Google's Matt Cutts Issues Subtle Warning To Ghost Networks

Last night, Matt Cutts tweeted that he is working up several "ghost-related puns for a spam network."

I suspect they are working on targeting more and more link and spam networks and it is thus on his mind. I would think this spam topic is always on his mind, since he has been working in this area for over ten years now.

That being said, the pun he shared was "They try to look super natural, but using them will dampen your spirits."

Now, more importantly, is this a sign that Google just released yet another target aimed at another spam network? Could be.

The folks at BlackHat Forums asked if this is the time that the SAPE network of links was finally completely busted. He cited an increase in the number of complaints from SAPE link network users and how many of them have seen either manual actions in their Webmaster Tools accounts or a decrease in search traffic from Google.

This webmaster wrote:

A lot of movement has been occurring around the forum regarding SAPE links.

Its no news that Google has been trying to shut SAPE down for some time now.

Has the time finally come? Is it time to move onto some underground link exchanges?

He then references Matt's tweet from last night:

Matt Cutts

Thinking of ghost-related puns for a spam network. "They try to look super natural, but using them will dampen your spirits."

And then cites other threads of complaints from SAPE users.

Supposedly, Google went after SAPE before but it seems to still be working for some webmasters.

Forum discussion at BlackHat Forums and Twitter.

Google AdWords In-Search Campaigns Bug Really A Feature

Earlier this month, we reported on a In-Search Video Google AdWords issue where advertisers were claiming in-search ads stopped working after upgrading to enhanced campaigns.

After some time, Google's Zuzana Stierankova Moran (aka Zee), came in with an update. The update basically said it is an upgrade, a feature, and not necessarily a bug.

She wrote:

You may have noticed some changes to in-search performance recently. This is related to a backend change to our ad serving system. We made this change so that in the future, we can bring you additional targeting features for your in-search campaigns (this includes topic, interest and demo targeting, as well as remarketing and frequency capping). We’re also actively working to ensure that performance on the new backend system is similar to that on the old one. As ever, however, we suggest you monitor your account to optimize the performance of your in-search campaigns.

So the reporting is new and thus different, but Google is working on making the numbers as "similar" to the old one as possible.

I just love how reporting can completely change based on who and what runs the report. Makes you question things, doesn't it.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Google AdWords Adds Product Updates Box To Blog

In an effort to communicate new AdWords product updates, features and changes, Google has added a "Product Updates" box to the top right corner of the AdWords Blog.

Google said, "You're busy, and we know it's not always easy to stay on top of every innovation and change in AdWords." Adding, "to keep you informed about the latest and greatest, we wanted to share how we are making it easier to stay updated on important AdWords improvements and changes with the new look and feel on the Inside AdWords blog."

The first link, "major updates on our blog," is where you will find both in-depth posts on specific releases, as well as posts summarizing all the recent happenings in AdWords on a regular basis. Google specifically tags those blog posts with "Updates."

The second link, "all updates on Google+," features Google product and feature changes on the Google Ads Google+ page. Each post will be tagged with #adwords #updates to make them easily identifiable.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google Structured Data Report Flatlines, Google Fixes

Over the past few days, there were several reports in the Google Webmaster Help forum that the structure data report within Google Webmaster Tools was reporting zero elements of structured data.

Of course, for those who spent the time and resources adding rich structured data to their site, this can be concerning.

It appears it was simply a reporting bug and had no impact on the structured data showing up in the search results as rich snippets. Nevertheless, the issue seems to be resolved and the structure data reports have returned back to normal for most.

Yesterday, Google's John Mueller update webmasters in the thread saying:

Thanks for your patience, everyone! It looks like this should be resolved in the meantime.

The reporting of the structured data found on your site wouldn't be related to any change you'd see in your site's visibility in search, so if you're seeing changes there, that would generally be due to something else (and you might want to start a thread separately about it).

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Apps Unofficial Support For Google Glass

One of the biggest complaints about Google Glass is that it does not work with Google Apps accounts. Well, one of the biggest complaints from Google Apps users is that nothing new from Google works with Google Apps. Heck, remember when Google+ came out, Google Apps users had to wait forever to participate.

That being said, Google is now, unofficially, supporting Google Apps users with Google Glass.

David Carr, a Glass user, was the first to notice and posted on Google+.

How do you switch your Glass to use Google Apps? Simple, factory reset the thing. Go to my Glass and factory reset your Glass device then visited google.com/myglass from my Google Apps account and set up Glass normally. Several Glass users have confirmed it works.

