Wow, it's been an incredibly crazy week and I am still blogging even though I landed back in New York before the sun rose this morning (and didn't sleep on the plane. Yay!) And now I'm catching up as I have no idea what really happened outside of Vegas.
We Turned 4
Search Engine Roundtable is now four years old and we've celebrated with a temporary theme. (And if you haven't noticed, it's Chanukah, and our blog has another redesign for the rest of the holiday. Click on this link if you're reading this through a feed to see!)
Yahoo Search Updates
Apparently, there's been a Yahoo algorithm update this month. People are noticing similar things on Google.
On Paid Links
This is going to be a sore subject for awhile. Barry summarizes the Google war on paid links and I summarized statements from Matt Cutts on paid links and PageRank. In case you felt like you've missed out, there's a tremendous amount of valuable information on both posts and massive community feedback.
Google Spreads Holiday Love
Google has given AdSense publishers and AdWords advertisers a cute little gift: a 2GB USB memory card. They should've given something else, though, according to someone I know. Like a mini fridge. Now that is a good gift. ;)
Add Your Phone Number to Google AdWords Ads
Guess what? You're now able to add your phone number to AdWords ads. That's totally awesome, but I hope you have a system in place to determine whether there's some ROI with your AdWords campaign. Perhaps you should get a new phone number for AdWords referrals. Either way, finally!
Microsoft's Spam Site Referrals: Cloaking Tests
After we've been spotting Microsoft's spam site referrals, they made a statement to clarify what exactly was occurring. We were testing for cloaking, they said. Thanks for the statement, guys!
Microsoft Launches adCenter Excel 2007 Plugin
Earlier this week, I spoke with Natala Menezes who told me that Microsoft came out with a new adCenter product: an Excel 2007 plugin. Now, if anyone here has Excel 2007, it's a whole new Microsoft product and is ways beyond previous versions. This is quite cool. But the plugin is also very awesome, according to advertisers. Awesome.
Subdomains as Results in Google
Google is now testing subdomains as results in Google, but you won't get more than 2 folders per search (so don't go all out and create two billion subdomains since that will do little for you). However, it's an interesting change. I wonder how well it will be received over time. I'm sure some people will love it and others will hate it. :)
Conference Coverage
Okay, so I liveblogged a lot of sessions and my fingers and feet hurt (yes, I walked too). But so did a bunch of great bloggers and we're truly thankful for the coverage. In case you missed it, our Pubcon 2007 and SES Chicago coverage has been posted. Really, you should have been there, but if you couldn't make it, we did our best to provide you with near live coverage of everything. And thanks to all who said hello to me in Vegas. It was really nice to meet you!
