30 июн. 2006 г.

AdWords Gets A Keyword Position

David A. Utter, Staff Writer wrote:

A new report unveiled by the Google Analytics team for AdWords clients shows useful information about keywords for their sites.

For AdWords users who have linked their accounts to Analytics and turned on auto-linking in the AdWords account settings, Google has provided a new report. Called AdWords Keyword Positions, the report displays the details related to keyword search display positions.

Those search positions are correlated with visits and conversions for each keyword in a campaign, the Analytics team noted on their blog.

Users can drill down on any keyword to see its position in the search displays. The blog listed more information about this:

Positions T1 through T3 indicate that your ad was promoted to the top of the search results page. Positions 1 through 8 indicate placement or location in the right-hand column of ads with 1 being the top position. 9 through 16 indicate the same on the second page of ads and so on.

Advertisers can tweak their bid amounts to gain the best placement for their ads with the help of the report:

This report can be used in conjunction with the Position Preference feature in AdWords to optimize around ad position in the following way: the AdWords Keyword Positions report in Google Analytics shows conversion rates and CTR for a keyword's results position -- and then, with Position Preference in AdWords, you can select that position as a target.

Google Analytics has also worked through its backlog of waiting list requests for accounts on Analytics. New requests for the program should receive an email invitation response within a few days now.

Google Iceberg (beta)

Jim Hedger, Expert Author, wrote:

Ever seen an iceberg? They are magnificent ice mountains, frozen floating islands bobbing around the most northern and southern oceans.

Aside from the fact they are frozen, the coolest thing about an iceberg is that only about 1/10 th of the mass of the berg is visible above the water. Knowing the other 9/10 th of the mass exists below the surface adds oomph to the awe.

Google is like an iceberg. There is so much happening beneath the surface that even the most well informed observers can find themselves confounded and confused when contemplating the full Google's spectrum of services. Apparently, a similar sensation is felt around the Googleplex where an initiative to refocus on the core mission, "... to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," is said to be underway.

Google has grown and diversified as rapidly as the web environment around it has, often placing itself on or even beyond the cutting edge of communication technologies. Its impact on our society and economy is hugely helpful and distressingly disruptive at the same time. Through its own innovation and a series of acquisitions, Google has managed to make an entry in most, if not all, major online marketing venues and is in the business of creating an ongoing stream of online marketing assets. It also has ambitions to venture into the traditional print, radio, and video ad markets, anticipating the inevitable migration to digital delivery of these mediums.

Much of Google's tremendous growth was spurred by its wildly successful stock offerings. The company went public in August 2004. Before their initial public offering, Google was the most important search engine on the Internet. Slightly less than two years later, Google has become one of the three most important and influential media companies in the world. Google is going where the big-media money is, a place known for its dramatic effect on the attitudes of those who inhabit it.

Regardless of what Google is, or might actually become, the general public still thinks of it primarily as a free-for-use search engine. That perception is important to Google because information accessibility, the core of Google's core mission, is facilitated through some form of search function. Being known as the world's favourite search engine gives Google a significant advantage when it comes to attracting advertisers. This is the reason Google, like its rivals at Yahoo, MSN and Ask, will invest a bulk of its resources on facilitating and improving search functions. Reliable search makes loyal users.

Conversely, a significant loss of public perception in Google's credibility is a risk. Over the past two years, Google has faced a steady stream of criticism for many of the choices it has made. Investment types criticise Google's secretive and sometimes bizarre ways of communicating financial matters. Social activists criticise Google's compliance with Chinese Government censorship of "sensitive" search results. Ironically (but necessarily), content creators and copyright holders criticise Google for living up to its stated mission goals.

Google actively changes the methods it uses to rank websites on a relatively constant basis. As new technologies, design methods or social trends accumulate users, the body of information those uses eventually compile will have an effect on rankings in Google's index. That's because Google's spiders are designed to follow links and practically every document that exists has a link directed towards it. When blogs were first popularized about two years ago, they had a massive affect on Google rankings because of the interlinked social nature of blogs, the tendency of some to abuse the comment sections, and the sudden emergence of millions of automated or out-sourced blogs.

As a search engine, Google is facing a great deal of criticism from webmasters and online merchants who contend that Google hasn't paid enough attention to the relevance of its organic search results. When it does pay attention, some suggest that Google's cure for spam is often worse than the symptoms its engineers were trying to correct. The recent, six-month long algorithm updates are a case in point. Many search engine optimizers continue to scratch their heads at the strange state of Google's search results.

The organic, or free, search results at Google have been in a constant state of flux for almost a year now. Along with the Jagger algorithm update and the Bigdaddy infrastructure upgrade, Google has been subtly introducing a few new factors to the search results most users see. Keen observers, like those at Search Engine Watch, often spot experimental insertions of content pulled from services such as Google Base, News, Maps and Google Images.

These appearances indicate a high degree of research and development around local search and attempts at providing a degree of personalized search. Google invests approximately 70% of staff resources on search functionality. While its stated, public goal involves making the world's information accessible, its unstated, internal goal is to make its various features, functions and tools work together as a system.

Google is moving forward to integrate its various tools and functions into a stronger set of search tools, all of which are expected to be monetized primarily through AdWords advertising though some will present direct costs to consumers.

Later this week, Google is expected to release an online payment system that has been nicknamed Gbuy. While there are few confirmed details about the system, the clear intent would be to develop an online payment system that works with Google Base listings. This would give Google and its users an ecommerce platform that could seriously challenge the space eBay currently occupies.

Google is also actively assembling the components for a server-side suite of collaborative office-use software as a challenge to Microsoft's Office suite. Last year it purchased online word processor software called Writely. Earlier this year, Google acquired an online spreadsheet application, naming its new service Google Spreadsheets. Combine an online word processor and spreadsheet application with Gmail and Google Calendar. Add Google's photo sharing suite Picasa to act in the role of a rudimentary PowerPoint and Google Desktop's ability to locate any file on a computer or shared network and you have the background tools included in a useful operating system.

