WebmasterWorld Weekly Roundup March 7

How has the tablet computer and ?phablet? changed your lifestyle and web usage? We?re having a discussion about the topic and your input will help gauge webmaster?s usage. Oh, and I hate the term ?phablet!?

I?m creating this document on a laptop PC as I find it gives me the speed and flexibility the tablet cannot. I can handle coding, multiple documents and windows, run background programs, and keep my legs warm, too.

Do join in our discussion.

Last week's WebmasterWorld Weekly is here.

Here's this week's WebmasterWorld Weekly Roundup.

In the last week, Google launched its "How Search Works." Google said, "Here you can follow the entire life of a search query, from the web, to crawling and indexing, to algorithmic ranking and serving, to fighting webspam. The site complements existing resources, including this blog, the help center, user forums, Webmaster Tools, and in-depth research papers." Find out what it's all about in the thread.

Google this week ducked a European legislative bullet after lawmakers in Germany reached a compromise to water-down the language of a law that had been described by many as a draconian "Lex Google". In the compromise, German legislators will allow Google to display "snippets" of publishers content.

What should you do when launching sites in 2013? Here's some great advice for launching a new site. Whether you are new to internet marketing or a veteran that was focused only on established sites, here are some tips about what to do and not to do when launching a new site.

WebmasterWorld's monthly look at Google's SERPs changes was published in the last week. This thread is one of the key indicators of Google updates and changes to the SERPs.

Twitter has decided to put an end to certain well-used 'older apps' as it calls them. Twitter said, "...we are discontinuing support for our older apps: TweetDeck AIR, TweetDeck for Android and TweetDeck for iPhone." It seems the apps will start to show instability soon, and eventually stop in May. If you're a power user you'll certainly be upset about some of the changes.

A charm offensive from Google surprised some, but not others. Vint Cerf, vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google said, Google shouldn't force users to reveal real names. "Using real names is useful," Cerf said. "But I don't think it should be forced on people, and I don't think we do." Needless to say, some don't buy it.

This week, the E.U. fined Microsoft $731 million over the IE browser choice. "We take full responsibility for the technical error that caused this problem and have apologised for it," a spokesman for Microsoft said following the announcement.

Google continued to test image search by adding, "Try these too" to the image search. WebmasterWorld Members were discussing how it will affect traffic.

In a research paper published this week by Stanford University, it suggests each Facebook post is seen by one in three friends. The research was carried out prior to the pay-to-post programmes. Read more about it in our thread. What do you think, is that a fair assessment?

More news from Facebook this week with the announcement today of a design refresh. It is making its website look more like its Android and iOS mobile apps, and also introduces topic-specific alternatives to its news feed.

Google is planning on launching a YouTube music streaming service, according to reports.

Slightly embarrassing for Twitter is the fact that its own API keys were published in the wild. Ouch!

I read this week that Yahoo's Marissa Mayer gets a million-Dollar bonus. Not bad for a few months in the job!

Last week we covered the story of Interflora's penalty in Google. It seems that there was some action going on that resulted in Interflora's reinstatement. Was this a record in returning the site to the SERPs so swiftly? Was there some kind of pressure put on Google for a swift reinstatement? Have your say in our thread on the topic.
Matt Cutts published a video which might be timely on the penalty.

Don't forget, if you've spotted some news that we haven't covered or discussed, drop me a message, or post it yourself and let me know.
Until next time, have a productive week!

Cheers
Neil
@engine

Follow WebmasterWorld on twitter. #webmasterworld or @webmasterworld

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WebmasterWorld Weekly Roundup March 21

Over recent weeks i've been wrestling with my strong views on privacy vs openess. What's really giving me angst is the continuing trend towards software, hardware and services that want to join the dots over privacy.

I doubt the CEO of Company X is sitting in their cave waiting for my next posting to appear, reading it and drawing a conclusion on me as an individual.

It's far more automated, and my data is a commodity.

Many people seem comfortable opening their lives up on Facebook, or allowing tracking of everything they do. Most are not thinking of their privacy, but just taking the free services and using them without a second thought.

Can you think of any of the services i'll miss if I stop sharing, and, importantly, will I really miss it?

Ok, i'll end my rant and get back in my own cave.

Last week's WebmasterWorld Weekly is here.

Welcome to this week's WebmasterWorld Weekly Roundup.

