Google Search Results Look Different?

There’s nothing like someone that loves to innovate, but when you decide YOUR way is the better way, you better be prepared to lose customers.
This week Google started rolling out its new “lighter and brighter” search results page.  The search results have a lighter color to them, and they are more “spaced out”.  Many are saying that it looks a lot like BING search results page and I have to agree.
When I did a search this morning, I WAS SHOCKED.

Not only are the new results hard to read but there are fewer of them.  The new layout actually hurts my eyes and I can’t stay on the page long.  NEVER, in my LONG web career have I seen SUCH a bad move by a “normally smart company”.

Here’s my message to Google.
If you want to change something that is quite personal to people, ASK THEM NEXT TIME.

Post a link on your page that says, “See the New Search Look” and leave it up for a week, or give people the option to revert back to “Classic”. That will let you know that your “brilliant programmers” and research people were wrong.

I am encouraging people to email Google, post on their forum, and those that have Adwords accounts to make your voice heard as well. DON’T sit back and take it. YOU’RE THE CONSUMER, and you have the right to leave them.

Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil”, but they should change it to something that works a little better like, “Listen to your customer, because you’re not always right.”

After searching further, the answer seems to be “clear your cache and cookies”.
So, was this a test? I short glimpse of things to come?
After going into my “cookies folder” and deleting the Google file, the search returned to normal.
We’ll have to wait and see.

Once again a new internet virus is on the loose.

The scary part about this one is that it has hit over 1,500,000 (yes that’s millions) websites and there seems to be no end in site.  This one is bad, and we mean bad to the point that you CAN’T avoid it. According to New Internet Virus website, this new bug is being loaded into the back end of normal websites. Neither the website owner or visitor knows it’s there.  Once infected, it’s pretty much too late. It takes over your PC and there’s nothing you can do.
This one is not making too much press however. While this is one of the largest and widespread attacks ever, little seems to said with “news sources”.  We have a feeling that many “main stream” news websites don’t want to scare people from browsing the net. Kind of a “catch 22″.

Many companies have alerted customers or admitted to being affected also include Barclays Bank, US Bancorp, Marriott, Ritz Carlton, Best Buy, L.L. Bean, Home Shopping Network and TiVo.

A recent message from Google was sent out today notifying adsense account holders that they will be terminating their video adsense units. Not many webmasters are happy about the move. Here is a part of the email from Google:

We’re writing to let you know that we’ll be retiring AdSense video units at the end of April. After reviewing this feature, we’ve found that it hasn’t been performing as well as we had hoped, so we’ve decided to focus our efforts on other opportunities to help publishers monetize their sites.

We recommend that you begin removing the video unit code from your pages as soon as possible, to ensure that you can take advantage of the available ad space on your pages. At the end of April, any remaining Leaderboard or Skyscraper video units will begin directing users to YouTube.com, while other video unit sizes will automatically be changed to standard embedded YouTube players. These standard video players will display top YouTube videos, but you won’t generate earnings from them once this change occurs.

If you’d still like to display free video content from YouTube, you can do so through YouTube.com directly: visit any specific video page for the embed code, or sign in to your YouTube account to create a playlist. For more information about embedding YouTube videos, please visit http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=57788. Alternatively, if you have less than three ad units on your page, you may prefer to replace your video unit with a regular ad unit.

Although video units are being retired, other video offerings within AdSense aren’t affected. Video ads may still appear on your pages and AdSense for video is still available for eligible publishers. If you’d like more information about the retiring of video units, please visit our Help Center at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=12182.

StopTheJunk.com Is Up For Sale

Mike Whitmore
Web World News

A simple yet powerful domain, StopTheJunk.com, is hitting the auction blocks.

Over the past several years many individuals and companies have offered to purchase this domain. However their offers, many exceeding the $30,000 mark, have been turned down. The current owner knew that something would happen in the world or economy to increase its value.

Guess what…

The US and world economies have “tanked”, politics will soon be getting more and more partisan and now more than ever, companies and public individuals need a domain that is not only easy to remember, but more importantly hard to forget. StopTheJunk.com is just such a domain.

StopTheJunk.com has been sought after by several groups. According to the current owner, both left and right wing political groups and individuals have inquired about the domain as well as environmental and finance companies.

A spokesman for the owner said, “It’s just one of the domains you can’t forget. So many companies try and leave an impression on the radio or TV with their company name or website, but by the time a person gets home or to a computer, they have forgotten it. This is a domain that is remembered for days and weeks, not just minutes. We really think that is where the value lies. You can test it yourself. Look at the domain name and read it. Now associate it with something like bad mortgages, credit, or even ‘junk’ in Washington. Now tomorrow morning try and remember it. It will POP into your head right away. That is the real value.”

When asked what the domain might bring dollar wise they said they had no idea but expected it to come close to 6 figure mark. After researching recent sales they may just be right. Recently names like FlashCards.com brought $40,000, Fly.com sold for more than $1,600,000 and ResortHotels.com sold for over $50,000.

