July 14, 2006
Lunch with Pheedo
 I had lunch today with Bill Flitter, founder and VP marketing of RSS ad network Pheedo.com. Walking up to the restaurant, I knew he'd already arrived. How? I passed his vehicle.
Posted by Pamela Parker on Jul. 14, 2006 |
Permalink
Google Sends Aspirin After AdWords Changes Causes Headache
Earlier this week, Al Scillitani posted at Marketing Pilgrim about how all the recent Google AdWords changes were giving him a headache. Today, he posted how in response, he'd been sent some acetaminophen in response from Google. I thought it was interesting enough to note in today's search headlines roundup but not that big of a deal overall. How wrong I was :)
Over 3,000 Diggs later, the story's got legs. Adam Lasnik from Google's search quality team says he's the culprit. Adam's actually got nothing to do with AdWords, but the gesture was funny anyway.
Postscript: I deliberately went with aspirin (acetylsalicylate) in the headline, which is a different than acetaminophen, simply because it makes the headline sound catchier. But parents, remember, they aren't the same thing and can have serious issues if you give a child aspirin when they have a viral infection. For more about Reye's Syndrome, see this site.
Posted by Danny Sullivan on Jul. 14, 2006 |
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Talking MySpace on CNBC Tonight
I'll be back on CNBC's "On the Money" tonight discussing MySpace's incredible spike in traffic with Vanity Fair's Michael Wolf.
The show's at 7:00 EST, the segment will run at around 7:15, if you'd like to tune in.
Yahoo Tests Redirecting Some Searches To Site Explorer & Yahoo Search Update
Yahoo is testing out redirecting some of those who conduct a link command or site command search at search.yahoo.com to the Yahoo Site Explorer tool. I reported this and just now received confirmation from Yahoo that they are testing out this solution with a "percentage of users" conducting these searches. Yahoo has always wanted to move these special searches off the main search.yahoo.com page and onto the Site Explorer front.
On other Yahoo news, Yahoo just announced a weather report stating, "we rolled out an index update last night. As usual, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index." Want to discuss the Site Explorer change in our forums, join the discussion named Yahoo operators re-directing to Site Explorer.
Search Headlines & Links: July 14, 2006
Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along
with other items we've spotted but not blogged separately:
- Google:
No, We Don't Let Click Fraud Happen
We posted earlier about Google CEO Eric Schmidt quoted as saying click fraud
was "self correcting" with an economic solution of "let it happen." Those
quotes got the blogosphere buzzing. Google's now responded on its official
blog in "Let click fraud happen"? Uh, no., to say that Schmidt was talking
about hypothetical approaches to click fraud rather than what Google itself
does. The post also links to the entire presentation, so people can watch and
judge for themselves....
-
Microsoft: "Enterprise Search Is Our Business" (It's Not) & Google Can't Have
It (They Don't)
Microsoft to Google: Hands off enterprise search from News.com and a similar
report from The Register both cite Microsoft Chief Operating Office Kevin
Turner declaring "enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google
is not going to take that business." Gosh -- I though enterprise search was
Autonomy's business, Autonomy's house. This recent Investors Business Daily
article had Autonomy as the "clear leader" in enterprise search, followed by
FAST, IBM and then Google. Microsoft isn't even mentioned -- not once....
- Caffeine
and Tin Foil At Windows Live Search
What do Microsoft Interns, birthdays, caffeine and tin foil have to do with
each other? Well, nothing. But at Microsoft, they have tin foiled and over
caffeinated an Intern in the Windows Live Search group. Check out this picture
of the Intern sitting at his desk, with his computer wrapped up in tin foil
and with 99 cans of Cherry Coke. Why did they do this to that Intern?...
-
KinderStart Becomes KinderStopped In Ranking Lawsuit Against Google
Kinderstart has lost its case over lost rankings on Google, though the company
will be allowed to amend defamation claims relating to its PageRank zero
score. If it does by September 29, I suspect that reattempt will go down in
flames as well. But the entire case exposes vulnerabilities Google has created
for itself with mixed messages over how keyword ranking and Pagerank work....
- Many
Advertisers Are Frustrated With Google's New Quality Score & Pricing
On July 7th Jennifer Slegg reported that the new Google AdWords landing page
quality score algorithm has been updated. Since then, the effects of the new
algorithm have been rippling through AdWords campaigns and digging deep into
the pockets of many of Google's advertisers....
-
Newspapers To Team Up With Yahoo To Create An Online Classifieds Network
Reuters reports on a Business Week article that shows how a "loose consortium
of newspaper publishers" are in discussions with Yahoo's HotJobs to build an
online classifieds network. For Yahoo, this can help increase the popularity
of HotJobs and for the newspapers, it can help them drive more ad dollars, but
this time, online ad dollars....
-
Specialty Search Roundup #7
Another week and another set of specialty databases and research tools that
were posted on ResourceShelf during the past week or so....
