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Oct 7, 2008 at 8:11am Eastern by Barry Schwartz Google Webmaster Central Hosting "Link Week" This week at the Google Webmaster Central blog, Google has a series of blog posts all about links. The first two blog posts are live and are named: * Links information straight from the source * Importance of link architecture Google explains that they will be writing about three main topics this week. (1) Internal links, the links that you have within your site. That post is already live and is about the how you should structure your link structure for best search engine visibility. (2) Outbound links or the links you post on your pages to other sites. I assume Google will discuss the value of these links and who you should and should not link to. Clearly, think about your user here and not the search engine. (3) Inbound links or the external sites that are linking to your site. I assume Google left this for last, because this may be the most interesting topic. Google plans to bust some myths, so it will be interesting to see what they say on the topic of links hurting your site. Time will tell - but stay tuned for more information. Postscript: Here is Google's post on linking outbound, which has useful tips for beginners on who and when to link out. In addition, it tells you how to handle user generated content links. Postscript 2: I was a bit let down by Google's inbound link post.

On the Live Search blog, Nathan Buggia recaps his SMX East presentation on Webmaster Guidelines, shares the slides from his talk, and expands on topics such as paid links, cloaking, and website penalties. He shares some detail on how Live Search handles paid links: Essentially we look at each link individually to understand the degree to which the site is really endorsing the link. So, while we most likely will not ban your site for buying or selling a few links, it is also likely that they may not actually end up providing any value either.

Oct 13, 2008 at 9:53am Eastern by Barry Schwartz Google Now Working With Click Forensics Google allies with click-fraud-detection firm Click Forensics from ComputerWorld reports Google has now agreed to work with Click Forensics to aid in the detection and reporting of search ad click fraud. Specifically, Google said they would now accept click fraud submissions through the product, FACTr. FACTr is a product Click Forensics created with the help of Yahoo to gather and submit click-quality reports. Google will now be accepting these reports electronically, hopefully streamlining the process for advertisers to get refunds for approved click fraud. Looksmart and Miva are also now accepting them, along with Google, in news that Click Forensics announced last week. As you may remember, Google and Click Forensics have not always seen eye-to-eye. But this is a nice step to see from both parties involved. As a matter of history, Yahoo partnered with Click Forensics back in March of this year.

Conclusions * Local business owners seem to be confused about what actually constitutes spam, but can you blame them? The world of the Local search engines is often confusing even to those of us who study them on a daily basis! * Google's creation of a public forum for reporting anomalies in Maps has helped a lot of businesses recover traffic lost via Maps, and has probably helped Google identify weaknesses in its own algorithm as well. The responsiveness of the Maps team has been relatively admirable, even without providing verbal confirmation in the thread that changes have been made. (Of course, business owners whose situation hasn't been addressed are irate over the lack of response...) * The on-again/off-again bulk upload feature of Google Maps seems to be a particular favorite tool of mapspammers. * Local business owners: claim your listing at Google to avoid being victimized by hijackers and to decrease the likelihood of conflation with someone else's listing. If you don't have a website, direct your Local Business Listing at Google to one of your listings featuring the same information on another portal, such as Yahoo, Citysearch, or Yelp. * The large percentage of reported record conflations also underlines the importance of giving Google a strong signal of your business information (i.e. spiderable HTML address and phone number) on your own website. The more closely Google can associate that particular information with your business, the lower the chance of identifying someone else's business with the same information. In all honesty, I was surprised that the total number of bona-fide instances of spam reported in two months was so low, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. It's possible that the quality of Local results has improved dramatically since the advent of the 10-pack in January. However, more likely is that the typical local business owner doesn't know where to report possible spam. It'll be interesting to see whether