Category: Google

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Google Add the +1 Button to AdWords Ads

Google is really pulling out all the stops when it comes to pushing the new +1 button. Now Google will be +1’ing AdWords ads. In fact I am seeing them already.

“The +1 button itself will appear next to your headline on search ads. Personalized annotations will appear beneath your Display URL. For example, Maria +1’s a page selling a neat laptop holder on a website. When a search ad
with that same URL appears, her friend Sam might see the ad with the note “Maria and 28 other people +1’d this.”

With the +1 button Google is banking on increased growth in the social sector. With your connections and friends now able to personally, via the +1 button, recommend sites and products ads are now instantly more relevant and personal.

Make sure as you allow the +1 button results to show up in your Google.com search results that you understand that others can see sites that you +1 and that this results can be tied to your name.

For AdWords, I would imagine that +1 button votes will count heavily into the hidden quality score factors in the months to come. Google may never tell us about this, but with relevancy being the code word for all Google does, I expect +1 to be SERP and ad changing pretty quickly.

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Google Rolls Out the +1 Button

This past week Google released access to the +1 Button. If you have not added it to your website or blog yet, here’s a link to the code generator. If you don’t know, Google has said that +1 button votes will be used to raise your position in organic results. Here’s what Google specifically says about that issue:

“Content recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant than content from strangers. For  example, a movie review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from a friend who shares your tastes can be even better. Because of this, +1’s from friends and contacts can be a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to a user’s query. This is just one of many signals Google may use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, and we’re constantly tweaking and improving our algorithm to improve overall search
quality. For +1’s, as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality.”

That’s pretty big news! If you want to read all the FAQs here is a link to the help section on Google. Right now you have to sign u in Google Labs to have the +1 results be shown in your own personal Google.com search results. What is great is that you can +1 something right from Google.com or if the website has the +1 button installed, you can +1 it right from their website page.

We are encouraging all of our clients to get the +1 on their website and blog. We’ve only run into one problem with installation. In only one case it appears that there is an onLoad issue with other scripts that are showing on the page, but that is just one website out of several we’ve installed so far.

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Watching Your Site for Malware Intrusions

Website owners need to keep an eye on their website and blog to make sure that they are not unknowingly spewing malware onto the Web. Not only can this be bad for your site visitors, but you can actually get your website blocked by Google for allowing malware downloads; even if you didn’t know that it was happening.

If you have a blog on your site, there are lots of free, cool plugins that monitor your blog and help you to keep it safe, but how about a website? I found one tool recently that allows you to scan your website files for malware. It is called Sucuri. You can visit the free online website scanner here. I recommend not only scanning your root directory, but some of your top traffic directories as well just to make sure you are malware free.

Another tool you can use for malware monitoring of a website is the Google Webmaster Control Panel. To use this Google service you will need to verify your website ownership by downloading and then uploading to your server a small file. Once in place, Google will scan your site and you can review its malware detection results.

In many cases I have found that Google is very slow to report if you have had a malware attack. Eventually they will notify you if there is a problem, but it may be woefully late, and your notification may actually be that Google has banned your site in their index. I personally recommend a much more proactive and early prevention focus.

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Google Toolbar PageRank Indicator is Bogus

I have several customers who monitor their website’s Google Toolbar PageRank. In fact, they do not take action on links unless the site has a favorable Google Toolbar PageRanking.

First off, it is important to understand that Google does not show your real organic PageRank in the Google Toolbar. Additionally, the PageRank in the Google Toolbar is not the same as PageRank on Google.com. Confused yet?

Here are the quick notes you should remember about the Google Toolbar PageRank indicator:

  • PageRank changes by page and not by website.
  • Each time Google crawls your site your Google.com PageRank may change.
  • For each search query entered on Google.com, Google delivers the pages in order of true PageRank not Toolbar PageRank.
  • Toolbar PageRank is not the same as PageRank.
  • Google does not show the real PageRank for any site so as to prevent SEO firms from working the system.
  • I have found that Google updates Toolbar PageRank infrequently sometimes once in six months.
  • A Toolbar PageRank of three could not carry the same real world Google PageRank as other three rated sites, there are more factors at play.
  • A high Toolbar PageRank does not mean a high Google.com PageRank.
  • You can probably now disable your Google Toolbar if you were using it for SEO position referencing.

I have found a terrific article at The Search Engine Journal that really digs deeper into this topic and would highly recommend that you read it. It debunks some of the misconceptions webmasters and website owners have had about the importance of the Google Toolbar PageRank. I personally do not use the Google Toolbar PageRank indicator for any decisions about my own website.