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, Remove My Social Security Number
Not all of us are like the founder of LifeLock by hanging up billboards of our social security numbers giving people access to our most private number. The bottom line is that most people don't want their social security number posted in public. It leaves you more susceptible to identity theft and can leave you with a bad credit rating, at no fault to your spending habits. A Google Webmasters Help thread has one person - AdSense Publishers Want To Allow Image Ads But Disallow Flash Ads
A Google AdSense Help thread has several publishers ranting about the lack of contextual relevance that the Google AdSense flash based ads have towards their content. They say that the image ads and text ads are more contextually relevant, and thus they want to be able to block out the flash ads from displaying on their site, all together. Currently, the only way to block flash or animated ads is to block all image ads. - Google AdWords API Users: Budget Optimizer Changes Coming
Jeffrey Posnick, AdWords API Team posted an announcement in a Google Groups thread about budget optimizer changes that AdWords API users might need to know about. If you are an AdWords API user and you use Budget Optimizer, then you should read this message from Jeff. Each Campaign object has a budgetOptimizerSettings property, which in turn has a takeOnOptimizedBids setting. Currently, if takeOnOptimizedBids is set to false and you turn off the Budget Optimizer in - Video of the Googleplex
First spotted at Google Operating System, Google posted a 200 second video showing off "life at the Googleplex." Here is that video: Looks like fun to me. Forum discussion DigitalPoint Forums. - Matt Cutts Uses His Blog To Mess With Google Search
In August 2005, Matt Cutts, the head of search quality at Google, launched his blog at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/. Notice, if you click on that URL, you are redirected to http://www.dullest.com/blog/. Why? Well, Matt explained that he was to switch things around, with a new name, new design, etc. But the main thing, he is using a 302 redirect, which is a temporary redirect. When moving domains, Google almost always recommends using a permanent redirect, 301 redirect. - Google News Bug Shows Black/Blank Images
A Google News Help thread reports on a confirmed Google News bug where blank or black images show up in the search results. For example, a search for letsrecycle in Google News returns a result with an image that looks like this: Google has confirmed the issue in the thread and said: This is something that we see from time to time. It's usually temporary, but let us know [1] if you keep seeing it.
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- AND operator, Google Web Search Help
- Gmail is down ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSEEEE AAAHHH, DigitalPoint Forums
- Google New Tab is not working in Internet Explorer, Google Toolbar Help
- Have You Met The Goose That Lays Golden Links?, Cre8asite Forums
- I Really Need Help With Links, HighRankings Forums
- Link Building from A to Z, Sphinn
- More Sex Ads On A Site For Kids, Google AdSense Help
- SEO for Financial Websites, Sphinn
