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Google's open source patent pledge: attack unless we don't sue you for the first time

Discuss the premium home page Google's open source patent pledge: attack unless we don't sue you for the first time
On March 29, 2013 (GMT 0) at 12: 27 pm
Today, we are open to patent non-claim (OPN) commitments presented by taking another step toward that goal again: first attack unless we have a user, reseller or designated patent on open source software and not to sue developers swear by it.

We ve 10 patents Mapreduce starts by identifying, associated with larger data sets for dealing with Google's open source computing model in the development of the first version is now widely used. Over time, we have different skill sets of Google's patents covered by the pledge would extend.

OPN pledge pledge or similar initiatives to encourage other patent holders to adopt industry, and we will be a model for Google's open source patent pledge. ": we wont sue you if you do not attack first, and [Google-opensource.blogspot.co.uk]

On March 29, 2013 (GMT 0) at 8: 31 pm
Hmmmm. color me deeply suspect. They say "we're putting this stuff into the public domain, but we reserve the right to reveal whenever you feel like it, we are in the domain, remove it." seems to be saying

Your own design as a weapon of attack is pretty funny. In some areas, with some metaphor. "Oh, sorry, I didn't know it was used against me."

On March 29, 2013 (GMT 0) at 11: 47 PM
Duane Valz, senior patent attorney
Google lawyers written by ...

... And Microsoft roughly the same 24-hour period in their new patented Center ([microsoft.com]) released ...

On March 30, 2013 (GMT 0) 3: 24 pm
Why am I not surprised? This is a "don't be evil" as a bad PR move.
Open source is open source. They warned not to sue Google will now have our money and buy the best lawyers, then they can steal, all of the open source idea, patent number with an endless supply of them step by step, or they'll sue you. So it should be illegal! Check me if I'm wrong.
On March 30, 2013 (GMT 0) at 3: 39 pm (gmt 0) on March 30, 2013, 4: 32 am
This is great, I wonder who's behind the Bill? The rich win again ... Here you will be able to come up with original ideas and good people without money, but most money is legal but more good ideas and the man stops the world WINS. ...I want to get off.

BTW, it is likely that the Forbes article as an example, the "companies" patent ... Never receive patents in General, he or she goes to the company that owns it.

On March 30, 2013 (GMT 0) at 12: 34 pm
If so, might be "open source" is pretty much a thing of the past, at least in the United States?
I don't see why. There is always a line and just change the rest of the world, and brings us into.

If nothing else for the first time after the fact, because patent files and hard patent attacks on open source, you can strengthen it. In other words, some open source software is a new idea if you publish using the old rules, it is somewhat vulnerable to later evidence that they invented the concept first came up with the idea to secretly seek patent according to g. no longer possible (unless you already have a provisional patent was filed before coming out of the software) understood it.

Back on topic ... Welcome this move by Google, it will compete with them and menacing of open-source software is much better than in the past, Microsoft's tactics (funded by direct or proxy fraud).

On March 30, 2013 (GMT 0) at 3: 05 pm
Hmmmm. color me deeply suspect. They say "we're putting this stuff into the public domain, but we reserve the right to reveal whenever you feel like it, we are in the domain, remove it." seems to be saying

Take it at face value, if you stretch it's a good thing, but the politics of moving wreaks. The only company making billions every quarter now concerned about patent litigation, the rest of us just don't want to pay next month's mortgage. If you've forgotten to Google?

On March 31, 2013 (GMT + 0) 6: 19 pm
The only company to billions of patent branch lawquits if you think worrying about, you are definitely wrong. There are a lot of not-for-profit organizations and small businesses-lovers have been hit with patent litigation.

On the other hand, large companies tend to be fairly safe: they are lawyers, and they counter sue the patent cross-license agreement,.

As if people in WW, so Google Google when something that is without a doubt a great prejudice, they just refuse to believe it.

 

View the original article here

How Small Sites Suddenly Gain High Positions In Google SERPs

Featured Home Page Discussion This 63 message thread spans 3 pages: 63 ( [1] 2 3 )  > >   How do small sites suddenly gain high ranks
 9:36 am on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)
Hi everyone, I just want to share a finding and perhaps ask if anyone has noticed the same and found any reasons behind it.

We have held position 1 on Google UK for a certain keyword for a good year or so, we have over the past couple of days dropped to P2. Thats not a huge issue but we have been replaced at the top by a site that is keyword stuffed, only has 7 backlinks to their entire domain from 2 other linking domains....A very low quality site indeed. The site in question has never been on the radar before and it has suddenly appeared from nowhere.

Also, on another site I work with, we generally hold top 5 in Google for out main keyword, 2 weeks ago, a domain less than 2 months old, suddenly appeared straight at position 3. Again their site is keyword stuffed and all there inbound links are footer links that seem to be from a link network.

Isn't this the sort of stuff Google is meant to be preventing? It seems the extreme low quality is starting to get back up there.

Any thoughts?

 12:40 pm on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)
Well if they have valuable relevant information then they might deserve a high ranking regardless of whether they have many backlinks or some keyword stuffing. Their usefulness to visitors should be the main factor, not backlinks.
 1:39 pm on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)
They are poorly designed affilaite sites with little unique content. Very low quality.
 2:07 pm on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)
Well if they have valuable relevant information then they might deserve a high ranking regardless of whether they have many backlinks or some keyword stuffing. Their usefulness to visitors should be the main factor, not backlinks.

You are kidding?

 2:12 pm on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)
In my niche I have seen a number of small sites like this. Their information is old (like 2009 old), very low number of back links yet they occupy one of the top 5 spots. This isn't just for one page most of the pages on the site ranks high.
 2:36 pm on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)
It's called "fresh meat" and Google eats it up initially, sometimes...and it might last a day or two, or up to a week or two if lucky. It's a flaw in the algo as far as I'm concerned, but it's their playground.
Blackhatter's are currently having great success and fun with this "Achilles Heal" of G.
 3:09 pm on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)
The short answer is that Google loves spam.

Simply buy a throw away domain, $10
buy 100,000 to 500,000 links from a mass marketer, $150
hire a freelance designer to build the site $150

When the new domain ranks, takes about 4 days, just 301 to what ever you like.

Rank and Bank, Churn and Burn, call it what you like, many in the tough niches are doing it because it works. Don't believe me? Go check out what the payday loans serps look like.

If a $500 investment brings in $1,000 or more a week, and stays there for even just 3 or 4 weeks, you make a great ROI.

Now rinse and repeat, build 10 throw away domains...

The only ones that are hurting right now are those so called white hats trying to do what Google says.

I don't wear a hat, I make money online, as the rules change so must you... or put on a white hat and get an outside job like many other failed webmasters are doing. More worried about the color of some fictitious hat, rather than making money to support their family. I am not evil, I do not wear a hat of any color, I just do what lots of testing has shown me works. I do not call it spam if someone searches for payday loans and see's my site, clicks to get their payday loan and moves on. That is a good user experience and despite what you read here, Google Loves Spam.

Sorry I have been reading these boards for years, so much BS, sometimes I need to rant a bit as so many just dont get it. Throw away the F***ing hat and make some money, once you have money, make whatever color hat site you want. But make money first by following the lead of people who are doing it now.

1- Learn how to build cheap sites that are good for the user, sell what you say you are selling.

2- Learn where to get mass links that work for cheap.

3- Now this one was the hardest for me to learn. Never, Ever, EVER fall in love with your site, just rank and bank, churn and burn, rince and repeat.

...end of rant ... enough reading, back to work everyone.

 3:17 pm on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)
Well that's one way. And probably the only way for that particular niche.
 4:07 pm on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)
Well that's one way. And probably the only way for that particular niche.

If it works in the tough niche, then it is even easier and cheaper to do in YOUR niche... think about it

 5:47 pm on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0) 7:29 am on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
Well, Thats true some sites still rank with keyword stuffing I also faced this problem last month but now that site going downward and my site getting rank well and normal to the top of SERPs. So wait and watch this site will go backward soon mate.
 11:26 am on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
Sad thing is that most of the older established sites are so riddled with penalties & other negative ranking factors that it's relatively easy to launch a new site, pepper it with links, enjoy some candy then crash & burn.

Then just 301 the links to a new site. Rinse repeat.

Unfortunately most of us are attached to our brand names.

 12:22 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
Search on Google for "honeymoon period seo" you will see a lot of discussion about this phenomenon.
 1:06 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
only has 7 backlinks to their entire domain

Just because you only see 7 backlinks doesn't mean those are the only backlinks the domain has.

Much like Google prevents you from seeing queries typed in by those logged into their Google Account... all domain owners can prevent you from scanning the backlinks they provide.

If you disallow a link checker from crawling... guess what?

 1:53 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)

appropriate name, love 'em & leave 'em

moTi

msg:4558598

 2:20 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
ok, ranting time. i'll play the devil's advocate. eat this:

i can't remember that i've ever read a WebmasterWorld member stating that the fresh website who dares to rank above him is a good website with quality content and deserved the rise to the top. strangely, every time that happens, the content of the new contestants is disqualified as utter rubbish.

sadly, WebmasterWorld nowadays seems to be a pool of grayed established publishers with mostly decades-old content who most of the time do nothing else than complain about the newcomers instead of getting their act together and step up to a new level in order to face the competition. how dare others come up with fresh ideas in order to disrupt the set structures.

ranking a quality new website nowadays is so much harder than ten or five years ago. my website is top-notch in its area, it absolutely deserves to overtake the old stuff in the serps in next to no time. instead, it's a wearing and depressingly tedious fight for months and months with various setbacks for whatever reasons google decides.

i'm sick of the whining. it's pure preservation of the status quo with the established webmasters enviously only wanting to preserve their dated, meanwhile often completely useless stuff in the serps. i'd wholeheartedly welcome any step google and its algorithms take to understand the quality of new websites more rapidly.

