The Adsense King

Defining invalid clicks and click fraud

2008-08-10T20:22:00.001-07:00

We often receive questions from new publishers about what these two terms mean, and we'd like to help you understand the difference.

Invalid clicks are clicks for which we decide not to charge our AdWords advertisers, since they may artificially drive up advertiser cost or publisher revenue. These include extraneous clicks without any value to the advertiser, such as the second click of a double-click. They also include many other types of clicks that we've determined aren't motivated by genuine user interest.

"Invalid clicks" are often confused with "clicking on your own ads". However, we'd like to stress that invalid clicks are generally any clicks that artificially inflate advertiser cost or publisher revenue, regardless of their source.

Click fraud is a subset of invalid clicks that are generated with malicious or fraudulent intent -- in other words, clicks that are intended to drive up advertiser cost or publisher revenue artificially. Sources for these clicks include, but are not limited to:
A publisher clicking on his own ads, or encouraging clicks on his ads
Users or family members clicking to support the site / publisher
Third-party programs with user incentives, such as paid-to-click services and click-exchanges
Automated clicking tools, robots, or other deceptive software
The same principles above apply to ad impressions and conversions as well. Some sources of invalid impressions include, but are not limited to:
Excessive page refreshes, generated either manually or automatically
Third-party programs with user incentives, such as paid-to-surf or auto-surf programs
Third-party programs for purchasing fixed amounts of traffic, e.g. "$10 for 1,000 page views"

As a reminder, any method that artificially generates clicks, impressions, or conversions is strictly prohibited by our program policies. You can also find more information about these topics in our Invalid Clicks FAQ.

How to Find Advertisers for Your Website: The Ultimate Guide

2008-07-31T18:49:00.000-07:00

[Firstly i would just like to give credit to Daniel Scocco at www.dailyblogtips.com for this arcticle that i have reposted here. its an excellent article. Make sure you visit their site for tons more great articles on blogs.]

Direct advertising sales is arguably the best method to monetize a
website. Finding advertisers for your site and actually closing the
deals, however, is not as straight forward. Over the past 6 months I
had more than 10 high profile companies sponsoring Daily Blog Tips, and
through out this article I will share what I have learned along the way.

The Pros

More money: The first advantage of selling your
own ads is the fact that you will cut the middlemen out, increasing
your revenue potential. Suppose you sell text link ads on your sidebar
through a certain company, and the text links sell for $50 monthly.
Since you are using the company network to sell the ads, they will eat
50% of the price, and you will end up earning only $25 monthly for each
text link. If someone is willing to pay $50 for a text link on your
site, though, it means that they are getting $50 of value out of it.
Why, then, should you share that with someone else?
Independence: Sure, large advertising networks
have access to a wider pool of advertisers, and they have more
credibility to close the deals. But if you have all the requirements in
place (see the section below) and spend some time looking at the right
places, I am sure that you will be able to sell your own ads just as
efficiently as the larger networks.
Flexibility: The third advantage of selling direct
advertising is that you will have much more control over where and how
the ads will be displayed (i.e., you can avoid intrusive advertising).
Google Adsense is nice, but unless you blend it with the content –
annoying some of the readers – you will get terribly low click-through
rates.
Credibility: Finally, having sponsors and direct
advertisers on your blog might help your credibility. Even small and
poorly crafted blogs can stick some Adsense units here and there.
Having established companies that are willing to partnership with your
site, on other hand, can signal that your content has quality and that
the site is somewhat professional.

The Cons

Time consuming: While selling your own ads has
many advantages, it is no panacea. The first drawback of this
monetization option is the time that it will consume. This time will be
spent optimizing your website for the ads, finding potential
advertisers, negotiating with them, and handling the administrative
matters (e.g., making payments, tracking statistics, delivering reports
and so on).
Many requirements: Selling direct adverting is not
as easy as making money from Google Adsense. As you can see from the
section below, you will need to have a popular blog, a professional
looking design, special software and the like.
Unstable: Unless you close deals for very long
periods, which is unlikely, you will find your self looking for new
advertisers or optimizing your website to attract new ones every other
month. The opposite is true for most advertising networks, where you
just need to plug some code and they will do the rest of the work. (If
your site or blog is just a hobby, therefore, direct advertising might
not be the best option)

What You Need to Have in Place

A popular website: Before landing direct
advertising deals you will need to have a good amount of traffic on
your site. There is no “magical” number here, but a good rule of thumb
would be 1000 daily unique visitors. If you are below that mark you
should focus on building traffic instead of looking for advertisers.
Other factors like Google Pagerank, RSS subscribers and Alexa rank
might also help. (Notice that small websites might also be able to sell
direct advertising, but usually the time spent on that will not justify
the results)
A clear focus: You might have the most popular
site on the Internet (well, not as extreme as that, but you get the
point), but unless your site also has a very clear niche and a defined
audience, advertisers will not find it very attractive. This means that
you should avoid rambling about 100 different topics on the website.
Advertisers want to deliver a message to specific people, and the more
specific the better.
A professional looking design: If you are planning
to monetize your website through sponsors, you probably should invest
some money into a professional looking design. Advertisers will be
associating their product or service with your website, and not too
many of them would be willing to get mixed with an ugly, MySpace
looking site.
Give visibility to the sponsors: This point is
connected to the previous one. Not all templates and themes will be
suitable for selling direct advertising. Preferably you want to have an
idea of what kind of advertising you will sell (e.g., 468×60 banners,
125×125 banners, text links) and design your website according to those
objectives. Advertisers want visibility, so reserve a good spot for
them.
Adserver software: In order to serve your ads,
rotate banners and track statistics you will need to install an
Adserver. If you are looking for a simple solution you should try WP-Ads.
This Wordpress plugin will serve ads for specific ad zones that you
create. The only drawback is that it does not count clicks (only
impressions). If you need a more sophisticated solution check OpenAds. You will need to spend some time learning how to use it, but it offers virtually all the features you will ever need.
“Advertise Here” page: It is very important to have an
“Advertise Here” page. On this page you want to give some details about
the website, like audience, traffic and any other factor that might be
of the interest of potential advertisers. Secondly, make sure that you
have some link to that page on the navigation bar and if possible close
to the zone where the ads will be displayed. You can see a perfect
example of such layout on Copyblogger.com.
Standard letter to approach advertisers: While
some advertisers will contact you after reading your “Advertise Here”
page, the rest of them will need to be directly approached by you. In
that case, it is a good idea to create a standard letter to contact the
advertisers. There is no “one size fits all” solution here, but you can
follow some general guidelines:
1. Introduce yourself and quickly explain what the email is about

2. Explain why you decided to contact them and what they have to gain

3. Give details about your site (traffic, subscribers, topic, audience)

4. Give details about the advertising options (location on the site, max number of advertisers, monthly price)

That is it, after that information the advertisers should be able to
decide if they are interested or not. If they reply, then you will fix
the details. Bear in mind that all the info I mentioned should be
contained in 2 or 3 paragraphs. If you send an essay to potential
advertisers they will just skip it altogether.
Accepting payments: You might have
everything in place, but if you are not able to cash payments – or more
importantly, if advertisers are not able to pay easily – you will end
up losing deals. PayPal is the best option here. Notice, however, that
a personal account will not suffice. You will need at least a premier
account to be able to accept credit cards.

Where to Find the Advertisers

Once you have your direct advertising program established, you will
start to receive inquiries from people. On the beginning, however, you
will need to hunt advertisers down. Do not get discouraged if get
turned down initially, provided you have all the aforementioned
requirements, sooner or later you will find someone willing to take a
shot on your site.

People linking to your site or articles: If a company
is willing to link to your articles or to add your website under its
“Links” or “Resources” section, it is also probably willing to discuss
about advertising on your site. Keep track of those incoming links.
People leaving comments/e-mails: The same
principle applies to people leaving comments on your blog or sending
you e-mails. If among them you see an employee or the owner of a
company that could be interested on your website, bingo! Contact him or
her and get the conversation going.
AdWords advertisers: Through out your search for
advertisers you will notice that most of the established companies are
not aware of the benefits of online advertising. If a certain company
is already spending money on Google AdWords, however, it is very likely
that it would also be open to other forms of online advertising. Think
about some keywords that are related to your topic and Google them.
Check the sponsored links that will appear and contact them. (You can
also check the advertisers that appear on the Adsense units of related
websites)
Other advertising networks: While Google AdWords is by
far the largest advertising network on the Internet, there are many
others that could be useful. Check the companies that are spending
money on AdBrite, Text-Link-Ads, BlogAds, SponsoredReviews and so on.
Banner advertisers on similar sites: Check out popular
websites on your niche and see what companies are advertising there.
Provided you offer them an interesting deal (i.e., a reasonable price
for your size), I am pretty sure they will be interested.
Create a “Potential Sponsors” bookmark folder:
This technique produced outstanding results for me. I have a bookmark
folder on my browser called “Potential Sponsors.” Every time I come
across a company or website that could be interested in sponsoring my
website, I bookmark it. Currently I have over 100 bookmarked sites on
that folder, and I have not approached half of them yet.

How Much to Charge

You need to provide value: It is all about value.
A potential sponsor or advertiser will want to see some returns for the
money he will be spending on your site, and this can be seen as
visibility (impressions) and leads (clicks and possible sales). Make
sure, therefore, that your advertising deals will deliver.
The numbers: Remember that there are some pretty
cheap advertising options out there (e.g., Google AdWords), and you
will need to be competitive. Provided you reserved a good spot for the
sponsors (sidebar or header, preferably) you could start charging a
$0,5 CPM (cost per 1000 impressions). If your blog is generating
100,000 monthly page views, therefore, a banner spot on your sidebar
should cost around $50. Start low and build your way upwards. Popular
blogs (e.g., TechCrunch) have a higher CPM, sometimes as high as $10,
but you will need a huge credibility to arrive there.
Cross-check: You can easily check if you are
charging a suitable rate by using Adsense units on the places where you
will sell direct advertising. Analyze how much you would gain with
Adsense, and adjust your rates accordingly. Secondly, you can also
check similar sites that are already selling direct ads.
Be flexible regarding the terms: Flexibility is
key. First of all make advertising agreements on a month-to-month
basis. People don’t like to commit to something they are not completely
sure about. If someone proposes you a longer deal, offer a discount in
exchange.
Offer test periods: Unless you have a very popular
website, you will find potential advertisers reluctant to spend real
money. If you are confident that the deal will create value for both
parties, however, you can use that on your favor. Offer a free test
period whenever needed. Some of the times the advertiser will turn you
down after it, but other times they will confirm the deal. Either way
you have nothing to lose.

Live Search Adds Home Page "Hotspots"

2008-07-30T22:56:00.001-07:00

Microsoft just announced the official U.S. launch of their new home page. The home page was seen in test mode a few months back, but now it is officially live.

The home page contains a background image, which contains "hotspots," used to show off some of the search queries available at Live Search. The home page background images are suppose to change over time and thus generate different query "hotspots," for the end users to play with.

Here is a picture of the new home page, as I see it now:

If you look when the page loads, you will see hotspots fade in and out. If you hover your mouse over the page, you will notice that those hotspots will activate and show you a query. Here is one example of a hotspot on the Live Search home page:

This specific result took me to a Live Video Search query for animals in Bostwana. But other hotspots show off web search, map search and so on.

This looks like another way for Microsoft to generate more search queries, i.e. come play the Live Search home page scavenger hunt, if you will.

A peek into recent AdWords developments

2008-07-22T09:30:00.001-07:00

If you're an avid Inside AdSense reader, you know that we
frequently post about the latest developments in AdSense and new
features you can take advantage of. However, we've heard from some
publishers that they want to know more about what's happening in
AdWords, and what we're doing to bring more relevant, targeted ads to
AdSense sites like yours. With that, we'd like to take a moment to give
you insight into a few recent AdWords developments, and what they mean
for you as an AdSense publisher.

One of the main changes is
the ability for advertisers to be more specific with their ad targeting
through a combination of contextual targeting and placement targeting.
As you may know, contextually targeted ads will appear on your pages if
an advertiser's keywords match your content, while placement-targeted
ads will appear if an advertiser has specifically selected your ad
placement or site. Now, advertisers can target your site or placements,
but can also specify keywords for them so that their ads only appear in
the most relevant pages. These ads will still need to compete with the
available inventory of ads for a particular placement, and so only the
highest-paying, most relevant ads will appear on your pages. At the
same time, you'll still be able to use your Competitive Ad Filter to prevent ads from specific URLs from appearing.

What
does this mean for you, as an AdSense publisher? Your users may see
more relevant ads on your pages, and advertisers who become more
confident that their ads are reaching the right audience may increase
their ad spend -- both of these can result in higher monetization for
you. In addition, while advertisers previously could only change their
bids for all ads running across multiple sites, they can now adjust
their bids for individual sites. This means that advertisers can spend
more of their budgets on the specific AdSense sites which perform well
and generate high-quality leads for the advertiser.

With these
recent improvements, we're looking forward to expanding the number of
advertisers who use the AdSense content network and increasing the
relevance of their ads on your sites. Not only will this increase your
earnings potential through the AdSense program, but it will also
strengthen the ads ecosystem that benefits publishers, advertisers, and
users.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

Google launches virtual reality site

2008-07-09T07:02:00.001-07:00

Internet search leader debuts 'Lively,' an online world in which Web users can interact with each other using avatars.

Last Updated: July 9, 2008: 9:36 AM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- In the latest expansion beyond its main mission of organizing the world's information, Internet search leader Google Inc. hopes to orchestrate more fantasizing on the Web.

The Mountain View-based company unveiled a free service Tuesday in which three-dimensional software enables people to congregate in electronic rooms and other computer-manufactured versions of real life. The service, called "Lively," represents Google's answer to a 5-year-old site, Second Life, where people deploy animated alter egos known as avatars to navigate through virtual reality.

Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) thinks Lively will encourage even more people to dive into alternate realities because it isn't tethered to one Web site like Second Life, and it doesn't cost anything to use. After installing a small packet of software, a user can enter Lively from other Web sites, like social networking sites and blogs.

The Lively application already works on Facebook, one of the Web's hottest hangouts, and Google is working on a version suitable for an even larger online social network, News Corp.'s (NWS, Fortune 500) MySpace.

"We know people already spend a lot of time online socializing, so we just want to try to make it more enjoyable," said Niniane Wang, a Google engineering manager who oversaw Lively's creation over the past year.

Although Google is best known for the search engine that generates most of its profits, the company has introduced other services that are widely used without making much, if any, money. Google's peripheral products include its 3-D "Earth" software, Picasa for sharing photos and programs for word processing, calendars and spreadsheets.

Google has no plans to sell advertising in Lively, Wang said.

But the service could still indirectly help the company if it encourages people to remain online longer. Google's management reasons that more frequent Web surfing ultimately will lead to more moneymaking clicks on the ads it shows alongside its search results and millions of other Web sites.

Lively's users will be able to sculpt an avatar that can be male, female or even a different species. An avatar can assume a new identity, change clothes or convey emotions with a few clicks of the mouse.

The service also enables users to create different digital dimensions to roam, from a coffeehouse to an exotic island. The settings can be decorated with a wide variety of furniture, including large-screen televisions that can be set up to play different clips from YouTube.com, Google's video-sharing service.

Lively users can then invite their friends and family into their virtual realities, where they can chat, hug, cry, laugh and interact as if they were characters in a video game.

As a precaution, Google is requiring Lively's users to be at least 13 years old - a constraint that hasn't been enough to prevent young children from running into trouble on other social spots on the Web.

Google spent several months testing Lively among a group of Arizona State University students before opening the service to the public through its "Labs" section - a technology sandbox set up for the company's experimental products.

First Published: July 8, 2008: 7:28 PM EDT

[CNN]

AdSense Announce Video Units for Australian and Japanese Publishers

2008-07-06T16:21:00.001-07:00

AdSense Announce Video Units for Australian and Japanese PublishersAdsense 14 commentsIf you live in Australia or Japan you’ll want to check out the AdSense blog today because they’ve just announced that Video Units are now available to you as a publisher. They also mention that you ‘may’ be able to now become a YouTube partner and make money off your own videos (what ‘may’ means I’m about to find out as I’ve just applied).What are video units? “video units are embedded, customizable video players which both enrich sites with relevant video content and enable publishers to earn extra revenue. Relevant and non-intrusive companion and text ads accompany the video content.” Read more about AdSense video units.

How to Optimize Your AdSense Performance [VIDEO]

2008-07-06T16:14:00.001-07:00

Two Australian AdSense team members, Mel Ann and Tim, have put together a good introductory guide to optimizing AdSense.

It’s not advanced but if you’re just starting out with AdSense it’s worth a watch.

Adsense Referrals going Away!

2008-07-02T22:43:00.001-07:00

We're constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate your patience during this transition and here are some alternative options to consider:

Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For further details, please visit: http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/.
AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the referral ad units with standard AdSense for content ad units.

If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August. We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is retired:

Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your ad space.
Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create and save all reports related to the referrals program on your desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign information.

Thank you for your support of AdSense Referrals in the past. If you have any additional questions, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Anuj Srivastava - AdSense Product Marketing

Diagnosing The SEO Health Of Your Website

2008-04-25T03:20:00.001-07:00

Is your website sick?

In many ways, SEO consultants are like doctors, only instead of analyzing your personal health symptoms, we analyze the overall health of your website. It's true we're not working with life or death situations the same way doctors do, but having a website that is not receiving all the targeted search engine traffic it could be, is a sign of a sick website.

When working with a new client our first task is to research their website's symptoms of underperformance. Once we diagnose what the problems are, we can provide a "cure" that will make the website perform better. As with human health, there are varying degrees of website unhealthiness; for people it might range from those that just need to get more exercise to those who have an all out deadly disease. For websites, it can vary from those that can't even get their pages indexed by search engines (and thus are not able to receive any organic search visitors), to those who are receiving lots of organic traffic, but could be obtaining more.

In all cases, a sick website is leaving money on the table.

here are a number of factors that need to be carefully reviewed in order to diagnose exactly where and how you're leaving money on the table. At High Rankings we've developed our own comprehensive technical SEO checklist which came out of many years of auditing 100's of websites.

One of the first diagnostic tests in our checklist is to see how Google views your home page (or any page of your site) by taking a peek at how it looks in Google's "text cache."