Headlines & News From Elsewhere
-
Dr. Google Sends Pain Relief, Marketing Pilgrim
- Weather Report:
Yahoo! Search Index Update, Yahoo Search Blog
-
How 46% of SEO’s get away with not buying text links, Jim Boykin
-
Wikipedia gets RSS feeds, The Long Tail
-
The World Cup- The Internet "Red Card," The Spyware Guide (blog spam at
Blogger ranking well on MSN)
- Google Adwords Bot Using
Fake User Agent, Threadwatch
-
A Week in the Valley: GData, O'Reilly Radar
-
Advertising Placements by Industry and Top Sponsored Links, June 2006,
ClickZ
-
Web Ad Rivals Unite on Net Neutrality Plea to Senate, ClickZ
-
Nielsen's TV Moves and Google's Quality Score, ClickZ
- MSNBowling in
Canada, SEOmoz
-
New WordPress Plugin for SEO, Natural Search Blog
-
ExactSeek Releases Search Beta, Marketing Pilgrim
-
Daily Show clinches it: "Series of Tubes" is the new "Internets",
Valleywag (not search, but you need a laugh on Friday, and Senator Ted Stevens
explaining the internet will give you one.)
Posted by Danny Sullivan on Jul. 14, 2006 |
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Daily SearchCast, July 14, 2006: Judge Decides Google Can Rank Pages As It Pleases; Google Lets You Just Say No To ODP Descriptions; Microsoft An Enterprise Search Player? & More!
Today's search podcast covers KinderStart's loss in a lawsuit over search
rankings; Google allowing webmasters to prevent Open Directory descriptions from
being used for their pages; Microsoft's pot show at Google coming into
Microsoft's "enterprise search space" feels weak and more!
Tune-in by listening to this
MP3
file, listening via WebmasterRadio
at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our
Odeo channel or through
iTunes via this
link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained
here) or
though our Yahoo Podcasts
channel. Need more help tuning in live or finding the chat room? See the
Daily
SearchCast FAQ.
Below are links to items discussed:
-
KinderStart Becomes KinderStopped In Ranking Lawsuit Against Google
Kinderstart has lost its case over lost rankings on Google, though the company
will be allowed to amend defamation claims relating to its PageRank zero
score. If it does by September 29, I suspect that reattempt will go down in
flames as well. But the entire case exposes vulnerabilities Google has created
for itself with mixed messages over how keyword ranking and Pagerank work....
-
Interactive Review of SEOMoz's Page Strength Tool
Rand posted information about a new tool he launched named the Page Strength
Tool. It is pretty cool, and why can't it replace PageRank? :) Anyway, here is
my interactive review of the tool, you can find more details about what the
tool exactly measures here....
- Counting
Links At The Search Engines
Rand has an excellent post on how to get your hands dirty by manually checking
your links at the various search engines. He reviews Google's link command and
how bad it is. He also reviews MSN's link command and explains how you can add
modifiers to the link or linkdomain commands (i.e. exclude site A from the
command). Rand then reviews the Yahoo link command, and explains that although
Yahoo has Site Explorer, the "most accurate" result set still comes from
search.yahoo.com. He recommends you use search.yahoo.com and then append
&b=999 to the end of the URL manually. Like MSN,...
- Google
Adds Supports For NOODP Tag To Opt Out Of ODP Titles
Singing for joy! Google has now added support for the NOODP tag that MSN
initiated on May 22nd of this year. Yes, Danny asked for this back in June,
and now Google has granted our wish. If you have one of those pesky titles
pulled from the ODP (dmoz.org) directory, don't fret it, just add the NOODP
tag. How do you do it? Just add <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP"> to your
page source. If you want to just exclude MSN use <META NAME="msnbot" CONTENT="NOODP">
if you just want to exclude Google use <META NAME="googlebot" CONTENT="NOODP">....
- More
Details On Google Sitemaps Query Stats
DaveN at ThreadWatch posted his love/hate for Google Sitemaps, but what I find
to be the most interesting part is the discussion taking place in his post at
his blog. Vanessa Fox, Google Engineering, from the Inside Google Sitemaps
blog posted a comment at Dave's blog explaining why a the Sitemaps query stats
may say you come up for a popular term even though you don't mention that term
or phrase on your pages of your site....
- Eric
Schmidt Claims The PPC Model is "Self-Correcting" In Terms Of Click Fraud
Donna Bogatin reports that Google's CEO Eric Schmidt claims that click fraud
is "self-correcting." Meaning, Eventually, the price that the advertiser is
willing to pay for the conversion will decline, because the advertiser will
realize that these are bad clicks, in other words, the value of the ad
declines, so over some amount of time, the system is in-fact, self-correcting.
In fact, there is a perfect economic solution which is to let it happen. So
the "let it happen" quote, in terms of Eric Schmidt saying let click fraud
happen, has been buzzing through the blogging community. Schmidt writes off...
- Google:
No, We Don't Let Click Fraud Happen
We posted earlier about Google CEO Eric Schmidt quoted as saying click fraud
was "self correcting" with an economic solution of "let it happen." Those
quotes got the blogosphere buzzing. Google's now responded on its official
blog in "Let click fraud happen"? Uh, no., to say that Schmidt was talking
about hypothetical approaches to click fraud rather than what Google itself
does. The post also links to the entire presentation, so people can watch and
judge for themselves....
- Many
Advertisers Are Frustrated With Google's New Quality Score & Pricing
On July 7th Jennifer Slegg reported that the new Google AdWords landing page
quality score algorithm has been updated. Since then, the effects of the new
algorithm have been rippling through AdWords campaigns and digging deep into
the pockets of many of Google's advertisers....