 3:12 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
Whenever these discussions come up: the factor time barely gets enough attention in the discussions. I have seen poor domains outranking the good ones, but never for longer than 6 weeks. At least not at serious terms with more than 5k search volume per month.

Google is pretty harsh, just not pretty fast - IMHO. It can happen to see crap for 6 weeks, but it will vanish or be replaced by new crap. In the past 11 years I have been playing that game, Google always repaired the glitches to the necessary levels to stay on top of their financial wealth. That this is NOT our wealth - well...

 7:17 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
Yea, there is a pretty funny one in our niche. They are trying to rank for a PHP script and doing very well! A couple of sites tried their script and then removed it. Google must still be counting the removed backlinks. Meanwhile there are no backlinks pointing at it according to Majestic (except internals).
 8:10 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
I have actually seen this in a SERP recently for a "lead gen" type of term. When doing a competitive analysis I could find no clear reason a new, thin site with few obvious links was ranking in the top 4 for a highly competitive term. I assumed it was an abberation or heavy link buying that the link research tools haven't caught up to yet and which Google hasn't caught up to and burned.

Churn and burn still works, just not for as long on a given domain as it used to.

 12:53 am on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
I have about 4 competitor sites which I just looked at that have been in the serps for a few months now and are slowly taking over different keywords. They are EMD domains which is not necessarily a bad thing but after looking more closely at them they are all pretty much the same. Same Wordpress type site and theme with just the graphics and content different. You can tell the same person wrote it but just changed things enough. Looking further into the backlinks from Alexa I see these sites have about 70 or so different backlinks.

I checked out over 10 of the backlinks and I see they are blogs with each about 6 articles with keyword loaded entries. They link to about 6 different sites in each article. 2 sites are usually theirs and the other 4 are genuine sites like Wikipedia, Techcrunch, etc. Some of the sites do share ips.

Basically someone created these sites which look okay at first glance and almost all of the backlinks these sites have. I am not sure how an algorithm could spot this but it just shows you the lengths people go to rank their sites.

 11:42 am on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
I am not sure how an algorithm could spot this but it just shows you the lengths people go to rank their sites.

Are the sites relevant and have any quality? If so would your question better be:

but it just shows you the lengths people HAVE TO go to rank their sites.

G's brought all this crap on themselves, they started it and now they're having to live with it and try and sort it out and the more they try the bigger mess they're getting into.

 1:45 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
Are the sites relevant and have any quality?

They are about the topic but the post are just spun different ways talking about how good the product is. I would put the quality just above a scraper site. The posts are just there to sell the product.

The backlink sites are just filled with posts on different topics spun so they could include their sites using different keywords for the link.

 3:27 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
ok, ranting time. i'll play the devil's advocate. eat this:

Candidly, I agree. Maybe the problem with ranking lower is 'ones content does not deserve being higher'... it's all FREE, the results that is... how can anyone complain about something they got for free.

One thing you'll never hear is Wikipedia complaining about lower ranks... they simply expand their content diversity & content appeal.

 3:42 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
The only ones that are hurting right now are those so called white hats trying to do what Google says.

I don't think there's more accurate words to describe how I'm feeling right now.

Sad thing is that most of the older established sites are so riddled with penalties

I've said it before and but I'll say it again, google should stop punishing spammers and instead concentrate on rewarding sites that have an established record of doing the right thing. If you've never keyword stuffed or bought links you deserve ranking, and a medal. I want my medal.

 5:07 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
If you've never keyword stuffed or bought links you deserve ranking, and a medal.

While I understand your sentiment and I know your comment was probably tongue-in-cheek, let's remember that it's not if you are a "white-hat" that determines whether you deserve to rank, it's whether you have done everything possible to actually deserve to rank. If you want to rank #1 and you can't objectively say you are the unquestioned best result for a query, then you don't "deserve" to rank #1 no matter what tactics you use.

 5:31 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
It's not enough to just follow the rules.
 5:39 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
Google loves spam in the organic results. It boosts their bottom line.

My hat has been getting dirtier and dirtier for a couple of years now. If you do everything white-hat and Google still bans you, accusing you of being black-hat over and over for every site you build ... guess what happens?

 9:23 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
The only ones that are hurting right now are those so called white hats trying to do what Google says.
I don't think there's more accurate words to describe how I'm feeling right now.

Ya know how ridiculous that sounds!

You're just trying to... "just make a great website?"

Once upon a time Google thought... "a video sharing archive that's what we need!" They invested in video.google.com and it was a dud.

They could have tried again and created video2.google.com and if that turned out to be another dud made video3.google.com but instead they had money so they bought youtube.com

Moral...if you suck at making things great... hire the people that do that and you won't need to worry about webspam.

 9:36 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
Moral...if you suck at making things great... hire the people that do that and you won't need to worry about webspam.

They had a lott of money fathom so buying youtube.com was an option.

Youtube was an incredible site, and has improved under Google. But you have to have very deep pockets to fund it. Not everyone has that kind of money. So we have a go ourselves. Try and follow the rules because there seems little other direction.

 10:38 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
They had a lott of money fathom so buying youtube.com was an option.

Yes that is true. But the creators of Youtube didn't have alot of money to create Youtube, which is the point of "just making a great website".

This 63 message thread spans 3 pages: 63 ( [1] 2 3 )  > >  

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Study: 50pct of All Email Spam Comes From Only 20 ISPs

Featured Home Page Discussion Study: 50pct of All Email Spam Comes From Only 20 ISPs
 4:33 pm on Mar 18, 2013 (gmt 0)
About 50% of all junk mail on the net emerges from just 20 internet service providers (ISPs), a study has found.

The survey of more than 42,000 ISPs tried to map the net's "bad neighbourhoods" to help pinpoint sources of malicious mail.Study: 50pct of All Email Spam Comes From Only 20 ISPs [bbc.co.uk]

Many of these networks were concentrated in India, Vietnam and Brazil. On the net's most crime-ridden network - Spectranet in Nigeria - 62% of all the addresses controlled by that ISP were seen to be sending out spam.

Networks involved in malicious activity also tended to specialise in one particular sort of malicious message or attack, he discovered. For instance, the majority of phishing attacks came from ISPs based in the US. By contrast, spammers tend to favour Asian ISPs. Indian ISP BSNL topped the list of spam sources in the study.

 9:19 pm on Mar 18, 2013 (gmt 0)

This is nothing new. I've been routinely blocking all these countries (plus Turkey, China, Russia and Taiwan) from every server I have set up for the last decade.

 9:21 pm on Mar 18, 2013 (gmt 0) 9:46 pm on Mar 18, 2013 (gmt 0)
That list probably includes the top 20 most popular free mail services. On one site we have a sign up form for a free service and the subscriber needs to validate their email. So many people have so many different email addresses... if they don't receive their confirmation mail they sign up using another email address and so on. Some don't even remember their correct addresses.

Billions of dollars worth of data wasted in spam traffic and all they have to do is stop providing free mail services. What's wrong with the mailbox that one's ISP provides with their internet service?

 8:48 am on Mar 19, 2013 (gmt 0)
What's wrong with the mailbox that one's ISP provides with their internet service?
Most people will change their ISP at least once every few years.
 9:02 am on Mar 19, 2013 (gmt 0)

What's wrong with the mailbox that one's ISP provides with their internet service?

The free services are usually pretty effective and block bulk mailings from their accounts. On the other hand my original ISP regularly had its IP addresses blacklisted because it did sweet F.A. about botnets using its cusomters' infected machines.
 10:04 am on Mar 19, 2013 (gmt 0)
Most people will change their ISP at least once every few years.

Most people change their free mail service more regularly to get away from spam.

 11:49 am on Mar 19, 2013 (gmt 0)
Almost everyone I know has had the same free email address for years, apart from one or two who switched away from Hotmail at some point.

My ISP had its mail server blacklisted for being an open relay.

 8:43 pm on Mar 19, 2013 (gmt 0)
Almost everyone I know has had the same free email address for years

Sure, so do I. But I keep that one for elite contacts. Anything used for general business and correspondence needs to be disposable and is.

 10:29 pm on Mar 19, 2013 (gmt 0)
The e-mail address you get from your ISP changes every time the ISP gets a new owner-- and no, they don't auto-forward. The old address simply disappears. If the phone company worked that way you'd have to tell everyone a new number every other year. The preceding sentence probably had a lot more meaning ten years ago when people didn't change cell providers every five minutes with accompanying change in entire number, possibly including area code. But still.

This is a major annoyance when sites insist on using your e-mail address as your account name. Let's see now, did I join this service when I was on AOL, or Cox, or something dot edu, or...

 6:20 am on Mar 22, 2013 (gmt 0)
@lucy24 - When I sign up to siteA, I create a disposable email from one of our domains that uses siteA@ - if you find spam going to that address you know where it came from. NO, it's not enough to have one or two disposable email accounts, I want to know exactly who lies and who tells the truth "We will never sell or trade your email address... honest".... we'll see.