Reviewing the x-ray

The text cache is different than the "full cache" that you normally see, as it strips out all graphics and anything else that Google doesn't actually read or index. Google's full cache is similar to a photo of your website, while the text cache is more akin to an x-ray.

You can go directly to the text cache of any page by copying this URL into your browser (substituting your domain for example.com): http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.example.com/&hl=en&lr=&strip =1

Just as when you see how the inner workings of your body look on an x-ray, what you see in the text cache may surprise you—it's not going to be pretty. But, like an x-ray, reviewing the text cache can often reveal trouble buried deep in your website's programming that you didn't know existed.

Here are some warning signs of poor website health that you may spot when looking at your page through Google's text cache:

Some of the page content (the words) is missing, you see a completely blank page, or there's just some text that says you have to download an application or enable something in order to view the page.
Links that normally exist in your main navigation are nowhere to be seen.
There's a list of unlinked words that are normally contained in a dropdown menu.
You see a bunch of keyword-stuffed paragraphs that you've never seen when viewing the page normally.

Let's look further at each of these warning signs (symptoms), make a diagnosis as to what's happening and then provide a cure.

The Symptom: Missing page content

The diagnosis: Missing page content happens when the text on the page is in a form that Google can't index. If your home page shows up as a completely blank page, chances are that it's actually one giant graphic (or a series of multiple graphics), or the page is completely embedded in Flash. If it's just missing portions of text, the missing text is probably not coded in HTML, but is instead a graphical image of text. Since the search engines have to be able to read and index information from your page to understand how to classify it (and ultimately how to rank it) the words on your page need to be coded as plain-old-fashioned HTML text.

The cure: Convert any words on the page that are embedded in graphics into HTML text. Redesign Flash websites so that only images are coded in Flash, not the important information that you want your users and the search engines to read. There are a few alternative work arounds for these things, but they are more like band-aids than a true cure.

The Symptom: Missing navigational links

The diagnosis: If the links in your main navigation are not showing up, then chances are you're using some sort of search engine "unfriendly" navigation such as one that requires JavaScript or Flash. Or you may be using image navigation that has no alt attribute text (aka "alt tags").

The cure: If your navigation is comprised of unindexable DHTML code or Flash, then recode it using a search engine friendly CSS menu. If that's not possible in the short-term, then place the links contained within your navigation into a <noscript> tag so that the search engines as well as those with JavaScript disabled (or no Flash) will be able to follow the links. If it's simply a case of using image links without alt attributes, then add descriptive alt attribute text that describes the page the link is pointing to. The search engines do not have a problem following image links (with or without alt attribute text) but they will be better able to classify the links when you add descriptive text to them.

The Symptom: List of unlinked words

The diagnosis: When you see this, you are most likely looking at the contents of a drop-down navigational menu. Google indexes the text of those menus, but it doesn't see them as links, and therefore can't get to or index the URLs of the pages contained within them. If the only way to find the resulting pages is through the drop-down, it's unlikely they will get indexed.

The cure: If the pages that are reached through your drop-down menu are ones that you want indexed by Google, then either change your drop-down into a more search engine friendly navigation system, or add some alternative navigation that contains links to the URLs in your drop-down. It's important to note that while you could put these types of links into a site map to help them get indexed, this is also a bit of a bandaid approach as they won't be given very much weight in the eyes of the search engines if the site map is the only place from which they are linked.

The Symptom: Keyword stuffed paragraphs that aren't normally visible

The diagnosis: Somebody who has control of your site has been messing with it to try to trick the search engines! Amazingly enough, people (and some dumb SEO companies) still use hidden text as an SEO technique. It's pretty silly, and in all likelihood if the page is ranking well, it's probably doing so despite the hidden text, not because of it. Think of this like smoking cigarettes; it might not hurt you in the short term, but it's definitely not good for your long-term health. Competitors have been known to squeal to Google about hidden text, and a quick review by a search engineer could kill the website for good.

The cure: Find the offending hidden code in the website and remove it as soon as possible. If someone you hired to optimize your site recommended this tactic, you may want to find a new SEO company immediately!

Using Google's text cache is just one of the tools we use to diagnose the overall health of your website. There are many additional potential problem areas that you'll need to look into as well, which I'll write about in future articles.

[Source: Searchengineland]

New Google CIO: Morgan Stanley's Benjamin Fried

2008-04-25T03:19:00.001-07:00

News.com reports that Benjamin Fried, a Morgan Stanley managing director, has been pegged to fill the chief information officer spot that opened up when Douglas Merrill left earlier this month. Google's confirmed the move.

That's fast work. The company is still seeking a new chief financial officer after George Reyes announced he was leaving last August. Over half a year later, Reyes remains on while the search for a replacement continues.

See Megachart & Analysis: Google Management Changes, 2000-2008 for a look at Google top management changes over the years.

Yahoo Adds Click Filter Report

2008-04-23T10:27:00.001-07:00

Yahoo announced a new reporting feature in the search marketing portal that enables advertisers to see which clicks Yahoo has deemed to be invalid. The report is named the "Click Filter Report" and is available by clicking the “Reports” tab, then selecting “Click Filter” under the “Traffic Quality Reports” section in the Reports Navigator on the left side of the screen.

In this report, you can see exactly which clicks Yahoo is classifying as clicks that were not from a valid source. These clicks you won't be billed for, according to Yahoo. Yahoo said they created the report for three reasons:

We want to give you as much transparency as we can
We want to add to the tools at your disposal for monitoring your own traffic.
We believe our Click Protection System is one of the best in the industry, and we want you to see what it does for your account.

Search Illustrated: International SEO Tips

2008-04-22T19:52:00.001-07:00

Search engine optimization can extend far past domestic versions of the major search engines. Some globally-focused companies want increased visibility in country-specific search engines outside of the U.S. market. This week's infographic illustrates some tips and best practices associated with successful international optimization.

[Searchengineland.com]

Google’s Special China Page and Its Helper Cartoon

2008-04-21T02:49:00.001-07:00

Maybe Google’s “Cliply” was only an easter egg (see previous post), but Google does have a help avatar on a homepage variant of theirs in China. The cartoon figure is called 小谷, which can be losely translated to “small valley” or “little Goo” (as “xiǎo gǔ” reuses a part of Google’s Chinese name). Little Goo gives tips on how to use Google search, e.g. how to bring up weather or calculator onebox results. You can click the [x] in the thought bubble to make Goo go away... but the helper returns next time you load the page. Perhaps Lil’ Goo and Clippy are distant cousins or something.

What’s this special Chinese homepage anyway? We mentioned it before, but it’s not Google’s main page when accessing google.cn in China (that honor goes to another page). Rather, I have reason to believe the page is set to be the default homepage in some internet cafes in China as part of a certain deal Google struck. One Chinese blogger who likes to remain anonymous tells me Google might not have paid enough though, as sometimes games sites like ztgame.com are default in net bars. Internet cafe operators only have low basic salary but have a share in the profits, the source says, indicating that while Google.cn is a student, Ztgame is godfather.

Another Google Video Redesign

2008-04-21T02:48:00.001-07:00

Google Video redesigned their US homepage again; above, you can see the past designs of Google Video leading to the current one*. The service started out as a video-free search service for stills and captions from TV, then became a video storage & sales site, and since last year, is a meta video search engine. The latest design recommends a couple of “hot videos,” which play in a left-side player if you click on them. “The hot video list is compiled by looking at a variety of signals including videos that most shared, viewed and blogged about,” Google says. Most of the video recommendations at the moment are from Google-owned YouTube.

Below the hot videos, another section lists videos “Featured on AOL” probably put up due to the alliance between Google and AOL; this is typical of how portal-style sites usually emphasize what their partners have to offer as opposed to what the user may really look for.

The Google Video player page has also been reorganized. It looks a bit more organized and application-like now, letting you expand and collapse its elements, and using tabs or arrow-button paging to organize comments and other features.

When you play videos from other sites, Google continues to wrap them in a frame, but Google’s part of the frame is now positioned to the left instead of the top, perhaps to not push down videos too much on the page:

Google’s frame can be closed with an X to its top right, but that won’t remove the frameset itself, so the video URL (e.g. when shared with friends) will still point to Google; you can click “original context” at the bottom of Google’s frame though to remove their frameset completely**.

I’m curious how this frame benefits Google users in the first place though. At Google images, where a similar frame is used, it serves a purpose because the target image is often buried deep down in the page, making it harder to find (clicking on the thumbnail at the top will lead directly to the image then). Usually no such obstacle is found on video result pages, though, where the video is visible immediately – perhaps making the first beneficiary of that Google frame Google Inc itself, as it makes users stay longer on their site. What’s more, Google’s “share” and “related videos” features offered in their frame are usually redundant as the target video site already offers these. (In 2004, Google co-founder Larry Page told Playboy, “We want you to come to Google and quickly find what you want. Then we’re happy to send you to the other sites. In fact, that’s the point. The portal strategy tries to own all of the information.” The 4 years that passed since then are a long time on the web.)

Google Video’s search result pages changed in this redesign, too. By default you will see a thumbnail to the left and snippet and link too the right, ordered in a list view. But now you can toggle to a grid view as well as a TV view on top. The TV view splits the page into a list to the left and a player widget to the middle right. Clicking on a result in the TV view will dynamically embed the other video sharing site’s video. While this also keeps users longer at Google Video than at other sites, this time the feature makes sense for users, as no features (like related videos, or sharing) are mirrored on the page. Video sharing sites will likely continue to add more commercials of their own right into the embedded films to make money, independent of which site the user is on. However, the end result of the TV view is not quite as fluent as zapping through TV channels at all time because partly, the external site (like tudou.com) will be very slow to load.

[Thanks Jilm!]

*Not all homepage design iterations are included in that image.

**Note this frameset is also not included when you click on video search results from Google’s main web search engine, which continues to be a video search engine as well as part of Google’s “universal search” approach. Universal search aims to let people search through all kinds of content without having to visit the specialized search homepage.

Google Gets Whois Answers In Search Results

2008-04-21T02:46:00.001-07:00

Looks like Google's gained a new direct answer service, whois information for domains. Enter a query like whois searchengineland.com, and you'll be told when the domain was registered and expires, along with a link to more information from the Domain Tools site. Here's a screenshot:

Google's not done a formal announcement, but Matt Cutts just noted it on his blog here.

As Google Operating System notes, back in 2004 Google rolled out a somewhat similar service that was quickly ended after Network Solutions blocked Google's requests.

Postscript: Note, some people aren't seeing this feature. It might still be buggy, while there also seems to be some availability issues, too.

"Browser Search Engine" ChunkIt Launches

2008-04-21T02:44:00.001-07:00

On Friday ChunkIt launched in a private beta. ChunkIt is a search download that sits on top of existing results and enables users to preview them before clicking. Relevant "chunks" of content are called out in a separate pane that splits the screen between the engine and the ChunkIt page.

At this stage it sounds a lot like other search plug-ins, toolbars, or search "side bars" that have come before. However, CEO Carlton Baab objects to the concept that this is simply another plug-in or search toolbar. He characterizes it instead as a "search engine for the browser."

In the past, there have been numerous efforts to help users cull through search results via plug-ins, toolbars, or search add-ons. Recent entries include Mahalo Follow and Surf Canyon, a plug-in that "recommends" related search results. Then there are numerous Firefox extensions that augment or annotate search results. There have also been many third-party efforts to enable people to "preview" results prior to clicking (e.g., Snap ). And there's an emerging category of so-called "visual search engines," which push that concept further.

Baab says, by contrast, that ChunkIt is a powerful search engine could stand on its own. But the company didn't want to ask people, for obvious reasons, to try yet another new engine. So it adopted the current download/overlay strategy, which may change over time according to Baab.

An interesting search plug-in in the local segment, Palore changed its model because it found getting people to download the application very challenging. The company is now aggregating and syndicating local data and reselling it to consumer destinations instead. Analytics firm Compete was at one time pushing a toolbar, which offers overlay information on search results about a range of topics. While the toolbar still exists, the company has stopped directly promoting it on its home page.

These examples suggest the challenge that ChunkIt faces to gain awareness ad adoption. The tool is in private beta so we haven't yet had a chance to assess its value.

Google Offers Best Practices For Moving A Site

2008-04-17T08:10:00.001-07:00

Google's Webmaster Central blog wrote a best practices for moving your site to a new domain. I am happy with Google's write up and it is a great first step, but I am a strong advocate of a Google Certified Domain Change process within Webmaster Tools.

In any event, here is a summary of what Google recommends:

Test moving part of your site to the new domain first.
Use 301 redirects to notify Google of the change.
Redirect your pages to the most relevant new page, when possible.
If you are rebranding your site also, maybe first move the original site and then do a redesign.
Make sure your internal links are pointing to the new domain.
Try to encourage external links to change to the new domain.
Hold on to old domain for 180 days
Register and verify the new site with Webmaster Tools and then submit a sitemap.
Review crawl errors within Webmaster Tools on both the new and old domain.

I have some additional resources at the Search Engine Roundtable on moving domains.

Google Australia's Director Has Six Birthdays?

2008-04-14T06:46:00.001-07:00

Google execs out of sight from The Australian reports that Google Australia's Director, Mark Tucker, has six official birthdays.

According the report, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has six different recorded birthdays for Mr. Tucker. The birthdays include January 21, 1953, January 13, 1953, January 25, 1953, January 12, 1953, January 12, 1963 and March 12, 1953. Tucker said the six different birthdays are "typographical errors" and will be corrected. But like TechCrunch, it just seems weird to me to have six typos, maybe two, maybe three, but six?

Secrets Of Paid Search Success From 1930s Direct Mail Wizards

2008-04-14T06:45:00.001-07:00

If you buy search ads to drive sales, you are a direct response advertiser. Welcome, today's short column is for you.

If you buy search to increase awareness of your brand, you're a brand advertiser. Sorry, but this column is for the direct response gang, us red-headed step-kids of the advertising world. Save us a canapé from the awards banquet; we'll be back at the office with our spreadsheets.

Just us direct response folks? OK, here's today's suggestion: we search marketers can learn a lot from the direct mail wizards.

Putting it more crudely: if Claude Hopkins was alive, his Google campaigns would kick ass.

Claude Hopkins. Albert Lasker. John Caples. David Ogilvy. Leo Burnett. Maxwell Sackheim.

If you don't know these names, you should.

They're the guys who invented direct response. It was called "direct mail" back then, but the rules are the same. Their ideas for getting an envelope opened, an ad read, and a check written are still effective today for getting a link clicked, an Add To Cart button pushed, and a VISA number typed in.

Long before the Digg crowd discovered the importance of headlines for linkbaiting, Claude Hopkins had that idea covered. Check out Hopkins on headlines -- that was published in 1923!

The early mail guys knew what mattered: tracking your results, knowing your profitability metrics, marketing to strong lists, testing different versions, writing compelling headlines, crafting copy which sells.

To learn more, head to the library or Amazon. These dusty tomes are pure web marketing rocket fuel:

Scientific Advertising, Claude Hopkins, 1923 (free online)
Tested Advertising Methods, John Caples, 1932
Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy, 1985

Another classic direct mail idea relevant to search: the List-Offer-Package Rule.

The List-Offer-Package Rule states that when you are trying to sell something remotely, the list (who you are communicating with) is more important than the offer (the details of what you are selling, the item, the pricing, the guarantee); and the list and the offer are more important than the package (how it looks, the copy, the artwork, color and typography).

Years ago a consultant gave me this example.

"Say you are selling sets of collectible china plates with the state birds on them. If you had a list of people who recently bought collectible plates, that would be a good start."

"Now if you had a list of people who had recently bought collectible plates with animals on them via the mail or web, that would be even better."

"If you had that targeted list, you could practically send them a handwritten scribbled postcard saying 'Hi I have some plates that would interest you' and you'd pull a 5% response rate."

"Suppose you had a totally killer direct mail piece for these plates, with a powerful long letter written by an top DM copywriter, beautiful pictures and optimized response card, buck slip, the whole shebang tested and proven in the mail with solid split tests."

"Say you mailed this killer package to a generic list, perhaps, women aged 50+. You’d be lucky to see 0.5% response rate."

"That's the critical idea of the List-Offer-Package Rule: even a plain note to a highly targeted list will outpull the perfect package sent to an untargeted list by 10 to 1."

I personally learned the List-Offer-Package Rule a decade ago, and it has held true in everything I've observed since.

How does List-Offer-Package apply to search?

List trumps everything. That means getting terms, bids, and match types right matters far far far more than perfect ad copy.
Offer trumps copy. That means great site design, usability testing, and MVT improvements won't help all that much if you're out of competitive position on price and shipping.
Response lists trump demographic lists. Microsoff and Google are excitedly promoting demographic bidding. Us red-haired step-kids just yawn and turn back to our spreadsheets. As RKG client insightfully commented regarding Microsoft's demographic data: "I don't care who they are, just so long as they want to buy our stuff." If you wanted to see the direct response crew sit up and take notice, offer us the option to bid based on a recent online purchase flag. (More on this: PurchaseMatch: How GOOG Could Hit $750" on rkgblog.)

Goto.com launched in February 1998. Google opened its doors in September 2008. The modern search industry is just 10 years old. Yet, many important ideas for making ads relevant and effective predate '98 by over 50 years.

To get a leg up on your competition in 2008, try spending an afternoon with your nose buried a classic direct mail book from the 1930s.

Google And Salesforce.com Integrate Apps To Penetrate Enterprise, Duel Microsoft

2008-04-14T06:44:00.001-07:00

The final quote in Miguel Helft's NY Times article, on the deepening alliance between Google and CRM software provider Salesforce.com, says it all, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so that makes Google my best friend." It's attributed to Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com. Basically, in a deal announced this morning, Salesforce is integrating Google Apps into its platform so that enterprise users can access the latter directly.

Here's how the press materials distributed by Google describe the deal:

[Google and Salesforce.com are making] it easy for companies of all sizes to run their business in the cloud with Salesforce for Google Apps. The combination of the Google Apps suite of productivity applications and the Salesforce suite of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications enables businesses to effectively communicate and collaborate without any hardware or software to download, install or maintain. Salesforce for Google Apps also leverages the Force.com Platform and Google's open APIs, opening up even more development opportunities for developers and partners. . .