-
Dr. Google Sends Pain Relief
-
Booby Trap, Star Trek: The Next Generation, episode 54
- Galaxy's Child, Star Trek:
The Next Generation, episode 90
-
Microsoft: "Enterprise Search Is Our Business" (It's Not) & Google Can't Have
It (They Don't)
Microsoft to Google: Hands off enterprise search from News.com and a similar
report from The Register both cite Microsoft Chief Operating Office Kevin
Turner declaring "enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google
is not going to take that business." Gosh -- I though enterprise search was
Autonomy's business, Autonomy's house. This recent Investors Business Daily
article had Autonomy as the "clear leader" in enterprise search, followed by
FAST, IBM and then Google. Microsoft isn't even mentioned -- not once....
-
Newspapers To Team Up With Yahoo To Create An Online Classifieds Network
Reuters reports on a Business Week article that shows how a "loose consortium
of newspaper publishers" are in discussions with Yahoo's HotJobs to build an
online classifieds network. For Yahoo, this can help increase the popularity
of HotJobs and for the newspapers, it can help them drive more ad dollars, but
this time, online ad dollars....
- Windows
Live Adds Search/Personalized Toggle & 34 New Markets
Gary Price points to two Windows Live blog posts including,
search/personalized toggle and now in 34 new markets. The first describes how
you can now toggle between search and personalized experience. Your last
selection will be remembered for your next session. The blog says that this
"replaces our old 'hide' option, with a much improved experience in 'search
only' mode that is faster and includes search filters." Windows Live also
entered 34 new markets including;.
- Yahoo's
Livesearch Added To Firefox
Yahoo launched Livesearch on AllTheWeb back in May. Danny has a detailed post
about how it is similar to Lookahead and Google Suggest. Anyway, as we
suggested on May 16th, Livesearch capabilities from Yahoo has been added to a
new version of Firefox 2.0. You can download the new Firefox here and give it
a try. Also you can read more at the Yahoo Search Blog, which has links to
more methods of downloads....
-
Specialty Search Roundup #7
Another week and another set of specialty databases and research tools that
were posted on ResourceShelf during the past week or so....
- Caffeine
and Tin Foil At Windows Live Search
What do Microsoft Interns, birthdays, caffeine and tin foil have to do with
each other? Well, nothing. But at Microsoft, they have tin foiled and over
caffeinated an Intern in the Windows Live Search group. Check out this picture
of the Intern sitting at his desk, with his computer wrapped up in tin foil
and with 99 cans of Cherry Coke. Why did they do this to that Intern?...
-
Here’s What Happens When You Scrape a Hacker Site, SEO BlackHat
Posted by Danny Sullivan on Jul. 14, 2006 |
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Search Forums Roundup: July 14, 2006
Today's SearchDay, Search Engine Forums Spotlight, features our weekly links to this week's hot topics from search engine forums across the web: Open Letter to Google Regarding Changes to The Ad Words Program - Analytics Analysis For Search Marketers - MySpace - Highest Traffic Site on Web - Google Search Finds Widespread Malicious Code, and more.
Posted by Chris Sherman on Jul. 14, 2006 |
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A Lengthy "Sneak Peek"
 Now, I've heard of giving viewers an online taste of offline content, but a 24-minute-long preview? Yup, that's what the "A Scanner Darkly" (Keanu Reeves' latest futuristic flick) marketers are doing, distributing an exclusive 24-minute-long preview to the gaming audience via IGN.com. The site is also offering video interviews with the actors and director.
Initially, I thought it was crazy to offer this big a bite of the new movie, but 24 minutes is really just long enough to get you through "act 1" where things start to get exciting, in your typical feature film. With that in mind, this seems like a good call. (Though I might have gone more wide to YouTube, etc.) Interestingly, they're having to age-restrict the preview since it's "R" rated.
Posted by Pamela Parker on Jul. 14, 2006 |
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Google Advertisers Upset Over Landing Page Scoring
It appears that Google's recent changes to its landing page quality assessment has many advertisers up in arms. The search-related forums are buzzing with accounts of advertisers that have had hundreds of keywords deactivated by Google without warning, with keywords that formerly fetched pennies per click are now suddenly $10 or more.
At least some of this fallout seems to be intended by Google, as a means of purging its network of "made for AdSense" (MFA) sites. According to a product marketing manager blogging on the company's Inside AdWords site, "We realize that some minimum bids may be too high to be cost-effective -- indeed, these high minimum bids are our way of motivating advertisers to either improve their landing pages or to simply stop using AdWords for those pages, while still giving some control over which keywords to advertise on. Although it is counter-intuitive to some who hear it, we'd rather show one less ad than to show an ad which leads to a poor user experience -- since long-term user trust in AdWords is of overarching importance."
The problem many advertisers have is that Google attaches a quality score with an entire site or domain, so one bad landing page can sabotage an entire campaign. Besides that, there are several reports of AdWords reps having no information and no answers for long-time advertisers whose business is being severely impacted.
Several people have been critical of the way Google went about implementing this, with little communication with advertisers. To be fair, Google announced in December that changes would be coming, but they did not enumerate the kinds of pages that the program would be targeting, and seem to have underestimated the number of advertisers impacted.
As one poster put it, Google is "using a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito." While some of the affected sites are MFA sites, others use image-based or Flash-based landing pages; or other low-text UIs, which are being judged by the AdsBot as low quality and are being penalized.
