Official: Google Payday Loan Algorithm 2.0 Launched: Targets “Very Spammy Queries”

Google has confirmed they have released a new algorithm update to their Payday Loan Algorithm update over this weekend.

This algorithm specifically targets “very spammy queries” and is unrelated to the Pandaor Penguin algorithms. A Google spokesperson told us:

Over the weekend we began rolling out a new algorithmic update. The update was neither Panda nor Penguin — it was the next generation of an algorithm that originally rolled out last summer for very spammy queries.

This comes with at no surprise to most SEOs and Webmasters who watch the space. There was a tremendous of rumors and signals of a major update over the weekend, intensifying over the past couple days as webmasters began to look at their analytics and the update has continued to roll out through Google.

The original Payday Loan Algorithm launched just about a year ago on June 11, 2013. Back then, Google’s Matt Cutts told us the algorithm impacted roughly 0.3% of the U.S. queries, but Matt said it went as high as 4% for Turkish queries were Web spam is typically higher.

Google told us this specific update is an international rollout and it affects different languages to different degrees, but this impacts English queries by about 0.2% to a noticeable degree. Here is a video back when Matt Cutts of Google announced the update was coming back in 2013:

read more

Five Days Later, It Looks Like Google Has Penalized Web Design Library For Selling Links

We all saw this one coming: Web Design Library, the website that was using Twitter to renew paid links last week, appears to have earned a Google penalty.

While I was researching last week’s article, I saw the site ranking at No. 8 for the term web design. Today, I’m seeing it at No. 48 for that same query.

But the more obvious indicator of a penalty is that the site no longer ranks for its own name, Web Design Library.

If you missed the original story, someone using the name “Vince” and tweeting from the@vitaliykoloswdl account was reaching out via Twitter to renew paid link agreements with a number of companies. One of the biggest was T-Mobile, as shown in this conversation that began in February:

But if you look through that account’s tweets, it appears that “Vince” isn’t just reaching out to renew some two-year-old paid links, he’s also tweeting at dozens of companies asking tocontact their “link building guy” or “marketing guy” — often mentioning “link building” and “cooperation” between his site and theirs. (Whatever he’s doing, and no matter where you stand on the ethics of buying/selling links, Twitter isn’t the place for it.)

What About T-Mobile & Others?

At the moment, I’m not seeing that T-Mobile has been penalized. It still shows up in Google’s search results for its own name, as well as for prime queries like “cell phones” and “samsung galaxy s4.” And SearchMetrics’ SEO Visibility tool isn’t showing any significant drop in T-Mobile’s visibility.

Why not? It could be that Google hasn’t penalized T-Mobile (and the other link buyers) yet, it could be that there’s not enough evidence that the link actually was bought, or it could be something entirely different. We don’t know. It’s worth mentioning again that, when Google webspam chief Matt Cutts saw the Twitter exchange last week, he directed an “I’m watching you” tweet at “Vince” and not at T-Mobile or any of the other accounts that “Vince” was tweeting at.

1. 07 Mar

   Vince @VitaliyKolosWDL

   @TMobileHelp The link was bought via iAcquire

Matt Cutts        ✔ @mattcutts

Follow

@VitaliyKolosWDL ಠ_ಠ

10:45 PM - 20 Mar 2014

Source - http://searchengineland.com/five-days-later-looks-like-google-penalized-web-design-library-selling-links-187591 

read more

Google Misattributing Content From Major News Publishers

A reader has sent us examples of Google misattributing content from dozens of large online news publications, with hundreds thousands of examples of Google indexing URLs and pages, but that content being pulled from a different source.

For example, if you search for [hometownlocator site:post-gazette.com], the first result is local.post-gazette.com/boardman+florist.9.125954212p.home.html:

If you look at the cached result, it brings up a page from hometownlocator.com instead of from site:post-gazette.com. Here is the cached result:

But when you click through it takes you to the post-gazette.com page.

The issue can be with Google or with the publisher. I’ve seen examples of this issue being on both Google’s end and on the publisher’s end.