Waste of time? Not at all: less than 60 seconds to log in to server, create new email, forward that to a "personal" email address and finish the sign up to siteA. The tricky part is replying to those using an email client that doesn't really have those credentials but it's very rare that a siteA type site is going to need replies; like this very forum, the email account is just for notifications.

Spam it, sell it or spoof it, I'll delete it. Anyone remember a time when some sites wouldn't accept signups from email addresses that weren't major ISPs? I don't feel like I missed anything by not having signed up to them, matter of fact, I'm pretty comfortable with it.

 11:50 pm on Mar 25, 2013 (gmt 0)
anyone remember a time when some sites wouldn't accept signups from email addresses?

Sure do. In fact we used to reject mail sent from web forms using Hotmail addresses. Even today, if someone is using a free mail service, we realise that they are not using their domain mail address and probably have many different disposable email addresses. So many in some cases that it takes weeks for them to find your support response.

If your clientele are companies, allowing them to use disposable email addresses for purchases and support is an absolute waste of time. How in the blazes will they ever get proper support and be advised of critical software updates?

With ISPs the old address can disappear

Not if they are using an email based on their domain. After all, if your clients have web sites and email @ their domain, why settle for anything else. What else can they expect when seeking your expert advice at the expense of your time? So they should at least use a legitimate email address.

 12:44 am on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
After all, if your clients have web sites and email @ their domain, why settle for anything else.
This only works if the person at the receiving end can get your mail. I remember when I first registered my domain name I was told-- by a fellow human, not by the host-- that I wouldn't be able to use it for e-mail because it wasn't an ISP. Remember when cyberpromo sprouted a dozen new aliases every other day? ISPs simply slammed their doors and would accept mail only from known domains, which mostly meant fellow ISPs.

Except, of course, for services like AOL that fought spam with one hand while handing out unrestricted free trial accounts with the other. Sigh. I can remember people getting banned from forums and coming back half an hour later with a new name and IP after, presumably, pawing through that week's trash and fishing out the latest Free Trial CD.

 8:09 am on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
@lucy24 - I remember when I first registered my domain name I was told When was that, back in the 90s? I remember hearing the same advice back then but in the last few years it hasn't been an issue for any of ours.
 9:03 am on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
More recent than that-- but the person I heard it from had had her own domain for a lot longer, so she may have been going by early experience. (I just looked it up. She goes back to 1999. Things were different then.)

I've never tried sending e-mail from my own domain, though. I only use it for incoming-- and not much of that.

If nothing else, it prevents the ghastly blunder of forgetting to set one of your addresses to auto-forward. See, ahem, unrelated thread elsewhere in foo.

 

View the original article here

The fee for a third-party merchants are faced with anger raise Amazon

Discuss the premium home page The fee for a third-party merchants are faced with anger raise Amazon
On March 28, 2013 (gmt 0) 6: 47 PM
Oh, that's pretty impressive.

Amazon "Earth's most customer-centric company planning to raise the prices of consumer products, automotive parts and other products in the United Kingdom and across Europe are using the network to sell to a third party of a wave is described as being imposed by the Internet retailer is facing a revolt from small traders.

If the dealer fees and millions of electronic gadgets like memory cards, headsets and printer cartridges to jump 7 percent to 12 percent in the UK and on April 4, shortly after the Easter weekend in four other major European market is one of the most popular items for busy merchants including Amazon faced anger over Amazon fees will be listed in the. any third party merchants on raising [guardian.co.uk]

On March 28, 2013 at 9: 00 pm (gmt 0) 30 min.
But simply acted like a kid other spoiled because of the strict United States somewhere, someone demanded a "better conclusion".

I am sorry for your friends Gawd, they actually believe and bet that they're in the real world:-)

On March 28, 2013 (gmt 0) 9: 36 pm
I'm still not sure why these people rely on Amazon or eBay websites like wonder?

If you don't do this business free?

On March 28, 2013 (gmt 0) at 10: 13 pm
As they are just flattening the image, you can see the day of your colleagues, and that would cause a rupture.

They'll probably drop a flat 3 percent earlier.

Ah the memories of when it is 15%!

On March 29, 2013 (GMT 0) 4: 01 pm
They probably figure by raising the prices of the seller is going to make more money from them if you leave the best third party Amazon sellers and products for sale and sell them directly to the sales data and make more money. Either way, Amazon.
On March 29, 2013 (GMT 0) 9: 37 am
Amazon is one of the best third-party products for sale and sell them directly to the sales data and make more money.
It really takes a new place in the Homo a bestseller overnight. In this industry, they are small minorities, need to sell data on Amazon under the burden of an ancestor, or if you are moving out. Amazon services, and attract the masses now what do they do, payments or go out and invest in building this business, everyone over time. For those of you who either really sucks.
On March 29, 2013 (GMT 0) at 12: 29 pm
Amazon is likely to raise prices and thus their own can make more profits. Maybe they can't get away with because I know so much more than avoiding taxes! Also why companies to avoid tax shopping?
dpd1

msg:4559642

On March 29, 2013 (GMT + 0) 6: 36 pm
Are you kidding? How to avoid paying taxes in the United States. They're too big what do you think? lol
On March 29, 2013 (GMT 0) at 7: 44 pm
Based on items that sell clothing, stopped using Amazon. Amazon has a certain "rules" ones, as for the image, you will not be able to do when listing.

All (a typo, I meant to say "all"), big brands and the other "big" sellers of the right and left of the Amazon 3rd party was breaking the rules. They did not have a warning.

A small break one rule for men and they will cancel your account.

Customer service is concerned, you're "uprising in India" obviously reading from a script approved Amaazon. So it's efficient, and it's fun too.

Scary third party sale at Amazon. It is not recommended to everyone.

On March 29, 2013 (GMT 0) at 8: 56 pm
Ive been on sale at Amazon has the complete opposite view. (Accidentally) break the rules and they are simply warnings. I contacted their support and are very impressed with how quickly and efficiently they always. I found their product page, another problem with third party lists correctly, they study and make changes within 24 hours.

Do not rely on them, and use them as a marketing Avenue. Initiatives to promote my site and a Facebook page is very well done. Marketing tools, you can go to the source of the Amazon as a way to simply use your order to market yourself will not be included in them.

 

View the original article here

WebmasterWorld weekly roundup 03-28

I failed to live up to the hype to keep hearing about social media. I still believe-crazy, and judging by the contents of my mailbox. Social media solutions to promote individuals and businesses along with a message from the packaging.

It works, but I know some of the wild claims not made out.

I'm now where some company and they offer a few free social media marketing are some of the experiments. Free marketing where they were probably not otherwise know you will do it. For me, an important factor is that they are to participate in the field. These traditional social media success, such as a person or band.

It works, and what doesn't for me to understand the small test.

It is just the beginning and can't wait to see the trends and results.

Other topics is a quick reminder about Pubcon in New Orleans, the rate rise before the end of the next week, if you are planning on attending the book, don't forget.

Last week the WebmasterWorld weekly here.

Welcome to WebmasterWorld weekly roundup this week.

We will review the arrangement last week was Google AdSense site. WebmasterWorld members detailing what is really behind the increased income 50pct in discussion.

The penalty is one of the few high-profile big brands getting in quick recovery, according to Google's Matt Cutts Google Serps advantage that don't have the big brand said. WebmasterWorld members had their view on the subject. What do you think?

Last week we tried to analyze all the Google Analytics Google Universal customers are invited to hear. Have you tried it yet?

When the heated room on busy sites, accessibility in the news, we are advocates for Americans with disabilities site fails to comply with the ADA.

Yahoo acquired news aggregator application, Summly, spent a handsome sum and it will close the app.

AdWords quality score and how to learn more about the impact of negative keywords WebmasterWorld members the benefits of using a large number of negative keywords.

A small site, all of a sudden you get a higher ranking in the Google Serps it how? WebmasterWorld members discuss how high achieving is located in the Google Serps.

Sweden's language Commission following pressure for the company to a more flattering fit the definition of a list of new words on Google "ungoogleable" has dropped the term.

One of the world's larger hosting companies, 1and1, on May 1, 2013, many blogs and offline, the site potentially results in MySQL 4 database is disabled. It's your site, if it is sent to make sure that MySQL 5 is recommended.

Linux users group Microsoft Windows 8 has filed a complaint to the European Union via regulations. In its 14-page complaint, said at the start of the secure boot UEFI Hispalinux to control a computer, known as a "mechanism" means the user is included in other Windows 8 operating system installation, you must obtain a key from Microsoft.

The installation of a security company, according to the most current popular Web browser attacks, and at least one of the multiple use of the Toolkit exploits a vulnerable plugin, you use an outdated version of Java.

This week we covered the story titled, "the largest DDoS attacks slow Internet and publicly known." details have not found much difference before and haven't seen too many reports of problems. However, we spoke to cover it anyway. How do you think, if you were affected?

Google launches shopping Express news this week, the San Francisco Bay area, will be delivered on the same day on the testing limitations.

Google announced that acquiring knowledge and trend analysis for the user to react faster in real time to see that.

Google, Google News, marketing services, had this to say, "he should violate our article quality guidelines promotion strategy for this kind of employment considerations." it's a very forthright and sites from the user failing to comply could lose their positions in Google News.

Amazon "Earth's most customer-centric company planning to raise the prices of consumer products, automotive parts and other products in the United Kingdom and across Europe are using the network to sell to a third party of a wave is described as being imposed by the Internet retailer is facing a revolt from small traders.

Google search for shopping is to stop using the API. Find out more in our room.

