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GOOGLE BIG DADDY UPDATE IS COMPLETE

Search Engine News, 04/01/2006

As we discussed last month, Google has been rolling out significant changes to the way they process, store, and rank web pages.

It's been a fairly large-scale overhaul that's been doing some crazy things to Google's index, but Google engineer Matt Cutts recently announced on his blog that it's finally over.

Surprisingly, the search results don't seem drastically different than they were before, certainly not on the scale of previous Google updates.

So, what's changed?

First, Big Daddy was designed to resolve the old problem that Google had in mistaking the www and non-www versions of a site as two different sites.

For example...

http://www.searchenginenews.com

and

http://searchenginenews.com

...in many cases used to be seen by Google as two different sites, even though they both point to the same place.

Since some pages might link to you with the www and others might link to you without it, if you didn't address the problem yourself you could be needlessly splitting your incoming links and hurting your search rankings.

You can fix this problem by using 301 redirects. However, now that Big Daddy is over, we see that Google is assigning the same toolbar PageRank to both versions of a site. This leads one to believe that Google has solved the problem, though we'll have to see if they've really got it licked.

In any case, the method laid out in the 301 redirect article will still protect you from splitting your incoming links, whether or not Google has really fixed things on their end.

The second change we can expect from Big Daddy is that Google has reportedly fixed their 302 pagejacking problem. In case you're unfamiliar with the term, pagejacking enables pages to steal the ranking of another page through exploitation of 302 redirects.

The 302 redirect is known as the temporary redirect (as opposed to the 301, or permanent redirect). When you set up a 302 redirect for one of your web pages, you're telling anyone who visits that page (including search engines)...
"The page you're looking for has been moved to this other location for a little while. However, I'm going to move it back here again soon, so keep checking back."

The problem arises when someone (the hijacker) puts a 302 redirect on one of their pages and points it to a page on your site. This tricks Google into thinking that the hijacker owns the page, but that it's just temporarily being hosted on your site.

Now Google thinks there's two locations for the page, one on the hijacker's site (which Google thinks is the real, permanent location), and another on your site (which Google mistakenly thinks is just the temporary location).

At this point you have a duplicate content issue (two pages in Google's index with the same content), and Google will have to determine which page is the correct one. Google usually determines this based on which page has the higher PageRank, although that varies from situation to situation.

Of course, this means that pagejacking doesn't always negatively effect a site, since Google will often choose the correct page. Thus, many webmasters haven't been affected, and the problem doesn't seem that big of a deal (at least, of course, until it happens to you). In fact, most pagejacking is actually unintentional, caused by directories and other sites using 302 redirects to track who clicks on their site's links.

Unfortunately, since pagejacking is a bug built into Google, there's actually not much you can do to prevent it. However, if you see it happening, contacting the hijacking page's owner and getting them to remove their 302 redirect to your page will fix it. Again, since a lot of pagejacking is unintentional, they usually will comply.

Most often affected are sites that are listed in a lot of small, niche directories that use 302 redirects to track traffic. If you've noticed that your pages are showing up in Google, but listed as belonging to a directory that links to you, then you've likely been unintentionally pagejacked.

In any case, we're seeing fewer instances of this happening, so it may be that Google has finally solved their pagejacking issue. Let's hope so, since this was one of the primary stated intentions of the Big Daddy update.

GOOGLE SETTLES ADVERTISING SUIT FOR $90 MILLION

MSNBC , 03/08/2006

SAN DIEGO - Google Inc. has agreed to pay up to $90 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the online search engine leader overcharged thousands of advertisers who paid for bogus sales referrals generated through a ruse known as “click fraud.”

The proposed settlement, announced by the company Wednesday, would apply to all advertisers in Google’s network during the past four years. Any Web site showing improper charges dating back to 2002 will be eligible for an account credit that could be used toward future ads distributed by Google.

The total value of the credits available to advertisers will be lower than $90 million because part of that amount will be used to cover the fees of lawyers who filed the case last year in Arkansas state court. The proposed settlement still requires final court approval.
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The lawsuit, filed by Lane’s Gifts and Collectibles on behalf of all Google advertisers, revolves around one of the most sensitive subjects facing Google and Yahoo Inc., which runs the Internet’s second largest marketing network.

Yahoo, which is also named in the suit, said Wednesday that it intends to fight the lawsuit’s allegations.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google makes virtually all of its money from text-based advertising links that trigger commissions each time they are clicked on. Besides enriching Google, the system has been a boon for advertisers, whose sales have been boosted by an increased traffic from prospective buyers.

But sometimes mischief makers and scam artists repeatedly click on specific advertising links even though they have no intentions of buying anything. The motives for the malicious activity known as click fraud vary widely, but the net effect is the same: advertisers end up paying for fruitless Web traffic.

The lawsuit alleged Google had conspired with its advertising partners to conceal the magnitude of click fraud to avoid making refunds.

The frequency of click fraud hasn’t been quantified, causing some stock market analysts to worry Google’s profits will falter if it turns out to be a huge problem.

Google executives have repeatedly said the level of click fraud on its ad network is minuscule — a contention that the proposed settlement amount seems to support.

The $90 million translates into less than 1 percent of Google’s $11.2 billion in revenue during the past four years.

