Thanksgiving in North America is a significant holiday in the region, and it presents terrific opportunities for ecommerce. It can also be a disaster if the ecommerce site is hit by a penalty or rankings drop.
I would have thought that the search engines, especially Google, would be stable for the few days prior to and throughout the holiday of Thanksgiving to Black Monday. With that in mind, it seems odd that Google appears to have rolled out some kind of update in the run up. For those hit by the update it can be a worrying time, especially when so much online business is carried out throughout the holiday period. Of course, it’s never a good time if your own site is hit by a penalty.
What can you do about it? Not much if you rely on Google for traffic.
It’s obvious, of course: Don’t put your reliance entirely on Google. Don’t moan about it as that’s a waste of your time and energy.
Start with a document detailing all the possible opportunities to market your business, including Google and Bing, and I’m certain you will be surprised at how many other places are potential openings.
Draw up a plan. When you’re happy it’s doable, start right away and prepare for the next holiday. Only you can take your business forward, and time waits for no man!
Welcome to this WebmasterWorld Weekly Round-up.
The previous WebmasterWorld Weekly is
here.What's the problem with Google SERPs? To many, the SERPs seem so unstable, so WebmasterWorld Members were discussing the apparent
unstable Google SERPs 
this week.
A WebmasterWorld member was getting so frustrated with
link take-down requests, he saw no option but to shut the site. Was he right to do that?
A further nine
new gTLDs were rolled out to trademark holders this week. If you're a trademark holder, don't miss out.
This week, Google started to test
mobile anchor ads with AdSense publishers.
Bing announced an initiative of "
Connected Pages" in Bing Webmaster Tools. The idea being that you get better analytics information by connecting your pages.
I read this week that there is a
Ruby on Rails Cookiestore vulnerability which webmasters ought to be aware of. Find out more in our thread.
There's more discussion of the strange case of
Google traffic dips with no apparent ranking changes. What's going on?
Here's something which is very strange, especially from a company that dislikes automated polling of its own servers. "
Google wants to clone your Social Media activity" More surges in the
value of Bitcoins this week, with values exceeding $1,000.
For those of us marketing to China, there was news reporting
Android users exceeded 270 million. According to reports, Microsoft is considering
Ford Motor Co's Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally and internal executive Satya Nadella as front runners in its hunt for a new CEO
I read that the
Dutch Data Protection law was broken by Google's privacy policy. It's not clear what will happen as a result of this breach.
Google announced to developers new
Google Maps embedding and new ads will roll out. Expect to see more ads on the maps.
The anti-spam email fighters, Spamhaus, are calling for
fines for anyone with unsecured servers. If it was made law, i'm not clear how it would be managed.
Back on the Bitcoin topic, and a hard drive thrown away apparently contained
7,500 Bitcoins, currently worth $7.5 million. Oh dear! Don't throw those hard drives away as there's value in them to somebody.
This week Google announced it's
Trusted Stores now shows seller ratings on AdWords. Yet another rating system to worry about.
And wait, Google has added
reviews in Google Places. What was I just saying about another system to be concerned about!
This story caught my eye this week with
Google wanting its employees using Macs, not Windows or its own Chromebooks. Interesting, eh!
To those that are celebrating, enjoy the holiday weekend. If you're not, have a terrific week!
Cheers
Neil
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WebmasterWorld Weekly Round-Up 29 November