--Salesforce and Gmail(TM) – Businesses can now easily send, receive and store email communication, keeping a complete record of customer interactions for better sales execution and improved customer satisfaction.
--Salesforce and Google Docs(TM) – Create, manage, and share online Google Documents, Google Spreadsheets, and Google Presentations within your sales organization, marketing group, or support team for instant collaboration.
--Salesforce and Google Talk(TM) – Instantly communicate with colleagues or customers from Salesforce and optionally attach Google Talk conversations to customer or prospect records stored in Salesforce.
--Salesforce and Google Calendar(TM) – Expose sales tasks and marketing campaigns from Salesforce on Google Calendar. Built by Appirio, this application is one example of a new category of partner extensions to Salesforce for Google Apps.

The companies have been working together in various ways since last year and this is an evolution of that relationship. For example, Salesforce users have been able to buy AdWords through the platform since early 2007. But for the fact that Salesforce is public ($7.2 billion market cap), it would make sense for Google to buy the company given its current trajectory.

One thing that's interesting here is the rhetoric. Google has always been cautious to say that it's not trying to replace MS Office or compete directly with Microsoft. That position, however, has been less credible over time as Apps expands and rolls out new capabilities that directly address Office. But Salesforce CEO Benioff isn't mincing words. He sees the inclusion of Apps into the Salesforce platform as making his company stronger against its CRM rival. Benioff tells TechCrunch:

You’ve seen what we have been doing is slowly integrating all of our services with theirs. Certainly the enemy of my enemy is my friend, which makes Google my best friend. I have spoken with a lot of customers who want to get off of Microsoft Word.

There's more discussion on Techmeme.

Google Now Fills Out Forms & Crawls Results

2008-04-12T13:30:00.001-07:00

One of the biggest search challenges has long been that the major search engines like Google cannot crawl material that can only be retrieved through the use of forms. Now Google is filling out those form to obtain the information previously hidden, the company has announced.

Google says that for the past few months, it has been filling in forms on a "small number" of "high-quality" web sites to get back information. What words has it been entering into those forms? Words automatically selected that occur on the site, with check boxes and drop-down menus also being selected:

In the past few months we have been exploring some HTML forms to try to discover new web pages and URLs that we otherwise couldn't find and index for users who search on Google. Specifically, when we encounter a <FORM> element on a high-quality site, we might choose to do a small number of queries using the form. For text boxes, our computers automatically choose words from the site that has the form; for select menus, check boxes, and radio buttons on the form, we choose from among the values of the HTML.

Results returned are then crawled. Ironically, it was just over a year ago that Google warned against getting search results like these indexed. Now it's actually generating and crawling those results itself.

Don't want Google doing this to your site? Google says that if your form is blocked through robots.txt or meta robots instructions, those forms won't be accessed. In addition, some other forms won't be touched if they fit certain technical criteria:

We only retrieve GET forms and avoid forms that require any kind of user information. For example, we omit any forms that have a password input or that use terms commonly associated with personal information such as logins, userids, contacts, etc.

The move is potentially good for searchers, in that it will open up material often referred to being part of the "deep web" or "invisible web" as it was hidden behind forms. Search Engine Land executive editor Chris Sherman actually co-authored a book on the topic. He and fellow author Gary Price didn't coin the term invisible web but they certainly help popularize it.

It should be noted that Google's not the first to do something like this. Companies like Quigo, BrightPlanet and WhizBang Labs were doing this type of work years ago. But it never translated over to the major search engines. Now chapter two of surfacing deep web material is opening, this time with a major search player -- in that, Google is being a pioneer.

Zune Guy's name change endeavor is back on

2008-04-10T11:00:00.001-07:00

We can't say we'd follow in this guy's footsteps for any amount of money, but boy, does it make for fantastic drama. Shortly after the famed Zune Guy (you know, that cat with a trio of Zune-inspired tattoos?) decided to legally change his name to "Microsoft Zune," the plan was put on hiatus after hearing that it cost a whopping $500 to get a name swap. After getting curious, investigating and discovering that he only needed $150 to have it done, he put the mission squarely back on the front burner. Unfortunately, there still stands a chance of the aforesaid name being denied, so he's posted up a poll in order to let the general public give him a list of backups. Personally, we're feelin' McZunin.

Verizon sues Time Warner Cable over some dumb ads

2008-04-10T10:53:00.001-07:00

Hey, we hate lawsuits just as much as the next guy, but we're finding it hard to fault Verizon for this one. Verizon and Time Warner Cable arrived in court on Wednesday to settle a tiff over some ads that Verizon claims offer up misleading info about Verizon's FiOS service. Listed among the complaints include supposed false implications by TWC that FiOS requires a satellite dish, doesn't include phone, broadband and video, and that Time Warner's network is better. Time Warner Cable is naturally calling the lawsuit "without merit." Verizon wants TWC to stop running the ads and issue a retraction, as well as compensate them for lost revenue. We're not positive which ad Verizon is referring to, but if it's anything like the ad after the break -- which has some downright false implications about Time Warner Cable using fiber optics "for over a decade" -- then Verizon very well might have something here. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

Confirmed: Yahoo To Test Google AdSense For Search Ads

2008-04-10T09:39:00.001-07:00

Yahoo has confirmed a Wall Street Journal report that it will be testing Google's paid search ads alongside its own for the next two weeks and involving no more than 3 percent of Yahoo's search pages in the United States. From the Yahoo statement

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, announced today that it will begin a limited test of Google Inc.'s AdSense for Search service, which will deliver relevant Google ads alongside Yahoo!'s own search results. The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo!'s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3% of Yahoo! search queries.

As previously announced, Yahoo!'s board of directors is exploring strategic alternatives to maximize stockholder value, including exploration of potential commercial business arrangements. The Company noted that the testing does not necessarily mean that Yahoo! will join the AdSense for Search program or that any further commercial relationship with Google will result. The Company further stated that it would not comment on the nature or timing of any potential relationship.

"AdSense For Search," by the way, is the official name for Google's paid search ads that appear on other search sites (AdSense For Content is the name of the contextual product; AdWords is the name of the program advertisers use to buy any type of AdSense placement. The names are all confusing, but don't blame us).

Why would Yahoo do this? Reportedly, Google's ad generate more revenue and Yahoo may have areas where they have limited search ad inventory for specific queries. This may lead to a "broader search ad outsourcing arrangement" between Google and Yahoo.

Moreover, if it does generate more revenue for Yahoo, it could potentially be another weapon to keep Yahoo out of the hands of Microsoft. Can Google Save Yahoo By Taking Over Search? from Danny in February looks further at the idea of how a Google deal might help Yahoo.

Microsoft has responded by suggesting any deal might come under regulatory challenge. However, this overlooks the fact that in the past, partnerships were used by Overture (now Yahoo) to gain huge paid search marketshare without opposition.

Microsoft: Forget It On Paid Search Partnership, Google & Yahoo from Danny today has more about the Microsoft response and any regulatory issues that might come up.

For further discussion, see related articles at Techmeme.

"Previous Query" Refinement Coming To Hit Google Results

2008-04-10T09:37:00.001-07:00

Yesterday (technically still today my time), I did a keynote interview with Google vice president of search products & user experience Marissa Mayer during our SMX Sydney show. We covered a wide range of topics, including how "Previous Query" refinement will soon come to natural listings on Google, plus how Australia is to get StreetView mapping, Google testing how well Yahoo monetizes, how Orkut might have to be replaced in the US and other topics.

Live blogging isn't my thing, and live blogging when you're asking the questions on stage certainly isn't either. Heck, it's tough enough to jot down notes of what was said. So my recap below will be without a lot of direct quotes, but I wanted to highlight points I found interesting.

Previous Query

Last year, we covered (and here) how Google was changing the ads it displayed based on the previous query someone performed. For example, search for [spain] then do a new search for [travel], and you may notice how the ads will be targeted around Spanish travel (see also Google's help page on this).

Google's never given this feature a formal name, but Marissa said internally the company calls it "Previous Query," the first time to my knowledge that we've had some type of formal name put to it. Learn the name well, because Previous Query refinement is now coming to unpaid or "organic" search results, she said.

For example, if someone were to search for [spain] and then [travel] after that, BOTH the ads and the organic results will be altered to take the previous query into account. To some degree, it will be as if the second query was for [spain travel].

This is a big deal. Big deal. It means that the results for many "single word" queries, which can be hard for sites to rank for when billions of listings come back, will become queries involving two or more words -- and much more specific ones.

When's it happening? "Soon." Indeed, it's already been happening for several weeks for some people randomly selected. Who will get it, when live? Everyone that accepts a cookie. IE, it's not personalized search thing that only happens if you're logged in.

How could a user opt-out. Heh. I didn't get to asking that, sorry. But I imagine any search where the + symbol is used before a word or words will override Previous Query.

StreetView Australia

Australia is to get StreetView mapping hopefully by the middle of this year, Marissa said. Cars have already been driving the roads in Australia for some time in preparation for it. See also this news article which picks up on privacy issues.

Google Testing Yahoo

I asked about the news that Yahoo would carry Google's search ads, to the degree Marissa could comment about it. She remarked that it was a way for Google to test how well Yahoo monetizes. I thought this turn of phrase was important to note -- that it's not a Yahoo experiment but a Google one. As I remarked in the story about Yahoo and AOL possibly merging, which we covered yesterday:

In my talk today at SMX Sydney with Google vice president Marissa Mayer, she noted that the Yahoo deal that it was a way for Google to measure Yahoo’s traffic and how well it monetizes. This is important. This is not just a Yahoo test – it’s a test for Google. And from that test, Google will better understand how much it could make in a crucial revenue guarantee to a combined Yahoo-AOL, which might help the deal move along and keep Yahoo out of Microsoft’s hands.

Other Points

It being so late here in Australia (coming up on midnight) and me being both jet lagged and short of sleeping, I'll come back to some of other points in more detail later. But here are some fast hits:

Not A Portal: The goal remains for Google to still get users off the site, rather than to try and host content that some feel is a way for Google to either be a media company or capture the "second click." But in some cases, Google hosts content because it feels otherwise, the content wouldn't exist -- or not as much would be out there. YouTube and Google Book Search were examples she gave.
iPhone & Mobile: The iPhone in particular continues to show growth to mobile searches. Could Google tell how many use the iPhone to reach Google through the 2G cell network versus hotspots/wifi. Yes, and the traffic is roughly 50/50, off the top of her head.
Social Search: Tapping into your friends to refine search results is an interesting idea but one that remains fraught with problems, as you probably don't want to actually share some search results with friends. There are other issues, and she expects at the moment that this may be a minor signal used to influence results and more likely to suggest potential sites to visit.
Orkut: She reiterated that the Orkut social networking site that Google runs remains strong worldwide. But she said that it might be that for the US and other key markets where it does not lead, the company might need to rebrand or build entirely new social networking services.

Postscript Barry: Neerav Bhatt summarized his notes on the SMX Sydney conference as well.

YouTube Adds "Discovery" Stats & Updates Page Design; Barry's Search Video Podcast

2008-04-10T09:36:00.001-07:00

YouTube has announced the addition of a new statistic that can be found in your video "YouTube Insights" section named "Discovery." Discovery is basically a report showing you how people discovered and viewed your video, a form of referral reporting. In addition, as TechCrunch reports, YouTube has redesigned their video page.

YouTube Discovery Stats:
Let me dig into the new Discovery reports, like I said, it is a feature both Danny and I really wanted, because it tells you how people found your video. Taking a look at one of my most popular videos, the iPhone Popcorn Trick, let's dig into how people found this video:

Clicking on the Discovery link brings up data for the date range you selected at the top right of the page:

Notice that most of my viewers found this video via other related videos on YouTube. That honestly surprises me; I thought it was related to it showing up in the top position for iphone popcorn, so I am totally wrong on that. Right there, I learned a huge thing from these stats, if they are right.

On the right hand side, YouTube places a pie chart that looks like this and represents the numbers on the left:

Clicking on some of the "top sources" will give you even more details. For example, if I click on the Google Searches link, it will show me what people searched on in Google to find this video:

Now that is useful. Now, if I clicked on Referring Videos, YouTube will show me the top videos that are sending me my viewers at YouTube:

You guessed it, the related videos are related to iPhones.

YouTube's Video Page Redesign:
The next thing I want to show you is the redesigned YouTube video page.

On the top right, the "edit video" button has a redesigned button, to go along with the new redesigned buttons that I will show below:

All the buttons are now tab like and you can see an added "statistics & info" tab:

Here is an open view of the statistics tab:

I don't believe any of this data is new, it is just redesigned.

My New Video Podcast:
A bit of a self-promo, but it is video related. I have been producing weekly video search news/advice videos for the past few months. They have been exclusive to viewing via YouTube. But yesterday, I launched a way to download the video's as a video podcast, either to your favorite RSS reader or to iTunes for viewing on iTunes/iPod/iPhone and so on. Plus, you can win prizes for watching and I have convinced many companies including search companies to sponsor schwag for me to give away as prizes. You can subscribe to the standard RSS feed or if you have iTunes, use my iTunes subscribe link. I promise to keep improving the videos, as long as you keep watching!

Microsoft: Forget It On Paid Search Partnership, Google & Yahoo

2008-04-09T17:16:00.001-07:00

So Yahoo's going to partner with Google for a test of search ads? Better be only a test, Microsoft seems to be saying. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith just put out a statement suggesting that any partnership would likely be opposed on regulatory grounds, as Google would get more than 90 percent of the ad search market:

Any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google’s hands. This would make the market far less competitive, in sharp contrast to our own proposal to acquire Yahoo! We will assess closely all of our options. Our proposal remains the only alternative put forward that offers Yahoo! shareholders full and fair value for their shares, gives every shareholder a vote on the future of the company, and enhances choice for content creators, advertisers, and consumers.

OK, the threat of a regulatory challenge isn't actually said. It's just hinted at. Microsoft fought hard to oppose the Googel-DoubleClick deal, and the company seems to be signaling it would do the same in a Yahoo-Google deal, so Yahoo shouldn't consider Google a safety ring.

Then again, Yahoo's not talking about being acquired by Google. It's partnering with the company. We've actually had a company that gained nearly 90 percent of the US paid search market through partnership, rather than acquisition, before. That was GoTo -- later Overture, now owned by Yahoo. It had deals with all the major search engines but Google, which was tiny at the time. There was no regulatory objects raised anywhere, and the fact that Overture later lost accounts can be expected as an argument that partnership doesn't guarantee a near monopoly.

Can Google Save Yahoo By Taking Over Search? from me in February looks further at the idea of how a Google deal might help Yahoo. From that:

I've commented before (most recently in Ad Age) that I think it would be silly for Yahoo to get out of serving ads on its own. But if Yahoo's looking at a choice of being absorbed by Microsoft, it's effectively getting out of the game anyway. If it wants to stay independent, an ad pact might make sense. That's even more so if it gives Yahoo guaranteed revenues and can play out in countries where Yahoo isn't strong....

I still think it would be a bad long-term move to make, for Yahoo to dump its own ad and search technologies. But getting out of ads in Europe makes more sense because Yahoo has been weaker there, plus it has a terrible system that requires advertisers who wish to target a particular country to open different accounts.

FYI, Microsoft has just put out a resource list via email to the press of statements from experts that say there might be regulatory challenges. Let's take a look:

Approval Unlikely For Google-Yahoo Pact: Experts
Competition Law 360, February, 4, 2008

“Google and Yahoo really cannot form an alliance — that is the whole purpose of antitrust law — to prevent the biggest competitors in the market from aligning to the detriment of consumers. If the question is whether Google and Yahoo can collectively set the rates of online advertising, that is a complete no-no under antitrust law, That sounds a lot like blanket price-fixing, which is per se illegal under Section One. That is the simplest of all cases.”
-- Marc Edelman, Professor (Antitrust), New York Law School,

“It would be seen as worse than the Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo, which at least can be viewed as No. 2 plus No. 3 to compete more successfully against No. 1. A Google acquisition of Yahoo would merely entrench Google in a dominant position.”
-- Albert Foer, American Antitrust Institute

The Perils of a Google-Yahoo Blocking Move
The Wall Street Journal Deal Journal, Matthew Karnitschnig, February 8, 2008

If Jerry Yang is seriously considering cutting some kind of deal with Google to stave off Microsoft, he’d better make sure he’s got a good stable of lawyers.

“Google has more than 50% of the search advertising market,” says Gary Miller, a corporate attorney with Eckert Seamans in Philadelphia. “I can’t see the regulators allowing someone with 50% to take over the No. 2 or No. 3. It’s a non-starter.”
-- Gary Miller, Eckert Seamans, Corporate Attorney

Yahoo weighs outsourcing search ads to Google
San Francisco Chronicle, Verne Kopytoff, February 9, 2008

Antitrust concerns also swirl around any Yahoo-Google partnership. Regulators would think twice about allowing Google, the most popular search engine, to add to its already sizable lead in the search advertising market.

"I think it would definitely raise regulatory concerns," said Richard Idell, an attorney with Idell & Seitel, a San Francisco law firm. "You would have this one consolidated entity that is controlling the vast majority of the market share."
-- Richard Idell, Idell & Seitel, attorney

Yahoo Expected to Reject Microsoft’s Takeover Bid
New York Times, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Miguel Helft, February 10, 2008

Legal analysts said the board's deliberations were complicated by the fact that both of its most talked-about options could face antitrust objections. Google has already raised potential antitrust issues about a Microsoft-Yahoo tie-up. A Google-Yahoo partnership in search advertising could have "even bigger antitrust implications,"
-- Carl Tobias, law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia

Yahoo Considers Playing a Google Defense
The Wall Street Journal, Kevin J. Delaney and Matthew Karnitschnig, February 9, 2008

But antitrust experts say even such a pact with Google would likely raise red flags with regulators because of Google's and Yahoo's large shares of the Web-search and search-advertising markets.