Google disclosed the settlement after the stock market closed. The company’s shares fell $10.57 to close at $353.88 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, then shed another $2.11 in extended trading.

WEBSITE SUES GOOGLE OVER DROP IN RANK

Mark Schwanhausser, Mercury News, 03/18/2006

Google has mysteriously downgraded the search ranking of a Web site geared to help parents care for young children, causing a ``cataclysmic fall'' in advertising revenue and the number of monthly page views, according to a class-action lawsuit filed Friday.

The civil suit by KinderStart.com of Norwalk seeks financial damages and more information about Google's secret method for ranking sites. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, seeks class-action status for other sites that have seen their rankings drop without warning or explanation from the Mountain View search giant.

A Google spokesman told the Associated Press that the company hadn't seen the suit and had no immediate comment.

Since it launched in May 2000, KinderStart.com had built up its traffic to more than 10 million page views a month, the suit says, with much of the traffic coming from Google search users. But in March 2005, page views plunged 70 percent and advertising revenue fell 80 percent and hasn't recovered. KinderStart.com suspects that Google erected invisible barriers that divert consumers elsewhere when they type in a search but says Google will not explain what happened.

The drop-off was so sudden that the Web site suspects Google has a flawed method or blocks sites subjectively despite Google's pledge to provide objective search results.

``If there is any human being behind that, running some levers, we should find out and that should be transparent to the public,'' said Gregory J. Yu, a San Mateo attorney representing KinderStart.com. ``If there's something strange, improper or faulty with the search engine, let's open it up and clear up the problem.''

Google and other search engines are routinely on the lookout for people who try to trick the system. For example, some use renegade blogs and Web sites to create links to their pages and make it appear they are more popular.

But KinderStart.com did not engage in such practices, Yu said. ``This is not about playing games.''

SIX APART TO SELL BUSINESS-FRIENDLY BLOGGING TOOLS

Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek, 03/07/2006

Six Apart announced business-oriented update options to its popular Movable Type blogging software and its hosted blogging service, TypePad.

The company's new TypePad Business Class offering caters to organizations that want to post blogs without a lot of involvement from their IT departments. It supports four distinct administrator roles for publishing oversight and management, enterprise-oriented bandwidth allowances, and invoicing options and comes with technical support. It includes improved spam controls and the ability to map company domain names to Six Apart's external hosted service.

Movable Type Enterprise, a new version of Six Apart's server-based blogging software for businesses, includes the ability to integrate with corporate databases like Oracle 10g, MySQL, and Postgres. It also features support for enterprise authentication services like LDAP, comment management, customizable E-mail integration, and enhanced technical support options.

Blogging has increasingly caught the eye of businesses, both as an internal communications tool and for reaching suppliers, partners, or customers. Blogs "have taken off because they're the tools people want to use," says Anil Dash, VP of professional products for Six Apart.

Six Apart's blogging software appears to be quite popular in the business world already. The company claims that over 75% of the Fortune 500 companies with blogs use Movable Type or TypePad. Its list of clients includes Adobe, Amazon, Boeing, Cisco, eBay, EMI Music, Fuji, General Motors, Motorola, MSNBC, Nissan Motor, Oracle Japan, Proctor & Gamble, Viacom, Visa, Wal-Mart, Xerox, and Yahoo, to name a few.

Through his Web design company, Monkey Do, Tim Murtaugh and his business partner Michael Pick developed the Seed Magazine Web site using Movable Type. Murtaugh subsequently became technology director for the site.

Presented with a tight deadline and budget to get the magazine launched, Murtaugh says he chose Movable Type over other content management systems because Movable Type makes site updates easy and intuitive for anyone. "The learning curve for a generic [content management system] is much higher," he says. "Another reason we settled on Movable Type is the number of features it provides out of the box, such as commenting, trackbacks, RSS generation, E-mail a friend, and so on. The features built into the heart of a blog are fantastic for other media sites to help push content and encourage user participation."

Murtaugh says he isn't yet familiar with the new enterprise-friendly features in Movable Type, but he notes that he didn't find the version he's using limiting. "Everything we wanted to do [with Movable Type], we were able to do," he says.

The involvement of more and more companies in blogging hasn't been without controversy. Despite the fact that a number of noted bloggers began as or became media insiders, many people still naively assume that blogging is somehow unsullied by the commercial influence evident in journalism and marketing. Few seem to recognize that blogging is publishing, nothing more and nothing less.

In his own blog, Richard Edelman, president and CEO of the PR firm that bears his surname, acknowledges The New York Times' criticism that bloggers have been posting information supplied by Edelman on behalf of Wal-Mart without identifying where it came from. Bloggers, he concedes, "should attribute specific content to a company or another blogger if used verbatim."

At the same time, he makes it clear that blogs are now part of the corporate communications arsenal. "We encourage all our clients to reach out to the blogosphere," he writes in his blog. "It should be part of any smart communications program. We also encourage our clients to blog themselves. Blogs are often a more effective way for companies to have a conversation with their audiences that is dynamic, personalized, two-way and prominently displayed in search. Of course we give information to bloggers, just as PR people for generations have done with print media, and I'm a little surprised that the print and broadcast media are surprised."