Webmasters' Roundup

This month's edition of our monthly news roundup has updates about advertising, e-commerce, and DMOZ as well as a few legal stories and the usual search engine updates.

Advertising news

Yahoo Publisher Network has updated ad blocking to include domain level blocking. YPN advertisers can now block ads pointing to specific subdomains as well as to domains. For example, webmasters might want to block ads pointing to bluewidgets.mycompetitor.com (if they also sell blue widgets) but not ads pointing to decorations.mycompetitor.com. Advertisers can block up to 200 domains.

In the Google Adsense blog, Google has clarified its policy on placing ads next to related images. A summary: ads may be placed next to images as long as the images aren't related to the ad content. For example, images of widgets should not be placed next to ads for widgets. But images of anything unrelated to widgets are fine next to the ads.

After complaints about their updated landing page quality score factors, Google AdWords has added an "Ad Quality and Performance" section to its Help Center. It contains over 70 topics on quality, performance, and troubleshooting.

E-Commerce news

Launched in June 2006, Google Checkout has been providing competition for PayPal and merchant account providers. In November, Google announced that they'd be processing Checkout transactions free until the end of the year. This month, Google has extended free Checkout transactions until the end of 2007.

In addition, with participating merchants, Google Checkout is offering a $10 bonus on purchases worth $30 or more.

These incentives are expected to cost Google millions of dollars. On the other hand, they are attracting merchants to Google Checkout, and Google expects the promotion to pay off. More details are in the New York Times article (free account required to log in) Google Steps More Boldly Into PayPal´s Territory.

What's up with DMOZ?

DMOZ has been ailing lately. For several weeks, the home page redirected to a "Service Temporarily Unavailable" page. It turns out that DMOZ was down because there was nothing to have up. Some of the data was lost because of a server crash, and no backups had been done. During attempts to restore the data, the rest of the data was lost.

Much of the data has been restored, but some of it is probably gone forever

DMOZ editors can now return to editing, and webmasters are once again able to submit sites for review. But is DMOZ worth rebuilding? Some people have said for years that it's seen better days and should be allowed to die. Other webmasters still find value in having their sites listed at DMOZ. More background and speculation is in the article The Unsure Future of DMOZ (Open Directory Project).

We previously wrote about DMOZ last March.

Legal news

Once again, a criminal's online actions have helped convict him. In this case, the Google search results on the hard drive of a fired computer technician provided evidence that he was guilty of hacking into the wireless Internet system that he once provided support for. Search terms such as "make device interfere wireless network" helped implicate him.

A recent court ruling gives website providers one less legal concern. The California Supreme Court has ruled that content posted by third parties is not the responsibility of the website providers. This ruling is a departure from the law that makes newspaper and book publishers liable for any defamatory statements in their publications.

Another recent court ruling has determined something that webmasters can't do — link to webcasts if the copyright owner objects. A Texas federal judge ruled that linking to webcasts is not fair use of copyrighted material. When people go to the site where the webcasts are hosted, they see the names and logos of sponsors (or at some sites, advertisers) that help bring revenue to the site. When people view webcasts via a direct link from another site, they don't see the sponsor or advertiser information.

More details of this and related cases are in the article Can't link to Webcast if copyright owner objects.

Search engine updates

In September, we wrote that Microsoft had made a deal with China Telecom to help its position in the Chinese search market. Microsoft has now partnered with the Chinese search site Baidu. Baidu's paid search results will appear with search results on the Chinese versions of Microsoft sites.

For searches for local businesses, Google has created a Plus box that appears with the first search result if Google is sure that it's the right result. When clicked, the box with the plus sign expands to show the business address and a map with a "Get directions" link. For example, when doing a search for "Disneyland," a plus sign appears next to the first result. Click on the plus sign, and a map is displayed with Disneyland's address and phone number next to it.

Starting up a new search engine is a hefty ambition — but one that Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales has taken on. The project, called Search Wikia, is unrelated to Wikipedia. It will be using community involvement to decide what sites should be included. Wales provides a summary of the project, and more details are in the article Wikiasari Mania - The Facts, The Myths & Hysteria!