Caydel’s SEO Blog

Just in case you haven’t read it yet, I would urge you to check out Andy Beal’s recent post Exclusive: Google’s Click Fraud Rate is Less than 2%.

Andy describes a sit down he had with Google’s business product manager for trust and safety, Shuman Ghosemajumder, in which Ghosemajumder shows him an internal presentation describing Google’s click fraud practice.If what Google says is true, than the only fraud going on may be on the part of the ‘click fraud companies’ that have popped up since the Lane’s Gifts vs. Google class action suit this year. If nothing else, even if the rate is higher than the 2% that Google claims it is, I have no doubt it still has to be *very* well below the 20-30% claimed by self-titled ‘click fraud analysts’.

On the other hand, these numbers are directly from Google; this may just be spin to try to reassure their advertisers. What I would really like to see is Google hiring on a responsible third-party company or individual to audit the Google click fraud monitoring procedures. That may be the only way we can see the real numbers.

What do you think?

Share This

update - This is a case of Shoemoney getting massively misquoted in the press. Please see his response at http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/12/07/forbes-article/. I apologize for any defamation or damage to the branding this article may have had!

Shoemoney is going to get his account taken away. Here’s why.

If you have been paying attention to the Search blogs lately, you will have heard about the Forbes.com article on PPC arbitrage in which both Jeremy ‘Shoemoney’ Schoemaker and Michael ‘Graywolf’ Gray are both quoted. Now, I haven’t read the article itself yet, but I just came across this extract which Andy Beal posted to his blog:

Schoemaker insists he and others have in fact found a way to circumvent the crackdown. He says he uses techniques like “cloaking” to fool Google’s algorithm. Arbitrageurs know the search engine’s IP addresses, the fingerprints that reveal the source of any Web page visitor. So Schoemaker says he sets his web pages to automatically display legitimate content to the Google spider, while giving other users the ad-filled arbitrage page. Schoemaker says that makes him virtually immune to Google’s quality-regulation measures.

… Since then, he says he’s made more than $2 million by arbitraging search terms related to cell phone ringtones, teeth whitening and mortgages. “I love Google,” Schoemaker says. “They changed my life.”

So here Shoemoney is, admitting on a national-level that he utilizes cloaking to bypass Google’s crackdown on PPC arbitrage. This is in violation of the AdSense Terms of Service where it says:

Do not employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.

If Google is really serious about cracking down on PPC arbitrageurs, they will have to ban Shoemoney. For him to announce to the world that he has, does, and will continue to effectively cheat the Adsense program by violating their TOS is a major blow to Google’s reliability. After all, $2 million is a lot to take out of advertiser’s pockets.

What do you think?

Share This

One useful way to build some extra traffic to your site is to ensure that your images are optimized for Google Image Search. While ranking for terms in Google Image Search is unlikely to ever bring you massive amounts of traffic, the steps to optimizing your images for Google Image Search are extremely simple.

As an example, we will use the image of Barry Schwartz, Chris Boggs and Daron Babin at SES Chicago doing the Search Pulse on Tuesday evening.

Photo Credits SmallBusinessSEM.com

Note:I borrowed (stole) this image from Barry’s blog. Check it out - it’s always a great read.

The first two steps are simply common SEO sense - these should always be done on a site no matter what. These have the ability to influence your ranking in the main Google SERPS for keywords found in the title and description. The way they influence the image results is just the icing on the cake.

Steps to Optimize Your Images for Google Image Search

1. Use Descriptive Filenames - A filename can present you with your first chance to include keywords in your images. Title the image with a word or short phrase which describes what is in the image. For example, rather than using a camera-assigned filename such as DSC05443.jpg, use a filename like barry-schwartz-chris-boggs-daron-babin-SES-chicago.jpg. Notice the way that I have used a dash (-) between the words in the title - this is commonly interpreted by Google as a space in the filename. This is the most search engine friendly way of labelling images.
2. Use the alt tag! - the alt tag in your image link code will allow you to include some more keywords describing your image. Additionally, the alt tag text will be displayed by Google Image Search in place of the filename in each search result. Therefore, use that as well when linking your code. Here is an example for the image we are using: <img src="/images/barry-schwartz-chris-boggs-daron-babin-SES-chicago.jpg" alt="Barry Schwartz, Chris Boggs and Daron Babin at SES Chicago" />
3. Get Included in Google Image Labeler - The Google Image Labeller is game in which you and a partner collaborate to write tags for images presented. You recieve points when you both submit matching tags. The matching tags are then assigned to the images, and taken into consideration for the Google Image Search search results.

   In order to ensure that your images are included, access your Google Webmaster Central account, and go to the management page for your site. In the left hand bar, you will see an link which says ‘Enhanced Image Search’. Clicking this link will present you with the option to opt-in to the Enhanced Image Search features. This option signifies to Google that you are allowing them to use tools such as the Image Labeler to assist in the indexing of the images on your site.

These tips should provide you a boost in the amount of traffic you recieve from the Google Image Search. The first two steps will are common SEO sense, which should help your regular search rankings for keywords relating to the subjects of your images.

If you have any other ideas how to optimize your images, please comment!

Share This

According to Silicon.com, Google sent out an email to 50,000 subscribers of the Google Video Blog containing the W32/Kapser.A@mm virus, better known as the ‘Kama Sutra’ virus. This virus raised some concern in February when it began to appear in the wild, often disguised as pornographic materials. It works by waiting with no side effects, until a specific date and time arrives when it overwrites key system files.

