Google Revamped Google Maps!

To provide accurate information about a business, and get rid of spammy updates about their operations, Google has revamped the display of 'closed business' information on Google Maps. This move by Google comes in after several reports of "place closed" spam labels happening all over the internet.

From now on Google will not be posting the interim message 'Reported To Be Closed' about a business on its place page, Rather, from now onwards it will first review every such news that will come to its knowledge. Then, after getting sure about the authenticity of the information, only then will Google report the business to be 'Closed'.

Google said, “As promised, we've recently made a change to our process of displaying when a business has been reported to be closed on its place page. More specifically, we have removed the interim notification about a report having been made so that a listing will only be updated after it has been reviewed by Google and we believe the change to be accurate. ”

Block Sites From Anywhere On Google!

Google is going full steam ahead with its quality user experience and relevant search results agenda. In keeping with this view, the search engine giant now allows signed in users around the world to tell Google whether a site is useful or not.

So, if you block a site, then the data is stored in the periodic Panda updates to furnish better and high quality content. Recently, Google announced that in most Google searches and domains, the user will see a note below the URL which says something like- Block all xyz.com results?

This note comes after you hit the back button and return to Google’s search results.

Once you press the block button, the results are gone. You are informed about the same by Google. But if you by mistake blocked a good site then you can quickly undo it by clicking the Undo link.

More transparent reconsideration request responses and notifications from Google!

A Google blog post said that Google is now going to be sending out more transparent reconsideration request responses and notifications.

To make reconsideration requests more transparent, Google will respond to your appeals clearly. It will tell you whether your site was affected by a manual spam action or not. And it will also tell you if they revoked the penalty post of your reconsideration request. If your site is still in violation of the Google guidelines, then it will be relayed to you. And if your site is back in form and the penalty is lifted, then that too will be conveyed to you.

Now if your site gets affected by an automated ranking downgrade courtesy the Google’s algorithms. Then you have to sit back, as Google will not do anything on its part. If you improve the site, the ranking will automatically improve.

Google said, “Your site isn’t being ranked highly by our algorithms, in which case our systems will respond to improvements on the site as changes are made, without your needing to submit a reconsideration request. Or maybe your site has access issues that are preventing Googlebot from crawling and indexing it.”

Google Celebrity Endorsements!

Google’s Christian Oestlien revealed a new test as part of a session on Google+ and the Google +1 button at SMX East Conference in New York City (September 13-15).

With this Google users will see celebrity endorsements included as annotations under paid search results as part of new advertising program that the company has just started testing.

Oestlien didn’t mention a lot, but he did tell the audience that there are only a “handful” of advertisers in the program right now.

The screenshot above is from a Google search for kardashian collection sears, which includes an annotation that Khloe Kardashian has endorsed an ad about the Kardashian clothing line at Sears.

During his presentation, Oestlien explained that, in this example, Sears is telling Google that the Kardashian sisters have endorsed this product (line) that’s available on the Sears website.

Google introduced Flight Search: a web-based tool to find out the flight most convenient!

Google has launched Flight Search, a service aimed to help Google users to spot the most convenient flight on the occasion of flying out of town.

A step poised to give Google a strong footing in the travel industry; it also witnesses the launch of Google's first product after its successful acquisition of ITA, the travel software company.

Flight Search is a web-based tool that a Google user can use to find out the flight most convenient for him, and can even book the same. Through this service you will get exposed to a wide range of airline search options with a high precision. Naturally it will be quite easy for you to conduct a focused search and then identify the flight that is best for you.

As of now the service is available for some select cities in the USA, including Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Chicago and Minneapolis. The airlines which are getting tracked include American, JetBlue, Delta and Continental.

Flight Search will come in handy equally for both regular fliers as well as the not so regular ones.

Google spotted with yet another test!

Recently Egle Mazonaite, has spotted Google conducting a test, it appears that Google is taking the snippet text from the landing page and including it as an additional line of text for the paid search ads.

Anyone spending hours each day looking at PPC ads will notice the unusually long copy lines at the bottom of the first two ads (the big red arrows added to point them out). 

This would be another in a series of moves by Google that is giving more real estate to the paid results and blending the distinction between paid and organic listings.

More importantly, if this test expands beyond the typical “limited set of users”, it would mark a significant turning point in the convergence of SEO and PPC. 

Those who are best able to coordinate their efforts to leverage SEO for PPC purposes could gain an advantage over the rest of the pack. 

How to get the best keywords for your campaigns!

It’s a known fact that the Google Adwords keyword tool is only an estimator and is usually not very accurate at all in determining the search volume for keywords. There are couples of ways to find out which keywords have more value than others.

One good way of finding out is by running a Google Adwords campaign for your chosen keywords prior to your SEO campaign and measures the traffic/conversions that you get from that exercise.

