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With the Google Panda update we ran a poll and noted 40% were negatively impacted by Panda. I want to run a poll now and see how many sites were negatively impacted by the Google Penguin update.

I want you to go to your analytics, click on your organic search traffic from Google and see if there was an increase, decrease or no change after April 24th. Now, of course, keep note to track typical weekend referrals vs weekday. Here is this site’s chart:

It seems like this site may have had a positive impact from Google Penguin but since we get news traffic, it is hard to tell.

Here is the poll, please take it and have all your friends take it as well. I’ll share the results in a couple weeks:

Forum discussion at Google+, WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, Cre8asite Forums and Google Webmaster Help.

Image credit to ShutterStock for Penguin with pencil

This is probably known by most of you out there but just in case, smartphone URLs will not show up as mobile URLs in a mobile Sitemap.

A Google Webmaster Help thread has one webmaster asking why his mobile sitemap is not being indexed. As you can see from the graph above, the web sitemap is being indexed (blue is submitted URLs, red is indexed URLs). The mobile sitemap is just submitted but not indexed.

John Mueller of Google said they treat smartphone URLs the same as desktop URLs. He wrote:

Is it possible that the URLs in there are not traditional mobile URLs, but rather smartphone URLs? Given that we treat smartphone URLs as being equivalent to “normal” web-URLs, they wouldn’t be counted separately as mobile ones (where we’d only include those specifically for traditional mobile devices using WAP/WML,etc). If these are smartphone URLs, I’d just include them in a normal Sitemap file and submit them like that.

Again, this is something that is likely known by most SEO experts but just in case.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

In a special series, Ad Age introduces you to three executives responsible for marketing their shops via social media. First in our lineup is Bruce Stockler.

You may know me best as an Olympic gymnast. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, I competed on the first U.S. women’s gymnastics team to win the team gold medal, and I won gold on the balance beam as well. I won five medals at Barcelona in 1992, the most of any American athlete at those Games. Gymnastics allowed me to become an Olympic gold medalist, but since then I’ve enjoyed a variety of titles including author, TV and radio host, speaker, cancer survivor, health advocate, and, most importantly, mom.

And at the upcoming Games in London, I’ll be adding another title to my list – analyst for Yahoo! Sports.

I am so excited to be covering the Summer Olympics with Yahoo! Sports. As an athlete, we don’t see as much while we’re competing as you do at home watching. Most of our time is spent sleeping, eating, and training. That’s why it is so much fun to cover the Games!

As an analyst, I’ll be able to give up-to-date information and insight into the athletes, their training, and what they are feeling during the biggest competition of their lives. Athletes and their stories are everywhere and this is my opportunity to share these stories and dreams with those around the world.

On the gymnastics side, I am expecting a strong team. If TEAM USA is healthy and consistent, they will be difficult to beat. Russia and China will certainly be strong competition, though. Individually, Jordyn Weiber is the one to watch right now. However, with qualifications beginning at the end of May a few other names to watch for are McKayla Maroney, Gabrielle Douglas and Nastia Liukin.

I can’t wait to get over to London and report back to you on all of the exciting things happening at the Games!

For now, here’s a little bit more about me:

My most memorable Olympic moment:
As an athlete, one of my favorite moments was walking into the Georgia Dome to 40,000 screaming people…for training!

My favorite Olympic location:
I can’t choose – Barcelona was amazing and it was my first Games. Atlanta was home soil; it’s hard to compete with that!

My secret talent, which I would win a gold medal for if it were an Olympic sport:
Organizing! Garage, closets, you name it – I can organize it.

The best meal I had at an Olympics:
I tend to eat the exact same meal before every competition: grilled chicken with a baked potato – a mix of protein and carbs for the long competition ahead.

My best travel tip for the Olympics:
Leave plenty of time to get places. Road closures, crowds, security all add to a bit of wait time. Bring snacks, water and your smart phone or tablet with you so you can get the latest updates on all things Olympics!

My favorite Olympic sport other than gymnastics:
I love them all! I’m amazed by diving. It is so beautiful to watch but I just can’t understand why people want to flip toward their head.

Shannon Miller,
Yahoo! Sports Analyst, Gymnastics

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series entitled, “In My Own Words,” that gives employees the opportunity to share their own stories about Yahoo!. Feel like yodeling your own? Post your Yahoo! story on your social networks using the hashtag #myYahoostory.

Google webspam guru Matt Cutts explained the rationale behind Penguin in a post on the Google Webmaster Central blog. He noted that We see all sorts of webspam techniques every day, from keyword stuffing to link schemes that attempt to propel sites higher in rankings. Penguin represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. It’s supposed to decrease the rankings of sites that violate Google’s terms of service. Cutts gave two examples of websites whose ranks he expected to see drop after Penguin. One displayed egregious keyword stuffing. The …

The ‘Wake Up’ teaser campaign – believed to be for BlackBerry – is set to be revealed just after midnight Sunday EST, if the countdown clock on the wake up site is to be believed.

Whether it’s for Blackberry or some other brand (Vodafone?), CB can confirm that Sydney-based ideas agency Tongue is involved, as confirmed last night by partner and ECD Jonathan Pease.

Although if for Blackberry it may have some input from AMV/BBDO London, which runs the business in all markets outside the US.

Again, if for Blackberry, more clues to this may or may not be revealed at BlackBerry World 2012, which starts in Orlando, Florida on Tuesday (US time). The conference is the largest annual gathering for the BlackBerry ecosystem.

UPDATE: BlackBerry confirmed as client – the following statement has been issued by RIM Australia this morning: “We can confirm that the Australian ‘Wake Up’ campaign, which involves a series of experiential activities taking place across Sydney and Melbourne, was created by RIM Australia. A reveal will take place on May 7th that will aim to provoke conversation on what ‘being in business’ means to Australians.”

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In an era in which job postings at agencies include everything from Scrum Masters to digital technologists, it's no small feat for recruiters to stay up to speed.

The latest spot in the Allianz campaign, which first launched back in January, via agency MercerBell, Sydney.

Titled “Hail”, the commercial depicts a real estate agent who watches her car get damaged by a sudden hailstorm, as she tries desperately to protect it using her signage.

VIEW THE SPOT

Says Julie Dormand, general manager at MercerBell: “We wanted to tap
into the human side of insurance, and specifically to own that moment
when things go wrong, and link that directly to Allianz.”

MercerBell created the successful “One Word” campaign, which commenced
in January 2012, to make that connection and show that when you’re
having an “Ahh!” moment, Ahh-llianz will be there for Australians to
sort it out.

Phase one of the “One Word” campaign has been so successful, that
Allianz turned around its brand recognition in just four weeks of the
campaign. To date the campaign has achieved 66% above norm on brand
linkage and 33% above norm for recognition of the TVC (IPSOS norm
scores).

The TVC runs for six weeks and will be supported
with radio, digital advertising and acquisition direct mail.

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Yet another addition to the ever-growing cloud storage market: local cloud vendor Ninefold is offering its SMB Cloud Drive product with 150GB of storage for up to five users for $39.99 per month.
As a launch special, Ninefold has tripled the amount of data offered with the service, which is usually 50GB. With the added data, it’s pretty competitive with rivals such as Dropbox, which charges …