How Google Determines What’s A Paid Link

Google head of search spam Matt Cutts released a pretty detailed video discussing the Google webspam team’s criteria for determining whether a link is considered a paid link or not.

There are five basic criteria Google uses in this determination. The first is the most obvious, is the link an explicit link for sale; then, the others are less obvious. The others include: how close is the value to money, is it a gift or a loan, what is the intent of the audience and is it a surprise or not.

Explicit Link Sales

Links that are explicitly sold for money are the most obvious. A webmaster sells a link to another webmaster in exchange for a certain dollar payment. That is clearly a paid link, and Matt Cutts said that is the most common paid link example, by far.

Close To The Value Of Money

The next determination Google uses is to see how close is the value to money. For example, a gift card is pretty close to money in that it can be often exchanged for a dollar value. But if you give someone a free pen that is valued at $1, the chances are that the value of that $1 pen won’t influence the user. However, a free beer or free trial to software is less value to users than a $600 gift card.

Gift Vs. Loan

If you give someone a laptop versus loaning them a laptop or gift someone a car versus loaning them a car, those are huge distinctions. Often, companies will loan a tech reviewer a device or car or something in order for them to properly review the item. But if you give them the item forever and not ask them to return it, that is closer to a paid link then a loan.

Intent Of Audience

When conferences give away stuff, the intent of the audience is often not to link to the conference as a thank you. For example, when you go to a SalesForce conference and get a free trial of the software, that is often not in exchange for a link. In addition, when Google gives away a free Nexus 7, the intent is not about links but about developers working on apps for the device. But if you give away laptops at events and expect bloggers to link to you in exchange, that is a bad intent.

Surprise Or Not

The final criteria is would the reporter or blogger be surprised? For example, if you are a movie blogger and you are given free access to a movie to review, that would not surprise the blogger. But if you are given a free car or laptop in exchange for writing about it, that would be a surprise.

Matt Cutts also recommends you review the FTC online ads guidelines.

Here is the video:

Google To Launch New Search Results Design With Larger Fonts & No Underlines Soon?

Over the past few months, Google has been testing many, many layouts that made the search results look a bit easier to read by increasing the font size and removing some of the underlines for the hyperlinked content.

It seems Google has increased those tests, as we are seeing more and more searchers post about seeing these updates on Twitter, Facebook and other areas. Both Danny Sullivan, Matt McGeee and myself are able to replicate the new design either using our native browsers or via incognito mode in Chrome.

Here is a side by side image of the old and new user interface for Google’s search results:

You can click on it and notice the side by side comparison showing the larger font, more white space, no underlines for hyperlinked content and more.

Here is a zoomed in view of the old design:

Here is a zoomed in view of the new design:

Google has not responded to our questions about this design but if we had to guess, we’d see this new design launched in the near future.

Hiding From That Google Penalty? It May Find You At Your New Home

Did you know that even if you try to run away from your Google penalty, it might end up finding you anyway? In a recent Google Webmaster Hangout, hosted by Google’s John Mueller, John said that even if you move your penalized site to a new domain name and don’t redirect the penalized site, Google may still find it and pass along the bad signals.

In the video, 23 minutes in, John answers my question about penalties following sites. He said that if the site is extremely similar and you simply move the site from domain A to domain B, that Google may pick up on the site move without you even giving them signals of the move. So even if you do not set up 301 redirects or use the change address tool in Google Webmaster Tools, Google may indeed know that you moved from domain A to domain B and pass along all the signals.

In that case, if a site is penalized, simply moving it to a new domain name might not be enough. You might have to go the extra mile and rebuild the site, content and user interfaces to convince Google it really is a new site.

Here is the video, again fast forward to about 23 minutes and 15 seconds in:

Yesterday Eric Ward wrote a piece for us named When The Best Move Is To Kill The Site, which covers what to do when your Google penalty is so severe that you can’t recover from it. Eric mentions that in about two-thirds of the cases he sees, he recommends you “kill” the site. Some may want to take shortcuts on “killing” a site by just migrating it to a new domain name, but that might not work.

Based on the feedback from this news, I’ve heard three responses from the SEO community:

• Google is a liar and it does not pass either positive or negative signals when there are no redirects or change of address requests made.
• Yes, Google does pass the penalties in these cases, Google is telling the truth.
• Not only does the penalty pass but sometimes you will see the links from the old domain show in the new domain show up in the new verified section within Google Webmaster Tools.

What is your experience with site moves without changing the site design, content or structure and while not using redirects or other signals to communicate the penalized site has moved?

Now Official: Google Adds Restaurant Menus To Search Results

That Google menus experiment we told you about a couple weeks ago?

It’s now official. But it’s only available in the U.S. at the moment.

Google announced that it’s now showing restaurant menus as a OneBox-style answer at the top of its search results. It seems to be primarily triggered by searches that involve both the restaurant name and the word “menu,” although Google’s example involves a query that starts with “show me the menu for….”

The menu OneBox shows multiple food options and is divided into different categories, depending on how the individual restuarants (or chains) organize their menu. You’ll typically see tabs such as lunch, dinner, entreés, sandwiches and the like.

There’s actually more that we don’t know about the menus than we do. For example:

• Where is Google getting the menu details? It seems to be from sites like AllMenus.com and Gayot.com, but there’s no official list.
• Has Google made a deal with its sources to show the menus, or is it just scrapingthat information?
• What should a restaurant do if it wants its menu showing like this?
• What if it doesn’t want its menu showing this way for some reason? (It’s outdated, for example.)
• How often will Google be updating the menu information?