Google is an advertising company built on providing free space to frame paid advertising around. Its first priority is to its core mission of making information available, especially if there is a way to tie advertising to it. Its other mission is to position itself for battle against Microsoft, Yahoo, News Corp., Ask, and any other contender that might happen along its path. It is aggressive, overly confident, and often perceived as arrogant. It is also one of the world's largest media companies and responsible for providing the results of approximately half the searches made each day.

Google's continued growth is virtually guaranteed but it is a guarantee that is entirely theirs to squander.

In their favour, they have been far more open and communicative with their constituents than their rivals have. Though unorthodox, Google's mature CEO and mostly mature co-founders have a habit of shooting from the hip when it comes to making public comments. For search engine optimizers, Google's quality czar, Matt Cutts provides a forum for information exchange on his blog and is the A-list celebrity at any search related function he appears at. This is a daily must read.

Working against Google is the fact that the real world of big business is wild, scandalous and fraught with difficult, literally world altering decisions. They, and their primary audience, are grassroots sorts of people suddenly working on the biggest of international stages. No matter what decisions Google makes, there will be a controversial outcome for someone.

About the Author:
Jim Hedger is the SEO Manager of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth is the result of the consolidation of BraveArt Website Management, Promotion Experts, and Phoenix Creative Works, and has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997.

29 июн. 2006 г.

Google Checkout checks in

By Elinor Mills, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News:

update Google on Thursday unveiled its much anticipated online payment processing system designed to offer shoppers with a Google account a quick way to pay for things.

Web sites and merchants can integrate Google Checkout into their sites as an alternative payment processing method to existing checkout and credit card processing systems, said Salar Kamangar, vice president of product management at Google.

Consumers with a Google account can type their credit card and billing information into Google Checkout once and then pay for purchases thereafter with practically one click on any Web site that features the system, Kamangar said. As things now stand, he said, "If I buy five things from five different merchants I have to fill out five different forms. This process can take three, four, five minutes" for each form. Google Checkout is meant to change that.

Once they've purchased something through Google Checkout, consumers can track their orders through the system, which will be live starting Thursday at Checkout.google.com.

Merchants using the system will be charged a processing fee of 20 cents per transaction, plus 2.2 percent of the relevant purchase price. Customers who pay for search-related keyword ads through Google AdWords will be able to process, free of charge, transactions that add up to 10 times the dollar amount of their AdWords spending, Kamangar said. Beyond that, they pay the 20 cents plus 2.2 percent. Kamangar said the regular transaction fees are less than those charged by credit card companies, which can be about 1 percent higher.

AdWords customers who use the payment system will have shopping cart icons displayed in their ads so customers will know that they can use their Google Checkout account to pay for purchases.

The back-end system is the same as what Google has been using for at least a year to allow customers to pay for premium services on its Google Earth, Google Video and Picasa Web services, Kamangar said. Now the system is being expanded to allow any merchant to use it as an alternative payment processing system.

Though Google Checkout is being integrated into AdWords, Google will not track data about which keywords lead to purchases, use such information to modify AdWords auctions or bid prices, or combine such data with its new cost-per-action test ad system, under which advertisers pay only when the ad leads to a sales lead or a purchase, Kamangar said. For now anyway.

"We wouldn't rule that out entirely," he said. "There may be opportunities" in the future.

The Google Checkout service could also be extended for use on mobile devices, but Google is not working on that right now either, Kamangar said.

Any Web site can add Google Checkout as a payment processing method by either cutting and pasting HTML, or Web code, into the site. Large companies and e-commerce and shopping integration providers can also integrate it as an option within new or existing shopping cart systems, as retailers Timberland and Levi's are doing, he said.

Google also is partnering with financial services companies. For example, Google and Citibank will offer customers a co-branded Checkout option that will provide users $5 and 1,000 "thank-you" points for signing up, Kamangar said.

Like other payment processing services, Google Checkout hides credit card numbers and reimburses consumers for unauthorized transactions. It also lets users choose whether to keep their e-mail addresses confidential, and users can opt out of unwanted e-mail from merchants.

"The system takes some of the friction out of making a transaction," said Greg Sterling of consultancy and research firm Sterling Market Intelligence. "But the question is, will consumers feel this is secure and trustworthy?"

Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research, said the system bolsters Google's search marketing service by making it easier for shoppers to find things and purchase them. "A lot of people abandon (their shopping) during the shopping cart process," she said. "Anything (merchants) can do to increase the conversion rate will lead to a better return on their (advertising) investment."

The service will initially be offered in the United States only, and, unlike most new Google products, it is not a beta test version.

"No. For once, we are not releasing a beta product," Kamangar said. "It will be ready to go as of Thursday. We've been testing it extensively with a small set of customers."

Google Checkout will handle only payments of one cent or more--not micropayments for things costing a fraction of a cent, Kamangar said.

Analysts had been expecting the announcement for more than a year, and some speculated that it would be the first piece in a larger infrastructure to enable payments across the Web.

Though analysts were dubbing the product a "PayPal killer" before launch, Google executives have dismissed that notion. "We think this is a very different type of product," Kamangar said.

"This is about the checkout process, not the payment method," he said. "We're trying to make the checkout experience linked from an ad, and make it so you can buy things as quickly online as (you can) offline."

Open your wallet to Google

By Elinor Mills, CNET News.com

Give Google credit for one thing: The search giant has a way of generating a lot of buzz.

This week, possibly as soon as Wednesday, Google is expected by many to unveil a new Internet payment system. It may start out as an online wallet but could become a PayPal-like infrastructure for payments across the Web, handling everything from skis to music and videos, analysts said Tuesday.

