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:
- Google Search Shares Up to 66% for December
According to Hitwise, Google is up to 66% for its search shares (65.98%) from 65.10% in November. Yahoo had 20.88% of the search share, whereas Microsoft had 7.04% and Ask had 4.14%. "Google's mission is to control the world's information and make it advertising accessible and profitable." Danny Sullivan has also written up great in-depth look at Google's search popularity rankings at Search Engine Land using comScore, HitWise, Neilsen, and Compete. For the most part, - Microsoft to Acquire Fast Search for $1.23 Billion
MarketWatch and Search Engine Land have publicized the announcement made yesterday that Microsoft has made a $1.23 billion bid to purchase Norwegian company Fast Search. Does this mean that a more relevant Live search is on the horizon? It's quite possible, according to some: Now Microsoft has serious search engine capability rather than the mickey mouse effort it has had up until now. In fact, Chris Sherman at Search Engine Land recommends that you keep - Google Drops NoFollow on Google Links After Being Called Out For Selling Links
Michael Gray discovered a very controversial tactic that Google is employing on their website. He notes that several partners who have implemented Google Checkout have PR8 links without nofollow. Obviously, there's some concern here. Why is Google not following their own rules? If they continue penalizing paid links from regular webmasters like Jane and John, why are they not practicing what they preach? This issue with paid links and highlighting "random" sites doesn't seem to - What is FeedRaider and Why Does it Rank Above Me?
At Cre8asite Forums, Barry Welford is a bit peeved. See, he has this blog post that was ranking #1 on Google, and all of the sudden, he was bumped down to #2 from a site called FeedRaider.com which simply regurgitates his blog post content. Barry says: This particular website had not been on my radar screen previous to this. I am most surprised that their item can rank higher since I am not sure it - Live Search Talks About Cloaking, Recent Bugs, Plays Catch & Much More
I wish Loren at Search Engine Journal also had a category for Best Search Video Blog and Best Search Podcast, because I would have voted for WebProNew's Video Blog for that one. In Mike McDonalds latest video blog interview, he spent the day with Jeremiah Andrick, the Product Manager of Live Search Webmaster Tools. Jeremiah is an awesome guy and knows how to throw the football around - impressive. In this interview, Mike and Jeremiah - Google Reader Subscribe Bookmarklet Not Working Fully
If you use the bookmarklet feature to subscribe to new blogs or sites via Google Reader, you may have noticed that it does not always allow you to subscribe to that content. Google Reader Guide (Graham) posted in a Google Groups thread yesterday that the bookmarklet feature works only when you are viewing the actual feed but not when you are viewing the main site URL. He said: Right now it looks like the "Subscribe" - Citysearch's Content Missing From Google Maps
Mike Blumenthal posted a thread at Google Groups reporting issues with Google Maps not showingCitysearch's content. Google's official maps representative, Maps Guide Jen, responded that this seems to be a temporary issue between Citysearch and Google. Citysearch's content is currently missing from Google Maps. We are taking steps to resolve the system error and repost their listings. Citysearch provides some reviews to Google Maps, to help add content for Google local users. Forum discussion at - AdWords Editor Communication Error Resolved
A WebmasterWorld thread reported that AdWords Editor has been having issues connecting to AdWords since December 29th. The error people have been getting on and off was: Adwords Editor was able to contact Adwords, but there was a problem with the communication. Please try again later. AdWordsAdvisor came back to the forums from an extended new years vacation on January 7th. On January 8th the issue was finally resolved. This morning we are able to - AdSense Changes AdSense Referrals Policy By Insulting Affiliates
Last night the AdSense Blog announced two changes to the referral ad program just for referring people to the AdSense product (not AdWords, not Google Checkout, etc.). Here is a sample live AdSense Referral Ad for the AdSense product: Those changes are two fold: (1) The pricing structure will change for publishers based in North America, Latin America, or Japan. You will be getting paid less. In the old pricing structure, you would earn $5
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Announcing The 2007 Rubber Chicken Award Winner, Sphinn
- Google Adsense becoming ineffective in the future?, DigitalPoint Forums
- ReachLocal Becomes Authorized Reseller Of Google AdWords, WebmasterWorld
- AdWords Downtime: January 12, 10am-2pm PST, Google Groups
- Google reads Flash text, so optimize it, WebmasterWorld
- Will We Ever See Google Personal Ads?, Sphinn
- Yahoo Mobile Services To Be Platform Independent, WebmasterWorld
- What Do SEO/SEM People Put In Robots.txt Files?, Sphinn
- Can Submitting To Too Many Directories Give Negative Result?, HighRankings Forums
- Is hosting a site in a "wrong" country bad for SEO?, SitePoint Forums
- More Crap From Mainstream Media This Time Gene Marks at MSNBC, Sphinn
