Google's New URL Removal Tool

Google has just added some new functionality to its Webmaster Tools at Webmaster Central that allows you to remove certain URLs from Google's search results. Let's take a closer look.

Verified Sites Only
The most important point to note is that you can only remove URLs of sites for which you have verified ownership.

Located Under Diagnostics
The option itself is labeled "URL Removals" and is located under the "Diagnostics" tab.

Four Options
You are given 4 options for URL removal:

1. Individual URLs - that is, individual web pages, images, etc.
2. An entire directory (including all contained files and subdirectories)
3. Your entire site
4. A cached copy of a Google search result
   

Effective for 6 Months
Removals are effective for 6 months. You also have the option of undoing the removal. When the six months is up

if the content is still blocked or returns at 404 or 410 status message and we've recrawled the page, it won't be reincluded in our index. However, if the page is available to our crawlers after this six month period, we'll once again include it in our index.

Removal From Search Results
A final important point to note is that this functionality removes the specfied files from Google's search results NOT from Google's index. As mentioned above, removal from the index can only occur once the six-month period is completed.

Tags: google, url removal

New AdWords Feature: Preferred Cost Bidding

Google announced today a new bidding option called "preferred cost bidding." This option allows AdWords advertisers to set their desired average price rather than a maximum bid.

First impressions indicate that this involves getting Google to manage your bidding for you so I am cautious about the real benefits of this new option. However, it's early days yet, in fact, this option isn't rolled out to all advertisers yet.

For full details, check out the official blog post.

Tags: adwords

Google and Paid Links

As you've probably seen, there has been a lot of discussion lately about Google and their opposition to Paid Links. Rather than discuss this exact issue though, I'd like to share my thoughts in response to a post on seoclass.com entitled "Google Wants to Tell You How to Run Your Website."

Background
However, first of all I think a little background is needed. This whole topic has come to the forefront after a set of posts by the well-known Matt Cutts on the topic of hidden and paid links (post 1, post 2, post 3). The thing that has really caused an uproar is that Matt has requested that the general public report sites that contain paid links, even if they only suspect the links are paid. In addition, Matt is requesting that sites using paid links actively disclose them in both a human-readable and machine-readable manner. Which is pretty much where "graywolf" (the author of the seoclass.com post) enters the fray . . .

Discussion
Graywolf (aka Michael Gray) writes

So the question remains; does Google have the right to tell you how to run your website and dictate how you are allowed to make a living?

He also quotes a comment from Andy Beal on this issue

I don’t like to impose on others, my thoughts on disclosure (I personally disclose any relationships in our disclosure policy), but I think Google is going too far with this “best practice”. What business does Google have in dictating the disclosure of any business relationships on others?

I challenge Graywolf's basic premise, that Google is in any way telling us how we should run our websites.

Basically, all Google is saying is that they want to know which links are paid for so that they can discount them in its search results algorithms and that if you don't want to be penalized for them, you should disclose them. What's wrong with that?

Google has the right to use whatever algorithms and penalties it likes. No-one's forced to use Google or to submit to its demands. If Google wanted to rank pages simply according to the number of spelling errors on a page, or the number of 3-letter words on a page, it has every right to do so. Google owes site owners nothing when it comes to organic search results and is free to rank its search results however it sees fit. If people don't like it, then they should start using other search engines so that market forces come into play to effect change.

Now, that doesn't mean that I'm happy with what Google is trying to do and I also don't think it's being logical in the way it's going about this issue. However, Google is perfectly within its right to rank web pages in whatever way it sees fit and if that means penalizing pages containing undisclosed paid links, so be it.

Tags: google

Happenings While I Was On Vacation

Well, it's been interesting to catch up on all the news that took place while I was away on vacation. Below are some of the main news stories that occurred while I was gone (in no particular order!):

1. Google Checkout was made available in the U.K.
2. Google bought DoubleClick for $3.1 billion (that's $3,100,000,000)
3. Google played two April Fool Jokes - TiSP and Google Paper
4. Google formally released new formats for AdSense ad units
5. Google introduced a new format for ads that appear directly above the search results
6. Yahoo announced that it will soon require a short description for all ads, limited to 70 characters
   

Off On Vacation

Hmmm . . . not sure how you can be both "off" and "on" vacation, but anyway . . .

Tuesday my family and I are leaving the U.K. for 2 weeks back in Northern California, visiting friends, family and all of our favorite haunts and taking in as many Mexican restaurants as possible en route!

I may have time for an odd post while we're away . . . but on the other hand, I may not!

Google PPA Ads: Perhaps the Biggest Pro of All

Yesterday I wrote about the Pros and Cons of Google's new PPA (Price-Per-Action) pricing model for AdWords, which is currently undergoing beta testing. However, I neglected to mention what may possibly be the biggest pro of all for PPA advertising, as compared to the standard Cost-Per-Click (CPC) model: negating the click fraud problem.

Click Fraud and PPA Advertising

Probably the single biggest drawback of CPC (aka PPC) advertising is the issue of click fraud. This serious problem has resulted in lawsuits involving both Google and Yahoo and various studies have estimated that fraudulent clicks make up between approximately 14-30% of all CPC advertising clicks. Those figures make it clear that click fraud is a significant hidden cost for advertisers.

This really is where PPA advertising comes into its own. Because under the PPA model, advertisers only pay when a predefined action occurs, it makes no difference whether the clicks on the ads are genuine or not, because the advertiser does not have to pay for them. Thus, for any action that involves a financial transaction that is beneficial to the advertiser, the effect of click fraud is, to all intents and purposes, eliminated.

Click Fraud and Non-Financial Transactions
However, PPA advertising doesn't entirely do away with the click fraud problem, though it certainly does reduce it drastically. This is because not all actions for which advertisers are prepared to pay will necessarily produce a financial benefit to the advertiser. If the predefined action involves no cost to the "customer," click fraud may still occur.

For example, suppose I want to advertiser my site so that visitors will subscribe to my free weekly email newsletter, on the basis that x% of subscribers end up making a purchase of a product or service advertised in the newsletter. In this case, the predefined action would simply be completing an online registration form, an action that costs the subscriber nothing. In this case, if someone clicks on my ad in a fraudulent manner and then registers for my newsletter, with no intent of ever even reading it, I will have paid for that action with no actual benefit to myself.

However, the vast majority of desired actions will be ones involving financial transactions, so even this scenario is of limited concern.

Conclusion & Reaction

PPA advertising is certainly a big gun in the aresenal against click fraud and has, for that reason, an obvious appeal to online advertisers. However, even this new pricing model is not without its critics. For example, in a recent post entitled "Is Google doing advertising evil with new model?," Donna Bogatin of ZDNet's Digital Markets blog, examines the questions "Is Google compromising the integrity of the advertising it serves? Is Google now doing advertising evil?"

Sources

1. Click Fraud - Our Research, MarketingExperiments.com (2005)
2. Industry Click Fraud Rate Climbs to Year’s Highest Level at 14.2 Percent, ClickForensics.com (2007)
3. Study: Click fraud could threaten pay-per-click model, CNet News.com (2006)
4. Web of deceit hides behind Google's success, GulfNews.com (2007)
5. Is Google doing advertising evil with new model?, Donna Bogatin, ZDNet (2007)
   

Tags: adwords, ppa