This week, we ask, "will the desktop Windows Blue end?" our rooms have your say on the subject.

Facebook is still a Menlo Park to build a second campus in the news has expanded to work with.

The first metric multi comScore's new Media Metrix comes in both desktop and mobile platforms, statistics and measurements. A close look at the details for mobile use and expose some interesting facts about. No surprise at the top of Google and Yahoo and Microsoft third. Interesting stats and more below, Amazon, aol, Facebook site.
ComScore is a convenient table that is contained in a press release. Learn more about our room theme.

You will discuss that we haven't covered themselves or I delete messages or posting some news and let me know.
Enjoy your week!

Cheers
Neil
@engine

WebmasterWorld follow on Twitter. #Webmasterworld or @webmasterworld

WebmasterWorld on Facebook.

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WebmasterWorld Weekly Roundup March 21

Over recent weeks i've been wrestling with my strong views on privacy vs openess. What's really giving me angst is the continuing trend towards software, hardware and services that want to join the dots over privacy.

I doubt the CEO of Company X is sitting in their cave waiting for my next posting to appear, reading it and drawing a conclusion on me as an individual.

It's far more automated, and my data is a commodity.

Many people seem comfortable opening their lives up on Facebook, or allowing tracking of everything they do. Most are not thinking of their privacy, but just taking the free services and using them without a second thought.

Can you think of any of the services i'll miss if I stop sharing, and, importantly, will I really miss it?

Ok, i'll end my rant and get back in my own cave.

Last week's WebmasterWorld Weekly is here.

Welcome to this week's WebmasterWorld Weekly Roundup.

Last week we heard that Google is testing a couple of new search features: For one, you may have noticed that the font of the URLs in search results is now noticeably bigger. Google is also testing a new "search within" feature which allows users to focus their search on results just from one site.

There is a report that Facebook is testing whether to allow users to click on a hashtag to pull up all posts about similar topics or events so it can quickly index conversations around trending topics and build those conversations up, giving users more reason to stay logged in and see more ads. Would the hashtags be helpful to users, or just helpful to Facebook?

This week there was a great thread where WebmasterWorld Members were discussing how best to optimize a MySQL database for WordPress.

Microsoft Advertising published a study: "Consumer Experience Is Everything." Microsoft's Natasha Hritzuk said, "In our new study, called Cross-Screen Engagement, we found that while the era of ?Content is King? isn?t over per se, there is a new ?Crown Prince? coming on the scene: consumer experience." What do you think of the study?

Are the giant arrows on AdSense ads creating bad clicks? Join our discussion on the topic.

A study of 42,201 ISPs indicated that about 50% of all junk mail, phishing attacks and other malicious messages came from just 20 networks. Read more about the survey, and let us know what you think in our thread.

Pinterest announced it's rolling out a new look, and said, "We added a few new things to the close-up view of pins to help you discover things you love that you might not have known about otherwise."

We asked the question this week, is Facebook pushing developers into paying for participation. It's been suggested it is an attempt to stifle applications that compete with Facebook-owned services or part of an effort to get developers to pay for ads on Facebook. What do you think?

Can you think of any new ways of measuring SEO performance? Join our discussion on the topic.

Microsoft has said Windows 7 SP1 will start to roll out on Windows Update and Windows 7 RTM (with no service pack) will no longer be supported as of April 9th, 2013.

Last week we reported that Google Reader was closing down. This week, it seems that Google has resurrected the RSS handling extension for Chrome browser.

Bing announced an interesting new tool: Site Move Tool. Bing said, "The new Site Move tool under the Diagnostics and Tools section in Bing Webmaster Tools can be used to tell Bing that you have moved and permanently redirected your site, or a section of your site, to a new location."

WebmasterWorld Members this week discussed the publisher's notification by Google that certain medical keywords, part of the human anatomy, are 'too sensitive' for Google's advertisers.

There was a report made this week over the Chameleon botnet, which is made up of 120,000 home PCs. Apparently, the botnet clicks on ads and is costing advertisers as much as $6m per month.

Bad merchants watch out: Google is out to get bad merchants, and it will soon launch an algorithm to demote merchants providing poor buyer experience.

WebmasterWorld Members this week are discussing their experiences after making the switch to responsive design web sites.

Facebook is rolling out a new design. It said, "We heard from you that the current timeline layout is sometimes hard to read. Starting today, all posts are on the right side of your timeline, with photos, music and other recent activity on the left."

I read of a report that Yahoo is in talks over a share in the Dailymotion video site.

Look out Twitter clones: Twitter this week was awarded a patent on twitter: "Device independent message distribution platform." At the same time, the messenging service celebrated its seventh birthday.

YouTube was on a talk-itself up mission when it announced it has 1 billion unique users each month.

Google was keen to tell us about Google Keep, a cloud-based note taking App. Find out more in our thread.

Following on from last week's announcement that Google Chrome's Sundar Pichai has taken over Android from Andy Rubin, this week, Eric Schmidt clarified that Chrome and Android will remain separate products.

Have you found some news that we haven't covered or discussed, drop me a message, or post it yourself and let me know.
Have a productive week!

Cheers
Neil
@engine

Follow WebmasterWorld on twitter. #webmasterworld or @webmasterworld

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Yahoo Acquires Summly News App

Featured Home Page Discussion Yahoo Acquires Summly News App
 2:56 pm on Mar 25, 2013 (gmt 0)
An app created by a UK teenager has been acquired by web giant Yahoo in a deal the BBC understands to be worth "dozens of millions" of pounds.

Seventeen-year-old Nick D'Aloisio's Summly app summarises news stories from popular media companies.

Neither company would disclose the terms of the deal publicly.

The app itself will now close, but its features will be used in mobile products at Yahoo, where Mr D'Aloisio has been given a job.Yahoo Acquires Summly News App [bbc.co.uk]

Yahoo's announcement on Summly.
Today, we?re excited to share that we?re acquiring Summly, a mobile product company founded with a vision to simplify the way we get information, making it faster, easier and more concise.Yahoo! To Acquire Summly [ycorpblog.com]

 2:51 am on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
we?re excited to share that we?re acquiring Summly
...and killing it.

Nick and the Summly team are joining Yahoo! in the coming weeks. While the Summly app will close, you will see the technology come to life throughout Yahoo!?s mobile experiences soon. So stay tuned!

 9:44 am on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
Yes, they want the technology integrated into Yahoo. It's a shame the app is going as it's quite useful. Clearly, Yahoo is hoping people will feel that it's useful when it's on Yahoo.
 3:59 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
I read about it: dangerous!

Sounds to me as a way to solve the scrapping content problem because the app creates a shorter version of the original text, article, news, etc. Sure some people will look into this technology or alike to create their own free unique content sites.... it sucks.

 7:15 am on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)
..but is it legal, (or even just "fair"), to scrape, automate rewriting and republish ?

I'm sure if it causes problems, the bots that do the news scraping, (and possibly other Yahoo bots if they are seen to be feeding a greedy app), will be blocked.

 

View the original article here

Google AdSense Updates 5,000 Publisher Ads Giant Arrows Create Bad Clicks

Featured Home Page Discussion Have You Been Affected By The Nessie Update?
5,000 of you have! 11:11 am on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
For those wondering what may, or may not, be happening with their AdSense arrows (Nessie).

User Mike in adsense forum get response from Adsense support:

"""Thank you for your email.

On Friday 9th, a change went out that removed the arrow button (Nessie) from the text ads appearing on about ~5000 publishers websites. These publishers possibly intentionally or unintentionally have ad implementations that mislead users as measured by the rate of accidental clicks. For these publishers we will continue to serve ads but we have removed the arrow button. These changes are meant to optimize the experience for advertisers, publishers and users alike. Some of these publishers may see fluctuations in their CPCs, CTRs and/or RPMs from smart pricing due to these implementations.

We have put together this FAQ:

Q. Why is the button no longer on my website?

A. Our systems have determined that some ad elements in text ads implemented on your site are not performing well for users, advertisers, and/or the publish network, therefore, the arrow button may not display on your ads moving forward. Different ad elements may or may not appear in text ads depending on what is deemed best performing for users, advertisers, and publishers. We believe these changes will encourage advertisers to spend more on the network, and lift earnings for our publisher clients in the long term.

Q. Why was the button removed from all the pages of my website?

A. Our systems have determined that some ad elements in text ads implemented on your site are not performing well for users, advertisers, and/or the publish network, therefore, the arrow button may not display on your ads moving forward. Different ad elements may or may not appear in text ads depending on what is deemed best performing for users, advertisers, and publishers. We believe these changes will encourage advertisers to spend more on the network, and in our publisher clients in the long term.

Q. Why has my CTR gone down?

A. Clicks/CTR are largely a factor of ad type, ad rendering and ad placement amongst others. Depending on the performance of an ad unit we may change how ads are rendered to prevent accidental clicks. You may want to check your ad implementations as they may be causing users to take unintended actions. Please see How you can help to prevent invalid activity for more.

Q. Why has my CPC gone down?

A Many factors determine the performance of an ad including CTR, CPC, user intent, advertiser ROI, and others. While we can?t draw specific conclusions about your site, in general our algorithms are designed to optimize and reflect the value users and advertisers are receiving from specific ad placements.

Q. Why has my Revenue/RPM gone down?

A.. Many factors determine the performance of an ad including CTR, CPC, user intent, advertiser ROI, and others. While we can?t draw specific conclusions about your site, in general our algorithms are designed to optimize and reflect the value users and advertisers are receiving from specific ad placements.