Some advertisers are supporting Google's actions, saying that reducing or eliminating search arbitrage will improve the quality of AdWords for users, leading them to click on ads more. A growing number of advertisers are beginning to weigh in on the forums with reports that their eCPM, CTR and pageviews are all up since Google began implementing the changes. It's likely many of these gains will be lost once more advertisers figure out what Google's AdsBot is looking for, but that would still accomplish the company's goal of encouraging "higher quality" landing pages.
Google: No, We Don't Let Click Fraud Happen
We posted
earlier about Google CEO Eric Schmidt quoted as saying click fraud was "self
correcting" with an economic solution of "let it happen." Those quotes got the
blogosphere buzzing. Google's now responded on its official blog in
"Let click fraud happen"? Uh, no., to say that Schmidt was talking about
hypothetical approaches to click fraud rather than what Google itself does. The
post also links to the entire
presentation, so people can watch and judge for themselves. Postscript: I've had a chance to listen to the key part now (it begins at 31 minutes, 11 seconds into the video), and the
context is important. Schmidt was specifically asked if there was an economic
solution to click fraud, as opposed to a technological one.
The "great fun" comment he makes about click fraud for Google's engineers
comes at 32:39 and is part of him saying immediately before this that Google
"worries about [click fraud] a lot" and the fun is trying to say ahead of the
challenge.
Then at 32:45, he says:
Let's imagine for purposes of argument that click fraud were not policed by
Google, and it were rampant. Eventually, the price that the advertiser is
willing to pay for the conversion will decline, because the advertiser will
realize that these are bad clicks. In other words, the value of the ad
declines. So over some amount of time, the system is in fact self correcting.
In fact, that there is a perfect economic solution which is to let it happen.
But because it is a bad thing, and because we don't like it and because it
does, at least for the short term, create some problems before the advertiser
sees it, we go ahead and try and detect it and eliminate it.
Postscript 2: Donna Bogatin in Challenge to Google's Eric and Shuman: Be real men, don't selectively hide the 'world's information' pushes back at Google suggesting things weren't in context in her original post.
Postscript 3 by Barry: Google has added a link back to Donna's original article this weekend. See the link at the top of Google's blog post in blue underlined, "quoting."
Posted by Danny Sullivan on Jul. 14, 2006 |
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Microsoft: "Enterprise Search Is Our Business" (It's Not) & Google Can't Have It (They Don't)
Microsoft to Google:
Hands off enterprise search from News.com and a similar
report from The Register both cite Microsoft Chief Operating Office Kevin
Turner declaring "enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google
is not going to take that business."
Gosh -- I though enterprise search was Autonomy's business, Autonomy's house.
This recent Investors Business Daily
article
had Autonomy as the "clear leader" in enterprise search, followed by FAST, IBM
and then Google. Microsoft isn't even mentioned -- not once.
Other reports (InformationWeek,
InternetWeek)
talk about Turner saying Microsoft is strong in the enterprise space overall.
Sure. But enterprise search as Microsoft's business? And Google's trying
to take it? That doesn't wash.
Google's been providing a dedicated enterprise search product, the Google
Search Appliance,
since 2002.
They also offered hosted site search solutions from before that. Enterprise
search isn't something Google's suddenly decided to do, just because Microsoft
is doing it. The same is true for other companies that fall under Turner's ire:
Those people are not going to be allowed to take food off of our plate,
because that is what they are intending to do.
In reality, Microsoft seems to have no serious enterprise search house at the
moment, and if anyone's trying to grab food off the plate, it pretty much sounds
like it's Microsoft doing the grabbing.
Posted by Danny Sullivan on Jul. 14, 2006 |
Permalink
Caffeine and Tin Foil At Windows Live Search
What do Microsoft Interns, birthdays, caffeine and tin foil have to do with each other? Well, nothing. But at Microsoft, they have tin foiled and over caffeinated an Intern in the Windows Live Search group. Check out this picture of the Intern sitting at his desk, with his computer wrapped up in tin foil and with 99 cans of Cherry Coke. Why did they do this to that Intern? They didn't want me to do any work on birthday, so they unplugged my computer and its many peripherals and wrapped them in foil along with pretty much everything else in my office. The soda cans I did to myself (thanks Microsoft for free soda) but the Dixie-cups full of diluted Cherry Coke were part of the "upgrade."
And you thought only Google and Yahoo had fun with search. I guess Bill can get down with it also.
KinderStart Becomes KinderStopped In Ranking Lawsuit Against Google
Kinderstart has lost its case over lost rankings on Google, though the
company will be allowed to amend defamation claims relating to
its PageRank zero score. If it does by September 29, I suspect that reattempt
will go down in flames as well. But the entire case exposes vulnerabilities
Google has created for itself with mixed messages over how keyword ranking and
Pagerank work. Google Sued
Over Site Penalty By KinderStart.com covers the case being filed back in
March and provides a link to the actual suit. It was
heard in
court earlier this month, and you can
review the
transcript and analysis of that hearing.
Judge dismisses suit
over Google ranking from News.com covers yesterday's ruling, where the
claims against Google were dismissed. The judge gave leave for KinderStart to
revise on some claims, apparently in particular on the idea that KinderStart was
defamed by being dropped to a PageRank of zero as reported by the Google
Toolbar.