It’s important to note that, in this case you should run the campaigns for exact match keywords. These will give you more accurate keyword data as you will only be bidding on the exact keywords you are trying to research instead of any other additional variations. These are denoted in Adwords by the [ ] fields ,eg. [keyword].

Once these campaigns have been set up, you will then be able to look at the number of impressions that is being generated over a period of time.

The data you get out from this is typically very solid and you can be certain that the number of impressions you get from Adwords is accurate enough to make decisions on what keywords to go and optimize for.

New Adwords Crystal Ball: The Estimated Top Page Bid Metrics

Recently Google has added a new metric into the AdWords interface, at the keyword level, called the "Estimated Top Page Bid."

The top of page bid complements the recently introduced Top vs Side Report segment which allows a user to see how their ads perform above and to the side of Google search results.

A few months back, Google chief economist Hal Varian had explained the big difference between when the ad appears in # 1 position above the search results and in the # 1 position on the side of the search results. “On an average, ads that appear above the search results tend to get substantially more clicks than ads appear on the right-hand side,” he had said.

Google stresses that the estimated bid shown does not guarantee a top position for your ad. All the usual factors still apply (Quality Score, budget, account settings, competition at the moment of an auction, etc.).

What this new Metric Means:

In simple word, this new metric will give you an estimate of what your bid will need to be for you to be consistently showing in the banner positions.

The banner positions are reserved for advertisers who meet a minimum quality requirement. 

There is also a minimum bid requirement. This is almost certainly based on your quality score and is more accurately described as a minimum ranking requirement, If you fail to meet this minimum, you will appear on the side of the page.

This new metric will show you what your bid will have to be (for your current quality scores) for you to show in the banner positions, not on the right hand side. It can be accessed by going to the keywords tab and clicking on the "columns" button, then checking the box for "Est. top page bid."

Why it’s important:

The banner counts. In fact, the banner is almost all that counts. If you aren't in the banner, you're not going to get much traffic for the allocated search term. It doesn't matter what your impression share might be, you're simply not going to get the most possible targeted clicks.

The information in the Top vs Side Report segment helps advertisers optimize their search campaigns by analyzing the relationship between the ad location, their clicks and conversions. Advertisers can use this information along with the new top of page bid estimates to plan their bidding strategy with greater insight.

How to view this new Metric:

• Go to the keywords tab.
• Click the Columns button.
• Select the Customize columns from the drop-down menu.
• Check the Est. top of page bid box and click Save.

 

How do you interpret the results you get from the Top of Page Bid metric?

If you get a very high first page bid estimate, for example higher than $100, it will be denoted by <$100 indicating that your keyword’s Quality Score is poor. It currently does not show bids greater than $100 top of the page bid estimates.

This new metric may not be 100 percent accurate, but they'll give you a great idea what bid it'll take to get into the banner.

 

Google Insights for Search : can be very useful to refine search campaigns!

Google Insights for Search is yet another tool from Google which can be very useful to refine search campaigns.  Although the tool is still in its beta version, but is available to all users. 

With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.  And the insights provided can be very useful to advertisers looking to research their branded and non-branded terms, related terms, competitors, seasonal trends and geographic segments. Insights may also be helpful when developing benchmarks.

You can create a list of branded and non-branded terms and plug them into Google Insights for Search, and you can obtain a perspective on when search demand for your terms peaks and adjust your bidding strategies and campaign management accordingly.

Google Insight for Search also establishes a benchmark index using the geographic area with the highest search volume.

Another valuable feature of Google Insights for Search is the search term tables. 

You can use these tables for keyword research and to assess which terms are increasing in search volume.

To learn more, please click here

Impressive Customer Care Operation for AdWords Customers!

Google has long received mixed-to-negative criticism for its customer service. Following this on April 5, 2011 Google made an announcement for AdWords customers that they introduce free phone support for all AdWords customers.

Greg Sterling, a contributing editor and writer for Mashable, recently interviewed Google’s VP of Global Advertising and Product Operations, Francoise Brougher, to learn what has developed since the early spring announcement was made.

According to his report on the interview, Sterling wrote that the AdWords customer support operation currently employs 1,000 people for email and telephone support and that it receives 10,000 phone calls each week. The calls emanate from customers who are located in 60 countries and the calls go to reps that are located in “several” contact center locations “around the world.”

The article also noted that, while the addition of telephone support for current AdWords advertisers has clearly been beneficial to those customers, it has proven equally beneficial to Google, as the interactions have shed invaluable light on its customers’ needs and issues. The information it is garnering from these phone interactions is now being put to use by Google to guide marketing and influence product development, the article said.

And apparently there is no shortage of information flowing in from these customer support calls as Sterling quoted Brougher as saying, “People like to talk.”