I should note, Sarah Price from Google said this is being tested and may have bugs. She wrote:

This isn't actually supported yet, but we are testing it and working on it. Just wanted to let you know in case you see anything break or disappear.

So be careful!

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google's Matt Cutts Wants To Know Which Small Sites Should Rank Better

The question of big sites vs small sites and how they rank in Google has always been one of those questions SEOs have asked. In fact, it seems that only 30% of SEOs believe web site size does not matter in terms of rankings.

That being said, Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a survey on Google Docs asking you to tell them which small web sites are getting an unfair shot in Google and should rank higher.

Matt tweeted it last night:

Matt Cutts

If there's a small website that you think should be doing better in Google, tell us more here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Czwk15Yc_-zcnnlvqTuspEnz2Sn3Aw2JxhkWvoVxVS4/viewform …

The survey itself makes it clear that no rankings will be impacted directly from this survey:

Google would like to hear feedback about small but high-quality websites that could do better in our search results. To be clear, we're just collecting feedback at this point; for example, don't expect this survey to affect any site's ranking.

I am glad Google is indeed looking into this.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Is Wrong! The Link Is Natural!

There are two common sayings you've all heard in this field. The first is, "no one is perfect" and the second is, "never tell Google they are wrong."

As you can imagine, they don't go well together. No one, including, no algorithm or person, is perfect. Google knows that. But telling Google they are wrong, rarely helps. In fact, it can end up hurting you.

If you are slapped by a Panda or Penguin algorithm and you tell Google their algorithm is completely wrong - it likely won't get you anywhere. The best step is to assume Google is perfect and do what you can to appease the beastly algorithms.

But one webmaster simply had enough and he made his case in the Google Webmaster Help forums. He said, yes, he had lots of unnatural links but the link example given by a Googler about an unnatural link is in fact, one hundred percent natural.

Let me quote this webmaster:

Now after our last reconsideration request was declined we get the message that there are still bad links out there. This is what we were told was one of the bad links:

http://sustainablog.org/2013/07/furniture-recycling-endangered-animals/

This is a completely legitimate post and it was not influenced by us in any way. They are writing about a campaign we are running.

When questioned by other SEOs and webmasters, this guy answered:

Well the so called "money keyword link" was chosen by sustainablog itself, probably because they thought it would best describe what we do. We have no influence on this, and we certainly have no interest in ranking for "Guide To Recycling"

Makes you wonder - will Google look at this example and say, hmm, you are right, we are wrong?

Honestly, this webmaster is better off disavowing the link and also finding links like it, even if they are natural, and removing those as well.

Like I said before, Google has caused a fear of linking, which both Google and SEOs are to blame for. But it is what it is now and we have to live in this world.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Official: Google's Keyword Tool Replaced

As you may remember, Google announced they are replacing the external keyword tool with the Google Keyword Planner tool.

Well, it took some time, but now the legacy external keyword tool is gone. If you try to access it at adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal you will see an error page that reads:

Keyword Planner has replaced Keyword Tool

With Keyword Planner, we've combined the functionality of Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator to make it easier to plan search campaigns. That's why Keyword Tool is no longer available. You can use Keyword Planner to find new keyword and ad group ideas, get performance estimates for them to find the bid and budget that are right for you, and then add them to your campaigns. We've also added several new features with Keyword Planner.

So now to get any keyword data similar to the external keyword tool, you need to login to your AdWords account. If you do not have an AdWords account, you will need to sign up for one to get this data.

The keyword tool is one of the oldest and most useful tools from Google. Seeing it go is pretty historic.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google's FAQ On Rel Author Says Not For Product Pages

Yesterday on the Google Webmaster Blog, Mail posted and FAQ on using Google authorship, rel=author, on your site.

The one that I am glad was brought up was not to use authorship on product pages. I see it all too often and it just doesn't make sense. Authorship should be used for stories and content that is specifically tied to an author as something he is adding his own opinion to or something very unique. Product pages are not that.

You should use the reviews rich snippet. But that doesn't mean that product results should not have authorship. If you are doing a detailed review of a product, go ahead.

Here are some of the questions answered by the FAQs on the blog.

1. What kind of pages can be used with authorship? Short answer: Author based content.

2. Can I use a company mascot as an author and have authorship annotation in search results? For my pest control business, I’d like to write as the “Pied Piper.” Short answer: No.