KinderStart now apparently hopes it can enlist other PR0 sites to file a
class action lawsuit against Google (info is supposed to be
here, but site is currently
down). The KinderStart attorney said:
"The decision suggests that, if properly alleged, Google may be defaming a
whole class of Web sites sacked with a '0' PageRank," he wrote in a statement.
"If plaintiffs show Google manually tampered with even a single Web site's
PageRank, Google's entire claim of 'objectivity' of search results and rankings
could collapse."
Sure. Fire away with that class action suit. Two class action suits over
click fraud, where defendants have real monetary claims arising out of actual
contacts with the major search engines, have netted around $60 million for
advertisers for over four years worth of advertising activity. Assuming a
somewhat nebulous defamation claim won, I can't imagine the settlement would be for much.
Keep in mind that by default, the PageRank meter is still not turned on, to
my knowledge. Toolbar users have to specifically enable it. I've never seen any stats or breakdowns on who uses the PR meter,
but that seems to be mainly site owners concerned about SEO, rather than typical
web surfers.
Still, the case highlights a Google vulnerability. Google has argued in this
case that ranking is subjective, an opinion that it offers about web sites. But
go to its technology page,
and you get this:
PageRank Technology: PageRank performs an objective
measurement of the importance of web pages by solving an equation of more than
500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Instead of counting direct links, PageRank interprets a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for Page B by Page
A. PageRank then assesses a page's importance by the number of votes it
receives.
PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as
votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the
linked page greater value. Important pages receive a higher PageRank and
appear at the top of the search results. Google's technology uses the
collective intelligence of the web to determine a page's importance. There is
no human involvement or manipulation of results, which is why users have come
to trust Google as a source of objective information untainted by paid
placement.
So what is it, objective or subjective, or argue what's most convenient, as
John Battelle raised
earlier. The answer to me gets confused by Google's outdated information online
plus confusion between PageRank and ranking.
Ranking, or keyword ranking, is where a site appears in
response to a keyword search. It's supposed to be an objective decision made by
using a computer algorithm to sort through factors, though not said is how some
of those factors might have subjective decisions made over them.
PageRank is a numeric score that counts how important a page is based
on analyzing the links pointing to it. It is one of many factors that Google
uses to decide where a page should appear when you do a keyword search. In other
words, PageRank is part of what determines keyword ranking, but it's not the
only factor, nor is it the same as keyword ranking.
But doesn't Google say that pages with a higher PageRank appear at the top of
the search results. Yes, and it says this incorrectly. That's right, Google's
statement on this is flat out wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong. WRONG.
Am I clear enough? But how can I say Google's official information is wrong?
First, I can demonstrate it, as I've done
before.
Try this tool. Here's a search for
cars. Notice how the movie Cars is ranked second. The home page for the site
listed is a PR5, putting it above several pages ranking below it with a higher
PR score. Got Firefox? Try Aaron Wall's new
tool that
makes seeing this type of thing even easier. End Of Demonstration.
Google has tons of things they've said publicly that get outdated like this
or aren't explained properly by those charged to write up copy. In particular,
Google has allowed PageRank to be a synonymous term to mean how a site ranks.
You can see how this makes life confusing by the first paragraph in the News.com
story about the case:
KinderStart, a directory and search engine for information related to
children, sued Google in March after it fell to a "zero" ranking in the Google
index.
Actually, I believe that two different things happened. KinderStart:
- No longer had good keyword rankings, not in the first page of results, but
perhaps still buried further down unless it was banned completely. And if it
was banned completely, that's not a "zero" rank but instead just called a ban.
- Probably had a penalty put on it manually that produced a zero score in
the PageRank meter.
The judge does not seem to be saying Google defamed the site through a lower
keyword ranking. But he does seem to suggest that the PageRank score in the
Google Toolbar meter might have that issue. From Eric Goldberg's nice
write-up on the case (and he has a copy of the ruling there, as well):
Google’s statement as to whether a particular website is “worth your time”
necessarily reflects its subjective judgment as to what factors make a website
important. Viewed in this way, a PageRank reflects Google’s opinion. However,
it is possible a PageRank reasonably could be interpreted as a factual
statement insofar as it purports to tell a user “how Google’s algorithms
assess the importance of the page you’re viewing.” This interpretation would
be bolstered by evidence supporting Google’s alleged representations that
PageRank is “objective,” and that a reasonable person thus might understand
Google’s display of a ‘0’ PageRank for Kinderstart.com to be a statement that
‘0’ is the (unmodified) output of Google’s algorithm. If it could be shown, as
Kinderstart alleges, that Google is changing that output by manual
intervention, then such a statement might be provably false.
I'm actually surprised the judge doesn't seem to know that Google does indeed change
that output by manual intervention. That's what the entire SearchKing case was
about. First some background on that:
The case involved another US District Court judge ruling that yes, Google had
manipulated the PageRank score showing for SearchKing and that it had a
constitutionally protected right to do so, to offer its opinion this way.
Of course, the ruling confuses PageRank and keyword ranking as I've explained
above often happens:
PageRanks are opinions -- opinions of the significance of particular Web
sites as they correspond to a search query.
Still, since the case was indeed focused about the PageRank meter, I suspect
we're safe in knowing this was about PageRank scores getting protected status.
And what the KinderStart case now tells us is that Google (and other search
engines) also have the right to do keyword rankings however they like.
