A new Australian green search engine seeking to capitalise on web surfers' eco-guilt has been barred by Google from using its search technology and advertising platform.
Ecocho.com.au, launched just a week ago, promises to buy carbon offset credits that will result in two trees being planted for every 1000 searches made through the site. It gives users the option of searching through either Yahoo or Google and serves up their ads alongside search results.
But like other green search engines, it is questionable whether Ecocho really is any more environmentally friendly than regular Google search.
Furthermore, Ecocho's founder, Tim Macdonald, is also the co-founder of Found Agency, a high-profile search engine optimisation company that has been penalised by Google for breaking its rules in the past.
Google Australia spokesman Rob Shilkin said Ecocho was barred because it broke Google's AdSense policies.
Google's policy is that publishers running Google advertising must not "compensate users for viewing ads or performing searches, or promise compensation to a third party for such behaviour". By promising to plant trees, Ecocho broke those rules.
"The site was in clear violation of our terms of service and we had previously warned the owner of past violations," Shilkin said.
"We have now stopped serving ads and search results to the owner's sites."
An angry Macdonald accused Google of not applying its rules consistently, saying other green search engines using Google technology had been allowed to operate without issue. However, the other search engines, such as Blackle.com, do not explicitly promise to plant trees in return for searches.
Macdonald said his company met with Google in January and went through the project "in some detail" but was not informed it would be breaking the rules.
He would not say how much profit his company was making from the site but acknowledged the cost of planting the trees would be less than the advertising revenue.
"It is a business, it's not a not-for-profit, we've been very transparent about that," he said.
The benefit of specialist green search engines is questionable because Google itself has invested heavily in green initiatives. Google claims it is carbon neutral, whereas the servers powering sites such as Ecocho are not.
When questioned over this, Macdonald said: "We've got a lot of users on the site who are using it from all over the world saying that it's a great idea."
Another green search engine, Blackle.com, based in Sydney, has also been criticised for cashing in on web surfers' eco-guilt.
The site is a custom version of Google with a black rather than white background, which its creators said could save thousands of watts of power a year because it takes less juice for a monitor to display black than white.
However, that claim was proved false by extensive testing, which found the power saving benefits were negligible or non-existent. Like Ecocho, Blackle profits from advertisements appearing next to search results.
In May last year, Macdonald's company, Found Agency, saw its Google ranking tumble after it was caught unfairly manipulating its search rankings.
At the time, Found's other co-founder, Zak Asani, admitted to the Search Engine Room website that the company liked to test Google's boundaries.
"We've got between 1500 and 2000 websites running at any one time that we use to test the boundaries," he said.
Saturday 26 April 2008
Friday 18 April 2008
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Tools
I thought I'd share with you a few tools that I use when going about my day-to-day search engine optimisation (SEO) business.
This tool tells you how your website ranks in a variation of Google data centres. Usually, if your ranking results differ through the data centres then this means that indexing is usually taking place.
Link popularity is important because it is a major factor used by search engines to determine a website's position in the search results.
This tool will automatically check the Google page rank of any website.
This tool will query Google's various data centers to check for any changes in PageRank values for a given URL. Usually all data centers will output the same, but if queried during an update, you might get a glimpse of any upcoming changes in your chosen URL's PageRank value.
A website’s age is one of the major factors used to rank it in the search engines. Use this tool to find the age of any domain, including your competitors’ or ones you might want to purchase. Older domains may get a slight edge in search engine rankings.
I hope these tools prove useful.
Friday 4 April 2008
Google Announces Job Losses
Google has announced its first sizeable cuts, with the axing of 300 jobs at its online advertising unit DoubleClick.
The lay-offs make up about a quarter of DoubleClick's 1,200-strong workforce in the US. Worldwide, DoubleClick has about 1,500 employees.
Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has suggested that overseas operations, employing a further 300 people, will also be affected at a later date.
It is a first for Google and perhaps not one they want to trumpet too much.
In a statement, Google said: "Since our acquisition of DoubleClick closed on March 11, we have been working to match and align DoubleClick employees in the US with our organisational plan for the business.