Yahoo looks to raise its game in the UK
Media Week, By Andrew McCormick, April 1, 2008

"The Microsoft bid for Yahoo is about creating a viable competitor to Google. On this basis, we don't have a problem with the proposed takeover. There has been some talk of Yahoo seeking to see off the bid by outsourcing its search to Google - we would most definitely have a problem with this."
--Nigel Gwilliam, Head of Digital at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising

Would The FTC Block A Google Deal With Yahoo?
Barron’s, Eric Savitz, February 7, 2008

Meanwhile, investors may be overlooking the potential regulatory scrutiny Yahoo would get from an oft-cited rescue strategy: outsourcing search to Google (GOOG). In a research note this morning, UBS analyst Heather Bellini summarizes a conference call she hosted yesterday with Glenn Manishin, a litigation attorney and partner and the law firm Duane Morris.

Manishin notes that the Federal Trade Commission has the authority to review any agreement, even if it does not involve M&A. And his view, according to Bellini, is that “such a deal probably would not be approved because of Google’s existing very significant search share.” She writes that Manishin believes “an agreement between Yahoo and Google would be much more problematic than a deal between Yahoo and Microsoft.”
-- Heather Bellini, UBS analyst and Glenn Manishin, Duane Morris, litigation attorney and partner

Yahoo’s last stand
Financial Times Lex Column, February 10, 2008

Yahoo could threaten to outsource its search advertising to Google to boost profitability. Such an agreement would put the wind up Microsoft, potentially forcing it to raise its bid. The trouble is, if Yahoo thinks that being bought by Microsoft has a serious anti-trust risk, such a deal with Google looks even more tenuous.

Yahoo Board to Determine Fate Of Company Today
Techcrunch, Michael Arrington, February 8, 2008

“…There is also the strong likelihood that any deal reached between Yahoo and Google would be rejected by U.S. regulatory authorities.

From what I can see, a lot of these assume a Google-Yahoo merger, which is a far different thing than a partnership. I'm not an expert on how anti-trust law governs partnerships (if at all), as opposed to a merger. So take what I've written with a grain of salt. But then again, I doubt anyone in the stories above even remembers the large marketshare that Overture once had, one made through partnerships and one that got eroded by a strong competitors. That's an important fact not to be overlooked.

For further discussion, see related articles at Techmeme.

Flickr Launches Video, It's Not A YouTube Clone

2008-04-09T04:23:00.001-07:00

Flickr is arguably the jewel in Yahoo's crown -- a great site that in many ways has no peer. Now, after a long wait, video has been added. One might imagine that this is intended to compete with Google's YouTube, but as the Flickr blog explains the new capabilities have been set up to complement the existing Flickr culture and community.

It's very different than YouTube.

Videos are limited to 90 seconds and can only be uploaded by "pro" account holders (paid). Everyone can watch video however. There's an emphasis on personal material and not third-party or copyrighted clips (e.g., The Daily Show).

Yahoo incorporated Flickr photos into image search and one can imagine that that will ultimately happen with video as well. Flickr video is also very different from Yahoo's more traditional video site or from its new Live video site.

There's more discussion of Flickr video at Techmeme.

My site's been hacked - now what?

2008-04-08T07:41:00.001-07:00

Here is a post straight from the Official Google blog. Bloggers and webmasters PLEASE BE AWARE!.

Written by Nathan Johns, Google Search Quality Team

All right, you got hacked. It happens to many webmasters, even despite the hard work you devote to prevent this type of thing from happening. Prevention tips include keeping your site updated with the latest software and patches, creating an account with Google Webmaster Tools to see what's being indexed, keeping tabs on your log files to make sure nothing fishy's going on, etc. (There's more information in the Quick Security Checklist we posted last year.)

Remember that you're not alone—hacked sites are becoming increasingly common. Getting hacked can result in your site being infected with badware (more specifically malware, one type of badware). Take a look at StopBadware's recently released report on Trends in Badware 2007 for a comprehensive analysis of threats and trends over the previous year. Check out this post on the Google Online Security Blog which highlights the increasing number of search results containing a URL labeled as harmful. For even more in-depth technical reports on the analysis of web-based malware, see The Ghost in the Browser (pdf) and this technical report (pdf) on drive-by downloads. Read these, and you'll have a much better understanding of the scope of the problem. They also include some real examples for different types of malware.

The first step in any case should be to contact your hosting provider, if you have one. Often times they can handle most of the technical heavy lifting for you. Lots of webmasters use shared hosting, which can make it difficult to do some of the things listed below. Certain tips labeled with an asterisk (*) are cases in which webmasters using shared hosting will most likely require assistance from their hosting provider. In the case that you do have full control over your server, we recommend covering these four bases:

Getting your site off-line

Take your site off-line temporarily, at least until you know you've fixed things.*
If you can't take it off-line, return a 503 status code to prevent it from being crawled.
In the Webmaster Tools, use the URL removal tool to remove any hacked pages or URLs from search results that may have been added. This will prevent the hacked pages from being served to users.

Damage Assessment

It's a good idea to figure out exactly what the hacker was after.

Were they looking for sensitive information?
Did they want to gain control of your site for other purposes?

Look for any modified or uploaded files on your web server.
Check your server logs for any suspicious activity, such as failed login attempts, command history (especially as root), unknown user accounts, etc.
Determine the scope of the problem—do you have other sites that may be affected?

Recovery

The absolute best thing to do here is a complete reinstall of the OS from a trusted source. It's the only way to be completely sure you've removed everything the hacker may have done.*
After a fresh re-installation, use the latest backup you have to restore your site. Don't forget to make sure the backup is clean and free of hacked content too.*
Patch any software packages to the latest version. This includes things such as weblog platforms, content management systems, or any other type of third-party software installed.
Change your passwords - https://www.google.com/accounts/PasswordHelp

Restoring your online presence

Get your system back online.
If you're a Webmaster Tools user, sign in to your account

If your site was flagged as having malware, request a review to determine whether your site is clean
If you used the URL removal tool on URLs which you do want in the index, request that Webmaster Tools re-include your content by revoking the removal.

Keep an eye on things, as the hacker may try to return.

Answers to other questions you may be asking:

Q: Is it better to take my site off-line or use robots.txt to prevent it from being crawled?
A: Taking it off-line is a better way to go; this prevents any malware or badware from being served to users, and prevents hackers from further abusing the system.

Q: Once I've fixed my site, what's the fastest way to get re-crawled?
A: The best way, regardless of whether or not your site got hacked, is to follow the Webmaster Help Center guidelines.

Q: I've cleaned it up, but will Google penalize me if the hacker linked to any bad neighborhoods?
A: We'll try not to. We're pretty good at making sure good sites don't get penalized by actions of hackers and spammers. To be safe, completely remove any links the hackers may have added.

Q: What if this happened on my home machine?
A: All of the above still applies. You'll want to take extra care to clean it up; if you don't, it's likely the same thing will happen again. A complete re-install of the OS is ideal.

Additional resources you may find helpful:

If your site's been flagged by Google as serving malware, we'll alert you when you visit Webmaster Tools.
Don't forget about the Google Webmaster Help Group; it's full of extremely knowledgeable users, and Googlers as well. For a nice, on-topic example, check out this thread. There's also a Stop Badware group.
Matt Cutts recently posted Three tips to protect your WordPress installation on his blog, and there are lots of great comments below the post as well.

Megachart & Analysis: Google Management Changes, 2000-2008

2008-04-08T06:10:00.001-07:00

With two high-ranking Google executives leaving the Big G within a month's time, I thought it would be interesting to go back through Google's executive management page over the years and see how it reflects changes among the higher-ups. Below, there are a series of tables and commentary that hopefully let you understand the shifting currents at-a-glance.

Some notes. First, I think who gets listed on this page -- and the order in which they are listed -- is important. This has to be a perk for some execs -- that they'll get to show up and be profiled on that page. In addition, the order is not always alphabetical. With the exception of the big three -- CEO Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin -- I think who shows up first when it's a non-alphabetical listing can be significant. There can be some exceptions to this, and I'll note them as part of the charts. Let's dive in.

The charts below reflect the exact order people were listed on the executive management pages, for the dates shown at the top of each charge. There may have been other changes between dates, of course. Maybe eventually I'll go back and redo this to reflect all significant changes to the pages. I might have missed some key updates.

Each row in the chart shows where an executive was listed, in a white background. If you hit a gray background while reading across, then that person moved somehow. They might have gone up or down on the page, and I show this with a notation. I also note if someone was given a title change (usually a promotion). Keep in mind that sometimes titles at Google don't reflect that much. Matt Cutts, for example, remains (I think) a senior software engineer. In another company (or if he were a different type of person), he'd probably be called "vice president, search quality." Still, seeing how titles change among the top execs is still useful to note.

Be sure to read the summaries below each chart. Sometimes people will drop in positions, but that doesn't mean they necessarily have dropped in "pecking order." Indeed, speculating that there is a pecking order to some of these pages is just that, speculation.

Finally, if you see orange, that's when someone actually left Google. Why orange? Hey, red looked too bad, and I'm color-challenged. Like I need Garanimals for adults, OK?

Google Management: 2000 to 2002

Jan. 20, 2000	March 31, 2001	Feb. 7, 2002
		Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO (NEW)
Larry Page, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer	Larry Page, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer	Larry Page, Co-founder & President, Products (TITLE CHANGE)
Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President	Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President	Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology (TITLE CHANGE)
	Omid Kordestani, Vice President of Business Development & Sales	Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Business Development & Sales (TITLE CHANGE)
		Tim Armstrong, Vice President, Advertising Sales
		Joan Braddi, Vice President, Search Services
	Wayne Rosing, Vice President of Engineering (NEW)	Wayne Rosing, Vice President of Engineering
Urs Hölzle, Vice President of Engineering	DROPS: 3 TO 8	Urs Hölzle, Google Fellow
		Craig Silverstein, Director of Technology
		Cindy McCaffrey, Vice President, Corporate Marketing (TITLE CHANGE)
Omid Kordestani, Vice President of Business Development & Sales	RISES: 4 TO 3
Cindy McCaffrey, Vice President, Corporate Communications	Cindy McCaffrey, Vice President, Corporate Communications	DROPS: 5 TO 10
Tim Armstrong, Vice President, National Sales	DROPS: 6 TO 7
	Joan Braddi, Vice President, Search Services (TITLE CHANGE)	SEE ABOVE, STAYS AT 6
Joan Braddi, Vice President, Licensing Sales	RISES: 7 TO 6
	Tim Armstrong, Vice President, Advertising Sales (TITLE CHANGE)	RISES: 7 TO 5
	Urs Hölzle, Google Fellow (TITLE CHANGE)	SEE ABOVE, STAYS AT 8
Craig Silverstein, Director of Technology	Craig Silverstein, Director of Technology	SEE ABOVE, STAYS AT 9
8 Execs	9 Execs	10 Execs

In 2000, only eight executives get spotlighted on the page. After Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the remaining six aren't in alphabetical order. My assumption is that Urs Hölzle got third billing because he was over at engineering. At Google, engineering rules, as will be seen later on.

Omid Kordestani came next. I'd say that was a nod to the man who became Google's early breadwinner. Cindy McCaffrey, the woman who guided Google toward its public relations greatness, came fifth. After that, my assumption is that both Tim Armstrong and Joan Braddi were deemed important enough to deserve management page credit with an alphabetical listing between them used as a tie-breaker.

Of course, all four VPs I've mentioned oversaw different areas. Could it be that they were listed alphabetically by those areas (Business Development, Corporate Communications, National Sales, & Licensing Sales)? Not with National Sales coming before Licensing Sales. Perhaps seniority was involved.

Craig Silverstein in "last" place? I'd call that more "pride of place," similar to when you've got an important actor who gets the last credit. He's also the only director level position on the list. And I could be overthinking all of this.

In 2001, Wayne Rosing came on to head engineering, apparently replacing Urs Hölzle, who shifted over into being named "Google Fellow." But Omid Kordestani bumped the VP of engineering slot out of third billing, likely a reflection of how important he was to actually building Google a business income.

Joan Braddi and Tim Armstrong did a flipflop in terms of how they were listed. I wouldn't be surprised if this was something thought to be fair, flipping two execs seen as co-equal in the billing, to make things fair.

Am I reading too much into the order? Perhaps -- but alphabetically by name isn't used, nor is alphabetically by the area each VP governed used. And if it were seniority, then McCaffrey would have been over Rosing.

In 2002, the big change was Eric Schmidt coming on as CEO. That moved everyone down a notch. Larry Page became "President, Products" and Sergey Brin, "President, Technology." Kordestani got promoted to Senior Vice President and kept his spot after the big three.

The three VPs other than Cindy McCaffrey might have been shifted to be listed in alphabetical order by last name -- so movement here might signify nothing. Then the non-VPs, Hölzle and Silverstein, are listed.

So why's VP McCaffrey at the end? Look, Cindy was important. Very much so. That drop had nothing to do with any decreased importance, in my view. To me, it would have been much more an honor of last billing sometimes being more noticed.

Google Management: 2003 to 2004

Feb. 7, 2002	Feb. 7, 2003	April 2, 2004
Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO	Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO	Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO
	Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology	Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology
	Larry Page, Co-founder & President, Products	Larry Page, Co-founder & President, Products
	George Reyes, Chief Financial Officer (NEW)	George Reyes, Chief Financial Officer
	Wayne Rosing, Vice President of Engineering	Wayne Rosing, Vice President of Engineering
Larry Page, Co-founder & President, Products	DROPS: 2 TO 3
Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology	RISES: 3 TO 2
Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Business Development & Sales (TITLE CHANGE)	Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Field Operations (TITLE CHANGE; DROPS: 4 TO 6)	Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Field Operations
		Cindy McCaffrey, Vice President, Corporate Marketing
	David C. Drummond, Vice President, Corporate Development (NEW)	DROPS: 7 TO 9
	Jonathan Rosenberg, Vice President, Product Management (NEW)	Jonathan Rosenberg, Vice President, Product Management
		David C. Drummond, Vice President, Corporate Development
		Shona Brown, Vice President, Business Operations (NEW)
Tim Armstrong, Vice President, Advertising Sales	Tim Armstrong, Vice President, Advertising Sales (DROPS: 5 TO 9)	DROPPED FROM PAGE
Joan Braddi, Vice President, Search Services	Joan Braddi, Vice President, Licensing Sales (TITLE CHANGE; DROPS 6 TO 10)	DROPPED FROM PAGE
Wayne Rosing, Vice President of Engineering	RISES: 7 TO 5
Urs Hölzle, Google Fellow	Urs Hölzle, Google Fellow	DROPPED FROM PAGE
Craig Silverstein, Director of Technology	Craig Silverstein, Director of Technology	DROPPED FROM PAGE
Cindy McCaffrey, Vice President, Corporate Marketing	Cindy McCaffrey, Vice President, Corporate Marketing	RISES: 13 TO 7
10 Execs	13 Execs	10 Execs

For consistency with the earlier chart, I've continued on from 2002, which was already covered above.

In 2003, three new key executives were added. George Reyes was named Chief Financial Officer and took over the number four spot previously held by Omid Kordestani, who slipped down slightly past engineering VP Wayne Rosing. David Drummond, Vice President, Corporate Development, was added and jumped above existing execs like Tim Armstrong and Joan Braddi. The same was true for new exec Jonathan Rosenberg, Vice President, Product Management. Larry Page, long either in the top spot or second spot, swapped places with Sergey Brin. I doubt it meant anything more than the two deciding they should rotate from time-to-time.

In 2004, there was spring cleaning. Long-standing execs Armstrong, Braddi, Hölzle, & Silverstein were dropped from the page. They were still at Google, but they no longer got listed as top management. Shona Brown, Vice President, Business Operations, came in as the only new exec to make the page. She took over Cindy McCaffrey's spot at the end of the list. In doing so, that last spot no longer felt like a place to spotlight an exec but rather that the list was showing a pecking order of who was rated most important.

Google Management: 2005 to 2006

April 2, 2004	March 3, 2005	Jan. 1, 2006
Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO	Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO	Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO
		Larry Page, Co-founder & President, Products
		Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology
Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology	Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology	DROPS: 2 TO 3
Larry Page, Co-founder & President, Products	Larry Page, Co-founder & President, Products	RISES: 3 TO 2
George Reyes, Chief Financial Officer	George Reyes, Chief Financial Officer	George Reyes, Chief Financial Officer
		Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Business Development (TITLE CHANGE)
		Alan Eustace, Vice President, Engineering (NEW)
		Jeff Huber, Vice President, Engineering (NEW)
		W. M. Coughran, Jr., Vice President, Engineering (NEW)
Wayne Rosing, Vice President of Engineering	Wayne Rosing, Senior Vice President of Engineering (TITLE CHANGE)	LEFT GOOGLE IN MAY 2005
Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Field Operations	Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Field Operations	RISES: 6 TO 5
Cindy McCaffrey, Vice President, Corporate Marketing	LEFT GOOGLE IN DEC. 2004
Jonathan Rosenberg, Vice President, Product Management	Jonathan Rosenberg, Vice President, Product Management	Jonathan Rosenberg, Vice President, Product Management
David C. Drummond, Vice President, Corporate Development	David C. Drummond, Vice President, Corporate Development	David C. Drummond, Vice President, Corporate Development
Shona Brown, Vice President, Business Operations	Shona Brown, Vice President, Business Operations	Shona Brown, Vice President, Business Operations
		Elliot Schrage, Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs (NEW)
		Tim Armstrong, Vice President, Advertising Sales (RETURNS TO PAGE)
		Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience (NEW)
		Salar Kamangar, Vice President, Product Management (NEW)
		Sheryl Sandberg, Vice President, Global Online Sales and Operations (NEW)
		Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Vice President, Asia-Pacific and Latin America Operations (NEW)
		Nikesh Arora, Vice President, European Operations (NEW)
		Norio Murakami, Vice President and General Manager, Google Japan (NEW)
		Vinton G. Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist (NEW)
		Miriam Rivera, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel (NEW)
10 Execs	9 Execs	21 Execs

Again, for consistency when moving between charts, I've repeated the previous year. Moving along...

In 2005, there was only one major change -- Cindy McCaffrey was off the chart. She'd left Google by then (in December 2004), the first high-ranking exec to take her well-deserved winnings and move on.

In 2006, there was another absence. Wayne Rosing became the second high-ranking exec to depart, having left in May 2005 (and see here) to focus on his passion for astronomy. But the real change was the addition of many new execs to the page. Elliot Schrage took over from Cindy McCaffrey, so his addition was no surprise. Same too for the three separate VPs of engineering that came in to fill Wayne Rosing's spot.

