Home
AdWord's Competitive Ad Filter Upgraded to 500
Aaron Wall of SEO Book reports, Google AdSense's Competitive Ad Filter now supports up to 500 sites, as apposed to the former 100. Aaron points out though, that publishers still can't block ads based on theme, a method which would no doubt be much more convenient.
Google Launch Enterprise Partner Program
According to InfoWeek Google have today launched a partner program for their enterprise search solutions:
The search company said it plans today to introduce Google Enterprise Professional, a partner program for developers, consultants, and independent software vendors interested in extending Google's enterprise search capabilities and in delivering complementary technology and services to Google enterprise customers.
Google AdWords API Breaks Down
As reported on ThreadWatch, Google's AdWords API -- used by publishers to remotely manage AdWords campaigns -- caused some panic among publishers yesterday:
We had had our Google ad rep team do some bulk uploads on Tuesday morning. The system spat out some gook pulling adgroup numbers and inserting them into the tracking code so that by the time it was set all pages were going to error pages... not to the nice 404s that we have redirected but to ISS problem pages that in essence wasted the day's spend (we did get a prompt refund the next day).
Google have since fixed the problems, and explained the cause of the issue on their AdWords API blog
Yahoo Mail Superior to Gmail?
In his personal technolagy column, Walter S. Mossberg reviews Yahoo Mail's New Beta interface and concludes that Yahoo Mail is superior to Gmail in meeting user expectations:
The new Yahoo Mail is far superior to Gmail. Yahoo more closely matches the desktop experience most serious email users have come to expect. Gmail, by contrast, is quirky and limited. Its only advantage is its massive free storage, which exceeds what most people will ever need.
Of course, it's very much a matter of personal taste.
GoogleTV?
Adam Lasnik notices a job posting at Google suggesting in all likelihood GoogleTV is on its way. Key extracts from the job posting:
[...] using Google’s search and advertising technologies to enhance users’ Television viewing experience [...]
[...] trends that are shaping user behavior when watching Television [...]
SEM/SEO Exam
For anyone not already aware, SEOMoz has not so long ago published an excellent exam to test your SEO/SEM knowledge. The test covers the the following topics:
- The Search Engine Industry & Market
- Search Engine Technology
- Spam, Filters & Penalties
- Design, Programming, Usability & General Web Knowledge
Perhaps some of the questions are a little too subjective for an exam, but overall a well rounded set of questions. Also, check out the top 50 leaderboard to find who knows their stuff
Optimize AdSense for Faster Load Times
If you serve AdSense on your website, you may have noticed some annoying delays whilst the browser retrieves and renders the AdSense code. Search Engine Roundtable reports a thread on WebmasterWorld discussing several ways to address this issue:
Pack your ad units into a div, and give that div a fixed size in pixels (the same size as the ad unit, of course). This allows the browser to position that div and to immediately continue with the rest of the layout.