Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along
with other items we’ve spotted but not blogged separately:
From The SEW Blog…
- Daily
SearchCast, July 6, 2006: $800 Million In Click Fraud Or Not?; Does Google
Need An Ombudsman?; Google Jockeying In The Classroom & More!
Today’s search podcast covers a report of $800 million lost to click fraud
last year — or was it?; should Google and other search engines have ombudsmen
to resolve disputes and concerns?; what’s with Yahoo being suggested as
alternative search results for “therapy products” on Google; Google Jockeying
is coming to a classroom near you 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…
- Search
Engine Optimization in an Hour a Day
If you’re just getting started with search marketing, it can be tough to know
where to start or which sources of information to trust. Things change
quickly, and what worked yesterday doesn’t always work today. Fortunately,
there are some fundamental approaches and techniques that always seem to work,
and a new book does a great job of laying a foundation for search engine
success. Even better, the book avoids jargon and stays away from the countless
hotly debated “tactics” that often cause more harm than good. I’ve got a
review of this new book in today’s SearchDay article, A Beginner’s…
- Google
In Another Dictionary: Merriam-Webster
The LA Times reports that the term ‘Google’ has been added to the
Merriam-Webster, the dictionary I grew up on. The other day we reported that
Google was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, the most authoritative
dictionary of the English language….
- Myanmar
Enables Access To Google After Blocking Gmail & GTalk
Mizzima News reports that Myanmar (also known as Burma) has opened up access
to Google again, after blocking it about a week ago. Reportedly Myanmar
blocked Google and Gmail/GTalk because they want to control the revenues
earned from the state-controlled telephone companies. Myanmar has been known
to block web-based email accounts because they want to only allow
state-controlled email usage….
- eBay
Disallows Google Checkout
Andy Beal reports that eBay has officially banned Google Checkout as a payment
solution on eBay. Here is a list of payment solutions not allowed on eBay,
including Google Checkout….
- Search
For “Therapy Products” On Google Suggests Yahoo As Alternative Results
SEO Speedwagon posts notes that a query on Google for [therapy products]
displays a See Results For box listing pages from Yahoo. These mid-page
results are supposed to help people find pages somehow related to their
original query — but Yahoo really has nothing to do with therapy products.
How weird, how strange? I had to take a screen capture myself, just in case
the others get lost….
Kinderstart Transcript Available
Eric Goldman posted the Kinderstart transcript and other case documents on his
site. Recently, Kinderstart’s case was heard in court and the judge requested
Kinderstart to provide some more information. The full, 45 page, transcript of
the June 30th hearing can be downloaded here….
- Google
Posts First Quarter ’06 Quarterly Report 10-Q
For those of you who own Google stock or track Google’s revenues, Google has
just posted their quarterly statement. You can find the update on the Google
investors page with a link to a PDF document for Google’s March 31, 2006
10-Q….
- Google
Jockeying
Another phrase to join ‘surfing’ and ‘browsing’ – we now have ‘jockeying’ or
Google jockeying, to be precise, according to the article from Pandia. Briefly
put, Google jockeying (though it can be any search engine, it just seems that
in order to gain attention Google has to be mentioned somewhere) is a
situation where a teacher or presenter is giving a lecture and someone (the
jockey) sits in the background running searches or using the search engine to
demonstrate something that the presenter is talking about. There’s an
interesting presentation on it provided by the Educause Learning
Initiative….
- Google
Fixes XSS Security Holes
A security vulnerability in Google, discovered and posted at ha.ckers.org was
patched quickly by Google. Both Philipp Lenssen and JasonD posted about the
XSS hole that enables hackers to deploy phishing scams, cookie stealing, and
creation of worms. Matt Cutts of Google was quick to reply to the Threadwatch
post stating that the hole has “either fixed or the fix is going out.”…
- Google’s
Ranking Algorithm Too Dependent On Trust Factors?
Todd Malicoat went off on a bit of a rant which he named The Trust Knob is WAY
too High – Google Trustbox. Todd, as do many SEOs, believe that Google places
too much weight on “trust factors” when determining if a page should rank well
or not. Todd quotes some well-known SEOs saying that trust factors are
weighted at 85%, whereas copy is only given 15%. Why does this upset SEOs like
Todd? As Todd explains, One of the extremely big problems with trust filters
is that they don?t seem to be retroactive?meaning that sites that were around
and…
- Wi-Fi
Comes to New York Parks
The New York Times today is reporting on the progress of a project to unwire
New York City parks, which was announced three years ago. Reportedly by early
August of this year 10 of New York’s “most prominent parks” will have Wi-Fi
access. The project is being implemented by a small company called WiFi Salon.
Mobile handset maker Nokia is now underwriting the project as a sponsor….
- Google
Ombudsman? Search Ombudsman? Great Idea — Bring Them On!
Back in 2004, Gary Stein suggested that Yahoo hire an ombudsman, a sort of
impartial referee to handle disputes involving advertising programs. I thought
it was a great idea. Today, Steve Bryant over at eWeek’s Google Watch calls
for Google to do the same thing. Again, great idea — let’s see the search
engines all start hiring ombudsmen, in the way that many newspapers and others
have done….
Incroyable! ‘Le Tour’ Uses Google Earth Not GeoPortail
WebProNews points to the Google Earth Blog in explaining that The Tour de
France has integrated Google Earth into its site and functionality. In
particular, the site offers complete 3-D rendering of all tour stages. But we
must ask, why wasn’t this done on France’s homegrown Google Earth challenger
GeoPortail?…
Other Things We Read, Didn’t Blog But You Might Want To Read…
- Techmeme’s Front Pages:
What’s Really A Big Story & How To Go Back In Time, Daggle
- Get Over
It! Google Doesn’t Owe You, Search Engine Guide
- BusinessWeek: SEO
Can Help Revenues, SEOmoz
- Business.com Shafts
Businesses Worldwide, Threadwatch
- SES
Latino Coverage Coming Monday & Tuesday, Search Engine Roundtable
- Google
Government Search, Now With State Filtering, ResearchBuzz
Google Earth vs Tour de France, Unofficial Google Blog
- Picasa Web Albums: no more
6GB accounts?, Googling Google
ASP.NET 2 + url rewriting considered harmful in some cases, Matt Cutts
Publishers unite against Google, The Guardian
Google Gadgets galore!, Inside Google Desktop
The Case for a Google Ombudsman, eWeek’s Google Watch
- Local Search Goes
Mobile, ClickZ
- Prepared Statements and
Webcasts: Making the Internet Safe for Kids: The Role of ISP?s and Social
Networking Sites, Docuticker