Last week we heard that Google is testing a couple of new search features: For one, you may have noticed that the font of the URLs in search results is now noticeably bigger. Google is also testing a new "search within" feature which allows users to focus their search on results just from one site.

There is a report that Facebook is testing whether to allow users to click on a hashtag to pull up all posts about similar topics or events so it can quickly index conversations around trending topics and build those conversations up, giving users more reason to stay logged in and see more ads. Would the hashtags be helpful to users, or just helpful to Facebook?

This week there was a great thread where WebmasterWorld Members were discussing how best to optimize a MySQL database for WordPress.

Microsoft Advertising published a study: "Consumer Experience Is Everything." Microsoft's Natasha Hritzuk said, "In our new study, called Cross-Screen Engagement, we found that while the era of ?Content is King? isn?t over per se, there is a new ?Crown Prince? coming on the scene: consumer experience." What do you think of the study?

Are the giant arrows on AdSense ads creating bad clicks? Join our discussion on the topic.

A study of 42,201 ISPs indicated that about 50% of all junk mail, phishing attacks and other malicious messages came from just 20 networks. Read more about the survey, and let us know what you think in our thread.

Pinterest announced it's rolling out a new look, and said, "We added a few new things to the close-up view of pins to help you discover things you love that you might not have known about otherwise."

We asked the question this week, is Facebook pushing developers into paying for participation. It's been suggested it is an attempt to stifle applications that compete with Facebook-owned services or part of an effort to get developers to pay for ads on Facebook. What do you think?

Can you think of any new ways of measuring SEO performance? Join our discussion on the topic.

Microsoft has said Windows 7 SP1 will start to roll out on Windows Update and Windows 7 RTM (with no service pack) will no longer be supported as of April 9th, 2013.

Last week we reported that Google Reader was closing down. This week, it seems that Google has resurrected the RSS handling extension for Chrome browser.

Bing announced an interesting new tool: Site Move Tool. Bing said, "The new Site Move tool under the Diagnostics and Tools section in Bing Webmaster Tools can be used to tell Bing that you have moved and permanently redirected your site, or a section of your site, to a new location."

WebmasterWorld Members this week discussed the publisher's notification by Google that certain medical keywords, part of the human anatomy, are 'too sensitive' for Google's advertisers.

There was a report made this week over the Chameleon botnet, which is made up of 120,000 home PCs. Apparently, the botnet clicks on ads and is costing advertisers as much as $6m per month.

Bad merchants watch out: Google is out to get bad merchants, and it will soon launch an algorithm to demote merchants providing poor buyer experience.

WebmasterWorld Members this week are discussing their experiences after making the switch to responsive design web sites.

Facebook is rolling out a new design. It said, "We heard from you that the current timeline layout is sometimes hard to read. Starting today, all posts are on the right side of your timeline, with photos, music and other recent activity on the left."

I read of a report that Yahoo is in talks over a share in the Dailymotion video site.

Look out Twitter clones: Twitter this week was awarded a patent on twitter: "Device independent message distribution platform." At the same time, the messenging service celebrated its seventh birthday.

YouTube was on a talk-itself up mission when it announced it has 1 billion unique users each month.

Google was keen to tell us about Google Keep, a cloud-based note taking App. Find out more in our thread.

Following on from last week's announcement that Google Chrome's Sundar Pichai has taken over Android from Andy Rubin, this week, Eric Schmidt clarified that Chrome and Android will remain separate products.

Have you found some news that we haven't covered or discussed, drop me a message, or post it yourself and let me know.
Have a productive week!

Cheers
Neil
@engine

Follow WebmasterWorld on twitter. #webmasterworld or @webmasterworld

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WebmasterWorld Weekly Roundup March 14

I've always been keen on saving energy. Now that LED lighting is becoming so much more affordable i've accelerated moves to change the household lamps over from CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) to LEDs as each CFL fails.

I like the energy-saving of CFLs over incandescent lamps, but I dislike the warm-up time of the CFL, and the problems associated with the toxic content within the lamp. I've had the glass tube of at least two CFLs break, depositing glass shards and the lamp's content in the vicinity. With great care I removed the broken components, according to recommended advice.

