It's been two weeks without me because of SES and I know you've missed this little new Search Engine Roundtable column that highlights the events within the search community.
So, what did happen in the past two weeks? (To be fair, I'm highlighting them all!) We've been presented with financial reports, broken accounts, immersion in new social media endeavors, and new functionality. Where to begin... Google Family Planning
It's been a big week for Google. They're having babies, they're launching products, and they're making acquisitions. The next thing we know, the white house will be relocated to the Googleplex. (After all, George Bush uses "the Google".)
Last week, Google acquired DoubleClick for a hefty $3.1 billion. In my Digg Digest, I mentioned that this also apparently involved the acquisition of an "SEO firm." Loren reported the scoop.
Then Google decided to expand its product base both online and offline. Rumors have it that they're preparing to launch the Google Phone by the end of this year. Google also announced that Google Docs will soon support the creation of presentations. Furthermore, Vanessa Fox and team have been working pretty hard to add useful tools in the Google's Webmaster Central, and now you can remove content from the SERPs and you can see more detailed anchor text. Awesome work, guys.
Google also took another plunge into social media. Their StumbleUpon clone is Google "queryless" search. Yes, once you click on cute little dice on the Google Toolbar, you will get a page that Google has recommended based on your saved history. By the way, your search history has now become your complete web history -- scary, I know.
And lastly, Froogle has officially died and Google Product Search has been brought to life. I will miss you, Froogle.
Cool new Yahoo Tools
Yahoo's Site Explorer is out of beta. Not only that, they added some mobile site submission functionality, which make perfect sense because Yahoo seems to be the leader in mobile search with plenty of new and interesting innovations.
And even cooler: Yahoo forged a partnership with eBay to integrate Paypal to sponsored listings. With over 100,000,000 PayPal accounts, this deal is definitely a win for Yahoo. Wouldn't it be funny if Microsoft partnered with Google Checkout to sport checkout icons on adCenter ads?
Advertisements
Microsoft adCenter has added a quality score to their ads. Now people are noticing a drop in traffic. The results are not too positive for Microsoft, but things appear to be improving.
A Google AdSense publisher was told this week that Google deducted over $1,000 due to invalid clicks. It looks like Google is carefully monitoring for click fraud.
Barry reports on Google Pay Per Action: no results have been reported by an advertiser trying out the new business model, but Barry tries it out and reports his findings (and he even asks for additional functionality).
Google's DoubleClick acquisition begs the question: will it hurt AdSense? Most people say no.
The yellow background on Google's Sponsored Results has yielded diminishing CTR results and we are left to wonder whether it is due to the yellow background or because the entire box is no longer clickable.
Professional social network LinkedIn has been found displaying ads that do not indicate that they are Google ads. Can this could result in serious repercussions for them if it is a violation? We know other premium publishers like MySpace are doing the same.
Google also said that they do not recommend using AdSense in traffic exchange programs. Don't even try it, boys and girls.
Finally, Google is tracking mouseover actions on AdSense ads. I noticed that this was reported by Philipp too. Good catch, man.
Trademarks
A couple of issues have come up this week about trademarks. First, someone asked how to report AdWord trademark violations. It's an easy process: trademark holders simply need to fill out paperwork and submit it to Google.
As for reporting trademarked keywords in meta tags, it's a little tougher. It is recommended that you contact your competitor about the violation.
Report Your Paid Links to Us
Matt riled up a storm when he brought up the paid link debate again. Then Chris Boggs (who has an awesome new column up on Search Engine Watch) discovered that HackerSafe was bragging about them! Matt wrote in on the comments. It's juicy!
Back to the daily grind
We're back on track this week. It's been a long and fun two weeks. What will next week show us? Bring it on!
