Overstock’s Spam Links, AdWords Optimizes For Conversions, Google’s New Antitrust Issue, Google Introduces Recipe View, & More

Google Drops Overstock.com’s Rankings Off A Cliff

Google has dropped the hammer on Overstock.com for spam linking from college student and faculty .edu web pages. On Tuesday, Overstock pages that had been ranking at or near the top of Google search results plummeted to the fifth or sixth page because of this practice. Overstock was engaging in the practice of “bribing” college and universities to post Overstock links in exchange for student and faculty discounts on the shopping site. Overstock said it had ceased the practice on February 10 before Google penalized them, but a few university webmasters haven’t taken the links down yet. Source: Wall Street Journal

Optimize Google Ads For Conversions With Ad Rotation

Google AdWords has spent a good amount of time over the past few months emphasizing increased conversion rates. A new feature in Ad Words now allows you to display ads that are optimized to get the most conversions. This option joins the choices to optimize ads for clicks or show ads on a normal rotation.

Source: Google Inside AdWords Blog

Yometa.com Is A Search Engine With A Twist

Yometa.com is a search engine that crawls search engines, if that makes any sense. Visit the site, search for a term of your choice, and a Venn Diagram pops up with location push pins displaying how a given web site ranks on the three most prominent search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing). The findings are often interesting because for the top 100 searched terms, there is only a 3% overlap in rankings. Source: Yometa.com

AdGooroo Rolls Out Link Insight v3.0

There are so many new features in AdGooroo’s third version of Link Insight, a premium link building tool, that it’s probably best to defer to their explanation of everything. Source: AdGooroo

Google Hears Antitrust Complaints From French Search Engine

1plusV, publisher of the legal search engine eJustice.fr, claims Google is blocking their rivals’ access to the AdSense advertising platform. The complaint has been filed to the European Commission, and is just the latest in a string of antitrust lawsuits that span more countries than Carmen SanDiego’s passport. Source: CNet

Breaking News! According To Facebook, Your Crush Is Newly Single!

Facebook Breakup Notifier, a new app that provides a predictable service, is designed to notify the interested party if/when the apple of their eye has broken up with their much less worthy significant other. Here’s the literal description from the app’s web site: “You like someone. They’re in a relationship. Be the first to know when they’re out of it.” That’s quite funny to those of us in committed relationships, and extremely helpful for others that are pining to be shackled to love’s padded asylum walls. Source: CNN

Google Adds Depth To ‘Related Search’

With broad search terms, Google is now offering a break down of the term by Brand, Stores, and Types. This looks to be an exclusive feature to the most generic of one word searches, but is a cool development nonetheless.

Source: CNet

Google Hopes To Unleash The Giada De Laurentiis In All Of Us With Recipe View

If you have a collection of assorted spices, meats, and vegetables, but don’t know where to start with a recipe, Google’s new Recipe View can help. Recipe View whittles down the search results to recipes complete with ingredients, reviews, and pictures. Be as specific or generic as you want, because Recipe View can help with both as needed.

Source: Official Google Blog

How Does Your Brain React To Cell Phones?

In an interesting study, researchers found that the area of your brain closest to your cell phone’s antenna during use experiences increased activity. However, the health effects are still relatively unknown, but are most likely not as severe as past claims have asserted. Source: Wall Street Journal

How Many Links Are Too Many Links? Matt Cutts Fills Us In On Link Quantity Per Page

Eight or nine years ago Google implemented a guideline stating that each page should only contain up to 100 links. That was then and this is, well, now. Check out this YouTube video where Matt Cutts discusses how the rules have changed and offers up the best practices to use as a result of these changes. Analysis By: Matt Cutts, YouTube

Ian Lurie Thoughts On Gawker’s Redesign

Gawker recently unveiled a new look for their sites that has been detrimental to their traffic. If you’re in need of a laugh or just want some good reading, Conversation Marketing’s Ian Lurie satirically and hysterically dissects the changes. Analysis By: Ian Lurie, Conversation Marketing

Mr. Rand Fishkin Discusses The Future Of Search Rank

Lately it has been pretty interesting to keep up with the changes and suspected alterations to how search engines rank their results. Scandals, content farms, and social media’s affect have bolstered the recent conversation, but in this interesting article, SEOMoz’s Rand Fishkin talks about the metrics that he believes search engines will utilize for results in the near future. Analysis By: Rand Fishkin, SEOMoz

Push Your Business To New Heights In Google Place Search

If you own a business and you want to rank well in Google’s Place Search, take a look at this article that is a crash course in optimizing your site to do just that. If you’re local and you want to be relevant, you have nothing to lose. Analysis By: Chris Silver Smith, Search Engine Land

Are You Wasting National Opportunities With Your Local Strategy?

Take a look at this article that questions your local linking strategy. You should especially check it out if you’re afraid that your presence is void or weak. If it is, have no fear, you’ll learn that you’re just a few minor tweaks from creating a local link profile that could energize how you rank nationally. Analysis By: Ross Hudgens, Search Engine Land

Let Google Help You Build A Perfectly Friendly Mobile Site

Is there a mobile version of the site you visit the most? If the answer is no, you should probably send them an email asking them why. And if you want more rapid results- send them over a link to this article that outlines Google’s best practices to use when designing a mobile friendly site. Analysis By: Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land

Catch Up On The Laws Of Display Ads

If you have any questions regarding the new technologies that are enabling marketers to “seize the digital moment” due to improvements to display advertising, this article straight from Google’s Ad Agency blog should answer most of them. Analysis By: Neal Mohan, Google AdWords Agency Blog

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