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:
- Microsoft Link Command Comes Back to Life After 8 Months
A Sphinn and WebmasterWorld thread report that you can now use the link commands at Live.com again. The syntax appears to be slightly different as Karen Blakeman notes. For a link command, you need to use +link:www.domain.com/filename and for a linkdomain command, you need to use +linkdomain:www.domain.com. Here is an example link domain command for this site: Search For: +linkdomain:www.seroundtable.com and you should see results, if not, I have taken a screen capture to prove - Special Thank You to Sponsors
I rarely post a thank you to our sponsors. I thought I take this opportunity thank our advertisers at the Search Engine Roundtable as well as introduce a new ad format that we will be testing for the remainder of the year. Thank you to: Text Link Ads for their continued sponsorship over the past few years. ACS SEO for signing up to be a long term sponsor of the site. SEO Inc. for sponsoring - How Much Do Your Charge for PPC Services?
Do you maintain any PPC campaigns? How much do you charge? A Search Engine Watch Forums thread asks this question. Most folks that I know charge between 10-15% of the spend. Others, according to David Wallace, now charge based on hourly rate. That makes sense too. What do you do? I'd love to find out! Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums. - Microsoft to Read Minds: Is this the Future of Paid Advertising?
A Cre8asite Forums member is baffled by an article he read where Bill Gates is working on developing software that can read your mind. Is this a good direction for both Microsoft (as a competitive edge over Google) and for advertising? It looks like people are all experimenting with this type of advertising. Bill Slawski, for example, brings up a term called neuromarketing and explains what it is: An emerging technique called neuromarketing that uses - CPC vs. CPM on Google's Ad Network
As you know, Google is now trying something called placement targeting. On a Search Engine Watch forums thread, moderator Discovery goes into the implications of this change. CPM is just to easy for advertisers to inflate CPM numbers without any promise of quality ... The combination of CPC and Placement reports and advertisers have the tools to help balance out the equation. This sentiment is echoed by the community. CPC is the way to go: - How to Give Access to Google AdWords Stats to Users
A Cre8asite Forums member is a bit disturbed by his PPC advisor, who he had outsourced the job to, because he is not giving him access to the stats on his account. The reasoning is that he maintains multiple campaigns for different clients under one account, and now the user is unable to access his own statistics. In cases like these, it's important to give access to the client -- this is an important part - Google Recommends AdSense Publishers use Electronic Funds Transfer
Has your Google AdSense check been bounced? If so, you're not alone. Google recommends instead that you opt in for Western Union or Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) to eliminate the hassle. AdSenseAdvisor says that Google is not out of money and can pay every publisher: First of all, our accounts are not closed and we do have sufficient funds to pay all publishers every month. We use a non-traditional check format that some bank tellers - How To Disable StumbleUpon on Google's Search Results
As a result of StumbleUpon's newest update, a lot of folks are confused about how it's integrating into the Google SERPs. There are two new features, one of which actually isn't a new feature, but it looks like StumbleUpon has finally brought these options to the attention of its users. Here's an example of what you see with the feature turned on fully. Don't ask me why they categorized one of these as "Car Parts." - Veterans Day Logo from Google & Dogpile
Yesterday was Veterans Day and Google and Dogpile both had special logos up for the day. Here they are: Yahoo, Ask.com and the other engines seemed to not have done any logo work for the day. We also did not do anything, since it was a Sunday. You can see Ask.com did do something in 2004, by adding a flower to Jeeves. Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums. - Google AdWords Testing "Products from this Advertiser" in Search Ads?
A WebmasterWorld member said he saw Google trying out a special type of Google AdWords listing. He said he was using the AdWords Preview Tool and did a search on something. He then saw that under an ad, which showcased a Google Checkout icon, was a link with a plus sign that read "Products from this Advertiser." He said, that if you clicked on the link or the plus sign, the box would expand to - Google Updates Toolbar PageRank Scores Again
Google has updated the Toolbar PageRank score again over the weekend. Reports come from WebmasterWorld and a dozen different threads at DigitalPoint Forums. This seems to be a continuation of the paid link PageRank downgrades. Andy Beard documented some of the sites that were impacted by this fourth rendition of PageRank scores in the past month or so. You can find historical PageRank updates in our Google PageRank updates section of our site. Forum discussion - Do Google AdSense Checks Expire?
A DigitalPoint Forums thread asks if Google AdSense checks ever expire? Most checks tend to expire after a certain time period, especially ones from larger organizations that need to be able to properly manage and balance their bank accounts. Google has actually answered this question over here: AdSense checks expire six months after they've been issued. If a check hasn't been cashed six months after the date that appears on the check, a stop payment - Flash is Required: How to SEO Flash?
One of the oldest topics in SEO is how can I optimize my Flash site for search engines? Honestly, the sad answer has always been, you can't optimize Flash pages to do well in search engines. Of course, there are workarounds, but those workarounds are suggestions on how to make use of Flash alternatives to create the same thing. Kim posted a Cre8asite Forums thread asking, what should one do when a client requires Flash
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Should Ppc Manager Give Client The Full List Of Keywords, Cre8asite Forums
- Your Client Insists On Flash - What Do You Do?, Cre8asite Forums
- I forgot to cash my February 2007 check., DigitalPoint Forums
- AdSense System Maintenance, 10 Nov., 10am-2pm PT, WebmasterWorld
- Could you survive without Google?, DigitalPoint Forums
- Google Has A Veterans Day Logo., WebmasterWorld
- Google Page Rank Update November 2007 - part 2, WebmasterWorld
- Google webmaster tools - External Links to my site not showing?, DigitalPoint Forums
- MSN Traffic Increase, DigitalPoint Forums
- new Adsense trick (I think), DigitalPoint Forums
- Using Ruby for Adwords API V 11, Google Groups
- Incorporating Social Media Networking In Business, HighRankings Forums
- Confirmed: No Penalty For Invalid Pages, HighRankings Forums
- Nofollow removed from links in Sphinn comments?, Sphinn
- Relevant Backlinks... How Does Google Really Know?, HighRankings Forums
- The First (un)Official Sphinn Awards - Day 1, Sphinn
Did we miss any outstanding search forum threads? Feel free to notify us by submitting a thread.