3. If I use authorship on articles available in different languages, such as example.com/en/article1.html for English and example.com/fr/article1.html for the French translation, should I link to two separate author/Google+ profiles written in each language? Short answer: No.

4. Is it possible to add two authors for one article? Short answer: No.

5. How can I prevent Google from showing authorship? Short answer: Block Google.

6. What’s the difference between rel=author vs rel=publisher? Short answer: publisher is company related, author is person related.

7. Can I use authorship on my site’s property listings or product pages since one of my employees has customized the description? Short answer: No.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google's Matt Cutts: Page Speed Not More Important For Mobile Ranking

Typically, SEO concepts are very logical. You want your pages to be easy to read, you want your title tags descriptive (bookmarks, etc), you want to make sure users and bots can discover your pages and you want to make sure the pages load fast. But you'd think that Google would tweak their mobile ranking algorithms to factor in page speed more so than desktop.

Most mobile connections are much slower than desktop connections. Although that is changing with LTE. But for the most part, you'd expect mobile users to want to get their content faster than desktop users.

But in a recent Google video from Google's Matt Cutts, they said "it is not that in mobile, we apply that [page speed ranking factor] any more or less than desktop search."

Here is the video:

Again, I'd thought they would tweak that up a bit for mobile search ranking.

They do so for sites that are not mobile friendly.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google: We Know You're Confused About Manual & Algorithmic Penalties

There has always been a lot of confusion amongst none experienced SEOs about the difference between a manual and algorithmic action by Google. And Google is aware of that and promises to make changes to help clarify the difference between the two.

John Mueller, Google's Webmaster Trends Analyst, said in multiple Google Webmaster Help threads in the past twenty-four hours that they are aware and working to make it easier.

John Mueller said:

When a site is algorithmically found to have been compromised, a reconsideration request is unnecessary -- it'll be updated automatically as we recrawl & reindex the content from there, and see that it's no longer compromised. The normal crawling & indexing can take a bit of time, so unfortunately you'll need to be a bit patient. In cases where the site was manually found to be compromised, you can still submit a reconsideration request to have it reviewed. You'll see the difference by checking the manual action feature in Webmaster Tools. We're looking into ways to make this process a bit clearer, more straightforward & consistent, I realize it's a bit confusing at the moment..

Specifically, John said, "We're looking into ways to make this process a bit clearer, more straightforward & consistent, I realize it's a bit confusing at the moment..."

I am not sure what their plans are exactly but it would be so sweet to have not just "manual actions" but "algorithmic actions" section in Google Webmaster Tools.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Now Adds Ability To See When Your Employees Get To Work

Google announced on Google+ that they have upgraded Google Now features to add in seven plus new types of Google Now card notifications.

The most interesting to me is that it integrates with Google+ Locations and let's you see when your employees or co-workers get to work, leave work, get home and so forth. It can also notify you when your kids leave school or get to school.

Joe LePenna from Google said on Google+:

Huge news today in Google+ Locations! When someone shares their pinpoint location with you, Google Now will notify you when they're on their commute to or from work or home! This is a great way to coordinate with teammates at the office or family at home.

This is one of the many integrations we're bringing to Google using G+ Locations as a starting point. We hope you love it and are looking forward to bring Location Sharing out of just one app and into many more.

Here is a screen shot here shared:

Of course, the person on the other end has to allow you to see this stuff. It is specifically called commute sharing and there are tons of preferences and settings around it.

Google Now: What Else Is New

Here are the other new items in Google Now for Android 4.1+:

• Car rentals card
• Concert ticket card
• Improved public transit cards
• Set reminders while you search
• Updated TV card
• NCAA football scores

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google Maps App With Waze Data

Remember, Google acquired Waze, the awesome user generated mapping software company? Well, it didn't take long, it is now being integrated into Google Maps data.

Now, Google Maps for iOS and Android have traffic level data submitted by Waze users.

Google said in a blog post, "users of Google Maps for Mobile will now benefit from real time incident reports from Waze users." Google added, "this means when Wazers report accidents, construction, road closures and more."

Here is a screen shot from Google Maps for iOS:

So now Google Maps takes into consideration traffic data from human submissions from Waze. Your driving directions will be impacted by this.

Part of this upgrade, Waze also got a bit of an update, obtaining Google Street View and satellite imagery for their Waze Map Editor.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google's Matt Cutts: +1s Don't Improve Rankings

Moz published a story yesterday showing a high correlation between Google +1s and Google's search rankings.

Shortly after, Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, went over to Hacker News and debunked it. He said, +1s do not have any impact on search rankings at Google.

