Organic search results from Bing, now on Yahoo !

Before the search engines’ merger which will take place in August this year, Yahoo started to test Bing powered organic results. They confirmed this testing by sending emails to all their advertisers in which Yahoo states clearly that tests are being done at these moments.

The email sent to advertisers say that these tests are made for ensuring a quality transition and for all the complex pieces that will combine to do it right. Even though Yahoo said there is nothing much to do as a preparation for these tests, they will test both organic and paid results from Bing, however the paid results will be kept at lower level not to impact on advertisers’ accounts.

The email also states clear that if the tests appear to deliver high quality results, in August/September Yahoo’s organic search results will be powered by Bing. After this transition, the single difference between the « before » and « after » search results will be that organic results will be served by Microsoft’s search engine Bing and no longer by Yahoo, but with the same design and interface Yahoo is using now.

These testings should determine website owners to keep an eye on organic traffic from Yahoo and Bing and to check if there are any fluctuations, differences between last months and July onwards and even consider changing search engine optimisation strategy if let’s say traffic takes a hit from theses tests.

DigitalPoint Forums got banned from Google AdSense program

Five days ago, DigitalPoint Forums, one of the largest webmasters’ community on the Internet stopped placing Google AdSense advertising on their pages. People started to talk about this so the owner of this website, Shawn Hogan, wrote a blog post about what actually happened with AdSense ads.

Although DigitalPoint forums runs the largest support site for AdSense publishers with over 760,000 thread and still counting, it seems nothing could stop Google from banning his account for, what they claim «ads on gambling-related websites». Shawn actually says there is no reasons why his account was banned while his game was fair, no cheating and not against AdSense TOS.

All was working fine until the last month he received 30 warnings from AdSense team saying he is running ads on non-compliant websites which he claims he is not affiliated with in any way nor does he own its. It seems than others (maybe competition ?) used his AdSense publisher ID, or at least that is what Shawn is saying on his blog. The natural move was to respond to those warning, and that is exactly what DigitalPoint Forums owner did, replying that he does not own any of the above sites ; moreover, it seems that those sites were not even of the AdSense whitelist. Although a Google representative answered back with a « your account will not be affected », several days later he received an email stating that his account is disabled due to program policies violation.

He still claims none of those websites belong to him and someone else used his publisher ID for God knows what reason.

The problem that arises from this happening is as following : if a 3rd party person/website can get an AdSense account suspended, doesn’t this mean that this might also apply in link building ? Like some competitor building links from spam websites to yours, this leading to your website getting de-indexed and banned from Google ? It makes sense while even if you cannot control the links that point to your website, you also cannot control who is using your publisher ID, but still get a ban from Google…

Facebook concerns about child safety and releases “panic button”

After some long time of of negotiation between Facebook and UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, Facebook recently announced the release of a “panic button” on the website aimed to children and teens. Although at the begining Facebook opossed this idea, it finally approved this button that, once installed, on the homepage the application will transmit that “they are in control online”.

The negotiations started in November last year with not only Facebook but also MySpace and Bebo, those latest 2 websites however added that button with concerns about children and teenagers safety online. This latest Facebook’s turn over to the panic button was enforced by a recent rape and murder of a 17 years old girl that stunned the communities. She met a 33 years old man on Facebook, posing as a teen and the rest of the sad story is history.

Sophy Silver from Facebook told BBC News that both sides are happy with the new application that once integrated will provide more safety and support for all teenagers and children using their social networking website. Moreover, in a short time a Facebook/Ceop webpage is prepared to be launched online, covering from music to exams topics and linking those popular topics to Q&A about online safety and online protection.

Hi-tech credit card to combat online fraud – Visa CodeSure

eCommerce Card Fraud – Visa CodeSure to the rescue

Giving all the anti-fraud mechanism put in place by banks and credit card companies, you would think online fraud and credit card fraud will be a thing of the past. Card fraud seem to behave like a badly laid carpet underlay, you push the air out in one end and it pops up at another end. At least on the credit card front, a new Hi-tech card by Visa seem set to dramatically reduce credit card fraud if not eliminate it outright.

The new Visa card comes with a built in keypad and LCD screen, the new card is called Visa CodeSure. CodeSure is exactly the same size as a standard credit card but it features a tiny screen above the signature strip and 10 pressure keypads which card owners can use to input pin number.

Visa CodeSure has undergo extensive trials in Europe, Visa is not confident enough that the it is giving the banks the go ahead to start rolling it out to their customers very soon. Visa CodeSure will replace the cumbersome card reader that is in current use, instead of carrying a card and a card reader, you have it all rolled into one small credit card. The main security feature of the new card is the fact that it generates random authorisation code for each transaction instead of inserting preprepared password which is the way the current Verified by Visa system works. Visa CodeSure is expected to replace verified by Visa system once the roll out of the new card is completed.

Verified by Visa is said to have help online card fraud continue to fall, last year, £266 million was lot to card fraud which was a reduction of 19% over loses due to fraud the previous year.

Thomson Local – Express Way into Google Local Search & Invitation to Cold Calling

Thomson Local & Google Local Search

If your product or services is targeted at a particular locality, having it appear in Google local business result listing is very important to driving high quality targeted organic traffic to your site. Aside from the usual algorithm Google uses to rank what site is it displays before which, it displays about 6-7 local businesses right at the top of search engine result page, giving such businesses and significant exposure.
There are a number of ways to get your business listed in Google Local Business Result, one is to submit your site to Google places, a second one which most SEO seem to argue gives you better ranking in Google Local Business Result is to have you business listed on Thomson Local. This way is not unlike the way Google populates its own directory by importing DMOZ directory.

Google partnership with Thomson Local is an excellent way of verifying business’s locality and Thomson Local, a traditional business directory which is not particularly a highly sought after directory to have business listed in suddenly became “sexy” due to the fact that it is now a back door into Google Local listing.

For the aforementioned reason, this author bough several local Thomson Local directory listing to get some of his client’s site ranked better in their Locally Business Listing. No sooner did the listing appear in Thomson Local did the cold calling starts from various sources from Thomson competitor trying to persuade you to list on their directory also to energy companies wanting you to switch to them, this bring home some of the reasons many Internet business tends to avoid having their business listed in traditional print based directory.

Thomson Local may get your into Google Local Business Listing but it brings you a considerable number of unwanted calls as well.