"As with many mergers, this review has resulted in a reduction in head-count at the acquired company."
Privacy concerns
Some workers have been laid off already, while Google says others are being offered transitional roles, or contract jobs, which are expected to end after the two companies are fully integrated.
In a blog posting in March, Mr Schmidt gave a heads-up that job cuts would be likely and that those outside the US would be made "in accordance with local law".
At over $3 billion (£1.5bn), Google's purchase of DoubleClick is its largest to date and completed less than a month ago, after being held up by regulators for a year.
At the time, the deal was heavily criticised and resisted by non-profit privacy groups which argued that it would give Google unprecedented access to information about consumers' online behaviour.
Microsoft and AT&T also opposed the transaction, which was approved by the Federal Trade Commission in December.
Conflict of interest?
On top of the news of the lay-offs, Google says it also plans to sell a DoubleClick unit called Performics Search Marketing.
That arm of the business helps marketers place adverts on search engines, including those owned by Google and its main rivals in the field, Yahoo and Microsoft.
It has always been felt that this represented a conflict of interest for Google.
In an official Google blog, Tom Phillips, director of DoubleClick Integration, writes: "It is clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business.
"At Google, maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to our mission and core to the trust we ask from our users."
Industry watchers maintain that the decision to sell off Performics Search Marketing makes good business sense and that Google's primary focus is to get paid as much as possible for the adverts that appear on its pages.
Rumours abound that Google is already in talks with a third party to sell the business for an undisclosed sum.
Although on his blog Mr Phillips maintains no buyer is waiting in the wings, he does concede there has been quite a bit of interest "from a number of current partners".
Danny Sullivan, editor of SeachEngineLand.com, praises the much anticipated sell-off and says it was not unexpected.
Google said the business would continue to run as a separate entity until the division was sold.
The lay-offs make up about a quarter of DoubleClick's 1,200-strong workforce in the US. Worldwide, DoubleClick has about 1,500 employees.
Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has suggested that overseas operations, employing a further 300 people, will also be affected at a later date.
It is a first for Google and perhaps not one they want to trumpet too much.
In a statement, Google said: "Since our acquisition of DoubleClick closed on March 11, we have been working to match and align DoubleClick employees in the US with our organisational plan for the business.
"As with many mergers, this review has resulted in a reduction in head-count at the acquired company."
Privacy concerns
Some workers have been laid off already, while Google says others are being offered transitional roles, or contract jobs, which are expected to end after the two companies are fully integrated.
In a blog posting in March, Mr Schmidt gave a heads-up that job cuts would be likely and that those outside the US would be made "in accordance with local law".
At over $3 billion (£1.5bn), Google's purchase of DoubleClick is its largest to date and completed less than a month ago, after being held up by regulators for a year.
At the time, the deal was heavily criticised and resisted by non-profit privacy groups which argued that it would give Google unprecedented access to information about consumers' online behaviour.
Microsoft and AT&T also opposed the transaction, which was approved by the Federal Trade Commission in December.
Conflict of interest?
On top of the news of the lay-offs, Google says it also plans to sell a DoubleClick unit called Performics Search Marketing.
That arm of the business helps marketers place adverts on search engines, including those owned by Google and its main rivals in the field, Yahoo and Microsoft.
It has always been felt that this represented a conflict of interest for Google.
In an official Google blog, Tom Phillips, director of DoubleClick Integration, writes: "It is clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business.
"At Google, maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to our mission and core to the trust we ask from our users."
Industry watchers maintain that the decision to sell off Performics Search Marketing makes good business sense and that Google's primary focus is to get paid as much as possible for the adverts that appear on its pages.
Rumours abound that Google is already in talks with a third party to sell the business for an undisclosed sum.
Although on his blog Mr Phillips maintains no buyer is waiting in the wings, he does concede there has been quite a bit of interest "from a number of current partners".
Danny Sullivan, editor of SeachEngineLand.com, praises the much anticipated sell-off and says it was not unexpected.
Google said the business would continue to run as a separate entity until the division was sold.
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