1. Google Losing Pages – in the last couple of weeks I’ve seen more and more pages being ‘lost’ by Google. I had a section of one clients site dissapear (it came back) but all the same it vanished. Oh and currently my blog homepage (http://www.mercurythread.co.uk/blog/) vanished. Google just keeps losing things which is most annoying.
2. Webmaster tools data in constant flux – I love Google Webmaster Tools (it’s got loads of nice wee things in it). But the link data is getting farcical – esp for internal links. I’ve seen pages for whole sites in the main navigation get no listing for internal links. Is like Google just decided that main navigation counts as boiler plate and is removed! I had that scary thought one night and have been trying to reconcile my head to it. Don’t think its true – more of a glitch but a glitch none the less.
3. Spammers winning the war – the advent of the Splog link scenario fills me with fear and anger at the same time. Maybe every site with a link listed on digital point should be investigated and attacked. But not just link spammers. Sites with rubbish continue to leech their homepage value into the site and outrank valuable pages. Take the Wikipedia (no link as I dislike it) ranking for almost everything – should Domain Authority really be given this much weight in the algo? i dont mean Domain Authority as expressed by SEOMoz etc (which seems more like a made up drug than cake ever could hope to be) more the internal strength and trust of a domain in itself which passes to all pages.
4. LDA the new LSI – I’m sure LDA is part of the algo in some way. It makes sense on a gut level. But the SEO love in over it is just nuts. It’s Googles fault I know but anything with a TLA which SEO’s can use is taken as Gospel, never understood, never really researched and just used as  a new way to baffle clients and make SEOs feel important. All in all a dis-spiriting pain in the ass and a refelection of the shallow depths to which SEO has stumbled. Google instant seems to be causing even more ‘research’ and inference by folks who should know better.

Oh as an aside as I’ve mentioned LDA no doubt some folks will be pinging me like mad for links from trackbacks/pingbacks. That aint going to work either. Same

Mild rant over.

I hate it. It’s a serious #fail – it’s not as bad as the whole debacle between Google and China (I just linked to the Wikipedia I feel defiled but I’m in a hurry here) but it’s annoyed me.

bingoogle - Google Background Image

Sun Life Direct PPC ad with arrows on the sitelinks

Huge blue arrows next to the site links – all that is missing is a couple of large neon signs which say “CLICK HERE” in blinking text to attract even more attention. Yesterday the background colour of the top PPC ads (yellow above) had changed to pink on my machine and green on another computer! I thought I was going colour blind -apparently not.

OK back to follow CTR improvements on PPC sitelinks for a while and determine if this increases the value of these for clients.

It would appear to allow the functionality to set trigger points for the website in relation to the traditional Google Analytics metrics and dimensions. It looks like it could be useful for setting indicators on pages when things are working as part of tests etc – has a change altered the bounce rate by a certain degree etc. Could also be useful for inputting monthly revenue targets and ask it to email out when a channel reaches target, or when conversion falls (useful if you’re testing a new booking engine on a website) etc.

Am away to test mes about with this for a bit and will post back any findings etc.

Reminded me of the whole ‘miserable failure‘ link bomb stuff as a result of the link between the Hungry Caterpillar and Dubya.

Click here to go to the Google Analytics training at the Google Conversion University.

WTF is Google Doing

So the bit in red is the part where I could refine my result set by Any Tim, Any Language and Any File. By changing these variables you get different results within the new limits – its like the advanced search parameters you can select anyway.

The request URL also changed as for once I acturally hit the google search button rather than using a toolbar:

1. Now - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=clothes&btnG=Search&as_qdr=all&lr=&as_filetype=
2. Previously - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=clothes&btnG=Search

Thought I’d post as it looked like an intersting little change over at Google.

That’s an aside I just thought I’d post a cool image that I found over @ crackunit (nice blog – you should read his description of ‘digital planning‘).

If the answer is no – then I guess you must be doing PPC for a living – poor souls…

For the first time I saw Google trying to steal everyones sales with their price comparrison function. Right at the top of the results, displayed to distract users from the other results they’ve rattled in a price comparison function. I was doing some research for a potential client in the financial sector – rather than looking to strangle myself with expensive debt. I think the ditraction factor is hugely important – by creating a level of abrasion on a page you can increase clickthrough rates on your on screen items. Highlight it, change the font, do anything just to make to clash with other elements – not so much as it annoys people but just enough that they have a thought of “whats that” as they read through your content. The new item certainly did that to me today – so much so that I got a PPC expert to explain it to me. Apparently its part of Googles Merchant Search functionality.

Google Price Comparisson function

You select an amount from the drop down and click compare lenders and you’re sent to: http://www.google.co.uk/MerchantSearchBeta/search. And you get:

Is google an affiliate?

The swine @ Google must be getting commision on sales – or the cost per click must be massive.

If you’re an affiliate relying on PPC be on the look out. Google may be coming to steal all your luctrative sales. May be time to get into some SEO and stop developing bridge pages to make your sales. If Google expands this to many more queries it could be a fun ride.

During these discussions the subject of paid links came up – they have a budget for them. I’ve probably knocked myself out of the process by saying that I’d find it difficult to use this budget for this purpose – with Google being so anti-paid links. I explained that the links I’d build would exist permanently and would not be rented, there would be no threat of links going up in price etc. Or that when we’d finished the work that any further payment would be needed to maintain the links.

When I said this I got the response that ‘other companies‘ had mentioned it was ‘not approved‘ by Google but that it should be something they should use. At this I pressed the issue, being a nosey little so and so, to see if they’d tell me who these ‘other companies‘ were.

They did even better than that – they sent me the proposal. Which indeed lists paid links as a way of forming links that were acceptable and should be used to improve positions. I was slightly surprised by the company in question – as they’re a well known brand in SEO. A company who I know bits about and have generally seen in publications etc.

My interest in this is that this company could be putting their clients search engine positions in jeopardy. I’m what I consider to be an ‘ethical SEO’. Part of this, I feel, is not to endanger the long term stability of any clients online business. Paid links may not always give you problems – i.e. they may not get you removed from Google for using them, but they could. The risk is there and by using paid links I would be endangering the long term prospects for a client.

Anyway – let me know what you think.