We’ve emailed Google for a statement on what is going on here but have not heard back after about 12 hours. We will update this post as soon as we hear back.

Source - http://searchengineland.com/google-misattributing-content-major-news-publishers-187521

read more

Google Testing New Sponsored Shopping Boxes, With 3D View

Google continues to experiment with Google Shopping displays beyond the traditional thumbnail box panel of Product Listing Ads. This latest version is larger than the sponsored result spotted earlier this month for the book “Don’t Make Me Think”.

Found by Twitter user Britney Muller of Pryde Marketing, the sponsored result for “Nest thermostats” — now owned by Google — incorporates Google Shopping’s 3D product view. The result presents information from Google Shopping including a list of merchants with prices, product details and reviews all in one box in the search result.

Clicking on the tiny “3D” icon brings up window with the full product view. Users can view each side of the product by moving it manually with their mouse or by clicking on the individual product shots.

Expanding the number of products with 3D views in Google Shopping has been a priority for the gTech Partner Solutions team which is producing the images in partnership with manufacturers. This search results presentation is likely to garner many more impressions for the 3D product views than they receive from within Google Shopping itself.

We haven’t been able to replicate this for other products yet, including other Google produced products such as Nexus and Chromebooks, but we can expect to see Google continue to experiment with incorporating more Google Shopping content into the search results.

Update: I haven’t been able to replicate this, but Glenn Gabe of G-Squared Interactive spotted this version for the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook.

Glenn Gabe @glenngabe

Follow

Here's another 3D View PLA (for the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook) http://glennga.be/1fSh7No  cc: @GinnyMarvin

9:59 PM - 17 Mar 2014

source - http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-new-sponsored-shopping-boxes-3d-view-186835

read more

Google Reviewing “Not Provided,” Withholding Keywords From Organic But Not Paid Search Clicks

When Google moved to secure search in October 2011, it was a blow to publishers, who began losing data about the search terms used to reach their sites. It also opened Google up to claims of hypocrisy, in that advertisers continued to receive the terms. Now, Google says it’s reexamining the issue and seeking a better solution.

Will clicks on non-paid listings go back to passing along search term data again? Will ad clicks have that withheld? Google didn’t say either way, and there could be other possibilities, as well.

Google Looking For Solution

The news came out of a keynote conversation with Google search chief Amit Singhalyesterday at our SMX West conference. I raised the issue of “not provided,” as it’s known as a short-hand term search marketers and many publishers in general.

I wasn’t really expecting much of an answer — in fact, I’ve written so much about the topic, with relatively little response from Google about the perceived inequities and hypocrisy, that I’ve felt like a broken record. I certainly got surprised. Singhal said:

Over a period of time, we [Google's search and ad sides] have been looking at this issue…. we’re also hearing from our users that they would want their searches to be secure … it’s really important to the users. We really like the way things have gone on the organic side of search.

I have nothing to announce right now, but in the coming weeks and months as [we] find the right solution, expect something to come out.

Here’s the complete segment. Note that references to “Sridhar” are about Sridhar Ramaswamy, who oversees Google’s ads.

Paid Clicks To Lose Terms? Organic Clicks To Get Them Back?

Google’s looking for a solution?” What’s that mean! After the talk, I saw people tweeting speculation that paid clicks might get terms withheld:

Benjamin Spiegel @nxfxcom

Follow

@mattcutts @larrykim - don't start messing with your paid terms now ;)

6:30 AM - 12 Mar 2014

Or that organic clicks might get search terms back:

Greg Gifford @GregGifford

Follow

@5le holy crap, if we get keywords back i'm gonna die...

6:26 AM - 12 Mar 2014

Pondering The Possibilities

Which way will it go? Google won’t say, and it could even be that it might go another way. Let’s look at the possibilities, then do some educated guessing. I see it as perhaps up to five things:

• Google decides to make no change
• Clicks may pass only to sites that run secure servers
• Google makes all organic click data available through Google Webmaster Tools
• Organic clicks have terms restored
• Paid clicks have terms withheld

The first is easiest — Google might do a review of everything and decide, in the end, it’s happy with how things are going. I think that’s unlikely, but it is possible.