But many pre-IPO Google employees gained new recognition, such as Sheryl Sandberg, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, and Marissa Mayer. Meanwhile, Omid Kordestani moved back higher in the seeming pecking order and Tim Armstrong finally returned to the page. Joan Braddi, who he'd long been twinned with on the page, did not, despite still being at Google then (and today).

Google Management: 2006 to 2008

Jan. 1, 2006	Feb. 2, 2007	April 2, 2008
	Executive Management Group (EMG)
Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO	Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO	Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO
Larry Page, Co-founder & President, Products	Larry Page, Co-founder & President, Products	Larry Page, Co-founder & President, Products
Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology	Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology	Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology
		Laszlo Bock Vice President, People Operations
George Reyes, Chief Financial Officer	(MOVES TO EMG; SEE BELOW)
	Shona Brown, Senior Vice President, Business Operations (TITLE CHANGE)	Shona Brown, Senior Vice President, Business Operations
	W. M. Coughran, Jr., Vice President, Engineering	W. M. Coughran, Jr., Vice President, Engineering
	David C. Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development (TITLE CHANGE)	David C. Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer (TITLE CHANGE)
	Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President, Engineering & Research (TITLE CHANGE)	Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President, Engineering & Reseach
	Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Google Fellow (TITLE CHANGE; RETURNS TO PAGE)	Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Google Fellow
	Jeff Huber, Vice President, Engineering	Jeff Huber, Senior Vice President, Engineering (TITLE CHANGE)
Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Business Development (TITLE CHANGE)	Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Business Development (MOVES TO EMG)	Omid Kordestani, Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Business Development
	George Reyes, Chief Financial Officer	George Reyes, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer (TITLE CHANGE; ANNOUNCED RESIGNATION IN AUGUST 2007; STAYS UNTIL REPLACED)
	Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President, Product Management (TITLE CHANGE)	Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President, Product Management
	Elliot Schrage, Vice President, Global Communications & Public Affairs	Elliot Schrage, Vice President, Global Communications & Public Affairs
Alan Eustace, Vice President, Engineering (NEW)	MOVES TO EMG; GETS SENIOR VP TITLE
Jeff Huber, Vice President, Engineering (NEW)	MOVES TO EMG
W. M. Coughran, Jr., Vice President, Engineering (NEW)	MOVES TO EMG
Jonathan Rosenberg, Vice President, Product Management	MOVES TO EMG; GETS SENIOR VP TITLE
David C. Drummond, Vice President, Corporate Development	MOVES TO EMG; GETS SENIOR VP TITLE
Shona Brown, Vice President, Business Operations	MOVES TO EMG; GETS SENIOR VP TITLE
Elliot Schrage, Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs (NEW)	MOVES TO EMG
	Google Management Group (GMG)
Tim Armstrong, Vice President, Advertising Sales (RETURNS TO PAGE)	Tim Armstrong, Vice President, Advertising Sales (MOVES TO GMG)	MOVES TO SALES EXECS, SEE BELOW
	Nikesh Arora, Vice President, European Operations	MOVES TO SALES EXECS, SEE BELOW
	Laszlo Bock Vice President, People Operations (NEW)	MOVES TO GMC, SEE ABOVE
	Adam Bosworth Vice President (NEW)	LEFT GOOGLE SEPTEMBER 2007
	Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Vice President, Asia-Pacific and Latin America Operations	MOVES TO SALES EXECS, SEE BELOW
	Vinton G. Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist	MOVES TO ENGINEERING EXECS, SEE BELOW
	David Eun Vice President, Content Partnerships (NEW)	MOVES TO SALES EXECS, SEE BELOW
	Dave Girouard Vice President & General Manager, Enterprise (NEW)	MOVES TO SALES EXECS, SEE BELOW
	Salar Kamangar, Vice President, Product Management	MOVES TO PRODUCTS EXECS, SEE BELOW
	David Lawee Vice President, Marketing (NEW)	MOVES TO LEGAL EXECS, SEE BELOW
	Kai-Fu Lee Vice President, Engineering, Product, and Public Affairs & President, Greater China (NEW)	MOVES TO SALES EXECS, SEE BELOW
	Udi Manber Vice President, Engineering (NEW)	MOVES TO ENGINEERING EXECS, SEE BELOW
Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience (NEW)	Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience (MOVES TO GMG)	MOVES TO PRODUCTS EXECS, SEE BELOW
	Douglas Merrill Vice President, Engineering (NEW)	MOVES TO ENGINEERING EXECS, SEE BELOW
	Norio Murakami, Vice President and General Manager, Google Japan (MOVES TO GMG)	MOVES TO SALES EXECS, SEE BELOW
	David Radcliffe Vice President, Real Estate (NEW)	MOVES TO FINANCE EXECS, SEE BELOW
Salar Kamangar, Vice President, Product Management (NEW)	MOVES TO GMG; SEE ABOVE
Sheryl Sandberg, Vice President, Global Online Sales and Operations (NEW)	Sheryl Sandberg, Vice President, Global Online Sales and Operations (MOVES TO GMG)	LEFT GOOGLE MARCH 2008
	Kent Walker Vice President & General Counsel (NEW)	MOVES TO LEGAL EXECS, SEE BELOW
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Vice President, Asia-Pacific and Latin America Operations (NEW)	MOVES TO GMG; SEE ABOVE
Nikesh Arora, Vice President, European Operations (NEW)	MOVES TO GMG; SEE ABOVE
Norio Murakami, Vice President and General Manager, Google Japan (NEW)	MOVES TO GMG; SEE ABOVE
Vinton G. Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist (NEW)	MOVES TO GMG; SEE ABOVE
	Susan Wojcicki Vice President, Product Management (NEW)	MOVES TO PRODUCTS EXECS, SEE BELOW
Miriam Rivera, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel (NEW)	DROPPED FROM PAGE; LIKELY LEFT IN 2006
		Engineering Execs
		Vinton G. Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist
		Stuart Feldman, Vice President, Engineering (NEW)
		Vic Gundotra, Vice President, Engineering (NEW)
		Udi Manber Vice President, Engineering
		Nelson Mattos, Vice President, Engineering, EMEA (NEW)
		Douglas Merrill Vice President, Engineering LEFT GOOGLE APRIL 2008
		Shiva Shivakumar, Vice President and Distinguished Entrepreneur (NEW)
		Alfred Spector, VP of Research and Special Initiatives (NEW)
		Benjamin Sloss Treynor, Vice President, Engineering (NEW)
		Jeff Dean, Google Fellow (NEW)
		Sanjay Ghemawat, Google Fellow (NEW)
		Amit Singhal, Google Fellow (NEW)
		Products Execs
		Salar Kamangar, Vice President, Product Management
		Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience
		Mario Queiroz, Vice President, Product Management, EMEA & Latin America (NEW)
		Lorraine Twohill, Vice President, Marketing, EMEA (NEW)
		Susan Wojcicki Vice President, Product Management
		Sales Execs
		Daniel Alegre, Vice President, Latin America and APLA Business Development (NEW)
		Tim Armstrong, President, Advertising and Commerce, North America, & Vice President, Google Inc. (TITLE CHANGE)
		Nikesh Arora, President, EMEA Operations & Vice President, Google Inc. (TITLE CHANGE)
		Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, President, Asia Pacific and Latin America Operations (TITLE CHANGE)
		David Eun Vice President, Content Partnerships
		David Fischer, Vice President, Online Sales & Operations (NEW, REPLACES SHERYL SANDBERG)
		Dave Girouard Vice President & General Manager, Enterprise
		John Herlihy, Vice President, Onlinel Sales & Operations, EMEA
		Kai-Fu Lee, Vice President, Google Inc.; President, Greater China (TITLE CHANGE)
		Dr. John Liu, Vice President, Sales, Greater China (NEW)
		Norio Murakami, President & General Manager, Google Japan & Vice President, Google Inc. (TITLE CHANGE)
		Penry Price, VP, Advertising Sales, North America (NEW)
		Dennis Woodside, Vice President, UK, Benelux and Ireland (NEW)
		Legal Execs
		Kent Walker Vice President & General Counsel
		David Lawee Vice President, Corporate Development (TITLE CHANGE)
		Megan Smith, Vice President, New Business Development (NEW)
		Finance Execs
		Brent Callinicos, Vice President & Treasurer (NEW)
		Francois Delepine, Vice President, Financial Planning and Analysis (NEW)
		Mark Fuchs, Vice President of Finance and Chief Accountant (NEW)
		Julio Pekarovic, Vice President, Global Sales Finance (NEW)
		David Radcliffe, Vice President, Real Estate
		Business Operations Execs
		Francoise Brougher, Vice President, Business Operations (NEW)
21 Execs	31 Execs	54 Execs

As with the other charts, I've repeated the last year of the previous one, 2006, so that comparisons can continue.

In 2007, we see a major change. Google execs were divided into two groups. First there's the Executive Management Group, of EMG. These are the most senior executives. There's no pecking order in how they are listed after the top trio of Schmidt-Page-Brin. Everyone else is listed alphabetically by last name, regardless of job title. All elevated to the EMG had been previously listed on the management page before. Several gained promotion to senior vice president level (Brown, Drummond, Eustace, Hölzle, & Rosenberg). Hölzle is notable for being the only one to return to the executive page after an absence. He was on the original executive page way back in 2000 as a VP; he changed to being a Google Fellow in 2001 and was dropped in 2004. His return reflected gaining SVP in addition to his Google Fellow title.

Other executives are listed under the "Google Management Group" heading. These include all the new additions from 2005 (such as Mayer, Kamangar, Sandberg, among others). In addition, many new execs get added, such as Susan Wojcicki and Douglas Merrill, among others. Only one person goes, Miriam Rivera, formerly listed as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel. I don't recall any news coming out about her leaving Google. But she definitely left at some point, currently serving on the Stanford University Board Of Trustees.

In 2008, another big shake-up. The executive page listed over 50 people, more than ever before.

The EMG section remained largely the same. The only addition was Laszlo Bock, Vice President, People Operations, jumping into it. David Drummond got a title change, picking up Chief Legal Officer to add to his SVP title. Jeff Huber gained an SVP title, as did CFO George Reyes. Reyes, of course, also announced he was resigning in August 2007. More than half-a-year later, he continues to serve and seek a replacement. Forbes looked at that challenge back in December.

The Google Management Group section added in 2007 did not survive. Instead, all the execs there other than three departures I'll come to were added to one of several groups: Engineering, Product, Sales, Legal, Finance, & Business Operations. Within each group, people were listed alphabetically by name, regardless of title.

I said earlier that engineers sat on top of the Google pecking order. Anyone familiar with Google culture will tell you this, and the order of the groups reflects it. Engineering comes first. That just alphabetical? Sure, Product and Sales would come next, but then Legal & Business Operations ruins that pattern.

Within the group are names long on the page, such as Vint Cerf. But many new names were added, such as engineering VP Stuart Feldman and Shiva Shivakumar, who is also Google's only Distinguished Entrepreneur. Still listed today but soon to go missing is Douglas Merrill, confirmed to be leaving and expected to head to EMI. Missing from the group is Adam Bosworth, who left in September 2007.

In the Product group are (again) familiar names (Kamangar, Mayer, Wojcicki) along with two new ones (Mario Queiroz, Vice President, Product Management, EMEA & Latin America, and Lorraine Twohill, Vice President, Marketing, EMEA).

Sales is the biggest group (13 people) outside the EMG itself (14 people), just edging out Engineering (12) and Products (5). Lots of new additions to the page show up. Notable is David Fischer, Vice President, Online Sales & Operations, filling the spot vacated by Sheryl Sandberg in March 2008, though Fischer doesn't get the "Global" moniker that Sandberg's title carried. Also notable are some additions for areas outside the US, such as Daniel Alegre, Vice President, Latin America and APLA Business Development.

We also see the first "President" titles showing up beyond those that the two founders carry. Indeed, while I previously said that at Google, engineers rule -- on a title basis, it's the sales side that would seem to outrank. Tim Armstrong, Nikesh Arora, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, and Norio Murakami all carry a president's title, joining Kai-Fu Lee, who already had one. That's six sales-side presidents to only one on the engineering side (Sergey Brin) and one on the product side (Larry Page). Of course, most of these sales presidents oversee areas outside the US (China, Japan, Europe & Middle East; Asia & Latin America), and there might be regulatory or other reasons why it's helpful to have someone at least carry a president's title.

In the Legal group, one new exec is added (Megan Smith, Vice President, New Business Development) and David Lawee stays on the executive page but seems to make a lateral move, becoming VP of corporate development. Previously, he was VP of marketing. Oddly, this means that Google seems to be without a VP of marketing, at the moment.

In the Finance group, four new execs get named in addition to David Radcliffe, Vice President, Real Estate, who was previously on the page. And Francoise Brougher, Vice President, Business Operations, becomes the sole person listed in the Business Operations Group.

Departures, In Summary

So with all the talk of a brain drain, how's it looking in terms of executives on the Google management page that have gone? Year-by-year:

2000: 0 departures
2001: 0 departures
2002: 0 departures
2003: 0 departures
2004: 1 departure (Cindy McCaffrey; this was also Google's IPO year)
2005: 1 departure (Wayne Rosing)
2006: 1 departure (Mariam Rivera -- may have left in 2007)
2007: 1 departure (Adam Bosworth; George Reyes announced departure; Louis Monier also left and may have been listed on the page at a time point I didn't check)
2008: 2 departures (Sandberg & Merrill)
Total To Date: 6 departures

That's it -- only six named execs to depart (though there might be a few more, if they were named on pages between the time points I picked). Frankly, that seems a great retention record to me, four years after the company went public, when plenty of the execs are pre-IPO and wealthy. But as I said in my post today about Merrill's departure, I'm sure Google will continue to see execs go because they want to show they can succeed on their own, out from under Google's shadow.

Eventually, Google might also suffer Yahoo's problem, that post-IPO execs leave not just for the challenge but because they potentially can make IPO money by working for actual start-ups, rather than a former start-up that simply can't deliver the same perks (payoff, lack of bureaucracy).

By the way, be sure to check out this cool Google organization map that's being maintained at the Cogmap wiki.

iProspect: Blended Search Resulting In More Clicks On News, Images And Video

2008-04-07T17:55:00.001-07:00

Since the advent of "blended" or "universal search" last year across the major engines there's been ongoing discussion and speculation about its impact on user behavior and search marketing. Gord Hotchkiss last year wrote extensively about how blended search (on Google) has in fact shifted the user focus from the so-called "golden triangle" at the upper left of the page to a more distributed pattern that resembles an "E."

Now search marketing firm iProspect has released a study (conducted by JupiterResearch) that shows users are responding to the various specialized content types within search results and are more engaged with them than they are the vertical search silos the search engine have historically offered. Just over 2,400 US adults participated in the iProspect survey, conducted in December, 2007 and January of this year. It focused on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search.

Among the various content types now showing up in blended search, "news" results were found to be the most clicked form of vertical content. The study's overall findings reinforce a point increasingly being made: marketers need to broaden and optimize their various content types to be found in blended search results.

Here are the top-level findings of the iProspect study:

36 percent of search engines user click “news” results within blended search results, while only 17 percent click a “news” result after conducting a news-specific search
31 percent of search engine users click “image” results within blended search results, while 26 percent click an “image” result after conducting an image-specific search
17 percent of search engine users click “video” results within blended search results, while only 10 percent click a “video” result after conducting a video-specific search While images are the most clicked type of result after a vertical-specific search, news items are the most clicked type of result within blended search results

This higher user engagement with vertical content in traditional Web search results comes as no surprise. Vertical search tabs have been largely neglected by users historically (except for image search) as this Hitwise survey of the traffic distribution on various Google properites illustrates:

Source: Hitwise, January, 2008

The following charts from the iProspect survey are graphical presentations of the data points cited above, showing the contrast between usage of vertical search in their respective content silos and the higher engagement (clicks) on vertical content within the main search results:

The study also found growth in the user bias toward the first page of search results:

68 percent of search engine users typically click results on the first page of search results, compared to 62 percent in 2006, and 60 percent in 2004
Only 8 percent of search engine users review more than the first three pages prior to clicking on a result
49 percent of search engine users who continue their search when not finding what they are looking for change and/or re-launch their search after reviewing just the first page of search results, up from 40 percent in 2006, and 42 percent in 2004

Finally the study also found an increase in the brand impact associated with appearance at the top of search results: "37 percent of online users associate appearance at the top of search results with a company’s leadership within its industry or category, up slightly from 35 percent in 2006 and 33 percent in 2002."

This latter point has been made in the past but it reinforces the notion that search marketing has to be taken seriously as a branding medium. That is being made easier to swallow for many agencies and brand marketers by the recent inclusion of video in paid search ads on Google and Yahoo.

Yahoo Rolls Out More Details About APEX/AMP

2008-04-07T07:56:00.001-07:00

In articles on the NY Times and Wall Street Journal sites this morning, more details are surfacing about the intended Q3 rollout of Yahoo's new ambitious, integrated ad platform -- what President Sue Decker previously called "APEX" (advertiser-publisher exchange) and is now apparently being called "AMP."

The idea is to allow Yahoo and its partners -- initially the members of the newspaper consortium -- to sell ads on each others' sites and throughout the network. The ads will at first be CPM-based graphical ads. Eventually the system will encompass the full range of ad types and formats, including video, search and mobile advertising. It will also bring the full range of targeting capabilities to marketers across those formats and participating properties.

According to the WSJ:

Yahoo executives said they expected to begin releasing AMP in the third quarter for use by newspaper companies that are part of an existing Yahoo ad-sales consortium, and eventually extend it to additional Web publishers, advertisers, agencies and online-ad networks. The company said the system, in a future stage, will handle ad types besides display, such as search, mobile and video.

With the AMP system, Web publishers are expected to be able to manage the ads on their sites, as well as sell ads on behalf of other participants in exchange for a commission. Advertisers could buy online ads across a range of sites using standardized geographic, demographic and other targeting.

The AMP platform capabilities and vision are impressive. However, lurking in the background is the proposed acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft. My sense is that Microsoft very much believes that AdCenter is superior to Panama and is likely to be equally skeptical about the claims regarding the new platform. If the merger happens, therefore, it casts doubt on whether Yahoo will ever be fully "AMP'd."

