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:
- Dealing With "My Competitor's Are Doing It!" Syndrome
If you have been doing SEO for a little while you have most likely heard the phrase "My competitors are doing it, why should we do the same thing?!" or my personal favorite "Why is this guy that is nobody in our industry ranking above me with that spammy link exchange directory thingy, shouldn't install one too!?!". Those questions never allow for a single dull moment when with working with new or existing clients. The - Three Unsung Heroes of Sphinn
Jordan Kasteler has written a very nice post to acknowledge three individuals over at Sphinn that are the unsung heroes. In his post, he recognizes Sebastian X, Bill Slawski, and Marios Alexandrou. Why? Bill Slawski "has an uncanny ability of decrypting insanely ambiguous search engine related patents and translating them into plain English in terms the average person can comprehend." Sebastian "has carved quite a niche for himself being the ultimate guru in the programming - Google AdSense Team Acknowledges Amit Agarwal
Just about everyone should know about Digital Inspiration, a blog by Amit Agarwal who apparently monetizes his site on Google AdSense. The Inside AdSense blog acknowledged him in a recent blog post which included this video of Amit's story: Amit also illustrates how he displays his Google ads. I have tried a couple of other advertising programs on my website, but none of them have been so successful as AdSense. That's because AdSense contextual ads - Matt Cutts Talks About Paid Links -- Again
Michael Gray spotted an interesting quote from a recent interview with Matt Cutts and Ted Murphy of Izea (formerly PayPerPost). I explained to Matt that in SocialSpark all links required by an advertiser would carry the no-follow tag. I thought this would be a great thing. Matt commended the decision, but then added ALL links inside of any sponsored post should carry the no-follow tag period, regardless of whether they are required, not required or - Does Google Order Link Reports by Importance Factors?
A Cre8asite Forums thread asks if Google orders the link reports at either a link:www.seroundtable.com command or via Google Webmaster Tools in level of importance. Google's JohnMu confirms the link: command as just being a random sample of your backlinks. He therefore says, since it is a random sample, ordering these results in level of importance does not really apply. But what about the results in Google Webmaster Tools? JohnMu, a Googler, said: I wouldn't - Does One Incur Google Penalties for Blocking Entire Countries?
A lot of people seem to experience negative web experiences from those abroad. I can personally think of my own experiences and have thought to myself that it would be ideal to block an entire country from accessing a website to prevent fraud and the like. A WebmasterWorld member thinks similarly but wants to know if there are any consequences to blocking countries in this way. But is this dangerous in the eyes of Google? - Google Inverts Australian Exchange Rate, Pays AdSense Publishers Less by Accident
A WebmasterWorld thread has confirmed reports that Google has slipped up majority with payment to their Australian and New Zealand publishers. Google AdSense has inverted the exchange rate, to pay publishers more than 20% less than what they should have been paid this past pay period. For example, if an Australian AdSense publisher earned $1,000 US dollars, they should have received a check for about $1,139 AUD (Australian Dollars). Instead, the currency exchange rate was - Ask.com Crawler Inserting Url-Encoded Spaces in URLs Causing 404 Errors?
A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting several webmasters noticing that Ask.com's crawler has recently been generating tons of 404 (file not found) errors on their sites. The issue appears to stem from Ask.com auto inserting URL-Encoded spaces into the URL. URL-encoded spaces are those %20 signs you may find in URLs. The specific crawler called out is crawler100.ask.com. Reports say that this has been going on for two weeks now. Forum moderator, jdMorgan, offered up a
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- *FIXED* Re: The publisher must be associated with the developer account before the developer can invoke operations on the publisher's account, Google Groups
- AdWords Robot, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Google Dictating Nofollow For ALL Links From Compensated Content, Sphinn
- Techcrunch Now Nofollow Sponsor Links, Sphinn
