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!
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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