He wrote:

Just trying to decide the politest way to debunk the idea that more Google +1s lead to higher Google web rankings. Let's start with correlation != causation: http://xkcd.com/552/

He then went on to add:

If you make compelling content, people will link to it, like it, share it on Facebook, +1 it, etc. But that doesn't mean that Google is using those signals in our ranking.

Rather than chasing +1s of content, your time is much better spent making great content.

Yep, that does make sense. But do you believe him? Many in the industry do not. So Matt Cutts had to respond to more people in the thread. He added:

Suffice it to say that I would be very skeptical of anyone who claimed that more +1s led to a higher search ranking in Google's web results.

And

Most of the initial discussion on this thread seemed to take from the blog post the idea that more Google +1s led to higher web ranking. I wanted to preemptively tackle that perception.

Truth is, Google is to blame for the confusion. In August 2011, Wired published a story suggesting Google+ was tied to ranking. Google's chairman suggested it as well in February 2013. Matt Cutts did say at conference it is not used but did say that authorship is a good signal, which can be confusing for users.

Anyway, I do believe Matt when he says +1s are not used directly in the ranking algorithm.

Forum discussion at Hacker News & WebmasterWorld.

Google Places Listings Auto-Upgraded To Google+ Pages

Google has quietly announced in the Google Business Help forums that they have begun automatically upgrading some Google Places listings to the new Google+ pages with the added social features.

Google said in the updated thread that starting on August 20th, "some pages managed in the new Google Places for Business dashboard will be automatically upgraded to have social features."

Google did say they have and will "send out emails to users whose pages are automatically upgraded" to inform them of the change. But if you are worried you didn't get that email and you want to double check, if you can see the "Visit your Google+ page" in your dashboard, then you were upgraded.

Here is some additional details about the upgrade:

A personal Google+ account is not necessary in order to utilize social features on local Google+ pages that are automatically upgraded.

If the listing for your business is not automatically upgraded and you are interested in social features, you may be able to use the Google+ widget to upgrade the page manually. (You can read more about the Google+ widget in the update from April 11 on this post -- scroll up.)

Please first make sure you follow these criteria:

(1) You must have verified your business in your Places account.

(2) Your Places for Business email address should also have a Google+ profile.

(3) Your page must be in a category that is eligible for Google+.

If these apply to you, you will see a Google+ widget in your dashboard inviting you to upgrade. Simply click Get your Google+ page to upgrade. This will create a local Google+ page in Google+ that is tied to your Google+ account. You will be able to update this page from both Google Places for Business and Google+.

If you do not see the Google+ widget yet, or don’t have the upgrade link in your widget, sit tight while we work on getting a smooth upgrade process in place for you.

Hat tip to Linda for spotting this.

Forum discussion at Google Business Help.

Google AdWords Editor Version 10.2 Supported Upgraded Sitelinks

Two months ago, I got very emotional about my ugly face not showing up in Google. To make a long story short, whenever anyone searched on virtually anything about search, SEO or Google, my face was bound to show up on the first page of Google either via a story I wrote here or on Search Engine Land.

But suddenly, several months ago, my authorship, my author rich snippets, disappeared specifically for this site. It did not disappear for other major sites as well. Google confirmed last month there was a bug with authorship that impacted "very few sites."

I've been checking randomly since then and I am now starting to see my picture, pulled from my Google+ profile, show up again in the search results for this site.

For example, a search on a story on this site returns my image next to the search results:

It is not yet on all my stories, but that might take some more time.

Did your authorship return as well?

Forum discussion continued at Google Webmaster Help.

Google Sitelinks With Borders

Chris Ainsworth posted a screen shot of a Google user interface test in the Google search results on his Google+ page. He noticed a subtle change for the sitelinks for branded search results. Specifically, a border around the search result with the sitelinks.

I personally cannot replicate it but here is a screen shot from Chris.

Google Sitelinks With Borders:

Google Sitelinks Without Borders (As I See It):

Again, this is a pretty small change but it does really make this search result look dominant.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google AdWords Editor Version 10.2 Supported Upgraded Sitelinks

Google announced that an updated version of the AdWords Editor, version 10.2 supports the upgraded Sitelinks for Enhanced campaigns.

