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Google Webmaster Central and the Google Search Quality team have a new ally in the global fight against Web spam, cloaking, paid links, link farms and other non-sanctioned schemes: the Security Group at the University of Cambridge.

Web sites created by Chicago-based Privila were banned by Google earlier this month after Steven Murdoch of University of Cambridge Computer Labs exposed an alleged cloaking scheme by the content network. Steven Murdoch blogged about his findings on March 6th. Two days later Google removed the sites from its index.

It seems that people and spiders were seeing different pages when they visited sites such as soccerlove.com, ammancarpets.com, and canadianbattery.com. People were seeing display ads created by unpaid interns. Google spiders were seeing keyword-rich articles also churned out by unpaid interns. Windows Live and Yahoo! were seeing neither ads nor articles.

Privila already has added the articles back to the sites but the sites are not yet re-indexed.

Murdoch discovered the cloaking after the computer lab where he works received a link exchange spam email from Privila.

Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

• Yahoo Lagging On Indexing Sites?
  Yahoo has had good conversion numbers for many of us, and if the efforts to add more content are not being recognized by Yahoo then time may be better spent improving existing pages.
• Would Ask be Ask?
  If Ask dismantled its Teoma engine, would Ask still be Ask? The simple answer to this existential question is no.
• SEMPO Running Agency Salary Survey
  Having successfully completed an in-house search marketers’ salary survey, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization is conducting an online salary survey of agency-based search marketers.
• Google Content Network Ads Performing Better?
  Many agencies that advertise on Google’s content network have seen improved results over the past six months.
• The Google Killer - comScore (SCOR) Doomsday Scenario
  ComScore did what Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, and Digg only dreamed of. ComScore killed the search engine star.
• Google Yahoo MSN Live Sitemaps: Cross-Hosting Grokked by SEOs for SEOs
  With sitemaps cross-hosting (or cross-submission), Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft cracked open the door for corporations to outsource search engine optimization.
• SEW Experts: Standards for SEO and SEM: The Time is Now
  The question comes up often in search marketing circles: Is now the time for search engine marketing standards?
• SEW Experts: Drowning in Red Tape: SEO and Pharma Regulations
  In many industries, regulatory issues can add considerable complexity to an SEO implementation. The challenge is not to let that complexity get in the way of a campaign’s success.

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An informal poll by Enid Burns at ClickZ News finds that many agencies that advertise on Google’s content network have seen improved results over the past six months.

Some credit the changes Google has made to improve the network, such as placement targeting, performance reports, and new ad units on Google’s search, content, and mobile networks. Google also shrank the clickable area of AdSense ads to to limit accidental clicks.

Incidentally, that shrinkage is attributed by some as the cause for ComScore’s report of flat click growth for Google, among other declining click volume theories.

This fits with the trend of decreasing AdSense income being reported by publishers.

Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

• Israeli Town Suing Google
  Google is being sued by a northern Israeli town because Google Maps claims it was built on an old Arab village.
• What’s it Really Like to Work at Google?
  Google Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik shares what it’s like to work at Google, hang out with the beautiful people, dream in color, and manufacture atomic-powered ideas from intellectual metal.
• Another AOL Exec Leaves
  AOL says aloha to strategic ad exec Dave Morgan, founder of AOL-acquired Tacoda.
• The adventure of going to SES London for the first time
  About half of the attendees at the Search Engine Strategies 2008 Conference & Expo in London will be going to the event for the first time.
• Yahoo Formally Rejects Microsoft Bid
  The board believes that Microsoft’s proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo.
• SEW Experts: Google AdWords Targeting: Expect More, Pay Less
  Google AdWords placement-targeted campaigns on the content network can be a useful tool, if you can find the sites that support it.
• AOL Yahoo Talk Merger - Microsoft Rebuked
  The i-banks are advising Yahoo on mergers with media and technology firms that might snatch Yang & Co. from the jaws of Microsoft.
• Yahoo Board Escapes MS Bear Hug: Yahoo Jitsu!
  Rumors are rife that Yahoo may tag out in search, tapping its former tag team partner, Google, to crush Microsoft.

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Google AdWords placement-targeted campaigns on the content network can be a useful tool, if you can find the sites that support it. In today’s Content Advertising column, “Google AdWords Targeting: Expect More, Pay Less,” David Szetela discusses AdSense publishers’ options for showing or blocking placement-targeted ads.

The New York Facebook Social Advertising Event Nov. 6, 2007 introduction from boy-wonder Mark Zuckerberg was a millennial harbinger of marketing-things-to-come. If your business or agency’s search marketing department has dismissed Facebook applications & paid ads, as outside of your product’s demographic, think again. Though advertisers are making millions now on the Facebook platform, [...]

Google has changed the way it allows advertisers to target ads by site in its content network, and added a cost-per-click (CPC) bidding option for those ads. While advertisers have been able to target a specific site through site targeting for the past two years, they will now be able to target specific subsections of [...]

Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:
From the SEW Blog:

Getting a Blog’s Benefits, Without a BlogDon’t want to put a blog on your B2B site? You can still get some of [...]

Google is making cost-per-acquisition (CPA) based bidding available to AdWords advertisers through a new Conversion Optimizer tool. Advertisers specify a maximum CPA bid, and then the tool will use historical information about the campaign to automatically generate an optimal CPC bid for each auction.
Advertisers still pay per click, but no longer have to manually adjust [...]

Google has launched a new format for AdWords advertisers: Gadget Ads.
Gadget Ads are an interactive ad unit that will appear on sites in the AdSense content network. Gadget ads can include things like data feeds, images, or video and can be developed using Flash, HTML or a combination of the two. They support both cost-per-click [...]