Interesting as that may sound, Google execs have actually said little about this service publicly. But--as has been the case with most other assumed product launches, from the successful Google Earth to the so-called Google Cube co-founder Larry Page was supposedly going to unveil at the Consumer Electronics Show in January but never did--that hasn't stopped Google watchers on Wall Street and in the blogosphere from going into high predictive mode.

"There is quite a bit of excitement and buzz among merchants," about Google Gbuy, as reports have called it, said Safa Rashtchy, an analyst at Piper Jaffray.

Rumors of a Google payment system have been circulating for months. Two weeks ago, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt confirmed that the company was testing a system that aimed to speed online purchases, but he said it would not compete directly with eBay's PayPal. The system is targeted at advertisers and not general consumers, Schmidt said during a meeting in New York hosted by Conde Nast's Portfolio business magazine, without elaborating.

Google released a vague statement Tuesday saying: "Billing and payments have historically been a part of Google's advertising programs and online services. As we've previously announced, we offer users the ability to buy items on Google Base and at the Google Store as well as pay for services like Google AdWords, Google Video and Google Earth. We have nothing specific to announce at this time."

Perhaps coincidentally, company executives also were scheduled to host a talk on "Micro-payments trends and news" at Google's Mountain View, Calif., office Thursday night. The talk was part of a scheduled meeting of BayPay, a networking group for people who work in the payment industry in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Even if Google isn't publicly spelling out the details of its payment system, other people are doing it for the search king. As a wallet system, Gbuy would let shoppers carry their payment information around to multiple different merchants and save them the time of having to enter their credit card and billing data every time they shop, Rashtchy said. Users are expected to be offered rebates, and merchants can get discounts on ads.

Gbuy has been billed by some reports as a "PayPal killer," but it's likely to be much more, Rashtchy and other analysts said.

"I think that if this thing succeeds, it will eventually succeed where PayPal hasn't...as an efficient payment mechanism for a wide range of e-commerce transactions," Rashtchy said.

It would also succeed where Yahoo and Microsoft have failed, he predicted. Rashtchy said he used to use Yahoo Wallet, which lets people store their credit card and billing information when shopping on the Yahoo network. However, it didn't gain traction with merchants, he said.

Yahoo did not respond to a request for comment.

Two years ago, Microsoft began paring back its Passport service, which provided authentication and centralized storage for credit card numbers, and single sign-in for Microsoft accounts. Last year, eBay announced it would no longer allow its customers to log in through Passport. Passport is evolving into Windows Live ID.

Счетчик Spylog переоделся под Google

С ВебПланеты еще одна новость:

В середине июня компания SpyLOG предложила более современный код своего интернет-счетчика. Он разработан по моде, которая была задана осенью 2005 года Google Analytics. Тогда был представлен его код, который вместо привычного развесистого кода, чаще всего использовавшегося в Рунете, содержал только вызов www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js. А основная часть скрипта хранится на сервере Google.

Преимущество такого подхода, к примеру, в том, что не требуется просить вебмастеров менять код счетчика на страницах, и обновление можно проводить централизовано.


Первой из отечественных систем интернет-статистики модернизировала свой код по такому принципу компания SpyLOG, объявившая о завершении тестирования этой технологии в июне. Теперь SpyLOG настоятельно рекомендует использовать именно новый код: его вызов производится оператором script src="http://tools.spylog.ru/counter2.2.js". При этом в код включена возможность работы и при выключенном у пользователя Java Script.


Новый код является универсальным для всех страниц сайта, занимает значительно меньше места в странице, собирает более полную информацию по посетителям. Возможно кэширование нового кода счетчика, в результате чего страницы сайта грузятся быстрее. Кроме того, в платных пакетах новый код может собирать статистику по разделам сайта.


Теперь коды популярных в России счетчиков занимают: Google Analytics - 167 символов, Liveinternet - 409 символов, Hotlog - 1056 символов, новый SpyLOG - 324 символа, старый SpyLOG - 1203 символа (все значения даются для нераздельной кнопки и без учета комментариев).

Вызываемый же размер кода у нового Spylog более 4кб, а у Google Analytics эта величина зашкаливает за 17кб.

Google наведет порядок в мобильниках

Федор Смирнов (ВебПланета) пишет:

Несколько крупнейших производителей сотовых телефонов, операторов связи и интернет-компаний поддержали инициативу по выработке стандартов для мобильного Интернета. Свою заинтересованность уже проявили Nokia, Vodafone Group и Google, - сообщает «Reuters».

Последние несколько лет Интернет в мобильниках существует как дополнительная, не слишком популярная возможность. Если GPRS востребован некоторым количеством пользователей, не имеющих альтернативного доступа в Интернет, то WAP остается для большинства экзотической функцией. Это подтверждают и американские данные: браузером и доступом в Сеть оснащено подавляющее большинство телефонов, однако лишь 19% владельцев используют свой мобильник для доступа в Сеть.

«В руках пользователей появились устройства с доступом в Интернет, однако эта возможность не используется в полной мере», - сказал Даниэль Эплквист, представитель Vodafone, в интервью «Reuters».

Одной из наиболее существенных проблем в этом отношении является отсутствие единых стандартов, которыми могли бы руководствоваться разработчики. WAP-сайты по-разному выглядят на телефонах различных производителей, а признанных правил проектирования мобильных веб-интерейсов попросту не существует. Между тем, сегмент WAP – не такой уж крошечный. Как заметил на КИБе Андрей Федоровский (Mail.Ru), в мобильном Интернете насчитывается уже около 45 тысяч серверов и 40 миллионов документов. То есть интересный контент уже есть, необходимо обеспечить простой и удобный доступ к нему для пользователей мобильных устройств.