We thought we would add our own twist. What a great domain for “anti-junk food” diet programs.
Someone surely would jump on that.  We’ll watch and see what happens.

For more info on this sale: stopthejunksale@gmail.com

Browsers Blocking Banner Ads – Firefox, Google and More

Recently I was asked a question about new developments in browsers, their ability to block ads, and how they are potentially hurting webmasters. Surprisingly I heard several debates raging over the issue and I will give you a fix and my opinion as well.

What is happening to my banner ads and Adsense ads?

If you haven’t noticed some web browsers are now offering users a way to block ads that appear on website. Now I’m NOT talking about those annoying pop-ups or surveys, I simply talking about regular old banner ads and adsense ads that you have included on your website. Developers of Firefox and other constantly updated web browsers now are adding these features. (Such as AdBlock Plus) It is a simple matter of users “flipping a switch” and they can now view your website, “modified”, without any ads showing. The ads could be affiliate programs, Google Adsense, or even simply ads that people have paid you to place on your websites. Whatever they are there is a simple way to fix some of these issues.

First the debate. More than two views.

Should people have the right to view your website and not your ads? Of course there are two camps of thought here. (As well as some hybrids.) Many webmasters are a little miffed that all their hard work is now not bringing them any rewards. They put a lot of time and work into their sites and simply hope for a small return from advertising. I think that is a fair request. Now keep in mind I am not talking about pop ups or intrusive ads and redirects, but simple ads on a side column that offer a related product or service.

On the other hand, there are a slew of people saying, “They have the right to do whatever they want.” I can also see their point. They want to be able to block banner ads / commercial promotion and view the internet without any commercial presentation. Valid point and many sites are a waste of time and nothing but banner ads.

Are the crowds marching with torches?

Many webmasters have even gone to the point of calling for a “revolt against Firefox”, who apparently was one of the first to offer such an option. I don’t see that as a logical way of handling the issue.

I am not defending Firefox. In fact I think that they are possibly stepping into some legal grounds here. While Firefox (Mozilla) is a “non-profit” organization, many think they are the “pot calling the kettle black”. In 2007 their charitable contributions were $47,143. Now do you know how much they made off search income and product sales? That number is $70,035,553. In case your web browser is acting strange, yes that is 70 MILLION dollars.

This is a growing problem with more than 36 MILLION people that have already downloaded the one plugin.

How can you fix this?
First, you should download the plugin and test it yourself. This is the most critical step in making sure your content is reaching your consumer. There are many ways they block ads such as domains. If an image of ad is served through a certain domain, it is blocked. (Example: google.com)
Tags and folders. If your image is pulled from folders such as /ads or /banners or /affiliates it will be blocked.

The easiest general fix for webmasters is to make sure that all banners are locally hosted on their own website. I will explain in “plain English I hope”. This will fix banners but not Adsense ads.

Now this won’t work for all programs and ads and will NOT allow adense to show.

If you “cut and paste” a piece of code in your HTML or website that generates a banner image, that image is being pulled in from another website / server. There is no actual image “stored” on your webpage. A browser can tell that it is being pulled from another location and “served” to the viewer with a hyperlink back to that site. It classifies this image as a banner ad and blocks it from being viewed / displayed.

In order to get around this:

1- Webmasters should simply get a copy of the banner image and save it to their desktop or computer.

1-A (If at all possible, change the image from a .gif to a .jpg .gifs can be filtered out alone.

2- Now “insert” the image into their website page and save.

3- It is a good habit to also make sure it has an ALT tag. (Right click image, properties, general, fill in the text alt.

4- Then hyperlink the image to the correct website or page. If you are displaying an affiliate banner, make sure you have your correct affiliate code in the hyperlink and test it.

5- Save your page and you are done.

Learning to deal with such issues will become more and more of a task in the future. However, “attacking” the “big boys” will not work. Learning simple work-arounds is the best place to start.

The Irony in all of this?

It is estimated that 85% of Firefox’s income comes from Google. Now they are helping people block Google ads. (hhhmmmm) How long would you bring along a guy fishing that kept throwing rocks in the pond every time you saw a fish?
I believe this will become a HUGE issue over the next 5 years as more and more people are making the switch.

How can I keep my website income up?
It appears that more and more webmasters will be looking for specialized affiliate and advertising programs.
A friend of mine owns a soccer information website. After dealing with these issues he dumped all his pay per click ads and went with 3 programs that allowed him to host banners on his site. (One example is www.SoccerU.com)
Smaller affiliate programs have the potential to help webmasters in the future and we believe the trend will continue.

The future and the next millionaire.

I wish I was a coding / programming geek. Someone will get VERY rich one day by offering webmasters a piece of code to install in their website.
This code will redirect a browser that is trying to display a website in a “modified” fashion.

Example: If someone is trying to access your website with Adblocker running, they will be redirected to a page that says, “You must turn off your Adblocker software. This page is copyrighted and only allowed to be viewed in its original form.”

Put that piece of code on 50 billion websites and people will quickly dump the add on.

A good article on search engine freedom, choices and current issues.