Q. Can I do anything specific to get the button text back?

A. No. While we can?t draw specific conclusions about your site, in general our algorithms are designed to optimize and reflect the value users and advertisers are receiving from specific ad placements. This can change over time and may or may not include additional ad elements like the clickable button.

Our internal team is working on this now and will have more information on the network wide impact of these changes.

Thank you for your understanding. "

 1:17 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
One of 2 sites I manage is affected (no grey arrows). It's a very high volume traffic site. My other site, small traffic like 10K pageviews a month is unaffected.
 1:50 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
Yep, arrows gone from my site also. Earnings have fallen about 50%. I'm slightly positive that smart pricing will iron out my earnings to normal levels after a while, it's just reflecting the drop in clicks at present.
jpch

msg:4555282

 2:17 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
5000 sites is less than 0.25% of sites running AdSense...just trying to put this in perspective of the bigger picture.
 2:25 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
Nope.

Yea, the fact that there's only 5000 seems odd to me, it's such a statistically small percentage of AdSense sites. I wonder how they found them and determined they had to turn off the arrows?

 2:44 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
> I wonder how they found them and determined they had to turn off the arrows?

I clicked through to a gallery site the other day that appeared to not have any navigation links at all, just a couple of AdSense ads. If I didn't know better, the AdSense arrows would be the thing I'd click to advance to the next page. Pure MFA. My hunch is Google went after high CTR sites and niches abusing the navigation angle.

 3:18 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
.25% of sites but most likely those are the higher traffic sites, so a much higher percent of search traffic than .25%.
 3:26 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
I don't know if I believe that 5,000 publisher number. My site that was affected, even with the arrows which definitely helped CTR still had a very low CTR. But it is so high volume that the sheer amount of "invalid clicks" must be what caught Google's attention. Honestly, the text ad relevance dip is a much bigger impact on my bottom line than the loss of the arrows.
 3:31 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
Interesting that the system allowed turning of this feature on a site by site basis.

I guess it's more or less the reverse of turning on Beta features for select sites.

 3:40 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
Arrow is misleading? Eureka! It's like putting a big arrow on your shop and then wonder why your customers go to the neighboring shop.

It seems I'm one of those 5000, I just realized that there are no arrows on my site.

Our systems have determined that some ad elements in text ads implemented on your site are not performing well

They are damn right.

...ad implementations that mislead...
One of my 728x90s has a small news box on the right side. I guess users thought (or google thought that users thought) the arrow is pointing to the box and clicked the box instead of the ad.

levo

msg:4555335

 3:52 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
Lost the arrows (never liked them) and can't find any arrows on competitors' websites.
 4:14 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
Also wonder why they named them after the Loch Ness Monster.
 4:29 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
I didn't like the look of the arrows, but the extra money was nice while it lasted.
 6:33 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
Still have arrows, yet no real increase in income since they were introduced. Who wants my arrows for free? I'll send them ASAP. :)
 7:03 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
If I didn't know better, the AdSense arrows would be the thing I'd click to advance to the next page. Pure MFA. My hunch is Google went after high CTR sites and niches abusing the navigation angle.

Interesting observation. One that had not occurred to me. When Nessie came out my CTR definitely rose. The layout of my site has always been the same and hasn't changed since I launched it on Oct 2nd.

My site layout has longer pages, about 3-4 screens worth for each item. At the top is a leaderboard, about half way down there is a leadboard. At the bottom was a rectangle (now removed).

The ads were placed in the open (no border), while the content areas are bordered. I've now added blue rounded borders around ads, so that it's clear what part is the ad. A bit late though.

If someone thought the arrow took them to more content, I can see that. Hadn't occurred to me, but that makes a lot of sense.

I'm one of those people who eliminates ad javascript when a page is viewed from any of my own ip addresses and the ip addresses of my employees. I never wanted anyone to click on our own ads.

[edited by: Chris13 at 7:16 pm (utc) on Mar 15, 2013]

 7:15 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
I only wish they would get rid of all the ads in French and Spanish on my site. Most of my visitors are from the U.S.
 8:30 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
Would be better if we received this kind of notifications instead of their unhelpful suggestions. Only after reading this post I discovered that the arrows are gone from my site.
 9:22 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
I didn't like the button arrows when they first started appearing, but I like them now because they've increased our CTR. As others have said, 5,000 out of something like 2 million Adsense publishers is a drop in the bucket.
 10:55 pm on Mar 15, 2013 (gmt 0)
My solution to this is just to ride it out. Google can easily see my page design before and after Nessie and see that the page design hasn't changed one bit and that my ad implementation didn't change until after figuring this out.

I expect it will take a few months for everything to settle down. I've probably lost advertisers over this and only time will bring them back, if ever.

At least now I understand it and can move forward.

CTR now is well below that of before Nessie. While this change is for 5,000 sites, the message is for all 2,000,000 and if you have an increased CTR, I'd be double checking my layouts for any positioning where people would think there might be more content on that arrow button. Just my opinion.

 12:09 am on Mar 16, 2013 (gmt 0)
Also wonder why they named them after the Loch Ness Monster.
"Update? What update? You're imagining things. There was no update."
 12:59 am on Mar 16, 2013 (gmt 0)
The arrow definitely increased the earnings on my high traffic site, by a huge margin. December/January were my biggest months ever.

Now that it's gone, the text ad CTR & CPC is laughable in comparison.

 1:42 am on Mar 16, 2013 (gmt 0)
I have a high traffic site that lost arrows. Very high earnings while they were on. I don't know why Adsense didn't turn arrows off system-wide but instead singled out specific sites. This must be one hell of a manual job - 1. Find 2. Block.
 2:33 am on Mar 16, 2013 (gmt 0)
Still have the arrows. But CTR & CPC went down in the last couple of days.
 12:27 pm on Mar 16, 2013 (gmt 0) 4:23 pm on Mar 16, 2013 (gmt 0)
i would not believe anything that google says - 5000 is just a number they are happy to announce they messed up with.
 7:14 pm on Mar 16, 2013 (gmt 0)
Have You Been Affected By The Nessie Update? Yes!

You better watch out
And it's best not to cry
No reason to pout
Wish I could tell you why
Google has me shaking my head

I've checked all my ads,
And I'm checking them twice;
Getting rid of those that are naughty not nice.
Google has me shaking my head

They see you when you're clicking
They know where you have shopped
Google knows when you are bad or good
But either way the revenue stopped

No changes to the layout, the site left alone
My clicks have disappeared enough to make me moan
Google has me shaking
Google has me shaking
Google has me shaking my head

Sorry, I do feel better now though.

 9:41 am on Mar 21, 2013 (gmt 0)
Same here as supergml. I still have the arrows but CTR and CPC went down.
levo

msg:4557303

 2:52 am on Mar 22, 2013 (gmt 0)
Got arrows back today & earnings dropped 50%.
 

View the original article here

Google AdWords: The Value of Negative Keywords

Featured Home Page Discussion Negative Keywords
Big list vs Small List 6:21 pm on Mar 24, 2013 (gmt 0)
Can a VERY big list of well thought out negative keywords have a very positive impact on an account?

I read elsewhere of people using thousands of negative keywords to improve the performance of AdWords accounts and before I go off and do more research, I like to check in here first.

For instance, can a negative keyword have a positive impact even if it isn't showing up in the SQR (Search Query Report) or as it is now termed the MSQ (Matched Search Query through Analytics)?

We all know about the positive use of general negatives like job and resume and such (for non-job related sites) but will these type words have a positive impact even if they aren't actually driving those inadvertent clicks?

I think it would - because it would lower inappropriate impressions - which in theory will improve CTR and cost per conversion.

Agree or disagree? And why?

 7:03 pm on Mar 24, 2013 (gmt 0)
Agree, because QS is primarily based on CTR, getting rid of irrelevant imps, helps.
 7:55 pm on Mar 24, 2013 (gmt 0)
others (on another channel) seem to disagree that negatives have minimal to no impact on QS...
 10:17 pm on Mar 24, 2013 (gmt 0)
Well let's use our heads and figure this one out... lets take a precise example and there are plenty of them.
1. You have a search term "Portsmouth Real Estate". and you are in Virginia selling Portsmouth, Va real estate.
2. When someone in Portsmouth, NH searches for Portsmouth Real Estate and your ad comes up "Portsmouth, Va Homes for sale and another realtors ad comes up "Portsmouth, NH homes for sale"... whose ad will normally get clicked.... of course if the person is really looking for real estate in NH... the won't click the Va ad.... so we just got an impression that's very unlikely to get clicked.. every time that happens.. "impression and no click".. your QS suffers a little bit more... not only that, I don't want him to click my ad and make me pay a dollar since he won't buy from me anyway... so not only did I lose QS score points it cost me a freaking buck cause I did not use negative keywords effectively... I should have all states but my own in the negative box.. so that alone is 51 negative keywords right off the bat... Make sense?
 10:30 pm on Mar 24, 2013 (gmt 0)
Thanks TommyTX, logically I totally agree that this type of approach will improve the performance, hands down.

...however in your particular case, I don't think negatives would prevent the search from showing as the searcher didn't enter a state name - more like geotargeting would help but that's a different subject.

Marketing wise, yes, using negative state names in that general case makes a lot of sense.

Where I'm going with this is the going consensus (that I'm trying to confirm or disconfirm) seems to be that QS applies only to exact match queries, so negatives that eliminate broad match impressions don't apply.

