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29 May This post is from from my other blog here  Y-Boost service which guarantees inclusion in only 7 days - or your money back!
29 May This post is from from my other blog here In yet another sign that online has become a dominant force of modern advertising, Clickz have just compiled some data indicating that Obama spent at least $3.47 million on online advertising between January and April this year. The biggest recipient of this money was Google who took over 82 percent of the total money spent.One of the highest spending months was February this year, with around 1.9 million paid to online advertising companies. A breakdown of the expenditure is below:  Easy Search Advertising program.
29 May This post is from from my other blog here Google has recently released a new tool to help us avoid clicking onto dangerous websites in a Google search.
The new Safe Browsing feature highlights websites that may feature malicious content either in their coding or available downloads. It uses information obtained by an automated investigation system that looks for potential problems across the web.
The tool is similar to the recently released SearchScan by Yahoo! which was in association with McAfee's Site Advisor.
To use the tool, all you need to do is add the suspicious website's URL to the following:
http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=
Google will then return four sets of security details about that page. Which include:
So if you come across any websites which you think look a little suspicious then just to be on the safe side it might pay to give Safe Browsing a go. Might also be worth checking your own website, to see if it has been listed as malicious at any point.
29 May This post is from from my other blog here  Online travel spending exceeds $80 billion annually in the US, so this is a very strategic move by Google to try and leverage the success of the YouTube phenomenon to build extra revenue from those of us who actually have time to take a holiday.
29 May This post is from from my other blog here Sharing client success isn't something we often do through this blog, as we focus more on the news and DIY side of the search engine marketing industry - But this tale is worthy of sharing.Given the years of experience we have in Google advertising, generating strong ROI (return on investment) on brand new campaigns is fairly simple.BUT - what happens when a company seeks your services wanting to improve on their existing Google advertising performance which is generating an ROI of 200% already!You need to dig deep into your wealth of experience and search advertising knowledge to find the campaign elements that can be refined to extract even better results - especially when the industry is competitive.And on this occasion, this is exactly what we did! And the result - days where ROI reached over 400%Okay, so you want to know what we did - right? Of course you do.Well - here's some of the skills of the trade we used! But don't tell everybody ;)It's all about careful optimization. Once your search advertising foundations are in place - you need to tweak and refine, paying close attention to the micro-details. Here's some of the details and tactics we used: click here.
29 May This post is from from my other blog here You've all heard it before, a top 10 listing on the search engines is vital because 48 per cent of users don't look past the first page!Guess what? - It's much worse!  search advertising is useful for your business - this report highlights how important first page exposure on search engines like Google and Yahoo! is for your business.
26 May
26 May This post is from from my other blog here One of the hot topics in the blog community at the moment raises an interesting question about search engine competition and the practice of grey or blackhat SEO techniques in order to boost your rankings. Website owners have been divided over the question:polls in recent weeks which have given completely different answers - so we decided to run our own. Let us know what you think by answering the poll below:In the end, it all comes down to personal preference. Some people may argue that we should all be treated on a fair playing ground - so reporting spam is ok, while others say to focus on improving your own website, and let Google deal with people who try and game the system.I'm not going to give my personal opinion here, but i'd love to hear what you all think. Answer the poll above and let us know what you would do via our blog comments!
26 May This post is from from my other blog here Last week, Microsoft announced a new search advertising strategy that aims to pay users who use the search engine to find and buy products from participating retailers. Nicknamed "the search that pays you back", Microsoft's Live Search Cashback is their latest attempt to make inroads on Google's dominant market share.Users simply register for free and search for cashback deals at Live Search cashback. The listings then display the cashback savings you'll receive off the total price using this small icon:
25 May This post is from from my other blog here  So what's Google's main focus? Manber explains that the key thing about search is that the expectation of users is growing rapidly and Google's overall main focus is to ensure that they continue to come up with new ideas to exceed user expectations and remain the number one search engine.
25 May This post is from from my other blog here  Book Search, already adding 3000 books per day to its index.
24 May This post is from from my other blog here
In what started as a small beta test in Feb 08, Google's "Automatic Matching" function is being made available to more AdWords advertisers. The controversial feature is expanding this weekend and you could be one of the lucky (or unlucky) ones without knowing it.Let's see what Automatic Matching is before we lay judgment on its effectiveness.The AdWords Help center describes Google AdWords Automatic Matching like this:"Automatic matching is an optional feature that helps your ads reach targeted traffic missed by your keyword lists. It works by analyzing the ads, keywords, and landing pages in your ad group. It then shows your ads on search queries relevant to this information.When automatic matching is first enabled, it dedicates a short period of time to gather information about your campaign. During this period, you won't see any change to your traffic levels. Once automatic matching has evaluated your campaign, your ads will start to show on additional relevant search queries."At face value, Automatic Matching could help advertisers tap into traffic that they are overlooking due to small keyword lists, but there are some potential pitfalls for advertisers to consider:
22 May This post is from from my other blog here Google has taken the "corporate only" wraps off its Google Sites service and made it available to all users.At its most basic level, Google Sites offers a simple website creation tool with all the standard WYSIWYG fanfare - made as simple as possible. Being that its a Google offering, it has all the social and multimedia integration you'd expect (e.g. video, pictures, calendars etc).Don't have a domain? No problems. Your Google site can sit as a subdomain on the Google sites address e.g. sites.google.com/sites/[your site]So is Google Sites worth investing your time and effort in? If your website looks like a throwback from the 80's, then it does offer a simple and FREE way to build a reasonable good looking basic website, with some pre-loaded themes to assist the creatively challenged.Here's a quick one I whipped up for ineedhits. 