Google Places Quality Guidelines Updated

Google quietly announced within the Google Help forums that they have made a clarification update to their Place quality guidelines to help business owners know what they can name their business within Google Local and what they can not.

In short, Google is allowing a single descriptor within the business name, if and only if that descriptor is location information or describes your business offers.

Here are the revised guidelines:

• Your title should reflect your business’s real-world title.
• In addition to your business’s real-world title, you may include a single descriptor that helps customers locate your business or understand what your business offers.
• Marketing taglines, phone numbers, store codes, or URLs are not valid descriptors.
• Examples of acceptable titles with descriptors (in italics for demonstration purposes) are “Starbucks Downtown” or “Joe’s Pizza Delivery”. Examples that would not be accepted would be “#1 Seattle Plumbing”, “Joe’s Pizza Best Delivery”, or “Joe’s Pizza Restaurant Dallas”.

Bing: Poor Grammar & Typos May Result In Lower Search Rankings

Duane Forrester from Bing wrote a blog poston the Bing Webmaster Blog suggesting that Bing’s search ranking algorithms do in fact consider poor grammar, typos and poor language to be part of their ranking factors.

Duane said, “just as you’re judging others’ writing, so the engines judge yours.” Meaning, Bing does look at how a page of content is written. If the page has typos, grammar issues and so forth, to the extent that it might stop a reader from reading on – then it might also negatively hurt your rankings in Bing. Duane wrote:

If you [as a human] struggle to get past typos, why would an engine show a page of content with errors higher in the rankings when other pages of error free content exist to serve the searcher?

Duane added that the search engines “over time we begin to see patterns.” If those patterns show poor grammar page after page, day after day, then it might have a stronger negative impact on rankings.

Google On Grammar & Rankings

This is contrast to Google is a different story, at least from what we’ve covered. Yes, Google’s Panda algorithm is about having quality content. But is quality the same thing as not having typos? It is unclear with Google at least.

In October 2011, Matt Cutts said while there is a correlation between spelling and PageRank, the core algorithm currently (back in 2011) does not use grammar as a “direct signal.” Google’s Matt Cutts added earlier this month that poor grammar in comments also does not negatively hurt your rankings in Google.

It seems Bing is taking a stronger stance on grammar and typos compared to Google’s stance.

Samsung debuts wearables and Galaxy S5

BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics<005930.KS> unveiled a new smartwatch and fitness band along with the latest version of its Galaxy smartphone on Monday, demonstrating how the battleground for innovation is shifting from the hand to the wrist.

The world's biggest smartphone maker set a trend less than six months ago for wearable devices that link to mobile handsets with its Galaxy Gear watch, which has seen rivals like Sony <6758.T> and Huawei follow in its wake.

The switch in focus also underlines the challenges the South Korean firm is facing. Low-price Chinese rivals are churning out products that look increasingly similar at a time when smartphone sales have started to ease, taking a toll on Samsung's earnings.

To fight back, Samsung is taking a less glitzy marketing approach to control costs. It has also performed a U-turn, abandoning its previous heavy focus on sweeping hardware improvements to highlight more subtle features in its devices and accessories in a bid to appeal to a wider audience.

"With the Galaxy S5, Samsung is going back to basics," JK Shin, co-chief executive and president of Samsung's mobile business, told an audience of Samsung employees, partners and media at the annual Mobile World Congress technology trade show in Barcelona. Samsung will roll out the S5 globally on April 11, with pricing details yet to be disclosed.

"Our consumers do not want eye-popping technology or the most complex technology," he said. Instead, the want beautiful design, a better camera, faster connectivity and technology that would help them keep fit, Shin said.

Market expectations for the new S5, one of Samsung's marquee product launches this year, remain subdued given its comparative lack of innovation.

"The Galaxy S5 has great features and will probably sell well due to massive marketing support," Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson said. "But is the total product experience it offers differentiated enough to continue the sales success story? Is it enough to bet on fitness and fingerprint sensors to beat Apple - rooting the experience in people's daily lives? I don't think so."

The Galaxy S5, which will be available in April, has a slightly bigger screen than its predecessor, at 5.1 inches compared with 5 inches, improved camera technology and better protection against water and dust, Samsung said.

It also has a fingerprint scanner on the home button, which rival Apple introduced in the iPhone 5S last year. The function can be used to protect data and provide security credentials in a swipe.

"It's very unlikely for the S5 sales to top its predecessor S4's performance during the key initial sales period," said Lee Seung-woo, an analyst at IBK Securities in Seoul. "I think sales would come in fewer than 20 million units in the first three months of the launch."

At a relatively low-key launch event in Barcelona, Samsung also unveiled the Gear 2 smartwatch, which runs on the Tizen operating system rather than Google's Android software, and a stripped-down version called Gear 2 Neo, which doesn't have a camera.

The devices can monitor the wearer's heart rate, a function used in increasingly popular health and fitness apps, or individual programmes.

The Samsung Gear Fit, also targeting the fitness sector, has a heart rate monitor, too, as does the Samsung Galaxy S5 itself, a first for a smartphone, Samsung said.

The Gear Fit has a curved touch-sensitive screen and its features include a pedometer, Samsung said.

Shares in Samsung, Asia's most valuable technology company with a market value of $204 billion, rose 0.6 percent, versus a 0.7 percent gain in the wider market.