Google notes that version 10.2 is the only AdWords Editor that works with enhanced campaigns properly, so they are encouraging advertisers to upgrade. The specific updates to the editor around "upgraded sitelinks" include:

• View upgraded sitelinks on the new Extensions > Sitelinks (upgraded) tab.
• Add, edit, or remove upgraded sitelinks at the campaign or ad group level.
• Copy and paste upgraded sitelinks between campaigns or ad groups.
• Include upgraded sitelinks in imports and exports.
• Change a sitelink's platform targeting (all devices, desktop and tablet devices only, or mobile devices only), or the device preference for an individual sitelink (all or mobile).
• Schedule start and end dates for your sitelink to run, or set it to run specific days of the week and times of day.
• Disable upgraded sitelinks at the ad group level.

Other upgrades include:

• All image ads now have a file size limit of 150k.
• Accelerated delivery is now allowed for campaigns using automatic bidding.
• When you add user lists on the Audiences tab, the new "No. of search users" column provides information about the search audience.
• On the Placements tab and the Audiences tab, a new read-only "Targeting setting" column shows "Target and bid" or "Bid only."
• You can now enter URLs with the {ifmobile}{ifnotmobile} dynamic insertion format for sitelinks and for ads (except for dynamic search ads and product ads).
• Sitelinks and some ad types can now have destination URLs up to 2076 characters, instead of the previous limit of 1024 characters.

An advertiser at WebmasterWorld is happy about this release because "doing this in the [web] interface, is a time bandit."

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Webmasters Fear Linking Out After Google's Warnings

A WebmasterWorld thread has some fears that I see are beginning to worry some publishers and webmasters - the fear of linking to external sources.

With Matt Cutts and the Google spam team pretty much saying you need to nofollow everything out there, well, with the exception of real editorial links (who is to decide what is editorial), webmasters are simply scared.

I see questions popping up left and right. Can I link to this site? If so, should I nofollow it anyway? Should I make sure to not use keyword rich anchor text when linking.

These are the type of questions coming up.

It is making natural linking unnatural because of the fear of linking is now killing natural links.

Publishers and webmasters are less likely to link out because of that fear.

Do you fear linking out? Are you more likely to nofollow links you would have not nofollowed a year or two ago? I know I am nofollowing links more often these days.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Analytics Alerts Of Increase In 404 Pages

Daniel Waisberg, a Google Analytics expert and now a new Googler, posted on the Google Analytics Google+ profile a tip on how to set up custom alerts for increases in 404 page requests.

There is nothing worse for the user experience than to land on a 404, page not found, error page. And if a page is 404ing and you want that page to be in the search results, that will be a very very bad bug. So monitoring 404s is an important task.

Most either check their error logs or monitor a specific page in Google Analytics. But why not have Google Analytics alert you when your 404 errors increase?

Daniel explains how to on Google+.

1. Login to Google Analytics

2. Click on "Admin" on the top-left navigation (orange bar)

3. Click on the profile you want to create the alert

4. Create a Goal using the 404 URL

5. Click on "Custom Alerts" and create a new alert

6. See image attached

If you can, I do strongly recommend you set this up.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google: Links Within Widgets Must Be Nofollowed

Yesterday, Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, posted another video on links clearly telling widget makers and those who embed widgets on their own sites that those links should be nofollowed.

He said clearly, "I would recommend putting a nofollow, especially on widgets."

Honestly, this message should come as no surprise. Matt said so even back in 2008 but obviously it didn't make much of a difference back then. The links still counted and still worked. But now with Google going after more and more links, I would expect you should be more careful with widgets. Also, in 2011 we discussed this specific topic quoting Google's John Mueller in our story Google Says You Can't Hide Links With Disclosure.

Matt also mentioned his distaste for infographics and how Google will discount those links as well.

So in short, if you distribute widgets or place widgets on your own site, nofollow those links. Heck, I post polls here often and I have not nofollowed those links. Although the link does link directly to the poll, so I am not sure how "bad" it is.

Forum discussion at Google+ and WebmasterWorld.

FYI: Google's Reconsideration Request Now In Manual Actions

Last week, Google launched the new manual actions viewer within Webmaster Tools. Since then, webmasters have been asking where the reconsideration request form has gone.

Well, it is now part of manual actions.

Why Did Google Remove The Reconsideration Request Form?

Why? Well, reconsideration requests only work for manual actions, not for algorithmic actions. So it makes sense that Google only allow you to submit a reconsideration request, which they are now calling "request review," under the manual actions. It will lead to less reconsideration requests for Googlers to review and the requests submitted should be more on target.

