Welcome to December, where all your holiday wishes should come true. Hopefully you're finally recovered from last week's turkey (though if it were up to me, I'd have some more. Too bad I didn't eat at home!) And hopefully you also gained some money during Cyber Monday if you're an advertiser (or got a great deal if you're just a smart shopper). Now that it's Friday, check out this week's news in search:
Google: Cheapskates I'm in 100% agreement with Barry that Google is stingy and obnoxious about not sending their advertisers -- those who made Google millions of dollars -- tokens of appreciation for the holiday season. How about you realize that their contributions are valuable and reward them in kind? Chances are Google is making a lot more than any individual advertiser, and I'm sure they'd appreciate the goodwill from Google. Heck, I know they would.
Meanwhile, Some People are Lucky Google may have canceled gifts for most advertisers, but some got Google gifts. Doesn't that make you even more jealous that Google only seems to care about a subset of you? Seriously.
At Least the SEM Industry Cares for its Own Let's face it, this economy sucks. A lot of people are being affected and a lot of people are just being cautious even though there's probably nothing to worry about. A layoff as reported in the industry turned into a support forum for those who have been similarly impacted. It's nice that people care about others in this industry.
Have You Seen Google's Webmaster Tools Today? Google has updated its Webmaster Tools with some consolidated settings and more control over your crawl rate. We have some screenshots in case you're too lazy to log into Webmaster Tools yourself, but you might want to check it out. It's cool. Promise. (It doesn't replace lost holiday gifts, though.)
Google Fixes iFrame Spam Classifier Matt Cutts acknowledged earlier this week that Google had a bug when classifying iFrames as spam. The cool part is that it's fixed. The cooler part is that Barry found this in a Google Groups thread. I don't blame him when he says that he loves finding gems deep in forum discussion; that's why it's fun to check out forums. Of course, it's also fun to check out our reporting of the forum discussion on Search Engine Roundtable.
Google Blog Search to Fix Blogroll Links It was reported earlier that the Google was indexing content that wasn't part of blog posts, like a blogroll. Google has said that they'll remove this content. It's not happening immediately, but it's on the company's radar.
Google Webmaster Help Group Moves to New Forum It's about time, but the Google Webmaster Help Group has finally moved over to the new format Google Groups forums. Now it'll be even harder for Barry to track who is writing on which threads! Guys, give us back the blue G for Google representation and let us track our favorite forum members. Please? I asked more than once already. :)
Cyber Monday Rocked! Any Google AdSense publisher or Google AdWords advertiser seemed to have fared well this Cyber Monday. Lots of clicks, better Quality Scores -- what more can you ask for?
Google Monetizes Image Search Google is testing ads on image search, it's reported. I noticed Michael Gray blog about it. It's ugly. But hey, it's what Google does to make money for your holiday gifts. Oh wait.
Google Contractors Fired, Results Get Spammy After it was determined that Google got rid of 10k contractors, ironically (but probably not related) we're noticing that Google AdSense ads are pretty spammy lately. I wonder if there's less manpower, or maybe the issue is that there's less motivation.
I HATE SEARCHWIKI We had a poll asking how interested you were in Google's SearchIcky application. It turns out that most of you hate SearchWiki. Almost 83% of you don't want it. So hey, when is Google going to make it optional and something we can turn on? Matt Cutts, you there?
Popular Searches for 2008 Revealed Across Three Engines Google, Yahoo, and Ask revealed some of their top search terms for 2008. I thought that Google's Product Search data was most significant. It's cool to see that everyone wants gadgets. I'm not surprised; it's what I'd have searched for too!
Today is Ninja Day Most ninjas think in black. Search Engine Roundtable thinks in black on a yellow background. We're celebrating the Day of the Ninja today, so be sure to do something stealthy like a ninja. K?
Speaking of which, do you think the pirates can beat the ninjas?