W3C при поддержке участников рынка планирует разработать 60 правил, на которые смогут ориентироваться создатели мобильных версий веб-сайтов. Кроме достаточно очевидных советов (не стоит использовать «тяжелую» графику и поп-апы), в перечень войдут рекомендации по проектированию навигации и организации пространства веб-страницы. Разработчикам также не рекомендуют использовать cookies, чтобы ускорить загрузку WAP-сайтов.

Will new Google CPA ads and GBuy online payment system turn the Social Web into a marketplace?

Info by Donna Bogatin:

Google’s stated “mission” to “organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful,” does not encapsulate the full intent of the company.

Google’s current “Company Overview” indicates that Google.com, “the world's largest search engine,” is but the initial foray in its goal to make “it one of the world's best known brands.”

Google summarizes its diverse offerings:

When you visit www.google.com or one of the dozens of other Google domains, you'll be able to find information in many different languages; check stock quotes, maps, and news headlines; lookup phonebook listings for every city in the United States; search billions of images…


Google, of course, is most proud of its “Sponsored Links” money-making machine:

Google generates revenue by providing advertisers with the opportunity to deliver measurable, cost-effective online advertising that is relevant to the information displayed on any given page…

Thousands of advertisers use our Google AdWords program to promote their products and services on the web with targeted advertising…thousands of web site managers take advantage of our Google AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to the content on their sites, improving their ability to generate revenue.


Google’s unprecedented financial success is due, in part, to its uncanny ability to elevate its advertising business into almost a “public service.” According to Google:
Google AdWords “makes the advertising useful to you”
Google AdSense “enhancing the experience for their users”

Google’s ability to curry favor via a “we make advertising relevant” stance will undoubtedly be hampered as it rolls out unabashedly sales oriented products and services. The Google Content Referral Network (see my Google goes for the hard sell: New 'Content Referral Network' targets higher click-throughs, ad rates and new GBuy transactions ), a Cost Per Action, commission-based affiliate network currently in testing, and Google’s impending online payment system, or GBuy (see my Google GBuy specifics: 'Could be a game-changer' ), seek to solicit and enable third-party online retail transactions, for a fee.


While Web publisher partners in the Google AdSense network simply display Google ads in a hands-off manner, Web publisher partners in the Content Referral Network are being asked to actively promote the new Cost Per Action (CPA) Google ad units by aggressively soliciting the desired “actions.” In other words, Google Web publisher partners in its Content Referral Network will not receive any payment from Google, unless they are able to convince their Web visitors to both click on the new Google CPA ad units and then complete the targeted transactions, generally product purchases.

Google directly advises its Web publisher partners for its CPA ad units to present the Google ads at their sites with personal solicitations to their Web visitors such as:

  • “I recommend this product”
  • “Try JetBlue today”

The new Google hard-sell strategy will presumably provide an avenue of higher payout opportunities for Web publisher partners. As such, the Content Referral Network may very well unleash a new, intense round of “fake” Websites seeking to cash in. Mark Cuban has said that he believes “click fraud FAR exceeds what is being published by search companies”:


Hackers have figured out that the risk of proving they are breaking the law with click fraud is minimal. Try explaining the difference to authorities between a blog, a splog and a website that is trying to make money from any of the many, many affiliate marketing programs that also happens to host adsense or other ad publishing network ads…

Hackers have figured out that they look a lot more legit getting checks from google than trying to wash 10k dollars in cash delivered in a bag…

The number of splog/fake websites being created EVERY HOUR is exploding. Based on the comments Im getting on my blog from what must be legions of boiler rooms creating marginally understandable comments , with links back to “affiliate websites” and legit email addresses in an effort to legitimize those sites. There must be just as many more in place to sign up those sites for ad publishing networks.


Besides the nefarious element that may seek to capitalize on lucrative opportunities available via the Google Content Referral Network, popular, legitimate Social Web properties may view Google’s new commission-based sales-driven ad strategy as an avenue to better monetize their vast user traffic.

YouTube, MySpace, Facebook…are undoubtedly frustrated that their enviable user base assets are not generating commensurate financial returns (see my Monetizing you and your friends: The Social Web seeks social brand dollars ). Efforts to increase monetization, however, are stymied by both advertiser and user resistance; Advertisers are wary of the uncontrolled environments and users are deemed to be keenly sensitive to corporate “infiltration” and ready to bolt from the sites if they become unduly commercialized.

While the dominant Social Web properties can not remain under-monetized long-term, Google’s new Content Referral Network may represent a double-edged sword.

Новости Google AdSence: каналы для рефералов

В AdSence наконец-то добавлена поддержка каналов и для рефералов. Эффективность блоков рефералов теперь можно отслеживать по разным темам, сайтам и даже отдельным страницам. Можно задавать индивидуальное оформление для канала каждого отдельного реферала.


Можно выбрать продукт и формат, соответствующий сайту - пользователи будут покупать, вам же за это будет капать соответствующая денюжка.

27 июн. 2006 г.

Общий Account для всех сервисов Google

Как я уже писала, очень не хватает общего аккаунта для всех (важных, особенно с финансовой точки зрения) сервисов. В частности, я не понимаю, почему в одном аккаунте нельзя объеденить три сервиса - Analytics, AdWords и AdSence - так, чтобы это было удобно для пользователя.

Причем на самом деле они опосредованно все-таки объеденены. Из Аналитики можно контролировать объявления AdWords (т.е. есть связка AdWords->Analytics), своевременные проплаты того же AdWords контролируются саппортом Google при выплатах с того же аккаунта рекламных денег с AdSence. Цитата из хелпа самого Google AdSence:
"...если издатель просрочил платеж компании Google, который связан с программой Google AdWords, мы оставляем за собой право отказать в платеже до тех пор, пока не будут погашены все задолженности..."
Но в то же время нельзя (пользователю), к примеру, объеденить профайлы (одного аккаунта) для AdWords и AdSence, нельзя управлять общим счетом - затем, чтобы заработанные издателям на показах деньги перечислить себе же на аккаунт AdWords и использовать их же, но уже как рекламодатель.