Clicks For Secure Servers?

Another solution would be that Google could restore search term data to publishers who run secure sites. Before Google’s change, when someone clicked on a listing at Google, information about the search term they used to find that listing passed “in the clear” and across the web to the publisher. The publisher would know exactly how they were located.

After Google’s change, terms on unpaid or “organic” listings were withheld. The chief reason for this was that Google seemed to worry that sending a stream of terms in the clear could cause someone to “eavesdrop” on a string of searches someone was doing, which could build a revealing profile about them.

Google continued to send terms in the clear for ad click and never really gave a reasonable explanation why. It also continued to allow actual search terms to be obtained by publishers, for up to 90 days, through its Google Webmaster Tools area.

To me, all this indicated that Google didn’t view individual searches on their own being exposed as much of a privacy issue. So securing ad clicks wasn’t so pressing, since relatively few people click on ads. It’s hard to get a profile just off that data (though over time, even that could be revealing). The Questions Google Refuses To Answer About Search Privacy is my story from last year that explores all this more.

But if the goal really was to prevent eavesdropping, then providing search term data only to sites that run secure servers is a great solution. It would restore the data flow to publishers, yet a third-party couldn’t easily eavesdrop on the stream of searches from a particular person. It would also have the side benefit of making the entire web more secure.

Another story I wrote last year explains all this more: How Google could have made the Web secure and failed — again. Maybe that’s a solution Google will go to, as it’s doing this review.

Make All Organic Terms Available In Webmaster Tools?

As mentioned, Google does allow publishers to see how people have reached their sites though its Google Webmaster Tools system. The problem is, that system shows a limited amount of data. You only get the top 2,000 terms (which is a lot, actually) and back for 90 days (which is a real problem, because historic trend data is lost).

Last September, Google announced that it would extend query data in Google Webmaster Tools from 90 days to one year. Since then, we’ve been waiting. This could be another solution — that Google finally delivers on its promise and perhaps goes even better, and makes all search term data it has available for any site available with no limitations.

Organic Terms Passed Via Clicks Again?

Google could also go back to the old system, where a click on an unpaid link once again transmits the search term in the clear to publishers. Personally, I think this is unlikely.

Go back to what Singhal said — Google users find it important to have their searches secure, and that likes how things have gone with the withholding of organic clicks. That doesn’t seem to indicate going back to the old system is likely.

A tweet from the head of Google’s web spam team Matt Cutts yesterday also seems to support this:

Matt Cutts        ✔ @mattcutts

Follow

@5le Note that Amit said we're happy with securing searches on organic, but we hear the feedback regarding ads and how that is perceived.

6:24 AM - 12 Mar 2014

Paid Search Terms To Be Withheld

That leaves the last possibility — that clicks on paid links will have terms withheld, just like their unpaid counterparts.

That’s move that would help solve the hypocrisy problem, that Google’s fine with making searches secure except where it might impact its bottom line, something that’s been an issue since this all began. See also:

• Google Puts A Price On Privacy
• Google Puts A Price On Privacy — Again
• Post-PRISM, Google Confirms Quietly Moving To Make All Searches Secure, Except For Ad Clicks

It also seems the most likely, again going off what Singhal said, that there are discussions with the ad side. There’s no reason to have discussions with the ad side unless you’re pondering a change that’s going to impact the ad clicks. Nor was that the only mention of talking with the ad side, as you can hear in the entire segment from the show.

Whether this indeed will happen remains to be seen. If it does happen, it’s super important to note that advertisers would continue to get search terms in the other way they always have, through the AdWords system itself. They wouldn’t go “blind,” though not receiving terms directly to their sites would pose challenges for them in other ways.

Google said to expect something in “weeks to months,” so stay tuned. Also, I’m still at our show and writing this fairly quickly during a break, so please forgive any typos. I’ll catch back up to correct any that may have slipped through.

Source - http://searchengineland.com/google-not-provided-review-186356

read more

Privacy Groups Want to Stall FB-Whatsapp Deal?

