Google is in the process of rolling out a new hacked page classifier which puts a notice below sites in the search listings believed to have malicious code or other hacking issues. The only problem is, many webmasters are reporting getting labeled as hacked incorrectly.

Yesterday, Google’s John Mueller acknowledged that a small number of sites are being mislabeled in the search results, which is obviously discouraging to anyone considering clicking on the link.

You can tell if your site is affected by simply searching for your site on Google and seeing if a small blue text appears below the title tag reading “This site may be hacked.” If you don’t see it, you’re in the clear. On the other hand, if you’re seeing that line it means your site has either been mislabeled or really has been hacked.

Mueller suggests having someone experienced in working with hacked sites to review your site to ensure there are no problems. If they give your site a clean bill of health, you will have to notify Google.

This Site May be Hacked

The search engine says to fill out this form if you believe your site is mislabeled as hacked. Once it is submitted, someone at Google will review it and remove the label if they also find no issues. There is no indication how long it will take Google to review your site and remove the label, especially with the number of sites reporting the problem.

For more information on resolving issues with hacked sites, see Google’s best practices.

Google-Webmaster-Tools-LogoGoogle Webmaster Tools is usually the best friend for any webmaster trying to keep informed, but users have noticed the normally up-to-date service has not been updated in over a week.

The problem was noted by Search Engine Land last week and has been the main topic of conversation on the Webmaster Tools forums all weekend, but so far Google has no response.

The closest thing we have to a response comes from forum user ‘Kai Z’, who wrote “Known issue. […] Give it a few days to update/ return”. Normally forum posts like this wouldn’t carry much weight but it seems notable that Google webmaster trends analyst John Mueller marked this response as ‘best answer’. Naturally this has caused quite a bit of speculation but could potentially be meaningless.

The outage seems to line up with a similar issue in Google Analytics. Many users reported data in analytics was missing for Monday February 9, but Google that problem received a prompt response from Google on its product forums: “We’re sorry for our unusually bad case of the Mondays. We’ve fixed the issue and no data was lost. Analytics users should start seeing any missed [data] soon.”

Most likely the problem will be resolved fairly quickly, but the lack of transparency from Google on what is causing the lack of updating has caused some concern within the SEO community.

Online ads on Google’s AdWords network are a great way to reach a larger audience interested in your services, but breaking the rules can have harsh consequences. Google removed over 524 million “bad ads” from its ad network last year, and 214,000 of those advertisers are entirely banned from the service due to their bad behavior according to a recent announcement from Google.

“While this represents a tiny fraction of the total ads on our platform — the vast majority of advertisers follow our policies and act responsibly — we continue to remain vigilant to protect users against bad advertising practices,” Vikaram Gupta, director of ads engineering at Google, wrote Tuesday in the post.

The latest data shows several improvements from past years, such as a distinct drop in banned advertises for promoting counterfeit goods, but Google says it is a “constantly evolving fight” and the war against bad ads is far from over.

The announcement highlighted several of the “bad ads” trends that dominated 2014, including more than 43 million ads trying to trick users into clicking, over 4.3 million ads containing copyright infringement issues, and over 9.6 million ads containing healthcare-related violations.

The following infographic breaks down Google’s efforts to weed out bad advertising last year:

Google_BadAds_Infographic_Feb02-Final

For years, Google has had a strong hold on the search industry, maintaining over a 75% market share for the desktop search market. If recent months are any indication however, that grip appears to be loosening.

According to the latest data from StatCounter, Google’s desktop search market share dipped below 75% for the first time since July 2008, continuing a downward trend that started in November.

US Search Share Jan

In November, Mozilla replaced Google with Yahoo as the default search engine on its Firefox web browser. Initially Google didn’t seem to be concerned, but a three month drop in search share seems to be finally getting their attention.

In mid-January Firefox users who visited the Google homepage were greeted with a banner encouraging them to set the search engine as their default. At the same time, Google also began tweeting instructions for how to replace the search engine.