Нет возможности через аналитику посмотреть AdSence`вские выходы - на какой странице чаще уходили по клику на рекламе, какие объявления были для посетителя интереснее, чем информация на странице, и т.д.

Вообще сколько всего можно было получить выгоды из управления общим аккаунтом - даже трудно перечислить!

26 июн. 2006 г.

Google's new mission: Organize the world's products and make them universally accessible

Info by Donna Bogatin from zdnet.com

This could be a watershed week in the Google era. The June 28 rumored launch of a Google online payment system, last known as GBuy (see my Google GBuy specifics: 'Could be a game-changer' ), is setting up to represent more than just another Google �limited invite,� or �test,� or �beta.� Last week, Google set in motion an eBay style marketplace affiliate network, �Content Referral Network� (see my Google goes for the hard sell: New 'Content Referral Network' targets higher click-throughs, ad rates and new GBuy transactions ), most likely designed to serve as a platform for GBuy enabled product sales.

As I discuss in �Will new Google CPA ads and GBuy online payment system turn the Social Web into a marketplace? �,The Google Content Referral Network, a Cost Per Action, commission-based affiliate network currently in testing, and Google�s impending online payment system, or GBuy, seek to solicit and enable third-party online retail transactions, for a fee.

Such a scenario pits Google not only against eBay, but against Amazon.com as well. Google will no longer merely place passive ads against content, it will be actively pitching product sales via its Content Referral Network. As I describe:

While Web publisher partners in the Google AdSense network simply display Google ads in a hands-off manner, Web publisher partners in the Content Referral Network are being asked to actively promote the new Cost Per Action (CPA) Google ad units by aggressively soliciting the desired �actions.� In other words, Google Web publisher partners in its Content Referral Network will not receive any payment from Google, unless they are able to convince their Web visitors to both click on the new Google CPA ad units and then complete the targeted transactions, generally product purchases.

Google aims to use its Content Referral Network as a �virtual salesforce.� For the first time, Website publisher partners are being asked to not only place ads against their Web site content, but also to act as �virtual salespeople� for the products and services offered for sale via the new Google CPA ads.

Google suggests that its Content Referral Network publisher partners must use a hard-sell with their Web site visitors, if they want to earn commissions from the Google CPA ads. Advised solicitations include:

  • �I recommend this product�
  • �Try JetBlue today�

A Web site publisher that becomes a �virtual salesperson� for Google, however, risks negatively impacting its relationships with its own visitors. Google CPA ads will be more intrusive than Google AdSense ads and Website publishers will no longer be uninterested parties in the hosting of the ads.

Internet users are finding that �Ads by Goooooogle� are almost ubiquitous online, given that Google has succeeded in making AdSense a go-to monetization model for Web properties of all sizes and styles.

While Internet users currently seem to accept the Google position that Google ads enhance user experiences at third-party Web sites, such an acceptance may be tested as �non-intrusive� and �relevant� text ads are replaced by �intrusive� and �irrelevant� product pitches.

24 июн. 2006 г.

Пресс-релизы о Google в Библиотеке Сайтостроительства

Небольшая подборка материалов сервисах и новостях Google в НьюзЦентре Библиотеки Сайтостроительства, отсортировано в обратном хронологическом порядке за последние три месяца:

Июнь.

Google открыла онлайновое хранилище картинок
Компания Google представила новый сервис для хранения пользовательских изображений - Picasa Web Albums.

Adobe будет распространять ПО Google
По условиям договора Adobe займётся распространением программного обеспечения Google, в частности, панели инструментов Google Toolbar для браузера Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Google не спешит выводить баннерную рекламу из тестового режима
Практически весь рекламный доход Google поступает от продажи текстовых блоков, привязанных к поисковым запросам. Тем временем, ближайший конкурент, Yahoo, доминирует на рынке баннерной рекламы.

Google синхронизирует браузеры пользователей
Компания Google выпустила расширение к популярному браузеру Firefox, позволяющее сохранять на серверах поисковика закладки, пароли и cookies, а затем загружать их на другой компьютер.

Май.

Половина поисковых запросов американцев совершается через Google
По данным на апрель нынешнего года, опубликованным в докладе Nielsen//NetRatings, количество обращений к поисковику Google составило ровно 50% от 5,3 миллиардов совершённых за месяц поисковых запросов.

Google предрекает появление "искусственного интеллекта"
Лари Пейдж, один из основателей компании Google, выступая на конференции для европейских партнеров, заявил, что в перспективе поисковые системы смогут анализировать информацию, содержащуюся в запросах, и выдавать именно те результаты, которые ожидает получить пользователь.

Google урегулирует иск о "накрутке" посещаемости
Google договорилась о внесудебном урегулировании иска рекламодателей по поводу накрутки посещаемости ссылок по поисковым запросам. Компания собирается выдать тысячам истцов, подавших групповой иск, услуги рекламы на $60 млн.

Премию Webby выиграли Gorillaz, BBC и Google
В номинации "лучший новостной ресурс" победил сайт ВВС, лучшим артистом названа виртуальная группа Gorillaz, а лучшей поисковой системой - Google, сообщается на сайте премии.

Google предлагает новые программы
В среду Google анонсировала новую версию Google Desktop, а также ряд продуктов, предназначенных для обогащения собираемой в Web информации.

Google проводит конкурс европейских программистов
Основная задача соревнования Google Code Jam Europe заключается в том, чтобы выявить наиболее талантливых программистов Европы.

