is a picture showing the search suggestion for [14 year old stripping].

Yea, Google is showing a search suggestion for [14 year old stripping.] Why? I guess because it is a popular query associated with the number 14. People who enter in 14 into Google are very likely to search for [14 year old stripping]. That is what is sad to me.

In any event, Google will remove the both adult-oriented and illegal search suggestion soon enough.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

We asked earlier today if Google should censor non-adult search suggestions. Google does censor out adult-oriented or illegal suggestions. But often they do not get censored unless someone really points it out in a public setting.

A Google Web Search Help thread points out the next upsetting search suggestion found on Google. Now, it isn’t upsetting to me that Google is showing it, it is upsetting to me why Google is showing this. I’ll explain in a bit. Here is a picture showing the search suggestion for [14 year old stripping].

Yea, Google is showing a search suggestion for [14 year old stripping.] Why? I guess because it is a popular query associated with the number 14. People who enter in 14 into Google are very likely to search for [14 year old stripping]. That is what is sad to me.

In any event, Google will remove the both adult-oriented and illegal search suggestion soon enough.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

Google Back Tracks a Bit on Dropping SEOs & Webmasters from Local Results

On January 7, 2010, In SEO, by rustybrick

A week or so ago, we reported how Google removed SEOs from local pack in the search results. The move caused a pretty big debate in the industry where many SEOs felt this was a nail in the coffin for Google really hating the SEO industry. Personally, I think it is a fun debate, but I don’t think all of Google hates the industry.

In any event, Joel H. from the Google Maps team updated the Google Maps Help thread with a revised statement, implying that Google may change their minds on this decision. He said:

I think I understand both sides of the issue: I understand that local search results can have a positive impact for some businesses. But I also see that some SEOs/web designers want their website, not a local listing, to be the primary destination. And I want to clarify that today we think this is a better user experience – to display primarily web search results for some of these queries. Using words in or near seem to be suggestive of a different intent. In the end, these search results will fluctuate as we fine tune our results pages to get the user the best answer.

Again, he said, “I want to clarify that today we think this is a better user experience.” He also then went on to explain why the words in or near don’t always provide a clear indicator of local intent.

In any event, if I had to guess – Google will wait to see how both searchers approach the missing SEO or web design related local packs. They will also see if SEOs and web designers calm down over this change. I assume if SEOs don’t calm down about the change, Google might consider adding it back. But clearly, Google finds the categories either not relevant or too hard to handle from a spam perspective.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

A week or so ago, we reported how Google removed SEOs from local pack in the search results. The move caused a pretty big debate in the industry where many SEOs felt this was a nail in the coffin for Google really hating the SEO industry. Personally, I think it is a fun debate, but I don’t think all of Google hates the industry.

In any event, Joel H. from the Google Maps team updated the Google Maps Help thread with a revised statement, implying that Google may change their minds on this decision. He said:

I think I understand both sides of the issue: I understand that local search results can have a positive impact for some businesses. But I also see that some SEOs/web designers want their website, not a local listing, to be the primary destination. And I want to clarify that today we think this is a better user experience – to display primarily web search results for some of these queries. Using words in or near seem to be suggestive of a different intent. In the end, these search results will fluctuate as we fine tune our results pages to get the user the best answer.

Again, he said, “I want to clarify that today we think this is a better user experience.” He also then went on to explain why the words in or near don’t always provide a clear indicator of local intent.

In any event, if I had to guess – Google will wait to see how both searchers approach the missing SEO or web design related local packs. They will also see if SEOs and web designers calm down over this change. I assume if SEOs don’t calm down about the change, Google might consider adding it back. But clearly, Google finds the categories either not relevant or too hard to handle from a spam perspective.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.

Reporting Google Maps Business Listing Spam to Google

On December 30, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

Mike reported how Google likes you to report Google Maps business listing spam to them. Google Maps, especially the local business center, has been a target for spammers in the past couple years. Google has tried numerous ways to have people report spam to them.

I guess recently, Google changed it to ask people to report a problem with the business listing via the “report a problem” link either on the map itself or on the business’s place page. As Mike said, Maps Guide Cecelia noted that the “time frame [for spam removal] most likely varies based on the number of reports we receive.”

To report spam on a business’s places page, you go to the “more info” link on the search results of that listing and then click on the “more” link. The more link will open up options, such as “report a problem”:

After you click the “report a problem” link, a form pops up asking for more information:

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Mike reported how Google likes you to report Google Maps business listing spam to them. Google Maps, especially the local business center, has been a target for spammers in the past couple years. Google has tried numerous ways to have people report spam to them.

I guess recently, Google changed it to ask people to report a problem with the business listing via the “report a problem” link either on the map itself or on the business’s place page. As Mike said, Maps Guide Cecelia noted that the “time frame [for spam removal] most likely varies based on the number of reports we receive.”