I have noticed a proliferation of relatively low cost LED lamps appearing on the market. They are constructed using surface mounted LED chips on what appears to be a ceramic substrate. The quality of construction appears relatively low, and the power rating comparable with CFLs, however, they offer the advantage of instant on. This is perfect for stairways, or where there may be a movement detector. With no 'warm-up', as with CFLs, it makes it much safer. There is a better range of quality LED lamps which are less affordable yet offer much better energy-saving performance and much better construction. I suspect these are going to be the lamps with true longevity, with the lower cost LED lamps failing sooner.

Whichever I end up using, I'll keep switching over time.

Last week's WebmasterWorld Weekly is here.

Here's this week's WebmasterWorld Weekly Roundup.

Google has indicated that assuming the company gains control of such top-level domains as .search, .app, .blog, and .cloud, it doesn't seems to want to restrict their use to its own products, opening up some to the public.

WebmasterWorld Supporters discuss what should be on your must have list for an ecommerce site. (Subscription required)

Privacy concerns may doom Google Glasses even before they are launched. "...bar in Seattle has formally announced its intention to prohibit the product from its establishment.

I heard this week that YouTube's co-founder was working on new video collaboration site. Chad Hurley said, "I wish [South by Southwest] was a month later because I could unveil the new product."

A study indicated that Facebook 'Likes' predict personality. I'm not surprised by those findings, however, it's assuming people are honest about their 'likes.' If they are not honest, it'll reflect the 'personality' they create.

Pinterest this week launched a new analytics service to help sites understand what content is driving interest. Find out more in our thread on the topic.

Google has settled U.S. Street View data collection case with a $7 million fine. The legal settlement was announced by US Attorney General, Eric T. Schneiderman.

Google has announced a help site for webmasters unfortunate enough to be hacked. It's worth a look now so you can know what's there should you require it. I hope you'll never need it!
Here's the intro video.

More Google news: Google this week has added new features for AdWords scripts, including negative keywords, IDs, new reports, increases limits, etc.

eBay published the results of its study into advertising on Google, and it questions its value. "Incremental revenue from paid search was far smaller than expected because existing customers would have come to eBay regardless, whether directly or through other marketing channels," said an eBay representative. It really does depend on so many factors, so ads for one site may work, and for other well-known sites it's likely to have less impact, imho.

Google Reader is to close down in July 2013! Google said, "While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader."

Twitter this week has revamped its Ads center. "Based on feedback from our advertisers, we've created a revamped experience that improves campaign reporting, provides more visibility into campaign performance, analytics and spend, and also makes it easier to manage campaigns in real time."

comScore published its U.S. search share for February 2013 and Google sites led search market with 67.5 pct. Find out how the others did, too, in our thread.

In the last week, Google launched its "How Search Works." Google said, "Here you can follow the entire life of a search query, from the web, to crawling and indexing, to algorithmic ranking and serving, to fighting webspam. The site complements existing resources, including this blog, the help center, user forums, Webmaster Tools, and in-depth research papers." Find out what it's all about in the thread.

ICANN's Trademark Clearing House was launched this week. ICANN's announcement said, "The Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) - launching March 26 - is the most important rights protection mechanism built into ICANN's new gTLD program. It allows brand owners to submit their trademark data into one centralized database, prior to and during the launch of new gTLDs. Simply put: The TMCH is a one-stop-solution for protecting your brand in the new gTLD era." If you have a trademark, it's worth following through on this.

Microsoft Bing said it was betting on deep search integration. "We believe typing in a search box is not going to be the model going forward," Have your say in the discussion.

Google made a management move this week which indicates more about the future for Chrome and Android OS: Google Chrome's Sundar Pichai has taken over Android from Andy Rubin.

Investors in Yandex are to sell their shares of up to $607 million, with a suggestion the business is struggling to maintain strong growth.

Google is to acquire speech recognition experts in DNNresearch Inc., for its research on deep neural networks.

Microsoft had to explain its Outlook and SkyDrive outage this week, and it seems the problem was overheating.

There was a report going round that Twitter is readying a music App for launch this month. Watch this space, methinks.

What's this, Google is experimenting with jewelry instead of passwords! Find out more about what that's about in the thread.

What news have you heard this week? If you've found some news that we haven't covered or discussed, drop me a message, or post it yourself and let me know.
Until next time, have a terrific week!

Cheers
Neil
@engine

Follow WebmasterWorld on twitter. #webmasterworld or @webmasterworld

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