Апрель.

Бесплатная программа для 3D-рисования от Google
Google купила компанию @Last Software буквально месяц назад, и вот сейчас выпустила бесплатный вариант программы SketchUp для простого и удобного рисования от руки трехмерных объектов.

PageRank отлично подходит для оценки научных публикаций
Алгоритм Google PageRank, который используется для анализа относительной важности веб-страниц, великолепно подходит для оценки научных публикаций. Ведь это такая же коллекция с перекрестными ссылками.

Google аккумулировал около половины поисковых запросов в феврале
Обзор эксперта Clickz Кевина Ньюкомба посвящен подробному анализу распределения сил основных игроков рынка поисковых запросов и динамики его развития за последний год.

Google тестирует страницу поиска с новым дизайном
Судя по скриншотам, полученным на этой неделе новостным сайтом Cybernet, рядом с текстовыми результатами поиска будут выводиться картинки - как на Google News.

Google открывает веб-календарь
Google Calendar позволяет создавать онлайновые календари, все или некоторые события из которых можно делать доступными для отдельных пользователей или групп.

Google и <Яндекс> контролируют поиск изображений
Google обрабатывает около 71,9% всех запросов, связанных с поиском изображений. Крупнейшая поисковая система имеет здесь более существенное преимущество, чем на рынке обычного поиска по вебу.

"Близкие ссылки" - новый сервис Google для сайтов
<Близкие ссылки> представляют собой информационный модуль Google, который можно разместить в любом месте на своей веб-странице, указать его размер и цвет, выбрать вид контента.

Таким образом, если делать ежемесячный обзор по публикациям о Google в Библиотеке, можно оценить поток пресс-релизов и, соответственно, активность самого Google, выход новых программ и сервисов. Хотя, естественно, Библиотека не претендует на full version материалов о Google, но стараемся. Все пресс-релизы публикуются в НьюзЦентре Библиотеки.

Google Gives A Few Webmaster Pointers

By Jason Lee Miller:

Google published an array of tips and tools to help webmasters better analyze their web offerings. In addition to a Sitemaps update that creates a more robust view of 404 errors, Google Analytics reminds the ROI-minded of how to compare AdWords clicks to organic and direct links.

The most notable of the Sitemaps updates are the new robots.txt analysis tool, a "snapshot of the status of your site in the index" that notifies of webmaster guidelines violations and includes a simplified re-inclusion request form. Google also added a comprehensive webmaster help center.

David Utter reported also on the Sitemaps update at SearchNewz, detailing a few other features:

Query stats for subfolders at a site may be viewed, along with the currently available stats for top-level domain visits. Google also increased the list shown in the report of commo words on a site. Terms like http and www have been removed from the list.

A user request led the Sitemaps team to increase the number of sites and Sitemaps that may be added to an account, going from 200 to 500. They also added the ability to test the Adsbot-Google spider that crawls AdWords landing pages against the robots.txt file on a website.

Also, the Google Analytics Team asks, "what's the average value of a visit from a certain website worth to you?" Team member Alden DeSoto briefly discusses how to measure the average visit to a website by comparing AdWords clicks to browser-typed direct URL traffic.

  • The answer can be found in the sometimes overlooked $/Visits column found in the Google Analytics conversion reports, including Campaign Conversion, Source Conversion, Overall Keyword Conversion and CPC vs Organic Conversion. In fact, because this metric is found in so many reports, you can compare per-visit values for organic search referrals, paid keywords, CPC campaigns -- and almost anything else you can think of. It's a great comparison metric that can help you shift your marketing budget to high-performing traffic sources and keywords.
About the Author: Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

23 июн. 2006 г.

Google officially begins testing new cost-per-action advertising solution

bigmouthmedia wrote:

The innovations in advertising delivery are coming thick and fast from the California based uber-search provider. Following on from announcements last week of more graphically, and even video based, display adverts Google have officially announced that they have started testing on a new AdSense service where the advertisers pay only when their ad leads to an actual purchase; or at the very least, definite interest in making a purchase.

Due to growing criticisms, and a rather hefty lawsuit, the new “cost-per-action” (CPA) ads are being looked into principally as a way to combat click fraud being perpetrated through the existing cost-per-click (CPC) method. This is where employees of competitor companies click on a rivals’ adverts in an effort to deplete their marketing budgets. Other common methods of committing click fraud is to use low paid foreign workers, or to utilize online robots (bots) which are programmed to click on the advertisers' links which are displayed on sites or are listed in search queries. The new ads will remove the benefits that currently can be gained by rivals, as clicking the adverts alone will have no cost effect on the advertiser.

As part of the official statement, Google announced, "We're always looking for new ways to provide effective and useful features to advertisers, publishers and users," they also said added that, "As part of these efforts we are currently testing a cost-per-action pricing model to give advertisers more flexibility and provide publishers another way to earn revenue through AdSense. We're pleased with how the test is progressing and will continue to gather feedback from advertisers and publishers."

While the CPA adverts are essentially nothing more than a traditional affiliate program scheme, the introduction of such a programme within the search market could see big advantages for some however they will not be the perfect solution for everyone, and they are not without their own problems. Perhaps the main difficulty for some advertisers is that CPA schemes are of no value to advertisers who do not have any type of immediate service or product which can be provided as the target "action". The determination of what a successful completion of an action may also be difficult to define for many advertisers currently using CPC marketing. Another factor to consider is that the cost per click rate is liable to be much lower for the advertiser than the cost resulting from a completed action. This means that while the conversion rate may be higher for CPA over CPC, the return on investment may prove to be lower.

Whether CPA is a better solution for all advertisers is dubious, however it will be a welcome alternative for many businesses interested in converting genuine fast sales. Yahoo! are expected to also be producing a similar scheme for release in the near future.