 1:40 pm on Mar 25, 2013 (gmt 0)
it simply comes down to CTR, as it appears you have already identified. I have run numerous experiments that shows data to backup the theory that improved CTR increases QS, and improved QS lowers CPC. Your original question was does a large negative list "...have a very positive impact on an account?"... According to my experiments I would say yes as I am defining "...a very positive impact..." as a lower cost with higher conversions. For instance... I have a DUI Attorney client located in LA, and when they came to me their average CPC for the LA County area was $46.00 a click... after I included a larger negative keyword list we saw an immediate reductions in CPC of $6.00 that first week. After continuing to make adjustments to their Ad Groups to make them more relevant and also restructering their ad variations we saw their QS increase 1-2 points for their main keywords and their CPC drop another $6.00 the following week as well.

hope this helps...

 1:56 pm on Mar 25, 2013 (gmt 0)
I've been seeing it too, for sure.

I've been picking off the bad ones for years and enjoying the benefits.

I always wondered if there was any data proving or disproving that pre-emptive negative keywords (those not found in detailed search query reports) also had a positive impact.

I'm trying to get some insight about the rifle-shot type of management where you are picking off negatives that you know vs the blindly eliminating tons of words that you don't see in query reports.

 4:08 pm on Mar 25, 2013 (gmt 0)
It is more complicated than we're all saying, of course.

For exact match, for example, negs shouldn't matter.

And the QS shown is for the exact match version of your other match types, so there's data you don't see - your QS for a non-exact match.

Eliminating searches you know don't convert well enough, makes sense whether if affects QS or not.

 5:02 pm on Mar 25, 2013 (gmt 0)
Rodger that RF!

Other reading suggests there are at least 2 QS type metrics - that which is shown (like toolbar PR) and that which is what is really going on (much like what we learn in advanced backlink analysis).

Fortunately, we have a reasonably decent view of what we're told are the actual queries, and that presently isn't being obscured as much as it once was.

Thinking this through (with all your help of course) has brought me to think up an advanced negative test case which I'll be running to see if I can boost ROI.

 7:45 pm on Mar 25, 2013 (gmt 0)
Heh I've worked on accounts where I've run up against the limit on negative keywords (at one point it was 5000, not sure if it's changed - I don't work on that account anymore)

Part of the problem was really really broad terms that could mean one of a dozen things, and part was because the client had let it their display network campaign run pretty much on autopilot for years and years and there was a lot of cleaning up to do.

 8:27 pm on Mar 25, 2013 (gmt 0)
Hi Netmeg - thanks for chiming in!

Where's eWhisper when you need him?

 8:23 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
It seems there's two sides to this discussion - one is control and the other is QS.

As for control; negatives are amazing. We have many accounts with more than 100k negatives in them (and some are often 1 million - don't try this without the API). Google changed the negative keyword max from 5000 to virtually unlimited a while ago. These large negative lists are mostly for control - not for QS reasons.

From a control standpoint, you might use negatives to block ads from showing in one ad group so they show in another one. This is common when you have ad groups that are general (say website hosting); others that are discount based (cheap website hosting); and others that are specific (vps website hosting). By using your negatives to 'shape' which ad shows; your overall CTR and conversion rates should go up. In fact, if you don't use negatives in that situation, you will probably have some of the 'wrong' ads shown; and if someone is looking for a VPS, you never want to show them a general hosting ad. So using negatives for ad shaping based around what type of ad the end user should be seeing is essential in many accounts.

There are many ways you can control ad displays in this way; like some companies have absolute monthly budgets. So you might have an brand, exact, phrase match, and broad/modified broad campaigns. In this case, you'll spend all you can on your broad, exact, and phrase and use the broad to help you hit run rates. To make this work; you need all of your phrase match words as negatives in the broad campaign; and all your exact match words as negatives in the phrase campaigns.

For larger accounts, I'm a huge fan of the negative keyword lists as I often find that the negatives are not applied correctly to multiple campaigns. If you download your campaign negatives, and put them in a pivot table - look at how many negatives you have by campaign - seeing high level numbers can be enlightening.

From control to QS... So negative words won't directly affect individual word QSs as they are only calculated when the query matches the word. However, part of QS is overall QS for the account. What negatives will do is block these irrelevant queries so that you don't show for low CTR terms that don't matter for you, and then the entire account's CTR/QS will go up; which then indirectly helps a keyword's QS used in the auction. Its a bit convoluted, and since overall history isn't that huge of a deal for most accounts; the odds of you actually noticing negatives helping QS is pretty low.

So, I do find negatives are very important; but they are more essential from ensuring the correct ad shows for each query as opposed to trying to eek out slightly higher quality scores.

 8:39 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
Looking at massive numbers of MSQ terms has been quite eye opening indeed. And this is on well managed (manual) accounts. We'll be seeing some nice performance improvements as a result of this deep dive I figured out how to do.

I also get to look at Marin data occasionally but I don't know the tool well enough - does Marin and other auto management tools automatically mine and apply negatives? Do you trust it?

 2:26 pm on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)
Now if we could just get G to show us the kw's imps w/o any clicks... :-)
 2:33 pm on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)
@RhinoFish ... exactly! been wanting that for some time now as well!
 2:38 pm on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)
don't expect it anytime soon... but there are ways!
 2:53 pm on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)
@chewy ... I'm looking into my keyword details report now, and am seeing a few search terms with impressions but no clicks (never noticed this before), but is there another way that you are referring to? Thanks!
 3:33 pm on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)
Pretty much proprietary - some big houses claim they can see it - experience in looking at billions of words across various performance metrics is the thing that becomes valuable. Just keep looking.
 8:00 pm on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)
If your account is in an MCC; you can easily get 0 click data.

If you run the search term report from the MCC; there's still the old option to include '0 impression' data' which will give you all the queries with 0 clicks but have impressions.

 2:02 am on Mar 29, 2013 (gmt 0)
If you have nothing to do for a couple of hours, read this for a mind boggling argument on what is and what is not true on quality score.
[rimmkaufman.com...]
Wow! That even made me weary about QS...But no matter what google says, I will never be convinced that Negative keyword used correctly will NOT indirectly raise the quality score of you entire campaign. IT WILL! Since we know for a fact that bad impressions will decrease, and CTR WILL increase... it has to since you are showing more ads that are more likely to get clicked... and if CTR goes up so will your QS.... its easily proven... Simply take any account with the QS averages pretty stable.. apply very careful and correct negative keywords.. a nd watch you QS overall go up... it will happen...
 1:32 pm on Mar 29, 2013 (gmt 0)
Didn't have time to read EVERY word of the article, but I find it funny that that the article title says "NEGATIVE KEYWORDS DO NOT AFFECT GOOGLE ADWORDS QUALITY SCORES"...yet the final comment by "Google Adwords Help" says..."Matthew Mierzejewski has also written a fantastic post on this topic and detailed how negative keywords impact Quality Score."...hmmm? Two articles that contradict each other? There wasn't a link to the latter so I could read that article...just found it humorous.

Taking all this in, and reviewing the original question again from chewy, I'm still of the belief that even though the QS of broad match terms are based off of it's exact match we would still see a slight increase in QS, OVER TIME, as our CTR would get better as we continue to add negatives as this would, as chewy stated earlier, "lower inappropriate impressions".

 4:11 pm on Mar 29, 2013 (gmt 0)
eWhisper, thanks, I didn't know that was still there! Always learning!

When combing Placements, the external report makes it harder to take actions, but still, great tip!

I wish they'd have this available at the account level.

 4:13 pm on Mar 29, 2013 (gmt 0)
eWhisper, aren't I looking for "0 clicks", not "0 imps"?

(yep, question for myself, will run and see)

 4:48 pm on Mar 29, 2013 (gmt 0)
Hmmm... thanks eWhisper... just ran a report from here and also added a filter to remove all terms with clicks so I could simply see terms that have impressions with no clicks... I immediately saw 3 terms that have generated around 400 impressions each over the past 90 days that haven't generated a single click. 2 of them I can see need to have improved Ad Ranking, but one is a definite candidate for removal...Thanks!

@RhinoFish ...you were saying "I wish they'd have this available at the account level."... When I just ran this report it appears that they offer the ability to select "Account and Campaigns" as a radio button. After you select it it opens your entire MCC where you can navigate to the account and/or campaign that you need...

 6:53 pm on Mar 29, 2013 (gmt 0)
Seems to work even without MCC but with some limitations that seem to apply even when viewing via MCC. Super nice!
 7:04 pm on Mar 31, 2013 (gmt 0)
"@RhinoFish ...you were saying "I wish they'd have this available at the account level."... When I just ran this report it appears that they offer the ability to select "Account and Campaigns" as a radio button. After you select it it opens your entire MCC where you can navigate to the account and/or campaign that you need..."

It lets you select for the report, correct, but it's an external report, meaning you can't click a result and convert it into a negative keyword, you're not in the account when viewing the report, you're in exported data.

Still a very great tip from eWhisper!

 

View the original article here

Google Pressurises Sweden To Drop The Word "Ungoogleable"

Featured Home Page Discussion Google Pressurises Sweden To Drop The Word "Ungoogleable"
 5:13 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
LOL
This is a crazy situation to be in.

