Xooglers - a blog about working at Google. Lots of interesting stories. [via SEW]

In other Google news, it appears they are testing click to call and are looking deeply at print ads.

I recently bought advertising on a tool which gave Google AdWords ad impression estimates via the Google AdWords API. My ad dollars, and the Google AdWords search volume tool itself, were both rendered useless when Google decided they wanted to provide more consistent and accurate keyword data.

All quotes below are from the above linked Google Groups thread.

As Ben Michelson put it:

I believe this may be just the first phase of a new "less is more" concept.

I expect subsequent versions will alternately snip out or merge previously inaccurate fields, until finally (AdWords 1.0) the TrafficEstimatorService will be void of inaccuracy by providing no information whatsoever.

Robert, another programmer, was also thrilled by the recent "upgrade"

Well done, Google. I just want to release my first Adwords program - partly based on the ctr value. I work about two month for it. Why we should develop programs for Google, if Google changes the API every two month (see also KeywordService)?

Patrick Chanezon, who was hired by Google as an AdWords API evangelist, stated:

The algorithms used in the TrafficEstimator may return some results that do not match your quality expectations, but they are not skewed in any way.

And here I thought making something inaccurate was skewing it...

Inasisi ran through some examples of the intentional data skewing and said:

If it is not on purpose, I don't understand why Google is not correcting the huge skewness in its estimates and further remove the only good statistics that we had to access to. If Google felt the need to be consistent to both the API users and the advertisers who use the UI, then they should have provided more information on the UI instead of having to strip them from the API.

For being so concerned with efficient market theory and collecting so much data Google sure is greedy with their data. They sure expect marketers to trust them with a bunch for not even trusting marketers with something as trivial as search counts.

Yahoo! and eBay allow access to their old marketplace data because it helps drive up costs, commerce, profits, and makes a more efficient market. Why can't Google get a clue on this?

Apparently the people at Google want to rent weekly digital access to books.

Web search leader Google Inc. has approached a book publisher to gauge interest in a program to allow consumers to rent online copies of new books for a week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The proposed fee is 10 percent of the book's list price, the Journal reported, citing an unnamed publisher.

The discussion with the publisher indicates Google may move toward adding a digital book-renting service. - Reuters

In related news about other business models Google and the web may be changing or killing off, Knight Ridder, the large newspaper company, is exploring selling itself. When will Google Affiliate come out?

A while ago Chad Jones, from Not Nacho, the site involved with the WordPress content spam fiasco, spoke out about what went wrong.

WordPress hosted about 4,000 content articles about expensive topics. Matt Mullienweg hosted the content on Wordpress.org and placed hidden links on the home page pointing at the articles.

WordPress, the popular blog software which use the hidden links, was back in the Google index quickly. Google is still punishing the owner of HotNacho to this day, as Chad states:

They seem to have taken punitive measures by looking up my other sites via WHOIS and punitively banning a bunch of my sites -- including my hobby freeware sites.

Sites I own (all of which Google has banned):
hotnacho.com
acme-web-hosting.info
avatarsoft.com
notepad.com
free-backup-software.net

Thoughts on his article:

• I don't like his comparisons on his content vs real spam, but his point that it is hard for human compiled content to be profitable against automated systems is on many fronts accurate.

• Him saying Google controls over 90% of web traffic right after complaining about others not doing any fact finding undermines his credibility.
• He has some good ideas on the content rating and importance of user feedback or using strong quality guidelines off the start is important.
• I know many other friends who run the exact same business model, but do it profitably, successfuly, and in Google's good graces because how the content is formatted. Wrap it in a blog and post a few articles a day to each channel.
• While he was talking about how his keyword placement software could increase the ability of content to rank, I think it is in error to look at it purely from an algorithmic front. The social structure of content matters.
• It is far easier to build links into topical channels (such as blogs) than article banks.
• He talks about creating a bunch of freeware and offering free support. Doing good on one front does not offset the actions on others with the mob justice on the web.
• I think it is pretty shitty of Google to have banned all of his sites. I mean who does this help? Where is the relevancy?
• And yet Google funds much of the garbage they purportedly hate. Google not only acts reactively, but blatently overly reactive when certain issues become public. I suppose they were trying to send a message to Chad Jones, but it was not one honestly focused on search relevancy. I wish I would have seen this article sooner.
• The fact that few people have mentioned the Hot Nacho article shows how biased blogs are at grabbing the front end of the story and then prowling for the next story before adding any depth or further research. Sorta reminds me of the Nirvana song Plateau, although I admit I am just as guilty at it as the next blogger.

Matt Cutts announced the Google Jagger 3 update is live at 66.102.9.104.

It sure is amazing the number of large vertical sites, .edu, and .gov results I saw in a few searches I did. Although there will probably still be a good amount of flux most the stuff I worked on seemed to get through ok.

I did see a bit of canonical URL issues, as noted by others on Matt's blog. Someone named Jason also left this gem in Matt's comments:

Our site has been negatively affected by Jagger. Therefore we just requested the transfer of 30,000 site wide links (paid in advance until July 06) to our main competitor who is currently ranked extremely well in Google for our main keyword.

Our entire website is legit SEO so our site wide links are the only thing that could have caused such a drastic drop in our ranking.

In a thread on SEW DaveN responded to a similar webmaster

IN life there are 2 ways to get on :

1) Be the best you can and move to the top

2) Drag everyone who is above you too below your level ..

Both ways you end up at the Top, it depends on how you view life and how long you want to stay there.

As long as Google is going to announce their updates and data centers, has anyone made a free SEO tool to easily compare / cross reference all the search results at various data centers? (Perhaps something like Myriad Search, but focuses on just one engine and lets the users select which data centers to compare.) I can't imagine it would be that hard to do unless Google blocked it, but they haven't been too aggressive in blocking web based SEO related tools (just look at all the tools SEO Chat has).