Google Gets Spam Punk'd

By: Jason Lee Miller:

When a blog called Monetize published "The Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Billions of Pages Indexed by Google" pointing to an SEOer's black hat trick of returning 5.5 billion spammy results in under three weeks, the SEM world did a giant collective spit take.

Google has since deleted all of the pages cluttering up the Big Daddy database, and an insider tells John Battelle that Google exaggerates the number of results returned, by as much as 263 times, if count estimates are in the billions (and if the commentator's math is correct).

Monetize's step-by-step guide instructs readers to:
  1. Register a meaningless domain consisting of numbers, letters, and secret symbols.
  2. Buy as many article databases as you can.
  3. Create or buy a common scraper script.
  4. Launch your blog comment spam attack.
Ana Aman gives another how-to here.

MSN and Yahoo! didn't return near the level of pages Google returned for the spamgantic domain, but Google apologists were quick to point out the speed and expansiveness of Google's crawlers. According to Email Battles, MSN had indexed just 62 of the bogus sites in that time.

That so many pages were outranking legitimate webpages and increasing the cost of PPC ads at the same time raised serious questions among search engine marketers about the possibility of click fraud and the extent of rank drop among websites.

Google engineer Adam Lasnik chimed in on John Battelle's blog to shine some light on the situation:

we noticed that lots of subdomains got indexed last week -- and sometimes listed in search results -- that shouldn't have been. Compounding the issue, our result count estimates in these contexts was MANY orders of magnitude off. For example, the one site that supposedly had 5.5 billion pages in the index actually had under 1/100,000th of that.
So how did this happen? We pushed some corrupted data with our index. Once we diagnosed the problem, we started rolling the data back and pushed something better... and we've been putting in place checks so that this kind of thing doesn't happen again.

Some quick math by a subsequent commentator dropped the 5.5 billion subdomains to just under 21 million. The commentator, going by "JG" asks, without receiving an answer, what that means for the actual number of search results returned from the rest of Google's index.

Google Sitemaps Tables 404 Errors

David A. Utter, Staff Writer:

An assortment of updates have emerged for Google Sitemaps, including expanded results for crawl errors experienced by Google's spiders.

Earlier versions of Google Sitemaps displayed only ten URLs for each error type discovered. Now the service will show all errors that have happened, as well as breaking out 404 not found errors into a separate table.

Google's Vanessa Fox posted about the latest additions to Sitemaps on the service's blog. Users of Sitemaps can view their site errors online, or download them to a CSV file for offline review.

The team has expanded several other aspects of Sitemaps reporting. Formerly, query stats could be viewed as aggregated data across all properties and countries, Fox wrote. Google has expanded this greatly, as the post noted:

Now, you can view data for individual properties and countries as well. For instance, you can see the search queries from users searching Google Images in Germany that returned your site in the results. You'll only see properties and countries for which your site has data.

Site owners can also view aggregate information for all properties and languages. Properties include Images, Froogle, Groups, Blog search, Base, and Local. More than 100 countries are available.

Query stats for subfolders at a site may be viewed, along with the currently available stats for top-level domain visits. Google also increased the list shown in the report of common words on a site. Terms like http and www have been removed from the list.

A user request led the Sitemaps team to increase the number of sites and Sitemaps that may be added to an account, going from 200 to 500. They also added the ability to test the Adsbot-Google spider that crawls AdWords landing pages against the robots.txt file on a website.

Sitemaps users can rate the various features by clicking on one of the faces in the "Rate this Tool" sections of features. Google picks up that feedback, and encourages Sitemaps users to visit the group for Sitemaps questions or support online.

Google Looking Into AdWords For The Radio

Jim Hedger, Expert Author:

Google has invented, innovated on, acquired or purchased a number of technologies over the past two years to bolster its online advertising business.

AdWords is arguably the most successful advertising program ever and Google is obviously not content to focus solely on Internet advertising.

Recently took a stab at auctioning off print advertising spaces through its AdWords program. Though the print advertising avenue hasn't shown itself to be a huge success, an even more unlikely AdWords advertising venue is being pursued by Google, targeted ads over a car radio.

According to a short piece posted to the ZDNet Micro Markets Blog , Google CEO Eric Schmidt is very interested in radio advertising and especially interested at targeting advertising to specific recipients. While speaking at a luncheon for New York publishing executives, Schmidt is reported to have "...shared his vision for GPS location-based delivery of highly targeted and personalized advertising via in-car radios..."

This, for Google, is technically feasible. Back in January of this year, Google purchased dMark Broadcasting. dMark built an automated platform allowing advertisers to easily create and individually target radio ads. When it bought the company, Google indicated it would merge dMark into its AdWords unit.

Schmidt predicted that within two years, car radios with GPS tracking chips could be used to deliver user-specific advertising.

"Dave. You want a burger. Turn left Dave. You should have turned left. You really wanted that burger Dave."

22 июн. 2006 г.

RAGE Google Sitemap Automator Offers New Parsing Engine


RAGE Software has released version 1.2 of RAGE Google Sitemap Automator, which enables Webmasters to automate the process of creating Google Sitemaps, allowing search engines to more easily find and index a Web site's contents. This update offers a new parsing engine for finding and scanning each Web site's link, and it features better control over which files are scanned for links. The full software is US$29.95.


What are Google Sitemaps? Google Sitemaps are a way of telling search engines, namely Google, about your website. They provide unique information for each page on your website directing search engines on where to go, how often to go there, and when to come back and crawl your website.

With Google Sitemap Automator you can automate the process of creating Google Sitemaps by utilizing powerful filters and preset conditions so you don't have to go through thousands of pages yourself. Just enter your website address and Google Sitemap Automator will take care of the rest, generating Google compliant Sitemaps allowing you to take control of how search engines treat your webpages.

