Google, which has consistently preached that webmasters should focus on unique and compelling content, has apparently closed its directory. While branded with the Google name, and residing on a Google URL, this directory was simply scraped from DMOZ.

What is interesting is how the Panda algorithm update was supposed to nail scraper sites to the wall, Google’s scraped directory survived Panda quite well. It’s these mixed signals, and double standards, which sets a horrible example for webmasters that are truly working hard to offer their visitors value through unique and detailed content.

As any successful website owner will tell you, if you are not getting traffic from Google you are nothing. Sadly, this is true in many cases. And Google’s latest algorithm update, which are dubbed Farmer and Panda, there were obviously some winners and some losers. What has come to light is that many of the losers were mainly small mom and pop publishers which lack SEO skills and the budget to hire SEO professionals. You know the mom and pop type sites - the ones that typically have a limited amount of niche traffic but are heavily dependent on traffic to maintain their businesses. And there are some reports that already some smaller sites have closed their doors.

For those that have held top positions in Google, they understand that their largest competitor has become Google. Regardless of how popular ones site is, Google is creeping into the mix by competing for organic traffic in many niches. And folks, they are continuing to expand at an alarming rate. This is why I felt it important to discuss some of the problems even top SEO professionals are coping with.

As an example of what I am talking about, do a quick Google search for dishwasher. Only the top two organic listings are above the fold. Searchers are bombarded with Adwords ads, a related searches box and shopping results. While this is not new, I have witnessed the expansion of Google’s desire to expand their reach into a variety of products and niches. Why is Google doing this?

As with any website, it is only natural to provide users with as much information onsite as possible. What Google is doing is no different. They have been moving away from their search business model to a find business model. And Google is making every effort to monetize this traffic.

A recent Business Wire press release has many speculating that the Business.com directory will be closing. Already many webmaster and SEO forums have lit up with activity in regards to this topic. Either its great link bait or true. With such a vague press release, it’s really hard to tell what their plans truly are.

Let’s be realistic. Business.com had a lot of dead listings in its directory. For quite some time the neglect became ever more apparent. This is the main reason why I refused to list sites there. Those dead listings are a drag on the domain authority or at least the pages where the listings are at. And the dead listings were all over.

It was only a matter of time before Google went public with its plan to swing a heavy axe through the blog comment spam jungle. It seems comment spammers are now going to have to watch their backs when it comes to link dropping all over the place.

Such news is also putting the fear of God in some legitimate commenters as well. Determining what is spam and what is not is a purely subjective opinion best left to blog owners and not an algorithm or a Google Webspam employee that may not like your comment.

I think we’ve all had the problem before as webmasters. You know, you add a new page or create a new website and the Google Adsense ads are completely off topic and irrelevant. And we’ve heard the standard solutions to fix the problem, and in many cases they work as intended. The problem is this: What if highly relevant ads are not generating the profit, the CTR, and the interest of your visitors?

This is a current problem I am struggling with. The site in question is what many would consider an authority. It gets good traffic, has plenty of natural backlinks, great organic search positions, and of course a significant amount of traffic. The problem is that the people visiting the page are not interested in the ads that Google believes should be displayed. The ads I think should be displayed pay ten times as much and receive twice the CTR when they are displayed. The problem is displaying them permanently.

In many of the popular webmaster related forums you can usually find a section on link sales. Yes, backlinks are the holy grail of SEO these days, but did you know that many of these paid links are absolutely worthless? Let me explain in more detail…

Let’s face it, Google is a master at analyzing data. From Google analytics to their own algorithm, Google does a pretty darn good job at crunching the number and detailing data. And part of their technology is devoted to identifying paid links. How does Google do it? Of course that is open to debate, but let me share some of my opinions and you make your own call.

Aaron Wall broke the news on his site about Google’s new algorithm update.  Supposedly, this update places heavy emphasis on a site’s “brand.”  You can read more about Aaron’s take on this issue here.

There are a good number of people complaining about this algorithm update.  Apparently some sites have lost their ranks to more noteworthy brands.  This certainly could be the reason why so many webmasters think big name companies are getting preference in the serps over their more relevant websites.

To put some water on this fire, Matt Cutts has publicly acknowledged that a change was recently made to Google’s algorithm.  According to Matt, this is not a major update but one of the 300-400 minor updates they make yearly.  Matt also noted that the change would probably not even be noticed by the majority of webmasters.

For those that like to submit to quality premium web directories, this post is for you!

Over at Directory Blogger, they have recently posted some coupon codes to use at some of the Web’s top directories.  Some of these coupon codes expire soon, so take advantage of it while you can.

To get these coupon codes, simply go to Directory Blogger’s web directory coupon code page and get busy. 

If you know of any other directories that have coupon codes, please comment here.  Especially in today’s economy its always nice to save some money!

For all of those domainers that park domains, Google is finally allowing Adsense to be placed on parked domains.  That’s right, this is a full blow parking service provided by Google and is available to all USA Adsense accounts.

Apparently from December 11th, 2008 to December 18th, 2008 all Adsense accounts will have this feature enabled.  If its not in your account yet, be patient.

Unlike most parking providers, Adsense requires participants to create A name and CNAME records for each domain added to the Adsense for Domains parking program.  Providing your domain(s) are using your Registrars nameservers, this is not a big deal unless you plan to serve Adsense on a large number of parked domains.  Hopefully Google will decide to handle each domains DNS in the future which would certainly make the parking program easier for people to use.