Privacy advocates have asked U.S. regulators to halt Facebook Inc's $19 billion acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp until there is a clearer understanding of how the company intends to use the personal data of WhatsApp's 450 million users.





WhatsApp, a service that allows mobile phone users to send each other messages, has had a longstanding commitment to not collect user data for advertising purposes.


But there's no guarantee that that commitment will hold true once the service becomes part of Facebook, according to the filing to the Federal Trade Commission by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy, both non-profit groups.


The complaint asks regulators to investigate the deal "specifically with regard to the ability of Facebook to access WhatsApp's store of user mobile phone numbers and metadata."


Facebook, the world's No.1 social network with 1.2 billion users, generates the majority of its revenue by showing ads that target users by age, gender and other traits.

"As we have said repeatedly, Whatsapp will operate as a separate company and will honor its commitments to privacy and security," Facebook said in a statement in response to the filing. The FTC declined to comment.


Facebook stunned the technology industry last month when it announced its intention to buy the five-year old WhatsApp for $19 billion in cash and stock. WhatsApp does not show ads on its service, charging some of its users a $1 annual fee to use the service.

WhatsApp stores users' mobile phone numbers, but unlike many online services, it does not collect user names, emails, and other contact information.


Despite assurances by WhatsApp and Facebook that the privacy policies will not change, the groups that wrote the FTC filing note that Facebook has in the past amended an acquired-company's privacy policies, such as the Instagram photo-sharing service that Facebook acquired in 2012.


Regulators must require that Facebook "insulate" WhatsApp user information from access by Facebook's data collection practices, reads the complaint.


"WhatsApp users could not reasonably have anticipated that by selecting a pro-privacy messaging service, they would subject their data to Facebook's data collection practices," reads the filing.

REUTERS

read more

weet Showing How Google Itself Is A “Scraper Site” Goes Massively Viral

Perhaps it’s SEO’s “Oreo moment,” a tweet relating to search engine optimization that’s gained nearly as much attention as Oreo’s famous Super Bowl blackout tweet. But the subject was a perfect storm of goodness — a real-life example of Google doing the type of thing in search it seems to be telling others not to do.

Yesterday, the head of Google’s web spam team Matt Cutts announced a new Google Scraper Report for publishers to use if they see a site that has copied or “scraped” its content and which outranks the publisher in Google searches.

That quickly brought up a number of people joking in various places about how Google itself borrows content from other sites to make the direct answers it displays in its own search results. But, no joke hit it as right as that from digital marketer Dan Barker on Twitter, who tweeted back to Cutts:

It was super clever. Barker did a search for what is a scraper site, which brought up Google’s own web definition at the top of the results. And that definition technically outranks the original source of the content, Wikipedia, which comes right below.

Google does link to Wikipedia in its excerpt, which is in keeping with how its other search results work and generally on the right side of the law, when these things have been challenged in various places. And by scraper site, Google’s really talking about sites that wholescale copy all of someone’s content, rather than aiming for a fair use excerpt.

But still, as Google has increased the amount of web definitions, direct answers andKnowledge Graph box answers that are drawn from the content of other sites, the tensions have been rising.

With regular search listings, Google typically showed enough information for a searcher to decide if they want to visit a website and, if so, they’d click through. But the changes over the past few years (which Bing also does) have been to provide actual answers drawn from sites, so that there’s no need to click through.

It’s a difficult balancing act, because there are good reasons why it makes more sense for Google (or Bing) to just show the direct answer of something, rather than having dozens of sites all fight to be number one for “What time is the Super Bowl,” as they do.

But, it’s also a fundamental change to the unwritten contract between search engines and publishers — that yes, search engines can build their “content” on the back of publisher content, but only if there’s a fair exchange of traffic.

Barker’s tweet is perhaps the biggest sign ever that publishers are feeling like the balancing act is tipping too much into Google’s side. I’ve never, in 18 years writing about search, seen such a response like this. Last year’s Oreo tweet, when the Super Bowl had a blackout, was a darling example of huge engagement.