Help search engines with their job so they can attract more visitors to your website :)

Free DownLoad

Adobe bundles Google Toolbar with Shockwave

Adobe has announced that it will distribute Google's Toolbar with its products in a multiyear agreement between the two companies.

The deal will initially see Google's search bar add-on for Internet Explorer bundled with Adobe's Shockwave player. The Toolbar will be included with other Adobe products in the future.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although Adobe was positive about the potential.

"We expect the agreement to represent significant revenue to Adobe over a period of years," said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief operating officer at Adobe.

Omid Kordestani, senior vice president of global sales and business development at Google, added: "Adobe and Google are teaming up to help users more easily and quickly find the ever-increasing sources of information that are important to them."

Adobe acquired the Shockwave technology when it purchased rival Macromedia last year. The browser add-on, which enables multimedia playback, is installed on more than 55 per cent of internet-enabled machines.

Google's Toolbar is a free extension for Internet Explorer, providing quick access to search and other functions. The add-on also provides a spellchecker and pop-up blocker.

20 июн. 2006 г.

Googlepedia

FireFox Add-ons: Googlepedia 0.3.2

Shows you a relevant Wikipedia article along with your search results. Clicking links in the article will trigger new Google searches, making it a very useful research tool.

Features:

* Turns internal Wikipedia links into Google search links
* Uses Google's I'm Feeling Lucky(tm) feature to find relevant articles
* Links images directly to their full-sized versions
* Removes Google AdWords
* Can be expanded to take the full width of the page
* Uses your local language Wikipedia based on the Google language
* Hide button to disable Googlepedia

Works with: Firefox 1.5 - 1.5 ALL

Install Now :)

Version Notes

- Uses Google's language settings for Wikipedia language selection
- Fixed problem with Wiki links on non-English articles

Hackers use Google Pages to host Trojan horse

Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service

Google's Web site hosting service is apparently being used by hackers to try to steal money using a malicious program, a security company said.

Security vendor Websense warned on Friday that a Trojan horse was hosted on a site with the same IP (Internet Protocol) address as the main Google Pages Web site, at http://googlepages.com. The page is no longer active, Websense said on Monday.

Trojan horses present themselves as legitimate programs but actually conceal malicious code inside. They can be engineered to steal information from computers and are frequently spread by unsolicited e-mails or via instant messaging (IM) links.

Users are enticed to open attachments or click on Web links to launch the Trojan, releasing the malicious code on their computer.

The Trojan appears to have been noticed before its authors have managed to launch an attack, Websense said. The company has not yet detected e-mails or IM links leading back to the Trojan, which is designed to steal bank details relating to certain financial institutions.

The Trojan, also known as a "keylogger" for its ability to record keystrokes, is programmed to know when a user visits a bank site, and to then activate the keystroke recording function, said Ross Paul, a senior product manager at Websense.

Criminals often use free hosting services to post dangerous code, Paul said. "Anywhere there is anonymous access to create content is a pretty useful tool for criminals," he said.

The Trojan's file size has been reduced using ASPack, a file compression tool.

Google officials in London did not have an immediate response when contacted Monday morning.

Google Pages is the hosting complement of Google Page Creator, a free WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) Web page editor that doesn't require HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) knowledge. Google Page Creator offers numerous templates and 100M-byte of storage for uploaded files and pages.

Within hours of its launch in February the service was taken down due to overwhelming demand. It was restored three days later.

Google plans to make all products available everywhere

Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service:

Internet users outside of the US may soon be able to access all of Google's products, many of which are currently available only in limited regions, if an executive search by the company is successful.

The University of Limerick, in the west of Ireland, has been asked by Google and an executive search firm to help find an experienced localization guru to head up an initiative to internationalize all of Google's products.

Google is looking for an executive with 10 or more years of product management experience to serve as group product director of internationalization, said Reinhard Schaler, director of the University of Limerick's localization research center.

He was approached by Google two or three months ago with a request for help in finding candidates. The university has been offering a degree in localization since 1997 and organizes conferences on the subject. "We have established quite a good network of people that are at different levels in the localization industry," he said.

Schaler circulated Google's query to contacts, but Google apparently didn't find a suitable candidate because executive search firm Korn/Ferry International contacted him recently. Korn/Ferry told Schaler that in its hunt on behalf of Google to fill the position it had been referred several times to the university, so the company asked the university to continue to help seek appropriate candidates.

Google spokespeople in Ireland and the U.K. have been unable to confirm the executive search. Korn/Ferry did not respond to a request for comment.

Schaler said he's not sure where Google wants the new hire to be based.

On its Web site, Google lists scores of open jobs for people with internationalization and localization skills, in perhaps another indication that it is pushing to expand its reach.

Ireland has become a hub for internationalization work, so it is a good place for Google to look for experienced workers. Multinational companies including Microsoft, Oracle and Symantec do localization work from offices in Ireland. Google's largest operation outside of the US is in Dublin, where Google boasts that staff come from 40 countries and serve customers in 35 countries using 30 different languages.

Google, which currently has 112 international domains, isn't alone among search engines looking to expand their audiences. Yahoo has also tweaked its Web site for customers in many countries including Indonesia, Taiwan, Greece and Argentina.

Despite their attempts to reach audiences outside of the US, the search engines may face a new challenger from a competitive offering in development that was founded in part to fill out search results to include more non-US-centric material. Called Quaero, the elusive European-based project is in part intended to deliver search returns in many languages and from sources that will include European cultural documents.

19 июн. 2006 г.

Hello, World!

Тексты в этом блоге будут публиковаться на русском языке, что существенно ограничивает аудиторию; не думаю, что сие есть большая трагедия.

В любом случае всем привет и поздравляю с открытием нового блога!