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 - 09/26/08: Google Causes Scramble over Dynamic URLs, Google Street View in the Dark & Yahoo APT Launched
Happy Friday! Are you ready for the weekend? After this week's big news, I know I am! Google Doesn't Want You to Rewrite Dynamic URLs What big news am I talking about? Earlier this week, we found that Google would prefer your domain to be http://domain.com/site.php?id=44&pid=42&gid=22&uid=29249 instead of using rewrites that are more human readable (!), like this: http://domain.com/site.php/tamars-profile-page. Apparently, the change is because Google wants to understand the parameters to understand site structure. But - Google Moderator Goes Live
Yesterday, I went through a bunch of my feeds and saw Matt Cutts announce a new toy from Google, Google Moderator. The idea behind Google Moderator is that questions are asked to a group of participants and these people can vote upon the question. Sounds like a social site to me. ;) Barry suggests over at Search Engine Land that this is a bit like Yahoo Suggestions, and he may be right. But Barry also - Are You Addicted to Social Media? Take the Quiz
Jordan Kasteler recently published a short 14-question quiz asking whether you're a social media addict. Questions range to "do you have more friends online than in real life?" to "do you ask your real life friends if they're members on your favorite social networking site?" to "do you spend more time on social media than your family?" Other questions include "are you afraid to admit how much time you spend on social media sites?" or - Google Pushing Book Search Results in Web Search Results?
A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting seeing an spike in the number of instances Google is showing Google Book Search results within the web results. A few other members have agreed in seeing a larger number of book results in the Google web results. Robert Charlton speculates Google may be testing if searchers like these results. And based on click data, they may decide to keep the results more prominent or not. I think it is - Google on Tag Clouds in Search Results
Andy Beard started a Google Groups thread asking why Google seems to be handling tagged pages (tag cloud results) in a "fairly random fashion." Andy goes through examples of how Google sometimes indexes these pages, sometimes shows a cache page, sometimes ranks them well and sometimes not. Google's JohnMu has a fairly long response on the topic. In short, John said he does not believe that Google treats tag pages any different than any other - Why Don't My Google Ads Rotate Evenly?
A Google Groups thread asks the question on why when a advertisers sets his AdWords campaigns to "Rotate: Show ads more evenly" in the campaign settings, does it not always rotate 100% evenly? The advertiser asked: The "% served" is skewed as follows: Ad 1 75%, 25% Ad 2 58% 42% Ad 3 35% 65% Why are these ads not displayed 50/50? AdWordsPro Steph said that there are other factors involved when it comes to - Google Messes Up AdSense Exchange For Indian Rupee
A DigitalPoint Forums thread has a three page thread on the topic of Google messing up yet again with the exchange rate given to publishers. This time Google equated one US dollar to one Indian Rupee. The true current exchange rate is $1 US to 46.555 INR. Yes, a huge difference. The main questions Indian AdSense publishers are asking themselves are: (1) Is this just a reporting glitch? (2) If not, how long will it
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- 10 Questions You Should be Asking Your Client But Aren't, Sphinn
- AdWords Advertiser needs $700 billion by Friday, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Google Spreadsheets Goes AWAL, Google Groups
- Google's 10th Birthday! "Project 10 to the 100th" May Those Who Help The Most Win, DigitalPoint Forums
- Group Wants ISPs To Block Copyrighted Files, WebmasterWorld