19 May This post is from from my other blog here Loren Baker from Search Engine Journal.No doubt this won't be the end of this long running saga; we will keep you updated with any further developments. Feel free to leave a comment on your thoughts on the issue.
19 May This post is from from my other blog here YouTube have announced a further enhancement to their video statistics, which adds details about the demographics of users who view your videos. First launched in March this year, YouTube Insight now provides even more data to enhance your video marketing efforts.Video publishers now have access to view count information broken down by age group (such as 18-24), gender and a combination of the two. These details are pulled from the details provided to YouTube when users register an account.Here is a screen shot for the demographics tab from one of our videos: 
19 May 18 May This post is from from my other blog here  We will continue to keep you posted on any new information that comes to hand. In the meantime, feel free to let us know what you think of the new plan from Microsoft by leaving a comment below.
18 May This post is from from my other blog here  4.3 billion video views in March, accounting for 38% of all U.S. video traffic. So I'm sure Google is hoping that this new feature for YouTube will pay-off and increase their dominance even more.
18 May This post is from from my other blog here In a move to significantly expand the reach of its network, Ask.com has just acquired the Lexico Publishing Group, owners of dictionary.com, thesaurus.com and reference.comAccording to internet research company comScore, 500 million searches every month are conducted for dictionary, thesaurus and general references. Lexico Publishing's sites are not only the top domains in the space, but also carry a significant share of the traffic - approx 15.6 million visitors in Mar 08.Ask.com execs believe the acquisition will increase its user numbers by about 11% to 145 million users every month, pushing above the likes of Apple and Facebook.Jim Safka, Chief Exec of Ask.com reports "More than 30 per cent of all searches conducted on Ask.com are in the reference category. 'Dictionary' was the second-most searched term on Ask.com in 2007".While there seems to a be a logical fit in terms of search behavior, industry analysts aren't convinced the move will address the company's real issues. Douglas McIntyre from the Wall Street Journal had this to say about the acquisition:"The purchase of Lexico is based on deeply flawed thinking. Consumers who use an online dictionary are not likely to use the search engine which is owned by the same company, especially if that search engine is Ask.com. Ask has already lost the search race because it is a weak product. People using the internet can click from Dictionary.com to their favorite search engine, probably Google, in one click which takes one second.Buying a potential audience for an internet property that very few people use will not change consumer habits and that makes the investment a waste."Perhaps the move isn't about bolstering Ask.com's search engine success, and more a key traffic driver. The important next step for Ask is - how do they effectively monetize the user base?
17 May This post is from from my other blog here Recession - what recession? According to a new report out by IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), Search Marketing and Internet Advertising continue to grow at impressive rates unlike their traditional media counterparts.The IAB US Internet Advertising Revenue Report for 2007, which has just been released, details a story of continued growth across most areas in the internet advertising arena.Keyword based Search Marketing owned the lion-share of 2007 internet advertising revenue; generating $8.8 billion. According to the report:"Search revenue accounted for 41 percent of 2007 full year revenues, up from the 40 percent for the full year 2006. Display advertising, Classifieds, and Lead Generation accounted for 34 percent, 16 percent, and 7 percent of 2007 full year revenues respectively."David Silverman of PriceWaterhouseCooper (partners in the report), points out how internet advertising has defied the recessive trends"Despite the current state of economic uncertainty, 2007 was another record year and the 13th consecutive record quarter. Interactive advertising is not just the future, it is the here and now, as it represents a meaningful and growing component of US advertising and marketing spend."Consumer related marketing continued to lead the way, with 55% of all internet spend. Of the key category areas, retail held 49 percent of fourth quarter revenues, followed by Automotive (22%), Leisure (travel, hotel & hospitality) at 13%, and Packaged Goods at 8 percent.So what does the report mean for businesses owners? It confirms that internet advertising is growing as the marketing channel of choice, even in the face of difficult economic times.It reinforces the belief that more and more business owners are relying on internet advertising in recessive times as it offers low costs of entry, high accountability, and the ability to generate rapid resultsAccess the report here: IAB US Internet Advertising Revenue Report for 2007
12 May This post is from from my other blog here Google seems to have a firm grasp on yet another online space in the U.S. - online videos. Google's purchase of YouTube back in 2006 certainly seems to be paying off. How can Google capitalize on this even further? I think running ads on YouTube would certainly give them some strong advertising revenues.