Yahoo To Microsoft: We're Not Opposed To Your Deal, Just Pay More

2008-04-07T07:54:00.001-07:00

On Saturday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a public ultimatum of sorts to Yahoo's board: accept our offer or we'll force it on you. Today Yahoo responded publicly to Ballmer's letter. In essence it says: we're "not opposed to a transaction" but pay us more.

Here are some excerpts from the Yahoo letter:

[W]e have continued to make clear that we are not opposed to a transaction with Microsoft if it is in the best interests of our stockholders. Our position is simply that any transaction must be at a value that fully reflects the value of Yahoo!, including any strategic benefits to Microsoft, and on terms that provide certainty to our stockholders . . .

Our Board's view of your proposal has not changed. We continue to believe that your proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo! and our stockholders. Contrary to statements in your letter, stockholders representing a significant portion of our outstanding shares have indicated to us that your proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo!. Furthermore, as a result of the decrease in your own stock price, the value of your proposal today is significantly lower than it was when you made your initial proposal . . .

We consider your threat to commence an unsolicited offer and proxy contest to displace our independent Board members to be counterproductive and inconsistent with your stated objective of a friendly transaction. We are confident that our stockholders understand that our independent Board is best positioned to objectively and knowledgeably evaluate our Company's alternatives and to maximize value.

This is very much a public game of "he said, she said" and "CYA." Yahoo must be seen to be putting the interests of shareholders ahead of the emotions or personal interests of individual board members or executives -- or they are vulnerable to litigation, which has already commenced. But there are many fair points in Yahoo's letter about its global reach and brand strength and its various initiatives. It also appears to say that Q1 will be solid for the company:

As you know, we recently reaffirmed our Q1 and full year guidance, which is a testament to our ability to perform in line with our expectations despite the current economic environment.

These dueling quasi-legal missives may not reflect what's going on actually behind the scenes with the two companies but it appears to show increasing entrenchment and inflexibility on the surface.

Google To Allow Bidding On Keyword Trademarks In UK

2008-04-05T08:26:00.001-07:00

The UK PPC Blog tipped me off to Google announcing that the UK AdWords trademark policy has been changed to work like the US AdWords trademark policy.

What this means is that UK advertisers can now bid on trademark
terms, when earlier, those trademarked terms were blocked from bidding
on within the AdWords network. The US policy allows advertisers to bid
on many trademarked terms, but does not allow the advertiser to include
that trademark within the ad content, in most cases.

Google has a Search Engine Roundtable this morning.

What will happen to existing trademark complaints?

Complaints received prior to April 4, 2008: We will
investigate complaints against trademark use in ad text and keywords.
Complaints will be processed according to the current policy.
Complaints received on or after April 4, 2008:
If the complaint requests that we prevent use of the trademark in ad
text, we will continue our efforts to support this request. Complaints
will be processed under our revised procedure.
All Complaints:
Beginning in May 2008, keywords that were disabled as a result of a
trademark complaint and investigation will no longer be restricted in
the UK and Ireland.

This is a major change for UK AdWords advertisers. Some advertisers
will be delighted by this change but others might be a little upset
with it, to say the least.

Credit Barry Schwartz

Google Tests Middle Of Page One Box Results

2008-04-05T08:16:00.001-07:00

Google Blogoscoped reports that Google is testing the placement of one box results within the middle of the search results. We have seen Google test "search refinements" within the middle of the search results, but never really one box results, at least not in this separated form. Here is a screen shot, courtesy of Google Blogoscoped.

It is not just video results found in these middle of the page sections, another screen capture shows shopping results as well.

Google, of course, has Universal Search, which replaces the search results, when relevant, with vertical results - such as video, shopping, news, and so on. So, I am not sure why Google is testing this implementation? Maybe it is because they are finding the universal search user interface is confusing the searcher? I really don't know but I will try to get a comment from Google.

Show me the ads

2008-04-04T02:02:00.001-07:00

After months of testing, we've just updated our text ad format to include 'next' and 'previous' arrow buttons for cost-per-click (CPC) ads. When a user clicks on the 'next' button, an entirely new group of ads will appear in the ad unit, giving your users greater control over the ads they see and click.

While the ads the user initially sees may be relevant to a publisher's content, they may not be precisely what the user is seeking -- for example, a user may see ads about cheddar and brie cheese but would prefer more information about Swiss cheese. With the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, users can view more cheese ads until a Swiss cheese ad appears.

You won't generate earnings for clicks on the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, but these buttons will help improve both advertiser value and your potential revenue. When users click on the buttons, they begin interacting with the ads and are more likely to find the specific offering they're looking for, which can lead to higher earnings for you.

Credit: Adsense Official Blog

One Day You’re Optimized, The Next Day You're A Spammer

2008-04-04T01:57:00.000-07:00

It is no secret that human review has been playing a bigger role at Google over the past couple years. And we are emotional beings... no matter how logical the guidelines may be, emotions cause human errors. But not all sites that get penalized are penalized in error. Many deserve it.

Sadly, Google's guidelines for its "remote quality raters," people who are paid by Google to help with quality control, are clearer than the public guidelines for webmasters. Why? Google is using these remote quality raters as an effective and efficient piece of the relevancy algorithm.

When spam is good enough

I have read and re-read leaked Google guidelines for remote quality raters from 2003, 2005, and 2007. The general intent was similar in all 3 document sets, but the specifics changed as the web changed. One of the most revealing quotes from the 2007 document was about music lyrics sites:

“Exceptions (scraped content that is not Spam), Lyrics, poems, ringtones (that the user programs rather than downloads), quotes, and proverbs have no central authority. When you see pages with this content, you cannot judge it to have been copied, and the pages should not be assigned a Spam label. Unfortunately, some content is written specifically for Spam pages and you will not find it on another source. Although you may be convinced that the intent is to deceive, if the content makes sense and appears original, you will not be able to label such pages Spam.”

The point is that since almost the entire lyrics industry is spam, Google has to accept spam as the best there is and rank it. But the day Google licenses lyrics data directly, many of those market leading sites will likely be rated as spam. In many fields a single competitor with a different business model can essentially erase the competition. Businesses that do not evolve with the web will eventually lose out to businesses that are more willing to embrace change—just ask any executive at a yellow pages company what they think of Google.

The importance of value-add

The same Google remote quality rater document ended with this quote:

“When trying to decide if a page is Spam, it is helpful to ask yourself this question: if I remove the scraped (copied) content, the ads, and the links to other pages, is there anything of value left? If the answer is no, the page is probably Spam.”

Most markets are not in the dark ages that lyrics sites are. And so Google can raise the bar on them whenever they like, especially if new signals of quality become more trustworthy than older signals. The above quote is just a starting point. In some spam heavy verticals, like travel, Google offers many additional tips on how to find and classify spam.

Over the last couple years many low end link selling blogs, article directories, and general web directories had their PageRank expunged. In a leaked 2005 review guide JoeAnt.com was cited as not spam. In 2008 JoeAnt had their PageRank score reduced. Was it fair? Some accidents may happen (JoeAnt got its PageRank back) but most the sites that got hit never did.

Google does not need 100 easy link sources for every webmaster to use and abuse. Most those directories are simply done for. There are better signals of quality elsewhere for Google to rely on.

Is your business model spam?

Andrew Goodman made a great point that entire business models can end up being voted against by an unfriendly Google AdWords quality score. And if they will not accept your money, the odds are good they don’t want to send you a firehose of free traffic either.

To some extent, Google is trying its best not just to guide the web, but to also try to satisfy user demand. As the web gets richer and deeper you need to do more to add value to the user experience to maintain a sustainable business model. Selling information will keep getting harder unless you have a unique data source, a unique information format or offer interactivity.

Changing with the market

I sold about $1,000,000 worth of an ebook and abandoned the format in favor of launching a new SEO training program. Given my domain name (seobook.com) and brand awareness, more than a couple people sent me emails telling me I was nuts. Where is the book? Why the change?

My earnings from the old business model were not down yet but growth was slowing, and after reading Teaching Sells it was obvious that the web was heading in another direction. I could either embrace it, or hang on to an old model that is dying. I didn’t sell a lot of ebooks just because people liked my ebook. Two crucial factors to that success were the domain name and the associated blog.

Starting a membership site this year is just like starting a blog in 2003 or buying great domains in 2002: a big competitive advantage for those who want to move beyond algorithmic judgement to build reliable traffic and income streams outside of Google’s control. And the less reliant you are on Google the more reliant they are on you.

credit Aaron Wall SEO Book

Google Loses Another Exec: CIO Douglas Merrill Goes To EMI

2008-04-02T20:05:00.000-07:00

Word is from John Furrier that Google Chief Information Officer Douglas Merrill is leaving the company to become president of EMI. News.com has confirmation of his departure from Google and says sources also say he's going to EMI. The New York Times also has sources saying he's headed to the music company. Merrill's departure (recently profiled here in Information Week) comes less than a month after another senior exec, Sheryl Sandberg, left Google for Facebook. Brain drain? Sort of, but more a question of how do you keep rich top execs challenged, I'd say.

Brain drain? Yes and no. Both Sandberg and Merrill were well respected and important execs for Google, to my understanding and own opinion. But both were also pre-IPO employees who don't likely need another job for money reasons. I can't see their departures as a brain drain due to Google itself not being an attractive place to work. Rather, I think they are symptomatic of another issues. Pre-IPO execs at Google, having gained financial wealth, still crave something else -- to show that they can thrive and excel out from under the Google shadow.

Let's go back to Sandberg. Kara Swisher had a good exit interview with her, where Sandberg said:

"I was not looking in a big way, but I was seeking a new challenge either internally or externally after six years at Google building the online sales team," she said

Clearly, that challenge wasn't to be had at Google. If it were, Sandberg would still be there. And so would Merrill, likely. Instead they -- and no doubt top pre-IPO execs to come -- are going to seek out challenges elsewhere. I don't know if that's a brain drain as much as Google perhaps being challenge-challenged.

Of course, we do continue to have other departures from Google. Just scroll through our Google Employees archives and you can see the posts about people who've gone. Adam Bosworth, formerly of Google Health, left last September. "Godfather" of AdSense, Gokul Rajaram, left in November. Salman Ullah, director of corporate development, went last October. Numerous product managers and others have called it quits.

Last week, Facebook gained yet another Googler -- Ethan Beard, former social media director at Google. A Google Friend Is Now Facebooks from the New York Times has more about that, along with other Googlers who are now Facebookers. And Can Google Stop the Brain Drain? from Wired lists more notable people to leave Google.

Some of these departures I'd say more accurately fit the brain drain category -- that Google's got good people who are choosing to work elsewhere for a variety of reasons -- greater challenges, less bureaucracy, more chance to shine, and significantly much higher chance of a bigger payday. Google's not minting the multi-millionaires these days, plus no doubt many recent employees are finding their stock options are "underwater," where they could buy Google shares much more cheaply on the open market than using options that were supposed to be an incentive to join with and stay at Google.

As I said, Google's still an attractive place to work. Fortune just rated it tops for 2008, and BusinessWeek recently profiled 15 happy employees. But it's also a maturing company, far past its exciting start-up days and facing the pressure of how to attract and keep the talent that's attracted to the challenges and potential pay-offs that start-ups give.

For more, see related discussion on Techmeme.

Google's First Layoffs: 300 To Go From DoubleClick

2008-04-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

Google to Lay Off About 300 at DoubleClick from the New York Times reports that Google will be firing about 300 employees at DoubleClick. The layoffs will cut down the American division of the company by 25-percent, currently employing about 1,200 people.

Google has not yet confirmed these layoffs. In very related news, Danny just posted, Google is selling off Performics, which is a division of DoubleClick. The 300 additional layoffs seem to be in addition to the Performics announcement.

The New York Times did receive a statement from Google saying:

Since our acquisition of DoubleClick closed on March 11, we have been working to match and align DoubleClick employees in the U.S. with our organizational plan for the business. As with many mergers, this review has resulted in a reduction in headcount at the acquired company.

Will Vertical Search threaten Google?

2008-04-02T02:19:00.000-07:00

Vertical search is the new breed of Search Engines that more intelligently mine data, from searching for keywords in audio files to focusing on specific industry sectors.

The landscape of Search is changing and I recently noticed three vertical search applications, which may end up threatening Google’s position.

The first application, is run by a company known as pluggd.tv, who’s core business is essentially providing a search engine for podcasts. The search engine works by using a patent-pending heatmap technology, which guides users to the content topics that they wish to see or hear.

For instance, if you click on the demo video on the front page of pluggd.tv, and search for the term 'Google' it will highlight all the areas where Google is spoken about on the video timeline.

Meanwhile, the colour scale on the timeline uses heatmap technology to highlight other words that may also be relevant in the video. In this example, some other words are highlighted as possibly relevant are 'YouTube' and 'internet'. A true innovation in search technology.

Pluggd was founded by Alex Castro who at Microsoft was formerly the Group Program Manager for the MSN Entertainment unit, which included the MSN Music, Video, Movies, and TV websites.

The second application is Farecast.com, the travel-based search engine focused on airline tickets. The clever bit comes from applying the idea of the stock market to buying the tickets, which helps you decide the best time to buy a ticket.

For example, if you are looking to buy a ticket from New York to Boston (UK cities are coming) then Farecast will display a graph of all the current prices, and the added benefit of showing you if current prices for tickets are rising or falling. A very neat bit of technology for the thousands of price-sensitive surfers.

Hugh Crean is the CEO of Farecast, who previously had a high flying career at Priceline.com where he was their Vice President of Product Development. Other notable positions he has held are with DLJ, Viacom, and AC Nielsen/Dun & Bradstreet.

The third and final application, called Retrevo, boasts a search engine that is dedicated to the electronics industry. For example, if you search for a 'Samsung 26 tv' on retrevo.com it provides the work of five search engines in one, aggregating and indexing the following information:

1) Product Manuals
2) Results from the manufacturers website
3) Results from Forums and Blogs
4) Reviews and articles, and
5) Shopping sites.

The whole world of electronics is confusing enough but this is the only search engine I can find that organises and categorises the data in a sensible way.

As you can see, the landscape for search is changing and there are some very high flying entrepreneurs entering this market place. This does seem to pose a threat to Google, however, there will always be a trade-off between generic and specialised applications for search.

Indeed, we may soon use a new breed of search engines, get fed up with the vast range in years to come, and move full circle back to single platforms like Google. Who knows?

Credit Max Worton

How to Make Your Content ‘Submit Worthy’

2008-04-02T02:15:00.000-07:00

"Why won't anyone submit my content to Digg?" My competitor is always on Reddit but my stuff gets ignored!" Sound familiar? Well here's how to put an end to your woes and ensure your content is submit worthy.

In order to be successful on social media news and bookmarking sites, you have to think like a typical power user. Start by understanding some fundamental truths about the users of these sites. For the most part they are busy. They skim. They want you (the publisher) to do a lot of the work for them. So here's how to cover all of your bases and K.I.S.S.

It all starts with a great title.
In the SEO world most people will tell you that your title is the most important on-page factor. Same thing is true for social media and bookmarketing sites. Your title can make or break your article. On a site like Reddit, there is no description option, so it's all about the title. Take a couple of extra minutes to put some thought into a creative title for your content. You'll be happy you did.

Need help? Try these.

Subheadings are sexy.
You know what your content is about better than anyone. Why not provide a short summary right under your title? This way someone can use that as a description instead of just grabbing the first two sentences (that might be way out of context). Great examples of this can be seen on any story by the BBC.

Pictures are worth a thousand words.
Great imagery can go a long way. On a site like Digg it can mean the difference between success and failure. Digg allows you to have a thumbnail image for any news article that gets submitted. People's eyes are naturally drawn to images. So if users have the choice between a submission with a thumbnail and one without it - well....

Be sure to check this yourself on Digg though to make sure its image spider is finding the correct images. For good examples check out the Wall Street Journal, Divine Caroline or ReadWriteWeb. Need help? Here's our creative process.

No-one wants to flip through 15 pages.
Social media users are a fickle bunch. One thing that most will agree on is that they hate having to read your content spread out onto seven pages. Or check out your slideshow that is on 25 different ones. I know, I know. Each extra page view results in extra ad impressions. Social media users know this too. And they hate it. Would you rather 1,000 people viewing seven pages or 60,000 viewing two?

RSS. It's not just for blogs.
One of the biggest misconceptions I hear in regards to RSS is "My site isn't a blog so I can't have RSS." If you have new content and you want people to be able to find that content easily - put it out in RSS. Make sure people know that you have RSS. Is Time Magazine a blog? Here's a great overview to get you started.

Credit: Chris Winfield

Will You Be Sued Over Your Ad Copy Usage?

2008-04-01T05:24:00.000-07:00

Storus Corp just successfully sued another advertiser for use of a trademarked term in the ad copy. This is the first time that I have seen a company sue another advertiser directly without relying on Google as the intermediary for filing trademark exceptions.

As PPC advertisers, this affects us dramatically.

There are ads running on Google right now using the exact trademarked term. In fact, a substantial number of ads use various trademarked terms. From the people I talk to, the vast majority of them rely on Google to tell them which words they should not use. This case could set a dangerous precedent of advertiser suing advertiser and ignoring Google's trademark complaint process.

In reviewing the exhibits of the case, it appears that none of the ad copy actually contained the trademarked term. One ad was utilizing dynamic insertion and they had the trademarked term in their keywords. This combination of events is what triggered the trademarked term to appear in their ad. The summary mentions that they were using an agency to manage their campaigns, yet it doesn't appear that Storus involved the agency at all. I have not had a chance to talk to this agency yet or to read all of the court documents to see whether or not the agency could have been dragged into this case.

However, when you dig into this particular case and get past the trademarked keywords, it turns out that a majority of the issues stem from possible patent infringements. This case goes well beyond being a simple case about the use of trademarked terms in ad copy. However, it behooves us to review Google's trademark system so that we all understand the full implications of trademark usage.

Google's Current Trademark Policy
The current policy is to let anyone bid on any keyword and to use any keyword in ad copy. If the trademark owner files a trademark complaint with Google, Google will then determine if you have legal right to use that trademark. If so, then Google will not allow other advertisers to use that keyword in the ad copy; however, any advertiser can still bid on that keyword. This stems from the Geico vs Google lawsuit.

