Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Small Dot Annoying Firefox 3 Users in Google Search
A Google Web Search Help thread has a group of searchers complaining about a single pixel that shows up when you click the next or previous buttons in Google Search. This only seems to show up for a second, when you click the next or previous button, but it also only shows up in Firefox 3. Here are pictures: As you can see, I circled in red, the pixel that seems to be really bugging
Google Maps Showing Adult Images From Panoramio
Yesterday, we reported that Google’s Local Business Center was injected by escort services in the Google Maps results (by the way, it is still there). Today, I spotted a thread in Google Maps Help thread with a complaint from a person who lives in Ave Maria, Florida that an adult-like image shows up in the “Explore this area” section of Google Maps for a search on Ave Maria, Florida. Here is a screen shot: When
Google Bug Leads to More “We’re Sorry” Errors for Searchers
Ever conduct a search at Google and be presented with a “We’re sorry” error from Google? The image on the right is what you would see and Google thinks you are a machine conducting automated queries and they want to validate you as a human. Well, over the past few days, I have been noticing a much larger number of threads with complaints from searchers that they have been getting this message. I typically see
Should You Abbreviate Words in Your Google AdWords Copy?
A HighRankings Forum thread has discussion around a topic I have never seen before. Should you ever consider using abbreviations in a title or description of your search ads? Here is the question from the advertiser: I’m writing a PPC headline and would like to know about abbreviating a word in the title instead of spelling it out completely. For example; ‘flr’ instead of ‘floor’…Reason is to save space in order to fit copy all
Google Slaps Google Japan With PageRank Penalty, Webmasters Cheerfully Surprised
Last night at Search Engine Land I reported that Google Penalizes Google Japan For Buying Links. In short, the Google Japan team took on a marketing initiative to of paying bloggers for reviews, that turned out to be paid links, which they did not know was against Google’s guidelines. In turn, Google’s search quality team slapped Google Japan with a PageRank penalty, from a PR9 to a PR5. Matt Cutts of Google twittered the event

SMX West Day Three Coverage:

Live Coverage of Productivity Tips For The Busy Search Marketer at SMX West
Live Coverage of Ask The Search Engines at SMX West
Live Coverage of Ask The SEOs at SMX West
Live Coverage of Ask The Link Builders at SMX West
Live Coverage of Keynote: John Battelle at SMX West

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

Google Beta Testing AdSense for Mobile Search, WebmasterWorld
Why does Google Search for County web address return adult sites?, Google Webmaster Help
accessibility and <h1> header images, WebmasterWorld
Google using href lang attribute for language recognition?, WebmasterWorld