Online Advertising Australia

Update

October 10, 2008 – 6:27 am

I still plan on posting about the other main speakers at CM Summit next week - Joel Hyatt, CEO of Current, Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, and Gian Fulgoni, founder of Comscore - but some stuff has come up and I may not get to it till the weekend. Posting will be light to non existent Friday as I take care of some personal stuff.

Back as soon as I can be. Meanwhile, try not to watch the markets and remember this too will pass. As did the good times.

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How Important is Branding to Search Engine Marketing?

October 10, 2008 – 3:47 am

Do you have a brand? If not, your site is part of a "cesspool." In AdAge Google's CEO Eric Schmidt explains the AdWords quality score and organic ranking algorithms in laymans terms:

The internet is fast becoming a "cesspool" where false information thrives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday. Speaking with an audience of magazine executives visiting the Google campus here as part of their annual industry conference, he said their brands were increasingly important signals that content can be trusted.

"Brands are the solution, not the problem," Mr. Schmidt said. "Brands are how you sort out the cesspool."

"Brand affinity is clearly hard wired," he said. "It is so fundamental to human existence that it's not going away. It must have a genetic component."

The key to understanding the above is to appreciate that not only do the large brands have more money and more exposure, but they are less likely to be policed if they do the same thing that a smaller webmaster does. It is why a billion dollar company's affiliate program passes PageRank and my affiliate links do not.

Simply put, big brands should spam. Smart people like you, who read the algorithms as a profession, already knew this, but a large segment of publishers think search is mostly trickery and voodoo.

Build a brand and buy links. If your brand is big enough you most likely will not get policed out of the search results. It has been that way for years. If only the AdWords support team or Matt Cutts spoke with Mr. Schmidt's level of clarity!

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Google as Affiliate, Affiliate Network, Ad Network, & Ad Agency

October 10, 2008 – 1:18 am

Google recently expanded their ad offering by inserting AdSense ads on maps, putting AdSense image ads & banners on image search results, opening up AdSense for Games, and monetizing Youtube with affiliate ads for Amazon.com and Apple iTunes.

The NYT article on AdSense for Games (linked above) promises a couple more new ad units in the coming weeks, and highlights Google's new ad strategy

For the text and graphic ads (but not video) Google will also look at the context of the game and the page it is on for clues that might indicate whether some of the ads targeted by keyword are appropriate.

Mr. Oestlien indicated one small feature of Google’s program that may represent a significant change in the company’s approach: It is starting to broker deals between game publishers and advertisers to have their products integrated into the actual play of the games. For example, a dog food company could have its latest kibble built into Pet Society, a game on Facebook that now has Google ads.

On the high end for brand advertisers Google is becoming something that looks, smells, walks, and talks like an agency. Take a look at this ad unit.

And on the lead and retail front, Google is looking to become the web's largest affiliate. Everyone in search marketing (and online media) need to take a strong look at the merchant beta test Google conducted

How long until Google goes after other online ad markets that are worth hundreds of millions or billions each? More and more Google searches may end up clicking through to a Google property or a Google navigational aid. If Google can get enough merchants to buy in, any (or all) of these could become affiliate links. If the data can be structured Google can take their tax.

AdWords effectively killed the longtail by recycle brand ads on longtail search queries. Look for that consolidation to continue. If the SERPs hold custom ad units by Google, is your lead value and brand big enough to be able to pay for the leads? If not, how can you deepen your experience to create a citation-worthy service that goes deeper than Google is willing to go?

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Google Testing Dates on Search Snippets

October 9, 2008 – 1:48 pm A WebmasterWorld member is spotting some interesting Google interface tests with regards to placement of dates on snippets of SERPs. pageoneresults writes: In performing certain search queries, Google appears to be inserting the date of the page in front of...

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Do You Know Who is Speaking at Pubcon?

October 9, 2008 – 1:40 pm This year, Pubcon 2008 is going to be held between November 11 through the 14th in Las Vegas. Both Barry and I will be blogging and speaking, but the best news is all about the keynote speaker -- the Pubcon...

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Google Sitemap Pending Alert Temporary Issue

October 9, 2008 – 12:18 pm Hopefully by the time you read this post, the issue will be resolved. However, yesterday afternoon, a Google representative, JohnMu said there is currently a display issue in the Google Webmaster Tools. A Google Groups thread reports several webmasters who...

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The AdWords API Local Database Sync Project

October 9, 2008 – 12:09 pm Jeffrey Posnick from the AdWords API Team announced at a Google Groups thread the AdWords API Local Database Sync Project. The details of this project are located over at code.google.com/p/awapi-local-db-sync/. Here is the summary: The AdWords API Local Database Sync...

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Funny, Twitter and Google

October 9, 2008 – 4:27 am

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In the Age of Google…

October 9, 2008 – 3:41 am

You always have to go back to the question to get the right answer. Just wanted to get that down in writing.

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When Doesn’t It Pay To Pay Attention To Search Quality?

October 9, 2008 – 3:25 am

Perhaps when the top result is the best result - and it's a paid link.

Look at the image of my search results above.

I just now wanted to find the NLCS playoff schedule. I like baseball. I follow the National League, (NL) for the most part. Just about every fan of baseball (and there are millions of them) knows that "NLCS" is code for "National League Championship Series.

So I typed "NLCS playoff schedule" into Google. The results were terrible. The first result was for 2007, and it's October! Playoffs, you know? Happening now? Google was pretty good at giving me the right results when I typed "Olympics" in last August. So I thought it was pretty safe to assume I'd get 2008 playoff schedules when I typed in that query. Alas, it was not to be.

So just in case Google was feeling a bit addled tonight, I added a "2008" to the end to clarify: NLCS playoff schedule 2008.

The results are above. Of the *organic* results, the first is a blogspot blog - not worth clicking on, I mean, I wanted the official sked, right?This one is just for the Dodgers, and I'm a fan of blogs but...I didn't want the Dodger's sked, I wanted the whole NLCS. The second result was worse - an article from a baseball site, and it's about player health. Huh?

The third site is a attempt to sell me tickets.

Google, am I not being specific enough for you? I very much doubt that your algorithms can't figure out how to deliver exactly what I was asking for, especially during the playoffs.

But, wait a minute, there is one result that, should I click on it, will give me the answer I wanted. It's at the top, and hey, look, Google even HIGHLIGHTED it for me!

Oh wait, doesn't that highlight mean it's a paid link? Oh well, never mind that. It's the first link, and we all know that everyone clicks on the first link. Google may have failed at organic search, but it saved its bacon - and paid for it - through AdWords. Let's just hope for Google's sake that folks continue to ignore that "I'm feeling lucky" button. Unless, of course, it's routed through a paid link.

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