We'll see if the PageRank scores get challenged again. Certainly Google could
short-circuit this by dropping the scores and the meter altogether (please do
it). As
explained, few people to my knowledge use them, and plenty of site owners are
tired of newbie search marketers
obsessing
over them. PageRank was mainly a marketing tactic for Google that's long
since been blowing up in its face.
If the meter doesn't go away, certainly Google needs to take a harder look at
what it says about both the Google Toolbar and keyword rankings if it doesn't
want to be vulnerable in future court cases (plus just be consistent with the
public).
For example, what's a site owner
told about a PR0 score:
A page may be assigned a rank of zero if Google crawls very few sites that
link to it. Additionally, pages recently added to the Google index may also
show a PageRank score of zero because they haven't been crawled by Googlebot
yet and haven't been ranked. A page's PageRank score may increase naturally
with subsequent crawls, so this shouldn't be a cause for concern. To learn
more about PageRank, please see http://www.google.com/technology/index.html
There's no mention of the fact that you might have a PR0 score because Google
has manually intervened to reduce it. And as for what it
tells the general public:
Wondering whether a new website is worth your time? Use the Toolbar's
PageRank™ display to tell you how Google's algorithms assess the importance of
the page you're viewing.
Again, it's more than just the algorithms being involved. Human are making
decisions that impact that score, as well.
In short, Google is continuing to make statements that PageRank is objective
to the public, but in two court cases now, it has said the scores are
subjective. One case as supported its right to make subjective cases. The other
has supported a defendants right to challenge if those subjective opinions are
fair or defamatory. We'll see what happens next.
Finally, the entire human intervention thing with PageRank scores brings back
the issue of Google long saying there's no human intervention in keyword
ranking, such as they
used to say
about censorship:
Google does not censor results for any search term. The order and content of
our results are completely automated; we do not manipulate our search results by
hand.
And similar to what they still say
here:
Sites' positions in our search results are determined automatically based
on a number of factors, which are explained in more detail at
http://www.google.com/technology/index.html. We don't manually assign
keywords to sites, nor do we manipulate the ranking of any site in our
search results.
In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing
the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages. For more
information about improving your site's visibility in the Google search
results, we recommend reviewing our
webmaster guidelines. They outline core concepts for maintaining a
Google-friendly website.
As I've written
before,
Google does indeed hand manipulate results, but not in the sense of trying to
reorder them. Instead, it manually intervenes in terms of banning some sites or
putting overall ranking penalties on them. There's even been updated
attempts to help site owners know when they've been banned through the
Google Sitemaps program.
Overall, Google's got plenty of mixed messages out there that don't help on
the PR front and potentially leave it vulnerable on the legal front, as this
case has shown.
Posted by Danny Sullivan on Jul. 14, 2006 |
Permalink
Many Advertisers Are Frustrated With Google's New Quality Score & Pricing
On July 7th Jennifer Slegg reported that the new Google AdWords landing page quality score algorithm has been updated. Since then, the effects of the new algorithm have been rippling through AdWords campaigns and digging deep into the pockets of many of Google's advertisers. Chris Boggs at the Search Engine Roundtable reported many of the discussions taking place at the various webmaster forums on the Internet. But one thread we felt was important to highlight was from WebmasterWorld.
The thread is named Open letter to Google Regarding Changes to The Ad Words Program. Written by Mark A. Libbert, Attorney At Law, explains how even-though he spends over $300,000 per year with Google, his Google representatives are treating him like an unwanted customer. The issue is with the minimum bids rising, after two solid years of high quality ads, with a 26% click through rate on some! He explains that the core of the issue is the bid prices rising but what makes things worse is that, "your [Google] employees have been uninformed and left in the dark about these major changes to your program, and perhaps more importantly your paying customers have been left in the dark as well."
Newspapers To Team Up With Yahoo To Create An Online Classifieds Network
Reuters reports on a Business Week article that shows how a "loose consortium of newspaper publishers" are in discussions with Yahoo's HotJobs to build an online classifieds network. For Yahoo, this can help increase the popularity of HotJobs and for the newspapers, it can help them drive more ad dollars, but this time, online ad dollars. Quote from the Business Week article that shows the importance on the newspaper side;
Newspaper companies would build a network within what is one of the Web's top destinations and win a crucial concession in today's search-engine economy: getting a cut of the ads sold around search results of their content. It's a sore spot for publishers that this doesn't happen now.
Specialty Search Roundup #7
Another week and another set of specialty databases and research tools that were posted on ResourceShelf during the past week or so. - Art Museums: A Collection of Searchable Databases
This is the first in a series (more soon) of posts that review databases from some of the great art museums around the world. In all cases these databases offer searchable access to part or all of these museums collections while offering you the chance to search using a variety of criteria.
- UKís Resource Discovery Network Now Known as Intute
Yesterday, I posted about the new NOODP tag from Google. While DMOZ/ODP doesn't have the same stature that it once did. However, researchers shouldn't forget the value of non-commercial/searchable/general purpose web directories where quality of the underlying resources trumps overall size. Intute is an excellent example of this. Be ready to spend some time here. Also, make sure to look at the Virtual Training Suite and Internet Detective, two of Intute's many parts.
