Apr 13, 2012 at 8:09pm ET by Danny Sullivan

I was surprised to see a promotion for Google's "Search Plus Your World" feature turn up in my search results today. I was even more surprised that even after I dismissed it, the promo returned at least twice more. It's Not Your Imagination Apparently, I'm not the only one. I can see others on Twitter complaining about it: Here's Andrew Chen: When I google, the "Welcome to Search plus your World" shows up over and over. Can't be dismissed. wtf Jonathan Dugan: Google, if you keep spamming me with "Welcome to Search plus Your World" every time I run a search, I'm going to stop usi [...]

Google Chrome’s Paid Link Penalty Now Lifted

Mar 16, 2012 at 9:37am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google has lifted the 60-day paid link penalty Google Chrome was given the first week of January. Now if you search for [chrome], [browser] or similar searches, the Google Chrome landing page will once again show up on the first page of the search results. Here is a picture showing the page ranking in position number for on Google: As you may remember, right after the New Years, Google was caught running a sponsored post campaign for Chrome. After a day or so, Google's Matt Cutts applied a link penalty to the Google Chrome landing page for 60 days. Now, about days later, Googl [...]

Keeping Up With Google: Bing Launches New “Search Quality Insights” Series

Mar 5, 2012 at 1:55pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Want to understand better how Bing creates its search results? Bing has announced a new "Search Quality Insights" series to provide a more behind-the-scenes look at its search engine. You know, like "Search Quality Highlights" series that Google launched last December. What's going on with these? And how does Bing's latest post help Google on anti-trust grounds? Google Seeks Transparency In Google's case, I view the Search Quality Highlights series as Google trying to deal with accusations, especially by those on the anti-trust front but even from places like the New York Times, that Google [...]

Google’s Chrome Page No Longer Ranks For “Browser” After Sponsored Post Penalty

Jan 3, 2012 at 4:32pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Searches for “browser” no longer bring up the Google Chrome home page after Google applied a penalty against the page because of Google's own sponsored post campaign. Google said even though it felt there were no "remaining violations" of its guidelines, the search engine's spam fighting team was going to reduce the PageRank value of the Google Chrome home page, which in turn lead to today's ranking decrease. From the statement Google sent us: We've investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site’s PageRank for a period of at least 60 [...]

Google: Yes, Sponsored Post Campaign Was Ours But Not What We Signed-Up For

Jan 3, 2012 at 1:02pm ET by Danny Sullivan

It's been about a day since we covered Google's sponsored post campaign to promote its Chrome browser, a campaign that produced posts that violate Google's guidelines against "thin" content and potentially those against buying links. Yes, it was a Google campaign, but not what the company says it signed-up for. One agency is falling on its sword; another is saying no paid links were purchased. Let's piece through what we've got. Google: We Only Meant To Buy Online Ads Google has sent me this statement: Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid [...]

Related Topics: Google: Chrome | Google: Marketing | Google: SEO | SEO: Spamming | Top News

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