The Language Council of Sweden has dropped the term "ungoogleable" from its list of new words, following pressure from Google to adapt its definition to something more flattering for the company. According to Sveriges Radio, Google wanted the meaning of the term ogooglebar ? which describes something "that you can't find on the web with the use of a search engine" ? to be altered so that it would only describe searches performed using Google's own search, something that the Language Council was not willing to do.

Language Council head Ann Cederberg said engaging Google's lawyers took "too much time and resources," prompting it to remove the phrase from its 2012 list of new words. But that won't be the last you hear of it. Cederberg is well aware that "ungoogleable" is already a popular word in Sweden, and Google will not be able to stop locals from using it.Google Pressurises Sweden To Drop The Word "Ungoogleable" [theverge.com]

 5:55 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
One term that is not "ungoogleable" is "Streisand Effect".

Mountain View needs to hire some smarter lawyers.

....

 6:52 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0) 6:57 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
At least there was no z , my speelchucker thinks that there should be..:)

re Google applying pressure about "ungoogleable/ogooglebar..

doubleplusungood ..

[edited by: Leosghost at 7:01 pm (utc) on Mar 26, 2013]

 7:01 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
Sweden got a cease and desist letter?

:)

 7:16 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0) 11:00 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
It's a trademark issue. To protect their Google trademark, they need to keep "google" from being used generically to describe search.

From the article, my emphasis added...
Google wanted the meaning of the term ogooglebar ? which describes something "that you can't find on the web with the use of a search engine" ? to be altered so that it would only describe searches performed using Google's own search, something that the Language Council was not willing to do.
I'm assuming that the wording would be legally OK if it were something like...

...something "that you can't find on the web using Google"
or...
...something "that you can't find on Google" .
IANAL, but that's my guess.

 11:37 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
they need to keep "google" from being used generically to describe search
Perhaps they should start closer to home:

Searches related to ungoogleable
ungoogleable words
ungoogleable quiz
ungoogleable puzzles
ungoogleable band names
ungoogleable man
ungoogleable pub quiz
ungoogleable trivia
ungoogleable riddles
Source: google.com

...

 11:57 pm on Mar 26, 2013 (gmt 0)
Uh-oh. Does that mean one of these years they're going to stomp on me for using the phrase "not google-friendly"?

On the positive side: If your words for "search-friendly" or "searchable" don't include a mention of g###, then the term "search engine" (or Swedish equivalent, duh) remains in the language. There Exist Search Engines Other Than Google ;)

 12:07 am on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
Bing results..169 000 results
#1 Urban Dictionary: ungoogleable
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ungoogleable&defid=1283366

#2. ungoogleable a word, phrase, name, person, place, or thing that is unable to be found on google, which means that it probably doesn't exist or is so rare that ...
Word Spy - ungoogleable
www.wordspy.com/words/ungoogleable.asp

n. A person for whom no information appears in an Internet search engine, particularly Google. ?adj. Also: unGoogleable, ungooglable, unGoogle-able.

mine.."impossibility to bowl a cricket ball whose trajectory takes it along the ground, due to the the unevenness of the ground,( possibly caused by mountain view lawyers lying[sic?] in the way ) or to shoulder injury"

Wonders if the "bosses" at Google could currently "get over themselves", even with the aid of a Saturn 5 launch rocket..

 2:26 am on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0) 3:09 am on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
btw, I had to read the first post three times before it percolated into my head that "ogooglebar" is the actual Swedish word they're talking about. Led astray by the phonetic accident of "bar", obviously.

o = "un-"
-bar = "-able", "-ible"

D'oh!

D'you suppose this will shortly be followed by similar stories from Norway and Denmark, replacing "o-" with "u-"? What about Germany?

Speakers of languages like English that don't have an Academy-- in any country-- are sitting pretty.

 3:17 am on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
LIA will no doubt tell us it is also a nightclub in a NSFW district of the capital of Thailand..

added..is it not also the name for the part in Chrome where you type the search term ?

 5:15 am on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
Ogooglebar is a traditional Swedish Christmas Carol.

(Loosely translated...)

Ogooglebar, Ogooglebar,
How busy are your lawyers!
My rankings suck in wintertime
And still they fall in Panda time.
Ogooglebar, Ogooglebar,
How busy are your lawyers!

Ogooglebar, Ogooglebar,
You can never please me!
Your algo's bad when I rank low
My links are spam when on blog rolls.
Ogooglebar, Ogooglebar,
You can never please me!

Ogooglebar, Ogooglebar,
Matt Cutts can teach us lessons.
I've lost the faith and hope sublime
Since text link ads became a crime.
Ogooglebar, Ogooglebar,
Matt Cutts can teach us lessons.

 9:23 am on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)

they need to keep "google" from being used generically to describe search.

Did Hoover ever succeed regarding vacuum cleaners?
 9:58 am on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
Did Hoover ever succeed regarding vacuum cleaners?
Don't know.

Am I allowed to Bing it?

...

 10:47 am on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
Did Hoover ever succeed regarding vacuum cleaners?
Depends what country you're in, doesn't it.
 11:18 pm on Mar 27, 2013 (gmt 0)
When Google does things like this it reminds me of "the brain" on TV, that kids show with the mouse that keeps plotting to rule the world. It never works out in the end.
 1:00 am on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)
Pinky and the Brain..
You mean Larry and Sergey..Eric was added later by the ( producers / VCs ) money men..

"It never works out in the end" in the TV version..because they don't have "Eric"..in the real world ,with "Eric"..it's working out just fine..depending on your ( mountain)view point..

 1:59 am on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)
It's a trademark issue. To protect their Google trademark, they need to keep "google" from being used generically to describe search.

Bing was running a major TV ad campaign using "don't get scroogled" at one point, now they've changed it to "Bing it on" with consumer "taste tests" as it were. Maybe they just don't want to tangle with Microsoft.

 10:17 am on Mar 28, 2013 (gmt 0)

Censorship raises it's ugly head once again.

"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy Gooogle in vain"

Give it a free reign and it soon becomes blasphemy.

Interesting NewStatesman article follows...

birdbrain

 8:42 am on Mar 29, 2013 (gmt 0) 

View the original article here

Google to Target "Bad Merchants"

Featured Home Page Discussion This 41 message thread spans 2 pages: 41 ( [1] 2 )  > >   Google to Target "Bad Merchants"
 5:13 pm on Mar 11, 2013 (gmt 0)
Danny reported on a discussion at SXSW regarding Google working on an algorithm to find and demote "bad merchants". They don't give any specifics of course, but the general feeling is to look for signals beyond reviews, because there are so many fake reviews.

Matt Cutts says:

We have a potential launch later this year, maybe a little bit sooner, looking at the quality of merchants and whether we can do a better job on that, because we don?t want low quality experience merchants to be ranking in the search results.

Article here.

[searchengineland.com...]

Heads up.

 7:20 pm on Mar 11, 2013 (gmt 0)
With the pay-for-play Google Shopping now rolled out, I think this may well be the most controversial update ever.
 7:29 pm on Mar 11, 2013 (gmt 0)
if (adwords=='no') {merchant='bad'}
 7:31 pm on Mar 11, 2013 (gmt 0)

if (adwords=='no') {merchant='bad'}

Yup. Was my first thought, too.

 7:51 pm on Mar 11, 2013 (gmt 0)
I'm thinking it's more if Google Trusted Store = no.
 8:16 pm on Mar 17, 2013 (gmt 0)
I've looked at the Trusted Store and everything about it stinks. There are a lot of requirements which your average 'great' store is not able to meet...ever... due to the way it works. Their definition of store is only a small portion of how people actually operate.
 10:02 pm on Mar 17, 2013 (gmt 0)
My guess is this is a tactic to get people to sign on for the "Google Trusted Store" program. As with "Google Product Search", it will be free at first, as the initial benefit is to Google. Once they have enough merchants hooked, the product will be sunset, and replaced with a paid program.
 3:24 pm on Mar 19, 2013 (gmt 0)
Once they have enough merchants hooked, the product will be sunset, and replaced with a paid program.
Good call on that.
 6:11 am on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
I'm sure my A+ BBB rating will have no bearing on the beating about to befall our site...again.
 6:27 am on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
I contacted G the other day about this as my products are mainly downloaded rather than shipped. I'm pretty sure their response was copy/paste, but basically if you can't provide shipping info on most orders you don't even qualify for the program among many other requirements. There was, however, that classic G open ended comment along the lines of they 'may' change the program in the future.

Does this strike anyone else as odd that their program doesn't support downloadable products? I mean we are talking about the web/internet.

 10:03 am on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
I think they'll gain less traction with this than g+. But honestly I don't think it matters to them, really just another tool to dilute the serps.
 11:51 am on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
Another hurdle in the way for affiliate marketers? Will all affiliate marketing sites be labelled as 'Bad Merchants' in Google's eyes - except of course Google themselves?
 12:17 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
Trusted Stores is only available to US merchants at the moment so if "bad merchant" treatment is dished out elsewhere in the world before it's available to merchants elsewhere, we'll know that's not how they're identifying bad merchants.

Mind you, the requirements are quite stringent so if you qualify and maintain the standards over a long period of time it would add a lot of credibility to your business in Google's eyes. They'd be crazy not to factor that into the algo.

Some big brands struggle to provide the sort of personal service customers really want, but this is what small business is great at, so this could be a way for smaller businesses to fight back against big brands in the rankings.

I think they must have another method for identifying bad merchants, but it would make sense for them to boost rankings for sites with great Trusted Store ratings.