12 May This post is from from my other blog here Popular Google employee Matt Cutts has posted his presentation from the recent Web 2.0 expo on what Google knows about spam. The presentation was a keynote speech at the conference and gives webmasters some great tips on how to avoid spam penalties for their sites.One of the key points Matt makes during the presentation is that search engine optimization is definitely not spam:Google Webmaster Tools which can help provide notifications to website owners if Google finds any problem with their site.
12 May This post is from from my other blog here Earlier in March, Google AdWords announced that landing page load time will become a factor in calculating your Quality Score. Google have now updated AdWords reporting to display this information before it starts to become a Quality Score factor in mid-June.Below I've provided an example of what this looks like for one of our keywords with a "Great" quality score: Some basic tips include; optimizing your images to be less than 50kb, trimming down on excess HTML code, ensuring your site is hosted on a reliable server and minimizing scripts used on your website.
12 May This post is from from my other blog here You may recall the recent partnership between Google and Yahoo!, which saw Yahoo! serving Google paid search ads alongside its own for a period of 2 weeks. The two week trial has now been called a "brilliant test" by Google, who would happily expand the advertising partnership in an effort to prevent Microsoft from renewing their bid.By making sure Yahoo! does well, Google are effectively preventing the company from falling into the hands of Microsoft, who is eager to join with Yahoo! to seriously compete with Google."We were a big partner of Yahoo a few years ago," co-founder Sergey Brin said. "It's great to be working with them again." Google CEO Eric Schmidt also remarked, "We have had a brilliant test which was two weeks long."All these comments are a strong indication from Google that they would love to further expand the advertising deal and contribute to Yahoo!'s success.Aside from assisting Yahoo!'s success, the deal also worked out well for Google in another way, with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer commenting that the Google test was one of his reasons for terminating negotiations with Yahoo!:All this means for Google, is that by perusing a long term deal with Yahoo! - they would go a long way towards blocking any further negotiations between Yahoo! and Microsoft.
12 May This post is from from my other blog here Despite all the negative attention Yahoo! has received lately thanks to its rejection of the Microsoft merger, they have managed to bring some good news with the implementation of a new way of presenting search results called Glue. Glue Pages, which is currently in Beta form for the newly launched Yahoo! India, combines traditional search results with other related information including Wikipedia entries, stock chart, Flickr images, news and even Google blog search results. Traditional search results appear in a strip on the left side of the page, which you will see from the image below.  So I guess for now we just cross our fingers and hope it does well enough in India to then allows us all to reap the benefits.
12 May This post is from from my other blog here Google really is the world's biggest search engine! This fact has been further cemented by recent statistics released by ComScore showing that Google commanded 79% of searches across Europe in March 2008. There seems to be no threat to Google by Yahoo and Microsoft in Europe as they currently hold fourth and fifth place with both only claiming around 2% of market share.
05 May This post is from from my other blog here There are thousands of different home based business products available on the web today and many have become very popular amongst affiliate advertisers. Over the years I have come across a wide variety of home based affiliate websites; some of which are very clear and a few that have simply confused me.Recently, in a move to weed out some of these lower quality affiliate websites, Google have increased the minimum cost per click for certain over crowded affiliate programs.A few weeks ago one of our Google AdWords Qualified Technicians attempted to setup a campaign in Google AdWords for a common Home Based Business affiliate site and noticed that Google had placed a minimum cost per click of approx $10 on every keyword.The same technician also attempted to use similar keywords for a less known Home Based Business site and to his surprise the minimum cost per click was approximately $0.70. Using Yahoo! Search Marketing proved to be a winner for the sites affected by Google's high cost per click as quality traffic was delivered for approximately $0.50 per click - 1/20 of the price Google wanted.Affiliate advertisers need to ensure they are promoting a high quality affiliate program that delivers real value to consumers. If your program is just a gimmick or hyper competitive it may be best to look at some other alternatives - especially if you're considering Google Advertising for your website.
05 May 05 May This post is from from my other blog here  iProspect study, 37% of searches are inspired by TV, which means TV can still be a great way to send traffic to your website. As I've said before, I think TV advertising is a great way to compliment search advertising, and the Google TV ads platform makes it very easy to get started.
05 May This post is from from my other blog here
04 May This post is from from my other blog here So what's the opinion of the worlds biggest search engine on the teaming up of the second and third biggest search engines? We are worried, but not just for ourselves! In a recent interview with CNBC, Google CEO Eric Schmidt admitted that they are concerned at the proposed takeover of Yahoo! by Microsoft primarily because there is the potential for Microsoft to use the merger for evil rather than good. So I guess we will have to wait and see if Google comes to the rescue of Yahoo!
04 May This post is from from my other blog here Microsoft has announced a new type of search for their browser-based mobile search at m.live.com.
"Product Search" displays products available in online stores including images, product descriptions and prices
There are some great features that are available for this type of search, including:
*The ability to check out reviews based on features that are important to you (i.e battery life, color etc)
*Sorting the results by user ratings, expert ratings, and price.
*Ability to filter the results by specific brands, categories, and price ranges.
*You can read expert reviews and specification sheets describing the product.
Here is an example of how the search results appear: 
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by 
Scripts - the use of Javascript and other scripts on your page 
Google Advertising
