Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Advertisers: Are You Noticing Less Searchers?
Rimm-Kaufman posted data that shows how their are less people searching for products and services to buy, leading to less sales, which impacts the overall PPC budgets. Yes, all related to this global recession. I laid out the key points in my Search Engine Land brief: Approximately 20% reduction in sales from search ads from last yearApproximately 20% reduction in his costs from search ads from last year The average order value from search ads - Google Ad Blindness: Google Introduces Expandable AdSense Ads
In a day and age where 70% of Google publishers are reporting less earnings with Google, Google needs to take bold moves to get more people to see and click on their ads. Google introduces expandable ads. The ads will be displayed on publisher sites and they can click on the ad to make them expand into a much large ad that overlays over the content of the page. The expandable ads can contain movie - When Search Spam Gets Evil: "Craphat"
There are different levels of search spam. Some search spam involves creating spam on sites you control. Some spam involves injecting links into third party sites, hacking sites, infecting computers, phishing attempts and so on. Where does search spam cross that line and become "evil." That is somewhat of a debate, but Danny Sullivan is coining the term "craphat" in order to differentiate between "blackhat" and "whitehat" SEO. Because, many believe that "blackhat" SEO is - Google Confirms Algorithm "Change" But Down Plays Brand Push
About a week and a half ago, there was the start of discussion around Google's brand push in the algorithm. Some people started noticing that for some queries (mostly generic queries), more "big brands" were showing up in the search results. The discussion started at WebmasterWorld and then Aaron Wall provided some statistical data to back the rumors. HuoMah, then chimed in, trying to keep SEOs on their feet and thinking logically about this. In - Are You Still Offering SEO Services Paid By Performance?
There are many ways to price your services. In the SEO world, you can charge a monthly fee, you can charge by hour, you can charge for results, you can take a piece of the action and so on. The Pay for Performance model is popular amongst some SEO firms, while others prefer the steady and secure income of other pricing models. Search Engine Guide has a very nice write up on this model named - Google AdSense Updates Home Page While Stats Lag
If you visit the Google AdSense home page you may notice that the login page has been redesigned. Here is a picture of the new page: The old one looked like this: We anticipated the new home page would be coming soon this morning, when we reported about the recent login issues with AdSense. This also probably means that many (not all) AdSense counters, notifiers and trackers are having issues operating now. Note that this
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Google CEO: Twitter A 'Poor Man's Email System', DigitalPoint Forums
- Google Spending Millions To Notify Authors And Publishers, DigitalPoint Forums
- Google's Eric Schmidt Says The Economy Is "Pretty Dire", WebmasterWorld
- Yahoo's CEO, Bartz, Keen on Social Networks, WebmasterWorld
- Local Search: Safe Haven Against Google’s New Brand Algorithm?, Sphinn
- Reminder: You must update your AdWords API code to v13, Google Groups
- Right time to quit AdSense?, WebmasterWorld
- SEO company has used bad link techniques!, Google Webmaster Help
- SEO Tips for Large Ecommerce Sites, Sphinn