@ethought
After looking at the 'Eligibility' section it looks pretty clear Google don't regard affiliates or drop shippers as 'trusted' merchants. The writing has been on the wall for years and the noose is tightening.

 12:34 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
Another hurdle in the way for affiliate marketers?

well, let's see, directly from the trusted store participation agreement:

Restrictions

No Affiliates, Drop-Ship Consolidators, or Multi-Level Marketers

Each Merchant participating in the Program must be the merchant and seller of record, meaning that the Merchant charges the customer?s credit card directly and ships or causes to be shipped the customer?s order. Drop-shipping is permitted, provided the Merchant is not working primarily through drop-ship consolidators or ready-made drop-shipping sites. Merchants bulk listing products fulfilled through drop-ship consolidators are prohibited. Multi-level marketing businesses are also prohibited, such as businesses that recruit members or offer rewards for recruiting others and/or selling services.

 1:05 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
I've had an e-commerce website for 6 years - sold tens of thousands of items to thousands of customers. I wonder - how do I prove that to Google? Hand over customer information? Do they do a test purchase from our site?
 1:24 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
If you're talking about the Google Trusted Store program, they require a feed of your orders and your shipping and your returns. And they give your customers the opportunity to give feedback on how you did.

If you're just saying in a general sense - we don't know what they'll be looking at yet. One thing that seems pretty obvious is that they'll be looking for fake reviews. What other things could they look at? Maybe how long you've been around, how "acccountable" you look - i.e. physical addresses, pictures/names of staff, whether you have a storefront. Large numbers of bad reviews? I'm not sure how that would work in conjunction with uncovering fake reviews, but *I* use it when I'm researching a new vendor, so seems like Google would to some degree. Social media presence? They can't really see much except for Google+, and none of my customers nor my clients customers are there.

Dunno. We'll just have to see.

 2:25 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
they require a feed of your orders and your shipping and your returns

That's interesting. The natural question is how much data will they need....names and addresses? Seems like a privacy problem if they want to dig too deep. I of course have that information, but my privacy policy is pretty standard - I don't hand over customer details to 3rd parties. Still, if Google ever cross that seemingly inevitable rubicon and demote non-Trusted Stores in Google's SERPs, or place a message in the SERPs along the lines of "[warning: not a member of our Trusted Store Program]" under non-member listings, then you can bet store owners will want to hand over as much customer info to Google as possible just to join the program and not go bust :(

 2:33 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
netmeg, as you know, in my other thread about the Merchant center recognizing my product feed as having problems. Is it possible that the warning we have just received about a large number of our products be tied into this? It might be a stretch, as I'm not sure if they issue these types of warnings all the time, it's just the first I've seen or heard of it.
 2:36 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
to clarify, I wonder if a lot of merchants are going to be recieving messages like this and if they've ramped up their manual inspections of feeds in order to crack down on incorrect product identifiers in order to find those who don't comply and mark them as 'bad merchants'.
 2:47 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
I doubt it. The product feeds are now tied to AdWords and they're still trying to maintain a clear distance between what happens with AdWords and what happens with organics.

(Yea, I know, lots of people don't believe that, but that's their lookout)

 6:40 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
If you're talking about the Google Trusted Store program, they require a feed of your orders and your shipping and your returns.

Umm.. that would be a violation of privacy.... and considering that Google has no real problem turning over information to the government, then there's a real problem.

Why would merchants be so willing to turn over order and customer information to a third party.

It's against our privacy policy and we wont do it.

 6:52 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
A roll out of this to the EU would not get past legislators here ..privacy, competition, restrictive trade practices, banking and finance regulations..etc etc ..

Plus IMO..( having read the TOS there ) anyone signing upto this elsewhere would need their heads examining..giving all that data to G ( with the distinct probability that they would use it to shaft you later ) ..in response to the thinly veiled threat of ..SERPs positions might depend on this..and non participation would result in lack of our "Google trusts this site" badge..

Reads like a protection racket.."bend over to be a "trusted" site ..or it may well go badly for you in the short term"..and in the long term they'll use it against you any way ..even if only to up the cost of your adwords..

 7:34 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
Well in the first place, they don't take any customer information unless the customer opts in (and even then it's just the email address and country) Everything else is specific to the order, the products, the quoted shipping date and the merchant.

The shipping and return feeds are also anonymous as far as the customers, and don't include any address information. Just the order number, the shipping company and the date. They take this to make sure you ship when you say you ship.

 8:05 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
Just the order number, the shipping company and the date. They take this to make sure you ship when you say you ship.

(my emphrasis)

Well again - interesting. I tend to use Royal Mail (I'm in the UK) because my parcels are small. There is no "record" of such deliveries unless you choose recorded delivery which is significantly more expensive when you're sending out dozens of parcels a day. A lot of e-sellers use Royal Mail in this way. I'm sure most countries have a standard mailing setup like Royal Mail that allows for low-cost shipping. I guess it's another step toward "officialdom" where we will have to spend more on shipping just to have a paper-trail just to please Google.

[edited by: ColourOfSpring at 8:06 pm (utc) on Mar 20, 2013]

 8:06 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
netmeg :)

That is still more information than would be legal for them to have about your customers if they ran this in the EU..

And as regards EU customers purchasing from US sites ( even if the customer "opts in" ) ..Google would still have to apply for ( and get registration approval ) before being able to hold this kind of EU customers data..yes even just email and physical address..precisely because the customer is not purchasing directly from G..

Rules are much stricter her e about who can know what and who can do what ( thankfully ) than they are in the USA..Google would probably also have to register as a credit organisation ( and be subject to the various financial services acts etc of EU member states ) in order to be able to offer their "money back" part of the deal..

IMO G will not try to roll this out in the EU..

They would not want to have to comply with all the legislation ( consumer, competition, financial services, insurance , credit, banking services etc )..and first time any EU customer ( even one who may have signed up ) has a problem with Google as a result of any of this..the pitfalls for G will be come self evident..

I would expect that EU companies ( not being eligible to "sign up" ) will also shout if they appear lower in serps ..or if the lack of G's "badge of trust" in serps appears to affect their business..

I often wonder if Larry, Sergey and Eric ( or their lawyers ) truly understand the cultural and legal differences between the USA and the rest of the world..

It frequently appears that they do not..or if they do..that they do not take them seriously enough..not every legislator can be lobb^^^^ought off..not in the EU anyway..

MS and Apple and other US corps appear to have a similar "comprehension" problem when viewing or dealing with the world outside of the USA..

 8:17 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
Well in the first place, they don't take any customer information unless the customer opts in (and even then it's just the email address and country) Everything else is specific to the order, the products, the quoted shipping date and the merchant.

netmeg, just realised....I guess that would mean having a tickbox on your checkout page along the lines of "can we pass on your email address to Google?" - I can't imagine a lot of people ticking that, and might even put people off buying (as a shopper, that would seem absolutely unnecessary from my - the shopper's - perspective).

IMO G will not try to roll this out in the EU..

I agree. One good thing about the EU is that's it's curtailed so much of Google's invasiveness in Europe.

 8:27 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
More along the lines of "if you want to give us feedback about your transaction with this site, sign up here" I think.

Google has plenty of lawyers all over the world, and if it doesn't pass EU legal muster, then they won't roll it out in the EU. So far anyway, there's no promise of better SERPs whether you have it or don't, and nobody's being forced into it. But from what I've seen, they're not having too much trouble getting US vendors to sign up.

 8:37 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
Google has plenty of lawyers all over the world, and if it doesn't pass EU legal muster, then they won't roll it out in the EU.
Not to drag the thread off topic ..but just to say ..privacy / street view / driveby wi-fi recording /EU ongoing investigations..G's lawyers in the EU are not doing too good a job avoiding trouble for them to date..

And that is just the brief list..it actually is much bigger..so is the list of MS and other US corps errors vis a vis EU laws and culture..

So much easier to not walk into the minefield than to try to get out of it once you are in there..

So far anyway, there's no promise of better SERPs whether you have it or don't, and nobody's being forced into it. But from what I've seen, they're not having too much trouble getting US vendors to sign up.
I suspect the message from G about "not being trusted by G" is subtle enough , not to be easily seen as "forcing"..iron fist , velvet glove...US . merchants will be reading between the lines..

 8:47 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
G's lawyers in the EU are not doing to good a job avoiding trouble for them to date..
And yet, they still get paid. Nice racket.

Marshall

 9:21 pm on Mar 20, 2013 (gmt 0)
I suspect the message from G about "not being trusted by G" is subtle enough , not to be easily seen as "forcing"..iron fist , velvet glove...US . merchants will be reading between the lines..

Leosghost, like any agent with power, they don't need to be explicit. A bouncer just has to stand by a door - the implication of his role is made simply by his size and his position near the door.

Question: how often do Google reassure us little webmasters with our concerns (esp. since Panda and Penguin roll-outs)? Never. There is an overwhelming cloud hanging over every website owner that relies on Google (i.e. most websites, sadly), and Google do nothing to calm those fears. In fact, they thrive off it. Their guidelines are more a list of warnings than recommendations. GWT really IS a list of warnings and alarms to make you paranoid. Purely from a business perspective, I do not blame Google for maximising this kind of leverage.

In regards to the data that Google would require for this program, they would obviously benefit from that kind of data enormously - yes, it proves a vendor is sending out the goods, but...come on - an email address + country + order details = very very useful information for a company whose sole job is to turn that kind of valuable data into profits.

This 41 message thread spans 2 pages: 41 ( [1] 2 )  > >  

View the original article here