The Search Engine Blog
News and Tips From The Search Marketing World
Site Hacked Alert in Google Search Results
Google will now alert you to a site having been hacked within the search results. This doesn’t mean that the site is dangerous, however sites that have malware have usually been hacked. A hacked site could display content or contain links that the owner of the site never intended to have there. It’s a warning to approach the site with caution or avoid it altogether. If you need to view the page, perhaps the cached version will be a safer approach. Webmasters can use this as a quick check to see if their site is hacked, although they shouldn’t rely on this as their primary detection tool. The announcement and the usual discussion loaded with ignorant comments can be found on Google’s Webmaster Tools Blog.
Google Ad Preview Tool
Preview your ads on Google without impacting your costs or quality scores. It’s one of those It’s-About-Time features. You can also preview from another geographic region. There are a few oddities to muddle through but like most things Google, it’s beta.
The Evolution of Long Tail Searches
The MayDay update changed the way long tail searches were to be handled. With time under our belts, here’s an interesting conversation about long tail, MayDay updates and recent tweaks from Google.
Exact Long Tail Phrases in the Title are Not Ranking Well
Funnel Those Adwords
Search funnels is an analytic tool Google has implemented that will help show adwords traffic in ways you couldn’t before. If someone searches and clicks on an ad to your site, reads it and then leaves, it shows no conversion. That’s accurate so far. Let’s say they return to your site via a different ad. They purchase giving that second word the conversion credit. Both words deserve credit for bringing you the sale. Funnel reporting will provide that missing bit of information that better helps you determine what is working for you…..and makes Google and you more money.
Search Funnels – AdWords Help
Malware in Google Results
Even Google will admit that there are more malware, virus and other bad site listed in their search results. It’s becoming more difficult to stop these inventive evil geniuses. Be careful what you click on is still very good advice.
Anyone seeing a huge increase in unflagged malware links?
Google is Smarter Than You Are?
Google is personalizing your search even when you aren’t logged in. Wondering why the person on the computer next to you gets different search results than you do? It’s because Google personalizes your search based on what you have search for before. They are now officially announcing that they are doing it even if you aren’t logged into your Google account. It appears they’ve been doing it randomly for some time. Now it’s official and on all the time…unless you turn it off each time you search.
If you are searching for your own web sites and they are always coming up in the top ten, they may not really be in the top. It may just be because Google has learned you like that type of site. Clear your cookies to see the raw results.
This has changed marketing approaches for some time now and those marketers who are on the ball have been emphasizing other metrics than raw ranking reports. Rankings matter less with this type of a system in place.
Official Google Blog: Personalized Search for everyone
Yes Virginia, There is Click Tracking
Google, Bing and Yahoo all watch your searches, clicks and more. It is suppose to help you find more meaningful results. It wrecks havoc with ranking reports making them virtually useless. For those of you who don’t want them watching you, or you want pure results, here’s a way to help avoid tracking. This is geeky and requires a good working knowledge of computing. I don’t have an issue with the paranoid part. What gets me is the search engine thinking it’s smarter than me by guessing what I really meant.
How to Stop Google, Yahoo & Bing from Tracking Your Clicks
Google Really Doesn’t Use Keywords
That’s not news, yet people still have fits about their site keywords. Google has blogged about it yet again trying to clear up people’s incorrect perceptions. I prefer to go straight to the “manual”. Here’s a link to what Google does pay attention to….when they want to.
Meta tags – Webmasters/Site owners Help
Are You Bing-Abled?
Now that Yahoo! is serving up Bing results, the question is, are you Bing-abled? Together Yahoo! and MSN’s Bing comprise about 30% of the market. Being optimized for Google only is no longer an option. Ever since the talk of MSN and Yahoo! merging, I’ve been paying attention to having my customer’s sites MSN friendly. It was a guess that is paying off. Now that it’s official for ten years, how is your site doing?
SEO: Optimizing for Bing is a No-Brainer Now | SearchViews – Daily insights on Search Marketing, Social Media and SEO by Reprise Media.
We’re #1
We are #1 for “SEO Company”. No, this site really isn’t and neither is the person who sent me a messsage saying they were first in Google for SEO Company. I’m still appaled at these bold spam messages that are trying to get you suckered into using their SEO Company services. It’s easy to do a search and determine that they aren’t number one or number anything for any search term. And yet I’ll bet a number of people signed up for their services even though they were using a gmail account.
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