That tweet, associated with a prime time event, has about 16,000 retweets as of today, over a year later. Barker’s tweet, not associated with any major sporting event and about an issue that’s usually only of concern to SEOs, is over 14,000 tweets as I write this — and over 12,000 favorites.

Source - http://searchengineland.com/google-scraper-tweet-185684

read more

Study: Women Spotlighted In Only 17% Of Google Doodles Between 2010 & 2013

In its expansive Google: Doodle Us study, female advocacy group SPARK revealed only 77 women were represented in the 445 Google Doodles featured on the site’s various country-specific homepages between 2010 and 2013.

Analyzing the individuals honored by Google logos appearing on the site’s global and regional homepages, as well as homepages for individual countries, the study concentrated on actual people, excluding any Doodles highlighting fictional characters or individuals connected to a holiday or festival.

According to SPARK:

Out of the 445 total Doodles Google created to honor people between the years of 2010 and 2013, a full 74 percent honored white people. Only 17 percent honored women of any race. And even more abysmal 4.3 percent honored women of color.

In response to the study, Google Doodle team lead Ryan Germick acknowledged Google’s poor showing when it comes to spotlighting women on its homepage.

“Women have been underrepresented in history in almost all fields: science, school, curricula, business, politics – and, sadly, doodles – despite incredible contributions both directly and behind the scenes,” said Germick in an email, “We’ve been working to fix the imbalance in our doodles – this year we’re hoping to have women and men equally represented.”

Germick pointed out that his team has created as many Doodles for women as men since the start of 2014. So far this year, the US homepage has featured logos for Zora Neale Hurston, Dian Fossey and Harriet Tubman.

The underwhelming representation of women in tech is not exclusive to Google’s homepage. AWall Street Journal report on SPARK’s study noted Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s calling attention to the issue in her book Lean In.

HBO was also under fire just this week when AdAge’s Simon Dumenco’s called out the cable network for its trailer promoting the new HBO show Silicon Valley, “See the Trailer for HBO’s ‘Silicon Valley’: Apparently There Are No Women in Tech (Except for Go-Go Dancers.”

In an email to Marketing Land, a Google spokesperson outlined Google’s efforts to support women. Listing initiatives like Google’s Women Techmakers interview series, the $1.2 million grant Google endowed to the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and the launching of the WeTech (Women Enhancing Technology) Fund, the Google spokesperson claimed the company is doing its part to raise the visibility of women, not only in the tech industry, but on a global level.

“We’re working with partners in education to add hands-on STEM/STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) curriculum to schools and to encourage more girls and underrepresented minority youth to get excited about professions in technology,” said the Google spokesperson.

Beyond evaluating the number of women represented by Google Doodles, the SPARK study also tracked Google Doodle honorees by region and found an overwhelming majority were European.

“When we look at whose stories are told in public spaces – from statues in public parks to the Google home page – it tells us who is important in the world,” said SPARK executive director Dana Edell as quoted in the Wall Street Journal report.

SPARK is asking people to raise awareness by sharing its research on social media pages using the hashtag #DoodleUs or signing its “Give Us Doodles Like Us” petition on Change.org.

Source - http://searchengineland.com/study-17-google-doodles-spotlighted-women-2010-2013-185619

read more

Google Yanks Fake FBI Listing From Google Maps, Puts New Blocks In Place To Stop Further Abuse

In response to a string of cases where fake business/organization listings have been added to Google Maps, Google says it has removed those listings and put in place new hurdles to make it more difficult for this kind of abuse to get through its system.

This latest run of problems came to light about a week ago, when some users discovered they could use Google Map Maker to create fake businesses that would be verified via a phone call. In the beginning, many of the fake listings were harmless.

More recently, the same user took advantage of Map Maker tocreate fake FBI and Secret Service office listings using his own phone number, and even managed to intercept calls to both agencies. Both of those listings were created in close proximity to actual offices, adding to the confusion over which listing was real.

Google has now removed the fake FBI and Secret Service listings, as well as others that have been exposed over the past week.

In addition, contacts at the company tell us that they’ve put new restrictions in place that will make it more difficult for this kind of activity to produce a “live” place listing on Google Maps.