The tricky part about the policy is that keywords are generally trademarked by industry. If the keyword is not trademarked for your industry then you can often still use it. The word "apple", for example, is trademarked for use with MP3 players, vacations, music, and a couple thousand others. However, if you are an orchard farmer, you can still use the word "apple" in your ad copy.

The Difficulty with the Opt Out Process
If you are an advertiser of a trademarked term, then you have three choices, each with their own set of difficulties.

Option 1: File the trademark exception with Google. Once the exception is granted, others can't use your trademarked term in ad copy. However, this is not necessarily ideal. What if you are a manufacturer who doesn't sell direct? In this case, you might want others to use your trademarked term in the ad copy since they are the ones who are pushing your goods. This is possible, but you must give each party permission to use the words and file some paperwork with Google.

A common scenario in this case is for the smaller retail stores to not bother contacting their manufacturer and asking for permission. Either they do not advertise on the keyword, or they just do not add the trademarked keyword into the ad copy. As a manufacturer, you are losing out in building your brand equity and sales by not allowing these other companies to use your trademarked term. This is also an issue for franchises. I often see hotels who want to run an AdWords campaign. However, the corporate office holds the trademark rights. In these instances, hotels who do not know how to navigate (or do not want to spend the time) the corporate office are not even allowed to use their own business name in their ad copy.

Therefore, while this option is great for companies who funnel all of their sales through their own website, do not sell through third parties, and are not part of franchises, it is not a great option for many others.

Option 2: Do nothing. Doing nothing is sometimes a conscious decision. After examining the above scenario, we can see where doing nothing can be useful. However, there are consequences as you let competitors use your trademarked name in ad copy. Imagine seeing an ad for Nike Shoes and then after clicking the ad, you end up at the Adidas website (this does not happen today between Nike and Adidas, but it did happen in the Storus vs. Aroa lawsuit).

Option 3: Sue Selectively. The question becomes: What if you want to allow everyone except a few competitors to use your trademark? Either you can go through the pain of filing a trademark exclusion with Google or you can just sue those few competitors who you do not want to use your name. Due to the cost of lawyers and the ambiguity of keyword advertising today, this is not a common scenario. However, it is a possible scenario three.

What is a Marketer to do?
It is very difficult to know that you are using a trademarked term. This lawsuit concerned the keyword "smart money clips". Personally, I didn't know that was a trademarked word. It was a word that I could easily have in a campaign just by mixing and matching keywords. When you mix and match keywords, ad copies, and use dynamic insertion, anything can happen, unless a third party lets you know that one of those words is trademarked.

There is a trademark search at the USPTO website. However, as trademarks are industry specific, it is very difficult to tell whether or not a word is trademarked for your industry.

Faced with the possibility of lawsuits, an agency might want to show their clients all the keywords and ad copy being used and have the client sign off that they have the right to use this information. Alternatively, an agency could insert some language into the client's contract that states they are not responsible for any trademark defamation as a result of their marketing efforts on behalf of a client. However, while that is a useful document for an agency to have during a lawsuit, it does not protect them from being sued, nor does it instill confidence for the client.

An in-house marketer does not have many places to turn. They could involve their legal department. However, if a lawyer has to examine each keyword individually, campaigns that consisted of millions of keywords might start utilizing only a few hundred, as the keyword research costs would skyrocket.

Or, we can rely on Google, Yahoo, and MSN to help. After all, it's our billions of dollars spent with them that are fueling much of their growth. They could take some of those funds and start determining a common ground for trademark usage and protection. At present, each of them has a different way of dealing with trademarks.

The current patched together system of trademark policies on the web makes it difficult for a trademark owner to navigate the system and easily set permissions for how their trademarks are used.

If the three major engines created consistent policies and then shared the trademark permissions between them, it would make life easier on markets and trademark owners. It might even save on overall legal costs.

If Google and Yahoo can agree to share data on a platform that does not make up most of their revenue in OpenSocial, one would think they could agree on a standard when it concerns the monetary lifeblood of their business.

Credit: Brad Geddes

Microsoft's $1 Million Guarantee Program To Win Searchers

2008-04-01T05:21:00.000-07:00

Microsoft executives, worried that the plan to acquire Yahoo for an estimated $40 billion, have hatched an alternative plan that might bring about success over Google at a much cheaper cost. To win in search, Microsoft may pay people not to use Google. And pay a premium, up to $1 million per year, over the next three years, to anyone within the United States.

Called the "$1 Million Guarantee Program," the initiative will reward anyone within the United States that agrees to have web surfing monitoring software hooked to their computer. To allay privacy concerns, the software will watch for only one thing -- use of Google and other non-Microsoft search engines.

Under the program, people can earn up to $1 million per year if they exclusively use Microsoft's search products. The program is open to any US resident aged 6 and above. There will be some provisions for "accidental" or "occasional" visits to non-Microsoft services. But by and large, the deal is that by being exclusive to Microsoft, Microsoft will reward users with cold hard cash.

Absurdly expensive? It can seem that way at first, but consider the math. There's an estimated 300 million people living in the United States. If you pay each one $1 million for the next three years, that's just under $1 billion. That saves Microsoft $39 billion compared to what it was going to spend on purchasing Yahoo.

The US isn't the limit for Microsoft rebels behind the plan. The world population is just under 7 billion. Give each person $1 million for three years and that's still only half the price of purchasing Yahoo. However, Microsoft figures that it could use a sliding scale for some countries. Where the cost of living is less expensive, less would be given out. And places where the US dollar is not longer worth as much (Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union .... it's a long list), slightly more might be given.

The main reason Microsoft plans to start with the US are the legalities. So far, they can't find any US law that would prevent them from paying for exclusivity in this way. Technically, they aren't paying for people NOT to use Google. They're paying for people to be loyal to Microsoft, which would seem to clear some regulatory hurdles. After the US, they would examine issues with other major markets.

So far, there's no reaction from the Google side. Google's issue is that it has far less cash on hand to use to bribe people for loyalty. Instead, Google's been relying on simply giving products away, such as Google Docs that just gained offline access today (and see here). But with cold hard cash being offered by Microsoft, especially during a time of economic turmoil, Google might face the most serious challenge in its history.

Microsoft's plans are still a work in progress and yet to be approved. If they are, the hope is that the program will be formally unveiled a year from today, April 1, 2009.

A New Tool From Google Alarms Sites

2008-03-31T02:56:00.001-07:00

Retailers and publishers have fought hard to work their way up in the ranking of Google’s search results and refine the search features of their own Web sites to help users once they arrive. Now, Google is taking a greater role in helping users search within particular sites. And some of the same retailers and publishers are not happy about it.

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Andrew Shurtleff for The New York Times

A second box, originated by Google, pops up when a search is conducted for some companies’ Internet sites.

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Andrew Shurtleff for The New York Times

Alan Rimm-Kaufman, an Internet consultant, said Google might be asked at times to turn off a new feature.

This month, the company introduced a search-within-search feature that lets users stay on Google to find pages on popular sites like those of The Washington Post, Wikipedia, The New York Times, Wal-Mart and others. The search box appears when someone enters the name of certain Web addresses or company names — say, “Best Buy” — rather than entering a request like “cellphones.”

The results of the search are almost all individual company pages. Google tops those results with a link to the home page of the Web site in question, adds another search box, and offers users the chance to let Google search for certain things within that site.

The problem, for some in the industry, is that when someone enters a term into that secondary search box, Google will display ads for competing sites, thereby profiting from ads it sells against the brand. The feature also keeps users searching on Google pages and not pages of the destination Web site.

Analysts generally praise the feature as helping users save steps, but for Web publishers and retailers, there are trade-offs. While the service could help increase traffic, some users could be siphoned away as Google uses the prominence of the brands to sell ads, typically to competing companies.

“Google is showing a level of aggressiveness with this that’s just not needed,” said Alan Rimm-Kaufman, a former executive with the electronics retailer Crutchfield who is now an Internet consultant. Google’s aggressiveness, Mr. Rimm-Kaufman said, ignores a user’s desire to reach a specific destination and it costs those Web sites visitors.

Take, for instance, a situation last week, when users of Google searched The Washington Post and were given a secondary search box. Those who typed “jobs” into that second box saw related results for The Post’s employment pages, but the results were bordered by ads for competing employment sites like CareerBuilder or Monster.com.

So even though users began the process by stating their intention to reach The Post, Google’s ads steered at least some of them to competitors. Similar situations arose when users relied on Google to search nytimes.com.

While executives of both The Times and Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive declined to comment, plenty of others assailed Google over what they saw as a heavy-handed approach.

Google said it had not received many complaints directly from companies, but some search-engine specialists were quick to pounce when the company announced its service. Ann Smarty, a search-engine marketing consultant who originated the SeoSmarty.com blog, speculated that the new feature “could mean bad news” for sites. Other search-marketing specialists echoed her sentiments, and brands began to follow.

“Eventually this could be a huge problem if Google starts throwing this out there to all brands,” said Pinny Gniwisch, vice president for marketing of Ice.com, an online jeweler. Mr. Gniwisch, who is also on the board of Shop.org, an online retail industry group, said Google’s new feature did not appear when users searched for Ice.com, but he said he would object if it did. “This is essentially giving the customer a way to leave a search for your site,” he said.

Donna L. Hoffman, co-director of the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing, at the University of California, Riverside, predicted that Internet users “will really like this because it’s probably a better way to search a site than going to the sites themselves. “

“But as consumers appreciate this more, there’ll be more and more outcry from companies.” Ms. Hoffman said. Consumers who see advertisements on Google when they search The Post’s or The Times’s content might view the ads as carrying the endorsement of those news publishers.

“Why would I advertise on those other sites when I could just advertise on Google and piggyback on the equity of the other brands?” Ms. Hoffman said.

Mr. Rimm-Kaufman said the new Google service also diminishes a Web publisher’s role in helping users find potentially useful content. “You may want to editorialize differently when someone searches, and maybe put a premium on certain reporters or content,” he said. “This moves you further out of the loop.”

Retailers, Mr. Rimm-Kaufman added, should be even more leery of this feature, and not because they will lose sales to competitors whose ads appear in Google’s refined search results. More sophisticated retail sites have search functions that take into account a customer’s past behavior to suggest certain items, as well as more accurate data on which items are in stock.

“Some of our retail clients have pretty horrible site search,” he said. “So for them, this will be a benefit. For our larger clients, we’ll probably ask Google to turn this off.”

That is the route that Amazon has apparently chosen. The retailer declined to comment for this article, but last week Google’s search-within-search function did not appear when users entered “amazon.com” into the initial search box.

According to a Google spokeswoman, the company has honored such requests from “a couple” of unnamed businesses. These companies, however, may not be able to reverse their decisions.

“So we ask them to try it out and see if they want it removed,” the spokeswoman said. “We think it could be a really useful feature.”

Google-DoubleClick: The next phase

2008-03-31T02:52:00.000-07:00

ow that Google has acquired DoubleClick–the display advertising feather in its proverbial cap–it’s time to see if the hat fits.

The $3.1 billion acquisition, which finally closed last week upon European regulator approval, gives Google a much needed boost in the market for display advertising.

Google hasn’t offered many clues as to what its plans are with DoubleClick, other than to hint at layoffs. But Google pundits and executives at small ad outfits do have concerns and plenty of opinions about what the search king should do.

Google’s AdSense serves up pay-per-click text ads to Web sites within its publisher network, while DoubleClick, which markets a product called Dart, places banner ads on Web sites. DoubleClick also runs an advertising exchange and a search-engine marketing business called Performics.

There are some basic conflict-of-interest questions with some of the additions to Google. As the largest search engine, Google has kept its distance from search engine optimization, or SEO, which is the science of increasing a Web page’s rankings in search results. But with Performics, Google owns an SEO company.

“Even if Performics is kept completely separate from the Google search team, there’s the impression that Performics might have some special ‘in’ with Google’s non-paid search results,” writes Danny Sullivan in a Search Engine Land blog post in which he urges Google to get rid of Performics.

Granted, Microsoft finds itself in the same SEO-owning boat after acquiring Avenue A/Razorfish and Sullivan poses this question to both companies: “You own the pie; do you really need to sell the pie cutters too?”

There’s another conflict Google bumps up against with DoubleClick–the fact that it risks alienating publishers who don’t want Google to have too much control. Google could integrate DoubleClick’s Dart ad management and serving technology into AdWords to offer one unified dashboard and see into even more Web sites across the Internet.

“Now, if Google owns all the technology they have access to that data, they know what’s being bought and sold. It puts customers in a tough situation.”

–Frank Addante, The Rubicon Project

“A lot of DoubleClick’s customers consider Google a competitor,” says Frank Addante, chief executive of The Rubicon Project, which offers a dashboard for sites to manage the more than 300 online ad networks. (Addante was formerly with L90/adMonitor advertising platform, which was bought by DoubleClick in 2001.)

“Now, if Google owns all the technology they have access to that data, they know what’s being bought and sold,” Addante says. “It puts customers in a tough situation.”

The merger “cements Google’s position as ‘frienemy’ with major publishers,” says Jim Barnett, chief executive of Turn, an automated online ad market.

And there’s the question of whether Google will continue to restrict its customers from working with third-party ad servers. “Advertisers working with Google couldn’t use third-party ad serving, so a lot of people wouldn’t use Google,” says Michael Cassidy, chief executive of online ad network Undertone Networks.

“Our clients on DoubleClick that have contracts expiring with DoubleClick are saying it’s a dead end,” that it will be eclipsed by Google technology, which will impact customers, said Ruben Buell, chief executive of AdShuffle, an ad serving company.

Google also has to figure out what the best business model is for ad serving. DoubleClick charges customers for it, but Google is testing a free ad management service called Ad Manager.

Beyond the technical integration issues, the two merged companies face a culture clash. It’s “Madison Avenue hipsters” meets “Silicon Valley geek types,” according to Addante.

“Display is more brand advertising, more emotional,” he says. “I think it’s going to take Google some time to learn that side of the business because they’re so data driven.”

Credit: adsnews 2008

Google turns the lights out for Earth Hour

2008-03-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

The last time Google switched the lights off was for an initiative called “Lights Out San Francisco” in October. It’s much easier to get people to listen than to actually act — based on the pictures that were taken during Lights Out San Francisco event. This time, Google is supporting the Earth Hour initiative created by the WWF.

Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

IncrediMail Gets Crushed Financially By Google AdSense Ban

2008-03-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Google AdSense Has The Power To Lower Your Stock Price from paidContent reports IncrediMail, an email marketer based in Israel, has been banned by AdSense. The ban seemed to have caused their stock price to drop 45% in one day. IncrediMail did not say why they were banned. Was the 45% drop in the stock price completely due to announcing the AdSense ban? PaidContent said it is possible, but the overall outlook of the company looked positive.

If you ever wander in an AdSense forum, you will notice that you can typically find a dozen recent threads with complaints that Google AdSense has banned them from displaying AdSense ads on their site. But we have yet to see a story where an AdSense ban has caused a company's stock price to tumble over 45% in one day.

UPDATE Several days later, we learn that Google has reestablished their AdSense deal with IncrediMail. IncrediMail's CEO said:

We are pleased to be able to resolve this set-back so quickly and in such a positive way. Google’s co-operation in re-instating our account makes us more optimistic than ever regarding the potential of the search business.

I am sure it is a huge relief for the company.

Google Pushes AdSense For Video Again

2008-03-28T03:22:00.000-07:00

Google also posted a detailed video explaining all of Google's video ad offerings. They include advertising on video ads, while publishers can display AdSense for Video on their sites and movie producers can utilize the YouTube Partner Program.As expected, Google announced another push to get advertisers and publishers to utilize video ads. Yes, Google did a pilot video ad program back in May 2007 and then another video ad push in October 2007. But from these, Google said they've learned much and have made changes to the new program.

Google said they will sell both "InVideo" ads, where a video ad appears at the bottom of a video, as well as text overlay ads that put text below a video. The InVideo ads are paid on a CPM basis, while the text overlay ads are paid on a CPC basis. To see demos of both formats, click here.

For more information, visit Google Video Advertising Solutions. Video ads are now available to publishers who, at a minimum, serve one million video streams each month and are based in the U.S. with English language sites.

Details Posted On Google Webmaster Central's Live Chat Session

2008-03-28T03:08:00.000-07:00

Adam Lasnik posted the agenda, which starts at 8:45am (PST) this Friday and ends at 10am (PST). In short, Google will give an introduction, then do site reviews, then a topic on image search, followed by a short Q&A session. To try to have your site discussed in the site reviews section, you need to submit your details at Google Groups. Also, make sure to read the FAQs page to learn how to join the live chat, listen to the presentations, and submit questions in the Q&A session.

Credit Searchengineland

Microsoft to raise its bid for yahoo....Maybe

2008-03-27T03:18:00.001-07:00

Wall Street Analyst Mark Mahaney anticipates Microsoft will raise its bid for Yahoo from $31 to $34 dollars per share. Barring an 11th hour alternative for Yahoo, this should move toward Yahoo's public position that the original Microsoft bid undervalued the company. It also should please Yahoo's institutional shareholders and put more pressure on Yahoo management to negotiate in earnest with Microsoft -- if it happens.

Why Startups Fail: Run out of cash and commitment

2008-03-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

One thing I've been pondering this weekend is figuring out why startups fail. But, in order to figure that out, I had to first decide what constitutes failure. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that a definitive failure is when the startup simply stops trying. And, the only reasons to stop trying are that you run out of cash, or you run out of commitment -- or both.

Let me elaborate a bit. Lets say your startup had an unlimited amount of cash (hypothetically). Whenever you needed money, you'd go to the money tree, pick some more cash, and go back to your business. If this were the case, it's likely the number of startup "failures" would be vanishingly small. Why? Because you haven't failed yet, you simply haven't figured out the model that works. As long as you still had commitment, you could keep going indefinitely. Of course, there's no such thing as unlimited cash.

Similarly, lets say you had a day job, and your startup didn't really require any cash. And, you were fanatically committed to your vision or idea. In theory, you could run your startup for decades and still never really "fail". You'd just keep going and rather than being a failure, you'd be a startup that hadn't succeeded yet. As long as you were committed, you could just keep going.

So, with that set of abstract concepts in place, let's dig in a little deeper.

