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:
- Weekly Search Buzz RoundUp - 03/28/08: YouTube Video Statistics, Google Demographics Targeting & Video Ads on Google and Yahoo
Happy Friday everyone! It's officially spring out here; the weather has gotten warmer and it's almost April! Wow. Easter! Yeah, that's right. Last week was Easter. And there were plenty of celebrations in the search sphere. YouTube Analytics Probably the coolest thing (for me) that happened this week was the announcement that YouTube is now providing analytics on their videos. I know Avinash Kaushik would be proud. It is very cool to see how well - Should We Have Search Marketing Standards?
Lately, we've heard a lot about the need for search marketing standards. Most people that I've encountered are overwhelmingly supportive of such a move. Not Jill Whalen, however. Over at Search Engine Land, she provides her four reasons as to why we shouldn't go that direction. Her reasons: there's no "one size fits all" solution to SEO, the definition of "SEO" is not agreed upon entirely by the community, laws already exist that protect consumers - What Belongs in a Search Engine Optimization Strategies Document?
At a Cre8asite Forums thread, a user is looking for guidance on how to compile a SEO strategic document. What would be contained in such a document? The first step in writing a document like this is determining your audience and asking who is going to read this strategy document. Once that's set, you can think of other goals, particularly the company goals and the departmental goals. But be careful. Don't make promises you can't - Google Adds Robots.txt Generator to Webmaster Tools
Want an official Google robots.txt generator? You have one. Yesterday, the Google Webmaster Central blog announced the launch of a new tool in Google Webmaster Central, the robots.txt generator. Here's what it looks like: You'll then need to download it and save it as your robots.txt file. (Be advised that you'll probably overwrite your current robots.txt file if you already have one.) For now, forum response is supportive of the tool, but the big wish - Have You Ever Recovered from a $10 Google AdWords Quality Score?
A Google AdWords advertiser at WebmasterWorld reports that he used to pay $0.15 per click on his ads but recently his quality score forced him to up the price of his AdWords ads to $10. He'd like to know if there's any way to recover from such a high jump. An interesting discussion has emerged as a result of this question. Some people believe it's not possible, but it also depends on what kind of - Microsoft's Live Search Rep Violates WebmasterWorld's Terms of Service
The other day we reported on the March 2008 Live Search update. Most of the feedback was that Microsoft took a step backwards in relevancy and spam and their new index is poor, to say the least. MSNDude, Microsoft's Live Search representative at WebmasterWorld came into the forum thread and completely violated them. He asked for specifics and we all know that WebmasterWorld does not allow specifics. He asked: I am looking into this and - Google AdSense Finally Says NO to Blending Your Ads
One of the most successful Google AdSense optimization strategies was to make your Google AdSense ads look as if they are part of your site content or navigation. This strategy is commonly referred to as blending your ads into your site design. Now, there are many grades of blending your AdSense ads. There are ways to do it where you can not tell the difference between the ad and your content and there are less - Google Webmaster Tools Verification Temporary Bug
Googler, JohnMu, posted a Google Groups thread telling everyone that Google is aware of the verification issue in Google Webmaster Tools and not to worry. He said: I just wanted to give a short heads-up that we're aware of the issue with site verification in Webmaster Tools. The team is working on it, so you should all be able to take a deeper look into your site's indexing through Webmaster Tools soon! If your site - YouTube Insights: Stats on my Most Popular YouTube Video
YouTube and Google both announced YouTube Insights, a new way to see more detailed statistics on your YouTube videos. I did a detailed post at Search Engine Land on the topic. If you have YouTube videos, you can see the stats by going to the my videos link and clicking on "about this video" button. Here is a screen shot of the button: Now, my most popular video by far is the iPhone Popcorn Trick - Microsoft adCenter Keyword Limits
Like most PPC campaign systems, there is a default cap at how many keywords, ad groups and so on you can have per account. Microsoft adCenter has their limits to: Keywords: 10,000 per adGroupAds: 20 per adGroupKeyword Account Limit: 100,000 So you can basically max out your keyword list on a per account level to 100,000 keywords. I suspect a phone call to Microsoft, if needed, can help increase that limit, but I am not
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- 10 Ways to Fight Back Content Thieves, Sphinn
- AdWords MIA on Apple iTouch, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Do Privacy Policies Help Establish a Site's Trustworthiness?, Sphinn
- getUnitCountForMethod not returning latest units?, Google Groups
- Google's Quarterly Financial Report Due Mid April is Highly Anticipated, WebmasterWorld
- Is Hiding Content With "Display: None" Legitimate SEO?, Sphinn
- Someone is using my domain in their ADWORDS description??, DigitalPoint Forums