I know that after this manual actions launched, webmasters and SEOs felt duped. They removed tons of links, disavowed, nofollowed, and spent countless hours fixing things when in fact they either didn't have a manual action or had a manual action that didn't hurt their rankings. So the communication is indeed better right now, but has room to improve.

How Do You Submit A Reconsideration Request?

Now, you need to login to Webmaster Tools click on "manual actions" under "search traffic" and if there is a manual action you can view it and click "request review." If not, you cannot submit a reconsideration request.

When you click request review, this pop up overlays on top of the manual action:

Forum discussion at Threadwatch.

Google Skip Redirects Adds Support For rel-alternate-media Annotations

Google's Pierre Far, their mobile SEO man, announced on Google+ that Google has quietly added support for skip redirect to handle rel-alternate-media annotations.

Pierre calls this a "sweet little update." He explains that using the rel-alternate-media annotiation gives you more flexibility in how you handle users versus robots. He explains:

In this case, even if the desktop page doesn't automatically redirect to the smartphone page, if we discover valid annotations linking the desktop and smartphone pages, our algorithms may still change the link target shown in the search results to point directly to the smartphone page. I know many webmasters asked me about this exact thing, and now you can be happy.

If you have never seen a skip redirect in action at Google, see this story.

Skip Redirect launched in December 2011 and may have kicked off Google's major efforts in mobile SEO topics.

Forum discussion at Google+.

Google Wants To See You Really Mean It With Reconsideration Request

A WebmasterWorld thread has SEOs and Webmasters discussing what Google expects or wants to see from a reconsideration request for link issues.

Whitey from WebmasterWorld thinks Google's Matt Cutts has laid out exactly what they expect to see in a reconsideration request in a video from the new set of videos.

Whitey summarized what must be done to earn Google's "link trust."

• Make multiple "take down" requests to sites referring "bad links" to your website.
• Keep documentation of those efforts.
• Clearly articulate, and if possible evidence efforts, that you are serious about removing those links to Google, in any future reconsideration request
• When you have made 2 or 3 attempts to take down those links, then use the disavow tool
• Send your reconsideration request in.

Here is that video:

I am a bit surprised so much has to go into it and that you simply cannot rely on the disavow tool. I bet in the future, the disavow tool will be enough.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Maps App Revised Ads & Charges On Swipe But Not Click Through

Yesterday, Google announced a new form of ads on the Google Maps app. The new ads now show on the bottom for a keyword search for local places. The ad can be tapped on or swiped up to get more details about that advertiser. You can then click through or call or get directions to the business.

Google is not charging on the click through, they are charging on the get more details action of tapping or swiping up on the ad to see more details. This is charged at their CPC price, despite it not being a click through to the advertisers web site.

Here is how Google worded it:

Relevant ads on the Google Maps app can now appear at the bottom of the screen after a user performs a search. They include a title, ad text, and a link to get directions. Users can tap or swipe upward to see more information - this is a new click type known as “Get location details” and results in a standard CPC charge.

The click or swipe on the ad will get the location details of the business and the searcher will be able to see information such as the business’s address, phone number, photos, reviews and more. Then the user has the ability to click more and charge the advertiser more. Google makes sure to say what the "free actions" are, saving business information for later, sharing a business with a friend, or starting navigation. The paid additional actions include, that initial 'get location details' click, get directions, click-to-call and clicks on the ad headline. AdWords will only charge for up to two paid clicks per ad impression. Reporting for these paid clicks can be found by segmenting reports in your account by ‘click type.’

So touching is buying.

Forum discussion at Google+.

All Of Google's Manual Actions For Search Spam

As I mentioned a few minutes ago in my story about Google's new manual spam action viewer - Google has documented all of the manual actions a site may receive for spamming their search results.

Here are the eleven documents from Google on these manual spam actions:

• Manual Actions
• Cloaking and/or sneaky redirects
• Hacked site
• Hidden text and/or keyword stuffing
• Pure spam
• Spammy freehosts
• Thin content with little or no added value
• Unnatural links from your site
• Unnatural links to your site
• Unnatural links to your site—impacts links
• User-generated spam

With that, Google produced a total of nine videos, I believe only seven being new videos, on these manual actions.

Here are all nine videos:

Does Google take manual action on webspam?

Cloaking:

Hidden text and/or keyword stuffing:

Pure spam:

Thin content with little or no added value:

Unnatural links from your site:

Unnatural Links to site:

Unnatural Links to site - impacts links:

User-generated spam:

Every SEO should make time to read all those documents above and watch all these videos.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.