Constraints On Cash and The Paradox of Venture Funding

Given that you have a finite amount of cash, how long your startup can survive is a function of how much cash you put in (revenues + funding) and how much you take out (expenses). You'd think that a venture-funded startup would be more likely to succeed, because it has longer to "figure it out" (i.e. more time to get to success). But, I'm not sure that's true. What ends up happening is that VC-funded startups tend to increase their expense-base such that their time horizon is actually pretty short (about 1.5-2 years on a Series A funding). On the flip-side, a bootstrapped startup might not have a large influx of cash, but might actually have more time to figure things out.

As an example, my first startup was bootstrapped. No VC funding. We did things the old-fashioned way. We charged people money, and spent less than we made. We were profitable from our first year of existence (and remained that way for 9+ straight years). We were profitable, because we had no choice. How much we spent was always a function of how much we made. In the long run, we didn't grow as fast as we might have otherwise, but overall we succeeded.

Contrast this to a couple of venture-backed competitors of this bootstrapped startup. They had each raised $25MM+ in venture funding. Of course, this was in the midst of the bubble, but the lesson is still similar (it's an issue of magnitude). These companies ran through their cash, and couldn't get funding to keep going. They failed.

This is just one data point, and it would be silly to try and generate any conclusions from it. But, it does generate an interesting idea: Perhaps startups should simply be trying to give themselves enough time to figure out what will work. And, the time available is not a function of the amount of cash raised, but the amount of cash being consumed. Profitable startups don't consume cash -- they generate it. Hence, they've got more time.

For the record, my current startup, HubSpot, is venture-funded. This means I have some work to do to figure out how to get to the point of having an infinite amount of time to figure things out (otherwise known as becoming profitable). The good news is that profitability is something we actually talk about (which you would think would be a common conversation in startups, but it's not).

In a follow-up article, I'll discuss the tradeoffs between bootstrapping and venture funding a startup. Having seen it from both sides, I'm beginning to form an opinion (always a dangerous thing).

Adsense Tips Part 3

2008-02-19T18:41:00.000-08:00

AdSense Tip #11: Show images above or next to your ads

Placing images above AdSense ads is not necessarily prohibited by program policies. However, depending on the method of implementation this could be considered encouraging users to click on ads. So you should include a border line between the ads and the images. Don't show specific products in your images, in order not to mislead the visitors. Just use generic images that will increase the visibility of your ads.

AdSense Tip #12: Use section targeting

Use section targeting to emphasize some content in your page. On your site, place this code where you want to emphasize.


Content you want to emphasize.


If you want some content to be ignored, use

AdSense Tip #13: Alternate the colors of your ads

AdSense allows you to have up to 4 color variations for each variable for which you can specify color. You should do that if you put AdSense ads on pages that receive many impressions from the same visitors (for example forums) to reduce ad blindness. For example:

google_color_border = ["628098","628098","000000","000000"];
google_color_link = ["000000","BBB90C","BBB90C","628098"];
google_color_url = ["000000","628098","000000","000000"];
google_color_text = ["628098","628098","000000","000000"];

AdSense Tip #14: Your Google ads should be visible

Make sure your text ads are visible to the surfers in all screen formats. If you put the ads in a table, give sufficient breathing room, i.e. proper cell padding and cell spacing to make the ads stand out from the rest of your content.

AdSense Tip #15: Use AdSense channels

You can categorize the content of your website into channels and then track your performance. This way you can experiment with different types of ads and see which is performing the best. Instead of buying an AdSense tracker, you can enter the most important pages in your site and see how they are doing. Create up to 200 channels for AdSense.

Credit http://akmalrizali.blogspot.com/search/label/AdSense

Top Adsense Tips

2008-02-17T22:38:00.000-08:00

Top AdSense Tips:

Niche Sites
Targeted niche sites that have a clear theme, tend to generate more advertising revenue simply because it is easier to achieve decent search engine placement. Be warned though, you want to chose a niche where there is a sufficient number of advertisements available.
Target Keywords
When determining the site's focus, consider how much the advertisers pay for the advertisements. If the site is focused on ringtones, like Ringtone Central , the payout per click is going to be very small. Because ringtones are not high ticket items, advertisers will not spend a lot on pay-per-click advertisements.
With less obvious markets, use Overture to determine how much advertisers pay per keyword. The cost will usually be similar on Google. Search Overture for a keyword then click "View Advertisers' Max Bids" in the top right corner. This will show the Overture inventory and how much is paid per keyword. Because the market has become very competitive, it will be difficult to rank well in search engines with a new Web site that is optimized for the terms that have the highest payout. Consider targeting terms that are moderately priced.
Aged Sites / Time
Over time, as a Web site is spidered by Google, advertisements will generally increase in relevance. In general, older Web sites will rank better in search engines. The closer the advertisements relate to the Web page's content, the higher the "click-through" the publishers will see.
Coding
In order to minimize a Web site's maintenance, place the Google generated AdSense code in the Web site template or an "include" file. This will allow you to easily experiment with different advertisement sizes and ad placement, and keep the Web maintenance to a minimum.
Tracking Channels
In order to know how effective a specific Web site or ad placement is, use distinct channels and subchannels within Google. This will allow you to discern what performs best on a specific Web site. Using channels will tell you what sites are making money, what advertisements are making money and what ad position is the most profitable on a specific Web site. Keep in mind that you should run an advertisement for a full week, in order to properly test its effectiveness, different days of the week will vary the Web traffic so comparing one week to another will give the most accurate reflection of how effective a campaign performs.
When testing different advertisement sizes, placement or color schemes, be sure to leave campaigns in place for one week. Different days will often result in Web traffic fluctuations. Comparing Web traffic week to week will give a clear indication of what ad formats perform the best.

Credit - About.com 2008

The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Effective Adsense Link Units Optimization

2007-09-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

Most webmasters and bloggers make money from their website through Google Adsense and I’ve noticed that not all of them include Adsense link units as part of their contextual monetization strategy.

It’s useful to note that Adsense link units can and will help you to generate more income from your website, if you are able to integrate them perfectly within the overall site design and layout.

Google has recently updated their Adsense program policy and publishers are now allowed to place three link units on a single page instead of just one:

As we’ve noted in the past, link units are a great way to provide relevant, user-friendly ads in hard-to-fit locations on your site. With the new opportunity to place three link units — and the plethora of link unit formats — we hope you’ll find great ways of incorporating this unique ad format on your site.

While this change won’t drastically improve your monetization potential, it does offer more placement options for publishers. I thought would be helpful to create a basic primer on how to use Adsense Link Units for your own website or blog.

If you’ve never used link units before, this might be a good time to experiment and find out how they work for your website and monetization goals.

What are Adsense Link Units?

Basically, link units are simply a collection of four to five links within a horizontal or vertical format. When clicked, each of these links will open up into a webpage that consists of nothing but Google ads.

Characteristics of the Adsense Link Unit

Link units are unobtrusive. They do not take up much space and can be easily integrated into any single webpage. Their small size and design will not affect the viewer experience of content on your website.
Link units do not seem like ads. Unlike other contextual ads, link units can be skillfully blended to look like navigational units on any website. This increases the possibility of click-throughs.

How do you Make Money with Adsense Link Units?

Unlike other Adsense ad units, you’ll only make money when the visitor clicks on the link unit and then clicks on any link within the link page. In other words, you’ll need two visitor clicks before you actually make any money.

This means that, in order to maximize your earning potential, you’ll need to get as many people to click on the link units as possible in the hope of receiving a larger percentage of second clicks.

The link units earnings model simply emphasizes the importance of ad blending and placement. From my experience with link units, I believe that one can easily see a decent number of ad clicks if your link unit is well blended on your site.

Setting up Adsense Link Units for your Website

First of all you’ll need to signup for Google Adsense if you haven’t already done so. After which, log into your account and then click on Adsense Setup and then Adsense for Content. You’ll come to the following screen:

Select the Link Unit and click Continue. You’ll then be able to choose a horizontal or vertical link unit while determining the number of links that will show up in each unit.

After which, you’ll have the option of setting up a channel to track the performance of the link unit. Create a channel by clicking on the Add New Channel link at the bottom of the screen and give it an appropriate name that suits your site.

And you’re done! Just copy the code to your site template and the link units should show up immediately.

Optimization Guidelines for Adsense Link Units

Most of these optimization tips apply to Adsense ad units as well so they may not be new to you:

Text color for the link unit should be the same as the link color for your website.
Remove the ad borders and ensure that the background color matches your site. This will increase the potential for blending and clickthroughs.
Above the fold placement or placement of link units near the top of any webpage will work best for link units.
Avoid Ad Congestion and clutter. Link units should not be placed too closely to other advertisements because they may be easily overlooked by visitors. Link units work best when placed to navigational links or as standalone units.
Optimize for Search Traffic. Link Units work best with visitors from search engines and should be placed on pages which receive the most consistent search traffic, even if you don’t want to use them on a site wide basis.
Use Ad Channels. Ad channels allow you to measure the performance of each link unit you use and allows for comparative analysis. Essential if you want to know which link unit to drop and which to maintain.
Mirror your site link structure. One useful method to improve your link unit click through rate is place your link unit beneath or beside your on-site navigational links. This conceptually makes them blend in extremely well although they may confuse visitors.

Four Link Unit Placement Examples

Adsense link unit placement can be broadly divided into four formats, each involving different usages of both horizontal and vertical link units.

I’ve included several screenshots of each format and have included a brief commentary on how you can use them for your own website.

1. Horizontal Link Units as Menu/Navigation Links

In my opinion, this is by far the best way to use link units because they do appear to be exactly like menu links and will attract navigational clicks from visitors who are trying to find more information from your website.

You can include the link units within your header, just beneath your header or only on individual webpages or blog post pages. The key point is to keep them above the fold to ensure maximum visibility.

2. Horizontal Link Units as Footer links

Footer link units are the most unobtrusive and will attract clicks from visitors who browse or scan your website from top to bottom. They can be a useful addition to other link units placed above the fold.

I’ve used horizontal link units as a footer link on Dosh Dosh for about a week and the results have been rather satisfying, given its almost indiscernible placement on the homepage.

I initially put them up as an experiment and I have found that this link unit makes me a few dollars a day, which is not too bad at all.

3. Vertical Link Units as Category Links

I’ve seen some blogs and websites use vertical Link Units as some sort of a category unit in their sidebar. I think these vertical ad units generally perform poorly in comparison to the horizontal link units, which are more well blended and less ad-like.

Unless you’re willing to create a linking structure similar for the link units (see the first screenshot on top), they are likely to stand out like a sore thumb.

Then again, the vertical link unit’s performance may depend on your actual site design and layout so you’ll need to test them to see if they do attract ad clicks from visitors.

4. Vertical Link Unit within Content

I’ve come across very few websites which include a link unit within actual content of a web page and I always wonder how they are performing for these publishers.

Most webmasters would rather include an Adsense ad rectangle instead of a link unit because it only provides one click earnings, instead of the two-clicks which you need from link units.

Giving up a prime in-content spot to link units is not a good idea and it might actually add to the overall clutter of your webpage.

Disadvantages of Adsense Link Units: Factors to Consider

Some have suggested that very well-blended Adsense Link Units are unethical because they can be made to appear as legitimate navigational links which have a high chance of inducing clicks from visitors who are searching for information on your site.

A visitor might click on the link thinking that it is a category or menu button of some sort, only to be led to a Google Adsense page full of links.

While the links might be relevant to the link unit text and your site, some visitors might not like the feeling of being ‘tricked’ when they click on the link unit.

Another issue to consider is that these link units are exit points which siphon traffic away from your site. Instead of browsing more pages on your site, a visitor might click on a link unit and then click on another link to be led to another site.

The visitor might not return to your website again and the likelihood of this is higher if they are led to a page full of ad links which point to similar websites or even your immediate competitors.

Experiment, Document and Evaluate.

As many have mentioned before, experimentation and analysis is the best to way to ensure that you’ll make money with Adsense. You need to put up ads and measure them over time to assess their performance.

Don’t be reluctant to tweak your ad placement to see if you can achieve higher click through rates. Only by experimenting with different ad formats and placement positions can you find an format that will bring you the most potential for profit.

Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission

2007-09-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

By Kalena Jordan - April 3, 2006

Google AdSense is fast becoming the preferred way for people to earn an income online. Forget eBay and multiple affiliate programs - Whether you are a work-at-home mom trying to make a little extra cash or an Internet entrepreneur with hundreds of monetized websites, AdSense is truly the easiest way to earn money.

Simply sign up for a free account, grab your ad code and paste it in your site. But here's the amazing thing - no matter how much money AdSense is making for you right now, a few simple tweaks can increase that amount considerably. And I should know, after learning about these tricks, I more than doubled my AdSense commissions!

The self-proclaimed AdSense gurus and experts are sharing this insider knowledge, for a fee. You can learn all these secrets from them, as long as you buy their e-book, sign up for their seminar or purchase their newsletter. But I'm going to share all their AdSense tricks for free. Here they are:

1) Color code your ads to match your web site palette *exactly*. Don't use frames around your ads. Instead, in the AdSense code generation interface, make sure you choose the same color as your page background for the ad frame and the ad background.

When choosing the ad heading colors, match them to the *exact* color of your page headings. Use the exact same ad background shade as your page background. Use the exact same ad text font and color as the text on your pages. You can see an example of this color-matching on my search engine advice blog notice the 4 link ad unit and skyscraper text ad unit on the left hand side under the headings Ads by Google as you scroll down the page? The link and text colors are identical to the color palette used throughout the rest of the page.

Near enough is NOT good enough. If you can't quite get the color matching right, use Google's built in color palette together with the RGB to HEX or vice versa color converter on this page. That handy little tool was a life saver for me.

This is probably the one single tweak that made the most difference to my commission levels.

2) Try not to use the traditional horizontal banner style or leaderboard image ads because people are blind to them.

3) Use Google's own AdSense optimization tips and visual heat map to assist you in deciding where on your page to place your AdSense ad code.

4) Research competitive keywords using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery or grab a list of the most popular keywords from various sources and use them in your web site pages where relevant. This article is a good source of frequently searched keywords. Targeting popular keywords should trigger AdSense ads on your pages that utilize those keywords. The more popular the keyword or phrase, the higher AdWords advertisers are generally willing to pay per click for it so the higher your commission on those clicks.

5) Incorporate the AdSense code into your page so that the ads look like a regular part of your site. You can see an example of this on the Internet Dating Stories site where link ads are incorporated within the regular left hand navigation of the site under the heading "Feature Links".

6) Use Google's new 4 and 5 link ad units wherever possible. They seem to have a much higher Click Through Rate (CTR) than regular ad styles. You can view all the AdSense ad formats here.

7) Place arrows or images next to your ads to draw attention to them. You can see two different versions of on this search engine article library page at the top (where a pointing hand directs your eye to the ad) and the bottom where 3 images draw your attention to each of the three AdSense ads.

8) Use the full allowance of multiple AdSense ads on each of your pages - 3 regular AdSense ads, plus 1 link unit. Use careful placement of these ads so they blend into your site and don't distract from your content. Clever use of this allowance can be seen on this page about bad Internet dating stories where you see:

- 1 horizontal 4 link ad unit towards the top of the page under the first paragraph
- 1 vertical skyscraper text ad unit about halfway down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links"
- 1 vertical skyscraper image ad unit down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links"
- 1 horizontal text banner unit at the bottom of the page with images above each ad to draw attention to them.

You can also include 1 AdSense referral button in addition to the 3 other units.

9) Tailor your page content to a particular niche or focus. Page content that is tailored towards a specific theme is more likely to trigger AdWords ads that closely match the content and are therefore more likely to interest your visitors and inspire them to click. Don't create pages merely for the sake of placing AdSense ads. Visitors (and search engines) can see through this ruse in an instant.

10) Use custom Ad Channels for each of your ad placements, for example, "Top 5 Link Unit Blue Palette" or "Left Side Navigation Image Skyscraper" etc. Tweak, track and measure the success of each of these custom channels so you know what gives you the highest CTR. Some ad formats and colors will work better than others, but you won't know which until you test, test and test some more!

How do you make money from the Google Adsense Program?

2007-09-12T04:21:00.001-07:00

What AdSense Tips can you share with us?

I have been asked this question so many times in the past few weeks that I thought I should write something on the topic. It seems increasingly bloggers want to try to cover their hosting and ISP costs with some revenue from their blog - and increasingly they’re doing it and are able to make a few (or quite a lot) dollars on the side. Many are turning to Google’s Adsense program.

Covering costs of my Digital Photography Blog is why I originally signed up with Google Adsense - blogging can get expensive when you have high levels of traffic and a lot of pages.

Whilst the agreement you sign with Google stresses that you are not allowed to give specific information about your earnings from the program I can say that I’m glad I’ve signed up because its well and truly covered my costs - and then some. In fact I think its quite feasible to expect that Adsense coupled with other strategies for making money from Blogging could quite easily generate a decent living. It takes time and hard work, but I think its very doable. (Update: Since writing this series I’ve revealed that I am now looking at making over a six figure income this year in 2005 from blogging).

So how do I make money from Google Adsense? Let me share some AdSense Tips that heve helped me.

This will be the first in a series of posts on this topic. Let me say up front I’m no expert - there are a lot of people out there making a lot more money than I am using Adsense - however most of them are not telling their secrets - well not for free anyway. I’ve got no secrets to hide and am willing to share what I’ve learnt since I signed up for the program 8 months ago. If you want a REAL expert’s opinion on Adsense I’d recommend buying Joel Comm’s What Google Never Told You About Making Money with Adsense E-Book. Joel earns $15,000 per month from Adsense and has some good things to share.

I know some bloggers are put off or offended by the idea of making money from blogging so I’ll try not to let these posts dominate my blog - however if you are not interested in the topic, simply skip over these posts.

I am going to assume a few things in this series to cut down the amount of introductory comments I have to make. Here is what I am assuming:

You have a blog. Whilst most of the following tips will apply to other types of websites I run Adsense on blogs and will speak from that experience.
You have (or will) read a basic overview of Adsense and have some understanding of what it is.
You have(or will) read the program policies as outlined by Google. These give details of site eligibility, ad placements and other requirements for using the system.

Enough introductory comments - lets get stuck into the Adsense Tips for Bloggers!

The full series of AdSense Tips is Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8.