US Search Share Jan Firefox

Since the five-year agreement was made between Yahoo and Mozilla, Yahoo has been consistently gaining ground, already replacing Bing as the second most popular desktop search engine. In total, Yahoo has nearly tripled its share of the desktop search market on Firefox, climbing to over 28% from less than 10% in November.

In the long run, it is still unclear whether Yahoo is going to be able to continue its ascent. While the changes are substantial, Firefox is also the least popular major desktop browser available. The change is search share is also limited to desktop, suggesting users aren’t so much choosing a new search engine but accepting what they are being given.

Despite these challenges, Aodhan Cullen, CEO of StatCounter, says Yahoo is already beating the odds:

“Some analysts expected Yahoo to fall in January as a result of Firefox users switching back to Google. In fact Yahoo has increased US search share by half a percentage point. It will be fascinating to see if these gains continue.”

It will be interesting to see if the trend continues and how Google might try to persuade more users to actively choose their search engine over the default.

If anyone can tell you the secret to finding success on AdWords, it would be Frederick Vallaeys. Vallaeys was one of the first 500 employees at Google, and he spent over 10 years establishing AdWords as the hugely powerful platform it is today. Now, that he has left Google, Vallaeys is finally free to share his in-depth knowledge, which he recently did in an article for Search Engine Land.

Get the inside scoop on how Vallaeys manages his AdWords campaigns here.

 

Google has been aggressive about encouraging webmasters to make their sites more mobile-friendly, and it appears they will only become more strict in 2015. Google has started sending mass notifications to webmasters whose websites are not appropriately optimized for mobile.

The notifications, titled “fix mobile usability issues found on…” informs webmasters that their sites have mobile usability errors on all pages and thus will be “displayed and ranked appropriately for smartphone users.”

The notifications are popping up in Google Webmaster Tools and via email. Perhaps more interesting, Google is also sending the notifications to sites that are blatantly not mobile friendly. Typically these sites already know they are not mobile-friendly, but Google is sending alerts warning these webmasters nonetheless.

This is the latest sign that Google is almost certainly going to be amping up the role mobile optimization plays in search, and many believe there may be an outright “mobile ranking algorithm” in the close future.

The increased importance of mobile to Google is little surprise as mobile gradually overtakes desktop traffic. Google wants to ensure they are directing users to sites that will fit their needs wherever they are, and sites who aren’t mobile-friendly simply don’t deliver.

Here is a copy of the notification being sent out:

google-mobile-seo-errors-1421674683

AdWords In Store Visits

Online marketers love tracking and evaluating their campaigns and business owners love knowing their marketing is successful. Unfortunately, tracking is only able to capture so much information. For example, until recently it has been nearly impossible to properly track the impact of your ads on the amount of traffic you see coming into your store.

Thankfully, Google has released a new “Store Visits” metric in AdWords that should make it considerably easier to measure the effect your ads have on real-world store traffic.

Store Visits is an enhancement for AdWords Estimated Total Conversions, which estimates traffic based on anonymized data collected from a sample set of users who have enabled Location History on their device. Using this relatively small sample, Google predicts the number for the general population.

The tool is still in the early stages, and it is important to remember the prediction is exactly that. We are still a ways away from complete ability to understand the effect your ads are having, but the additional data can still be useful in trying to ensure your ads are driving the highest conversion rates possible.

yahoo-search-appAccording to new data from web traffic analytics provider StatCounter, Yahoo has reached its highest share of the U.S. search market in more than five years thanks to a recent agreement with Mozilla.

In December, Yahoo’s search share jumped to 10.4 percent, up from 8.6 percent in November. The new share of the search market came at the expense of Google, who was previously the default search engine for Mozilla’s web browser Firefox.

In late November, Mozilla agreed to a five-year partnership with Yahoo, breaking a 10 year partnership with Google. December marked the first full month during which Yahoo was the primary search engine on Firefox.

The drop brought Google to its lowest share ever recorded by the analytics firm, falling from 77.3 percent to 75.2 percent.

SearchShareDec2014

“The move by Mozilla has had a definite impact on U.S. search,” says Aodhan Cullen, chief executive at StatCounter. “The question now is whether Firefox users switch back to Google.”