- New Look for The Gateway to Educational Materials Database
Primarily cosmetic changes but it's a good excuse to make a mention of it. If you're looking for high quality materials for educational purposes this database is a "must" bookmark. It's also worth pointing out that "The Gateway" is powered by faceted search technology from Siderean. Bow, this same technology will soon be available from the Librarians' Internet Index, another essential non-commercial/searchable/general purpose web directory.
- Database: A Nanotechnology Consumer Products Inventory
"While not comprehensive, this inventory gives the public the best available look at the 200+ nanotechnology-based consumer products currently on the market. Prior to this inventory, the figure most often cited by the U.S. government was that approximately 80 consumer products containing nanomaterials were being sold. Please feel free to explore the inventory by browsing the products, or perform an advanced search."
July 13, 2006
Google Radio
The Internets are alight with speculation about Google radio ads, since Tim at TechToolBlog reported receiving a survey that touched on talent brokering for voice work. Back in May at Google Press Day, CEO Eric Schmidt told me (and other reporters hanging on his every word) that he envisioned a system whereby advertisers could upload audio creative to Google that would be distributed to multiple platforms. The idea that the company would help provision voice talent would be perfectly consistent with this approach, given the lack of resources available to many of Google's small business customers. (As others have mentioned, SpotRunner /A> -- the next logical acquisition for Google -- aims to handle the creative and distribution issue for TV.)
Then again, given Google's fondness for technology, maybe the company could do dynamically-generated audio creative like IHT.com is considering.
Posted by Pamela Parker on Jul. 13, 2006 |
Permalink
From One Male-Interest Site to Another
Laddie mag Maxim's Web property has agreed to a content partnership with CBS SportsLine to exchange what each of them do best respectively. Maxim.com will get the straight talk as in sports scores and commentary for its Web property. In return, CBS SportsLine will add Maxim.com's humor and entertainment bits to its "SPiN" section.
The deal comes about a week too late for Maxim to get in on the World Cup's much talked about head butt incident. But there will no doubt be plenty of fodder taking place in the world of sports to come.
Posted by Enid Burns on Jul. 13, 2006 |
Permalink
Search Headlines & Links: July 13, 2006
Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along
with other items we've spotted but not blogged separately:
- Daily
SearchCast, July 13, 2006: SES Latino; Yahoo's Expansion To US Hispanic Sites;
Google Does Radio Ads Survey & More!
Today's search podcast covers the SES Latino show that just concluded in
Miami; a new Yahoo deal to reach Hispanics; Google & radio ad moves; search
engine office expansions; Google Force One revisited and more!
- Google
Adds Supports For NOODP Tag To Opt Out Of ODP Titles
Singing for joy! Google has now added support for the NOODP tag that MSN
initiated on May 22nd of this year. Yes, Danny asked for this back in June,
and now Google has granted our wish. If you have one of those pesky titles
pulled from the ODP (dmoz.org) directory, don't fret it, just add the NOODP
tag. How do you do it? Just add <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP"> to your
page source. If you want to just exclude MSN use <META NAME="msnbot" CONTENT="NOODP">
if you just want to exclude Google use <META NAME="googlebot" CONTENT="NOODP">....
-
Speculation: Google To Begin Selling Radio Ads Through AdWords Soon
TechToolBlog said he received a survey from Google specifically asking
questions about radio ads. Most of the questions in the survey are related to
radio ads, see the screen captures here or the close ups Donna Bogatin has
done here. He said that last time Google sent out a survey, it was about print
ads, and then they ran print ads soon after. Keep in mind, DMarc Broadcasting,
currently sells radio ads, but this seems like Google may begin pushing
AdWords advertisers into the radio ad game....
- AdSense
Consulting Group Fed Up With Google AdSense
Wired has a story on AdSense, not Google AdSense, but AdSense Consulting, the
company who registered AdSense.com back in 1996....
- More
Details On Google Sitemaps Query Stats
DaveN at ThreadWatch posted his love/hate for Google Sitemaps, but what I find
to be the most interesting part is the discussion taking place in his post at
his blog. Vanessa Fox, Google Engineering, from the Inside Google Sitemaps
blog posted a comment at Dave's blog explaining why a the Sitemaps query stats
may say you come up for a popular term even though you don't mention that term
or phrase on your pages of your site....
- Yahoo
Reaches Out To U.S. Hispanics Via Deal With Hispanic Digital Network
ClickZ reports that Yahoo has reached a deal with Hispanic Digital Network (HDN)
to supply web search and sponsored search listings for HDN's 70+
Spanish-language Web sites. Reportedly, this gives Yahoo access to 2.8 million
U.S. Hispanic visitors per month. The ads will be both in Spanish and English,
not based on geo-location but based on the language used in the query. Yahoo
would like to see more Spanish content web sites developed in the future,
according to Peter Celeste, regional general manager for the Americas for
Yahoo Search and Search Marketing. For more information on the Hispanic
market, check...
- Counting
Links At The Search Engines
Rand has an excellent post on how to get your hands dirty by manually checking
your links at the various search engines. He reviews Google's link command and
how bad it is. He also reviews MSN's link command and explains how you can add
modifiers to the link or linkdomain commands (i.e. exclude site A from the
command). Rand then reviews the Yahoo link command, and explains that although
Yahoo has Site Explorer, the "most accurate" result set still comes from
search.yahoo.com. He recommends you use search.yahoo.com and then append
&b=999 to the end of the URL manually. Like MSN,...
