Check out this post on Google’s backend.
Google’s three rules by ZDNet’s Robin Harris — They roll out new applications for millions of users with surprising speed, especially compared to corporate IT. They build data centers with hundreds of thousands of servers - and millions of disk drives - and run it all on free software. Costly corporate kit, like RAID arrays and 15k FC drives, aren’t used. Yet they […]
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 Search Marketing Standard completed a list of all Google’s 34 english language blogs. Check it out.
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Email Insider has an interesting article worth checking out. The premise of the article is combining two ad copy that would appeal to the thinking of a left brain imaginative thinker and a right brain thinker who would be more focused on details. Though, their examples are meant to be applied to email subject lines I think the the creative marketer would be able to make the theory work in SERP ads.
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Google recently extended the end date of AdWords campaigns an additional 27 years. The picture shows an older campaign on the top line with an end date of 12/31/2010 which has been the standard end date for several years. The remaining campaigns in the picture were created recently and show Google’s new extended end date of 12/30/2037. At least Google plans on being around until I retire.
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Google’s Inside AdWord blog has several, somewhat humorous, tips for small business owners on how to track their AdWords traffic and conversions. Simple tips for tracking campaign performance for offline businesses offers three tips for local advertisors without websites (paraphrased):
1) Ask customers who call or walk through your door, ‘How did you hear about us?’
2) Note the number of sales, leads, or calls received before and after you begin using AdWords.
3) Create a new business email address or phone number, and place the new contact information just on your website.
I guess these techniques would work but I’m amazed Google didn’t come up with more creative suggestions that are fully integrated in the Google network.
1) Coupons on Google Maps.
2) Using Google Web Apps tools to create a page and tracking it with Google Web Optimizer and Google Analytics.
These sort of suggestions seem more realistic then “asking a customer where they heard about you”. Maybe the author was counting on the user being totally inept.
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Stumbled upon this great keyword tool offered by SEOBook.com. The tool appears to focus on Google suggested keywords and generates the top 100 keywords associated with the query. Furthermore, the tool also links to over 50 additional sites that also help with keyword selection. The original query can be filtered by country which would be especially helpful for international campaigns.
Give it a try!
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Noticed a recent addition to Google Reader to help the consumer identify their blog interests and preferences. The Trends link near the bottom of the Reader navigation opens a new window filled with a wealth of additional information. Most of the items are self-explanatory so I won’t go into great detail (that and I have to go to school).
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Found an interesting article on doshdosh about
How to Promote Your Website with $100 and I thought I would expand upon the idea. The problem for most web developers is that they forget the basics when promoting their website. There are a lot of things you can do to promote your site that require time and not a whole lot of money.
1) Submit your website to search engines: Google, Yahoo, & MSN. The process is relatively easy to do and shouldn’t take longer then 15 minutes.
2) Submit your website to a vertical search engine. The most successful engines are subsections of the big boys and finding information about them is relatively easy. Google Product Search (formally Froogle) and Yahoo Product Submit are both well known but for better results try to find vertical searches related to your product field.
3) Use EBay as a lead generator. Rumor has it is that there is more searches done on EBay everyday then there is on Google. Bonus, everyone searching EBay is definitely looking to purchase a product and not for information. Sell a small product that breaks even and harvest the sales information for related products.
4) Use social networks. Some businesses just appear lame on MySpace.com but maybe your business will take off on Linkedin.com. My favorite bar, Mulligen’s Pub uses MySpace exclusively for their advertising. Bonus, linking to a popular social network can be very beneficial to SEO because of the abundence of inbound links.
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A new AdWord development is gaining attention at Search Engine Watch. David Szetela noticed that searches for the word “purse” were returning ads with the term “handbags” bolded. Additionally, searches with the term “condos” are displaying ads with the term “condominium” bolded. Check out the forum on Clickz.com for further developments.
Not sure how this will affect bidding and relevency targeting but I can’t wait to see how its implemented.
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Smashing Magazine has a fascinating breakdown of how they believe Google PageRank works. Though their conclusions are highly speculative, the information is worth taking into account and considering. The information led me to one conclusion, PageRank is like dating, two “5″s do not make a “10″.
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