Bing also saw an increase in their share of the search market last month, though not nearly as significant of an increase as Yahoo. From November to December, Bing’s share rose from 12.1 percent to 12.5 percent. The “other” category stayed practically the same, fluctuating from 2 percent to 1.9 percent.

Much like Bing, Twitter, and Facebook, Google releases a yearly list of the topics we’ve been searching for over the past 12 months. Compiled by analyzing the trillions of searches performed on Google in 2014, the list shows a more serious side to the internet compared to their competitors’ lists which tended to highlight the cute, funny, and scandalous.

Google shared lists for both the U.S. and globally, and the top search of the entire year is not devoted to either of the popular sporting events in 2014 or the social events happening around the world. Instead, the top search highlights the impact Robin William’s comedy brought the world. The deceased actor took the top spot for trending searches in the U.S. and globally.

The global and U.S. lists are largely the same in most categories. For example, eight of the top ten U.S. trending search terms also made the global list. The two search terms exclusive to the U.S. – Ferguson and Ukraine – show America’s continued interest in important news both at home and abroad.

Google’s Top Ten U.S. Trending Searches

Robin Williams

  1. Robin Williams
  2. World Cup
  3. Ebola
  4. Malaysia Airlines
  5. Flappy Bird
  6. ALS Bucket Challenge
  7. ISIS
  8. Ferguson
  9. Frozen
  10. Ukraine

Google’s Top Ten Global Trending Searches

  1. Robin Williams
  2. World Cup
  3. Ebola
  4. Malaysia Airlines
  5. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
  6. Flappby Bird
  7. Conchita Wurst
  8. ISIS
  9. Frozen
  10. Sochi Olympics

Google’s Top Ten Trending “What is…?” Searches

Ebola

  1. What is Ebola?
  2. What is ALS?
  3. What is ISIS?
  4. What is Bitcoin?
  5. What is Asphyxia?
  6. What is Gmaergate?
  7. What is WhatsApp?
  8. What is MERS?
  9. What is Hamas?
  10. What is Airdrop?

Google’s Top Ten “How to…?” Searches

Airdrop

  1. How to Airdrop
  2. How to Contour
  3. How to Vote
  4. How to Kiss
  5. How to Craft
  6. How to Colorblock
  7. How to Wakeboard
  8. How to Refurbish
  9. How to Delegate
  10. How to DIY

Google Maps Most Searched Places in 2014

Walmart

  1. Walmart
  2. Starbucks
  3. Target
  4. McDonald’s
  5. Home Depot
  6. Bank of America
  7. Walgreens
  8. CVS
  9. Wells Fargo
  10. Costco

If the typical list is not your thing, Google also compiled the following video to summarize the year in search. For the full collection, visit Google’s Year in Search for 2014.

google-christmas13-1356442914

The holiday season is a busy time for local businesses, but many local companies have noticed a steady drop in customers as the internet has made home shopping increasingly more convenient. The good news is that you don’t have to keep bleeding business so long as you have a reasonable internet presence and you are willing to invest the time to optimize your online business presence.

Jade Wang from the Google Business Help team just offered a list of tips local businesses who have already established themselves online can do to improve their conversion rates and draw in more foot traffic. If you want to score a bigger piece of your market, now is the time to do it by following these simple tips:

Got special holiday hours?

Let your customers know that you’re open for business extra late and update your hours as needed. You’ll want to update hours about two days before they should go into effect. If you’re open 24 hours a day, enter 12:00am – 12:00am.

Highlight your holiday spirit

If you’ve got a holiday promotion or special information that you’re sharing on Google+, you may want to make it a pinned post. That way, you can keep that content front and center.

Expand your reach to sleepless shoppers

Our data shows that consumers will be even more restless, with one third of all shopping-related searches now happening between the hours of 10pm and 4am. Take a look at our blog post for tips on how AdWords can help you cover your bases.

Check your list (twice)

Remember to log back into Google My Business (Locations) regularly to make edits as needed and let us know that you’re actively managing. You can also check up on any updates to your business information from other users and ensure that it’s accurate and updated.

Wang shared the advice via the Google Business Help forums, which can be viewed here.