Later, a note was posted to the Google Video Blog saying, “Some of these posts may have contained a virus called W32/Kapser.A@mm - a mass-mailing worm.” Further, Google has  suggested that readers run antivirus programs to remove the virus  from their systems.

I wonder if Google is at some type of liability as a result of this incident. I can just see somebody suing Google for a massive virus infection soon!

Share This

As I wrote earlier, I have been re-included back into Technorati, which is great. I am getting lots of traffic from them, and a few comments and links I otherwise wouldn’t have. I’ve also noticed another major surprise - autoblogs are now grabbing my posts from Technorati tag RSS feeds, which may lead to duplicate content and link devaluation problems.

The Good

Well, I may as well start on a positive note. By picking up my posts from Technorati, these auto blogs (linked examples) are giving me a bunch of backlinks I otherwise wouldn’t have had. Additionally, I have been getting the odd bit of traffic from these blogs, although people coming from these blogs don’t always seem to stick around. There are some up sides to the fact that I am getting syndicated all over creation.

The Bad

Of course, it is a bit of a downside that many of the auto-blogs are syndicating my content without any attribution of authorship, or anything to note that these are not original. This annoys me - I don’t care if people quote me to high heaven in their posts. Or, even quote the post whole-sale. But most real people have the courtesy to attribute what they borrowed from me. These auto blogs don’t even do that.

The Ugly

And wait, it gets worse. I am wondering to a certain degree how this will interact with the Google duplicate content filter. From what I know of the dupe filter, Google assumes that the first place they crawl containing a certain chunk of textual content is the proper owner. In these days of RSS feeds, and tag-searching, I have found copies of my posts on these auto blogs within 30 seconds of my posting them to my own blog. What would happen if they get crawled on one of these autoblogs first, prior to my blog being crawled? Would Google attribute to them the authorship, and leave me in the cold?

Conclusion
I am sure Google is smart enough to recognize spam blogs quite effectively, but I wouldn’t doubt that there is still some level of risk inherent in the process. Additionally, if we think about the situation in terms of link building, overall incoming link quality plays a large role in how much Google trusts your site*. Obviously, if you had a site referenced by 10 .edu sites out of 12 incoming inks total, you would probably be trusted more by Google than if yo had 10 .edu links out of 2,000 links total. The value of your incoming .edu backlinks is now more diluted by the vast mass of your link weight, and you have a lower average quality of your incoming links.

So, I am not sure what to think about this auto-blog copying issue. I would assume that everyone associated with Technorati has the same problems, whether they recognize them or not. Thoughts, anyone?

* Yes, I know. It’s a debatable subject in whether incoming link quality plays a role in whether Google trusts you. I personally think it does, so I am sticking with this viewpoint. Hate mail into the comment form, please!

Share This

A recent blog post by ZDNet’s Donna Bogatin indicates that at some point yesterday, Google had a large box on the Google.com homepage promoting the Google Toolbar. According to Bogatin’s screenshot, there was for a time a large box in the upper right hand corner of the Google.com homepage which contained an image of part of the Google Toolbar along with the text

‘Put a Google search box in your browser’.

An arrow pointed from the advertisement box towards the top of the browser viewport.

Why would Google do this? I guess they want to spread the Google Toolbar; the more people who install it, the more market and mind share they own. But this goes against their long-standing tradition of a nice, clean, almost spartan front page.
This screenshot is borrowed from Donna Bogatin. I was unable to confirm this siting with any other sources. Has anyone else out there seen this?

Share This

Well, as you all may remember, there was a class action suit launched against Google a few months ago with regards to click fraud. I joined into the suit, and recieved my settlement just a few moments ago. 5 minutes ago, I just recieved the following email:

Dear Google AdWords advertiser:

We are writing to notify you that we have processed your claim for
Account Number *removed* under the Lane’s Gifts v. Google class-
action settlement. We are issuing credits to the AdWords account
identified in your claim.

To view your credit award, log in to your account and open your
Billing Summary page. Your credit award will appear under the label
‘Adjustment - Click Quality’ between the dates 10/27 and 10/28. In
some cases, it may take a few days for an award to be reflected on
this page, so if you don’t see it at first, please check back soon.

You don’t need to do anything to redeem your credit. Google will
automatically apply it to future invoices for your credited AdWords
account. The credits are valid for one year from their date of
issuance and may be canceled at any time after that.

Credits are awarded on a pro rata basis, taking into account these
factors:
- The amount you paid Google for advertising
- Google’s revenues from online advertising since January 1, 2002,
and your claim percentage
- The total amount of credits available in the settlement, which is
US$60M.

If you have any questions, please contact us at
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/request.py?hl=en_US.

Thank you for your continued support of Google.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team

Being somewhat excited by this, I quickly logged into my Adwords account to see how much I recieved back. And, *drumroll* I got $0.48.

Yes, you heard correctly. $0.48 bloody sense. This is a touch rediculous. now, I am not a large scale advertiser. But when I filed my claim, I claimed $198.42 on my account, at an estimated 30% click fraud rate, in line with the numbers resulting from a variety of studies which had been reported around the time that I had filed.

Just to emphasize how rediculous this compensation is, I was compensated for 0.24% of my advertising costs. ie, Google is compensating me for an estimated 0.24% click fraud rate. Now, I didn’t expect to get the full 30% I claimed back. I would have been happy to get 5% back.

We all *know* that there is a higher click fraud rate than that. If this has proven anything, it has proven that the only people who actually are making good on this suit were the lawyers arguing it.

At any rate, I will relish my 2 free advertising clicks. With any luck, at least one of them will convert. If anyone else has recieved their settlement, let me know. I want to know if what I recieved is in line with the settlements other people have recieved.

Share This