This is hardly the first time users have found a hole in Google’s systems that allowed the creation of fake business listings in Google Maps. More than five years ago, for example, Danny Sullivan wrote about being able to “hijack” Yahoo’s listing and changing the company name to Microsoft.

In this latest case, though, the timing is particularly bad since Google just released its new Google Maps product out of beta.

The hole actually involved Map Maker, Google’s product that allows for crowd-sourced improvements to Google Maps. Hundreds of thousands of edits over the years have helped improve Maps, but it was also still open to the kind of exploits that have been detailed over the past week.

Given the competitive nature of local search, it probably won’t be too long before we find out if Google’s new restrictions succeed in preventing more of this kind of abuse … or if users find other holes they can exploit.

Source - http://searchengineland.com/google-yanks-fake-fbi-listing-google-maps-puts-new-blocks-place-stop-abuse-185601

read more

Someone Outranking You With Your Own Content? Use The New Google Scraper Report

One of the most frustrating experiences for any publisher is discovering that someone not only has copied your content but outranks you on Google for searches related to that content. Now, Google seems to have heard the complaints and has launched a tool to help.

Called the Google Scraper Report, it was announced by the head of Google’s web spam team Matt Cutts on Twitter:

Matt Cutts        ✔ @mattcutts

Follow

If you see a scraper URL outranking the original source of content in Google, please tell us about it: http://bit.ly/scraperspamreport …

1:09 AM - 28 Feb 2014

291 RETWEETS 200 FAVORITES

The Google Scraper Report form doesn’t promise any immediate fix — or any fix at all. Rather, it simply asks people to share their original content URL, the URL of the content taken from them and the search results that triggered the outranking.

Google does have a DMCA system that people can use to remove infringing content, but that can be a time-consuming process. Potentially, this allows Google’s spam team to move against infringing content by considering  it a spam offense, rather than a copyright issue.

There’s a slight negative in that potentially, someone reported for spamming as a “scraper” might have a valid copyright claim. But realistically, there are so many terrible scrapers out there, and the activity is often so obviously infringing, that removing such content on spam grounds would allow Google to apply more common sense to the problem, rather than virtual paperwork.

Again, however, it might be that the form won’t do any removals at all. Potentially, Google’s using it as a way just to harvest examples in order to improve its ranking system, so that original content shows up first.

Source - http://searchengineland.com/google-scraper-tool-185532

read more

Google AdWords Smart Annotations Test Continues To Roll Out

Google has been expanding testing for the new Smart Annotations over the past few weeks. Smart Annotations automatically pull information from an advertiser’s landing page in an additional line of text in their ads.

Google hasn’t made an official announcement, but AdWords reps have been reaching out to notify their clients of the roll-out. Nilaye Tharkar, head of search at Performics Canada, received a heads up at the end of January about Smart Annotations testing. Here’s an excerpt from that email:

While this added line is not clickable, we saw an average CTR improvement of 9% in our pilot.

The added line comes from data we find on the landing page; it comes from navigation categories that typically are on the left side of your page (but could be elsewhere, like along the top). We look for relevancy and then typically take them in order off the landing page; respecting any trademark claims we have on file.

We expect to make basic reporting available roughly 1 month after launching (earlier data would not be statistically significant), and as always there is an opt out procedure

In the screenshot above, the smart annotation is pulling the list of “Laptop Features” itemized about halfway way down the left navigation on that Best Buy landing page. Often, the annotation will include a list of brands, also pulled from the left nav, as in the example below forwarded by Tharkar.

However, in an example I found today, the smart annotation is pulling from footer content, and the user value is questionable. The colon after “Brands” in the annotation makes the listing particularly confusing.Here’s the footer information getting pulled into this smart annotation.

This format is still in a limited test phase, so we may see funky displays like this example to get ironed out.

Again, these extra lines of copy are getting pulled in automatically, so there is no action to take on the advertiser’s end except to opt-out if desired.

Source - http://searchengineland.com/google-adwords-smart-annotations-test-continues-roll-184941

read more