Advertisers have begun to receive email notifications on their rights in the settlement of the Google AdWords class action suit, settled for $20 million in April. Barry Schwartz quotes from a section on the rights of class members, and provides a list of how the funds will get distributed. The lawyers will collect at least $5 million of the $20 million from this suit. The two main plaintiffs get a mere $20,000 each. Google denies all claim of wrongdoing or liability in the action.

Paid search can help test and improve organic search campaigns, according to Kevin Lee. Instant feedback from the campaign can provide information about content, internal and external link strategies, as well as honing messages on landing pages and improving conversion rates when top organic listings are achieved. Knowing a different home page would convert better for brand traffic, you could make changes without losing top rankings. Lee also explains how to achieve these benefits. For instance, measure the shift of clicks from the top-ranked organic listing into the paid search channel. Armed with this data, you can …

When someone asks David Harry if he gets "nasty emails from the search engines because you pick things apart?" he starts analyzing his relationship, as a SEO, with the engines: "We are not partners my friends, but we aren't viewed as criminals either... we are in truth, the enemy." He adds, "It does make me wonder why the hell 'ol Matt [as in Google's Matt Cutts, natch] even bothers with us at all (keep your friends close and your enemies closer?)." Harry then provides more thoughts on the fine line between friend and foe, noting that SEO …

The Bing team steps through the process for setting Microsoft's new "decision" engine as the default search engine for Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox and Chrome browsers, but no word on Safari. The engine works with IE7 and IE8, but not earlier versions. When the engine first launched, a glitch took IE6 Web browser users for a joy ride, redirecting searches from Google and Yahoo to Bing. The set-up for each browser is a bit different. Both IE8 and Firefox support search provider auto-discovery. The team explains that if you do not have Bing as a search provider …

Beginning at 12:01 a.m. EDT Saturday, users will have an option to choose a name as part of their Facebook URL page. These vanity URLs are expected to increase the use of SEO on the site, according to Erik Dafforn. Dafforn hopes Facebook will do what Google Profiles did: Work to unify and consolidate those profile pages so that while any URL can be requested, only one will be considered the "authority." He provides direction on accomplishing the task. It includes using a 301 redirect, excluding old URLs via the robots.txt file, or adding canonical links to …

It's important to manage Twitter accounts to control your online reputation. Matt Leonard provides four tips to help profiles rank. For starters, optimize title tags and use the correct anchor text. This means writing your name in the profile as it would typically appear on a typed or written page. Twitter won't allow you to add spaces between your "Username," but you can add a space between your first and last name in the "Name" setting. Other tips are to optimize meta descriptions, build followers with links and PageRank, and link Twitter profiles using your name as …

While Microsoft's search engines typically deliver "excellent ROI on PPC," they have suffered from low traffic volumes. So, Melissa Mackey tries to answer whether the "decision engine" can produce more traffic from PPC ads for those using adCenter for Bing. She also provides insight on several new adCenter upgrades. For instance, Mackey writes that advertisers can now use Desktop to add or edit targeting settings such as geo-targeting, day-parting, and bid boosting--features that AdWords Editor currently lacks. A little skeptical on Microsoft's upgrades and rebranding strategy, Mackey plans to take a wait-and-see approach before placing too many clients in …

Should pay-for-performance replace the dollars-for-hours model the SEO industry has come to know well? Stephan Spencer attempts to look at a shift in thinking for those who hold the purse strings, from SEO being an unpredictable "black art," to a marketing channel accountable for results. Spencer writes that he's testing the concept by developing a scalable, automated natural search technology solution and pricing it on a cost-per-click basis. The company still has flat-fee pricing for SEO audits and monthly retainers for its ongoing SEO consulting, just like everyone else, but added this option for those who want to …

Every site needs an SEO blueprint -- among the topics that Manny Rivas runs down from the SES Toronto session on Information Architecture, Site Performance, Tuning and SEO. The recap from the conference also includes subjects like JavaScript links, nofollows, robots.txt, canonicals, on-page meta no-index tags, and 301 redirects. For example: performace issues can impact indexing. The slower the Web site, the fewer pages crawled during a search engine's scheduled visit, Rivas writes.

Marshall Clark calls Google's PageRank system "old tech" and believes Google needs to evolve the process to take into account who wrote the content, not just where it lives. Clark believes the solution resides in associating reputation with the identity of the author. He calls it "PageRank for People," and makes a list of criteria the algorithm would consider when ranking. For instance, it might consider previous ratings, reputation of each rater, where the person has been published, length of time online, and perhaps a semantic analysis of the content.