Headlines & News From Elsewhere
-
Blog Search Engine Technorati Raises $7.6 Million Third Round; HuffPo Funding
Coming?, paidContent.org
- Microsoft
Research Automates Hunt for Search Engine Spam, eWeek
-
New Ask.com Smart Answer: Internet Users by Country, ResourceShelf
-
Yahoo! Ranking Banned Sites for Select "Hand Placed" Queries?, Search
Engine Roundtable
-
NOODP Tag "Should" Have No Effect on Search Engine Rankings, Search Engine
Roundtable
- MSN Debuts Original
Interactive Baseball Reality Show, ClickZ
- Google's
anti-social downside, News.com
-
Microsoft, Yahoo IM services to test talking with each other, San Jose
Mercury News
-
Search engine conferences and workshops, Pandia
-
Google’s Mayer on privacy concerns, Robert Scoble
-
Interview With Yahoo! SEO Program Manager, V7N
-
Interview: Jonathan Miller, AOL, Searchblog
-
Search Marketing Topping Out, V7N
- A
change for me, Scott Gatz
-
Whose click fraud numbers do you trust?, ClickZ
- Apple,
Google, Symantec Top Loyal Customer Ratings: The Mac Observer
-
IBM targets Google with budget search: Computer World
-
Visual Relevance: the Effect of Ask’s Preview Tool on Click Throughs,
Search Engine Guide
-
Cartoon Barry Interactive by SitePal, Search Engine Roundtable
-
Windows Live More Strict on Adult Content When Compared with MSN Search,
Search Engine Roundtable
- Internal Article
Anchors From Search Engines, SEO Book
-
Personalized search at SIGIR 2006, Geeking With Greg
-
SEM 2.0 Turns 2.0 Years Old!, Traffick (Happy Birthday to the mailing
list, Andrew!)
- This
word just in…, Xooglers (some history on defending the Google trademark)
- Search Engine
Cloaking FAQs: an Interview With Dan Kramer, Creator of Kloakit, SEO Book
-
Bot Obedience: Herding Googlebot, Matt Cutts
- Google -
cult or corporation?, The Register
Posted by Danny Sullivan on Jul. 13, 2006 |
Permalink
Daily SearchCast, July 13, 2006: SES Latino; Yahoo's Expansion To US Hispanic Sites; Google Does Radio Ads Survey & More!
Today's search podcast covers the SES Latino show that just concluded in
Miami; a new Yahoo deal to reach Hispanics; Google & radio ad moves; search
engine office expansions; Google Force One revisited and more!
Tune-in by listening to this
MP3
file, listening via WebmasterRadio
at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our
Odeo channel or through
iTunes via this
link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained
here) or
though our Yahoo Podcasts
channel. Need more help tuning in live or finding the chat room? See the
Daily
SearchCast FAQ.
Below are links to items discussed:
- Search
Engine Strategies Latino, Miami, Florida - Day One
Day one of the first ever Search Engine Strategies Latino edition is pretty
much complete. The networking cocktail is taking place now, there is a Google
party tonight and also some Yahoo boat thing. I have managed to cover the
Landscape & Tactics tracks, so here is the roundup. + The Opportunity: Tapping
Into US Hispanics & Latin America Via Search + Search Landscape: US Hispanics
+ Search Landscape: Latin America + The Challenges Of Search Marketing To US
Hispanics & Latin Americans I also took pictures of the sessions and outside
of the hotel, you can see them here....
- Search
Engine Strategies Latino, Miami, Florida - Day Two
The conference has officially ended, it was a really great event. Huge
congrats to Nacho for running this. I am writing this quickly, because they
are breaking down the room as I type this. Here are the sessions I covered
today. + Translate Or Create: Strategies For Those With English-Language Sites
+ Domain Issues - Latin American Version + Spanish / Portuguese Language Ad
Issues + SEO & Spanish / Portuguese Language Issues Again, pictures of the
event tagged with seslatino at Flickr....
-
Cartoon Barry Interactive by SitePal, Search Engine Roundtable
- Yahoo
Reaches Out To U.S. Hispanics Via Deal With Hispanic Digital Network
ClickZ reports that Yahoo has reached a deal with Hispanic Digital Network (HDN)
to supply web search and sponsored search listings for HDN's 70+
Spanish-language Web sites. Reportedly, this gives Yahoo access to 2.8 million
U.S. Hispanic visitors per month. The ads will be both in Spanish and English,
not based on geo-location but based on the language used in the query. Yahoo
would like to see more Spanish content web sites developed in the future,
according to Peter Celeste, regional general manager for the Americas for
Yahoo Search and Search Marketing. For more information on the Hispanic
market, check...
-
Speculation: Google To Begin Selling Radio Ads Through AdWords Soon
TechToolBlog said he received a survey from Google specifically asking
questions about radio ads. Most of the questions in the survey are related to
radio ads, see the screen captures here or the close ups Donna Bogatin has
done here. He said that last time Google sent out a survey, it was about print
ads, and then they ran print ads soon after. Keep in mind, DMarc Broadcasting,
currently sells radio ads, but this seems like Google may begin pushing
AdWords advertisers into the radio ad game....
- New
Landing Page Quality Score Announced for Google AdWords Advertisers
The Google AdWords blog has announced new changes that will be seen next week
that will result in some advertisers faced with |