To report spam on a business’s places page, you go to the “more info” link on the search results of that listing and then click on the “more” link. The more link will open up options, such as “report a problem”:

After you click the “report a problem” link, a form pops up asking for more information:

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Porn on Google Image Search with Strict Search On

On December 28, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that a search on (beware before you click) [cricket talks] in Google Image search returns a pornographic image. It happens both on standard safe search and strict safe search, but goes away completely when you turn off the safe search feature.

Here is a picture, which I cropped a bit to show the result here:

I personally see the image on the 3rd row when strict search is on and the second row when safe search is in standard or moderate mode.

What is interesting is that it is hosted on a pretty bad domain, i.e. asianteenmovieslesbiananal.info. OpenDNS for me blocks the domain due to the domain and network containing pornography and nudity. I guess Google got mixed up with this one.

On a related note, a Google News Help thread reports that Google News had an image of a PlayBoy teaser on their most viewed section. I personally did not see it, but it would not have been the first time seductive or nude images showed up on the front page of Google News.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & Google News Help.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that a search on (beware before you click) [cricket talks] in Google Image search returns a pornographic image. It happens both on standard safe search and strict safe search, but goes away completely when you turn off the safe search feature.

Here is a picture, which I cropped a bit to show the result here:

I personally see the image on the 3rd row when strict search is on and the second row when safe search is in standard or moderate mode.

What is interesting is that it is hosted on a pretty bad domain, i.e. asianteenmovieslesbiananal.info. OpenDNS for me blocks the domain due to the domain and network containing pornography and nudity. I guess Google got mixed up with this one.

On a related note, a Google News Help thread reports that Google News had an image of a PlayBoy teaser on their most viewed section. I personally did not see it, but it would not have been the first time seductive or nude images showed up on the front page of Google News.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & Google News Help.

How To Find a Domain’s # of Indexed Pages In Google Post-Caffeine

On December 2, 2009, In SEO, by Andrew Shotland

In the olden days, as in before this week, you used to be able to get an idea of how many pages you had in Google’s index by searching “site:<yourdomain>”. The resulting page would say something like “results 1-10 of 1,390,000″ which while not entirely accurate gave you a general idea of how well indexed [...]

In the olden days, as in before this week, you used to be able to get an idea of how many pages you had in Google’s index by searching “site:<yourdomain>”. The resulting page would say something like “results 1-10 of 1,390,000″ which while not entirely accurate gave you a general idea of how well indexed your site was. Now with the official launch of Google Caffeine (update: I stand corrected, this is not a Caffeine issue but a new GOOG UI issue that I neglected to stay on top of – thanks Rhaghavan), the site: query no longer displays the number of total results (update: at least it doesn’t work for me but as you can see in the comments others have not experienced this yet).

While many people were unduly obsessed with this number, it did have its uses. For example, while big swings in the reported number say from 10,000,000 to 236,000 were scary but irrelevant, small changes in the reported number seemed to be more in sync with SEO problems or fixes.

So if you still want to find out how many pages your domain has in the index how do you do it?

Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and submit xml sitemaps for every URL on your domain. The Sitemaps report in GWT will then show the number of indexed URLs from your sitemaps (btw it’s not clear that this number is accurate either). My guess is getting more xml sitemaps submitted was one of the primary reasons that GOOG stopped reporting this number. That and maybe saving bandwidth from all of those site: queries that nervous site owners did all day long.
If you don’t want to give GOOG your data via GWT, then you can still do a fake site: query by using “inurl:<yourdomain>”. Make sure you don’t use “www” in the query (e.g. inurl:localseoguide.com). This isn’t a perfect query – sites that incorporate your domain into their URLs will show up (e.g. www.alexa.com/siteinfo/localseoguide.com), but for most sites this shouldn’t be a huge number of URLs. It’s hard to judge how accurate this query is but I have tried it for several client sites and it seems to square up pretty well with how many pages they seem to have.If anyone has any other ideas feel free to add them to the comments and/or put them on your blog, link back here and it will show up in the trackbacks.

Google AdWords Team Points Out Flaw in Google Keyword Tool

On November 23, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

A Google AdWords API Help thread estimated position or average CPC being returned by the AdWords API differs from that of the Google Keyword Tool.

Eric Koleda from the Google AdWords API Team replied basically pointing fault at the tool.

I think the problem here lies in the Keyword Tool’s web interface.

You’ll notice that changing the match type drop down from Broad to Phrase or Exact does not change the estimated position or average CPC. It is unlikely that the match type has no effect on these parameters, and in the API changing the match type does change the returned position and CPC values. My guess is that the web tool is always using the Broad match type for getting estimates, and that the numbers returned by the API are accurate.

I validated that the Google keyword tool does not change the estimated position or average CPC when you change the match type from broad, exact, or phrase types. Logically, it would make sense that this means the keyword tool is off when reporting on those factors and narrowing the results by match type.

It seems if you want to get more accurate numbers for estimated position or average CPC you would have to use the AdWords API.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords API Help.