Slashdot: "prostoalex writes 'In light of the recent CNet ban by Google folks at ZDNet UK are now not sure whether they will get the same treatment, being a CNet company. But, just in case, they apologize profusely:
'Acting under the mistaken impression that Google's search engine was intended to help research public data, we have in the past enthusiastically abused the system to conduct exactly the kind of journalism that Google finds so objectionable. Clearly, there is no place in modern reporting for this kind of unregulated, unprotected access to readily available facts, let alone in capriciously using them to illustrate areas of concern. We apologise unreservedly, and will cooperate fully in helping Google change people's perceptions of its role just as soon as it feels capable of communicating to us how it wishes that role to be seen.'' "
Wanted at Google: A few good chefs | CNET News.com: "Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story"
Google: An Apology - ZDNet UK Comment: "Google has decided that search engines should not be used to collate data. We wish to say sorry for believing otherwise"
Friday, August 12, 2005
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Google's Bad PR Day : summary of recent stories
Google's Bad PR Day : Internet Search Engine News Jim Hedger reports: "Google has had another bad day on the public relations front yesterday. Three stories about Google made search marketing headlines which, for a company as interesting and innovative as Google is fairly typical...
The first and possibly most damaging item comes in the form of a directive issued to Google employees banning them from speaking with representatives of one of the Internet’s most popular news services, C-Net news.
Another headline yesterday noted that Google has issued an update for its popular toolbar. In this update, the controversial AutoLink feature of the toolbar is automatically enabled. AutoLink was included in the third version of the toolbar. When active, AutoLink adds links to a document if content in that document triggers it. Currently limited to proving links to FedEx (package tracking numbers), Amazon.Com (triggered when a book title or ISBN is mentioned), Google Maps (when street addresses are placed on a document), and vehicle histories (when a vehicle ID number is entered), AutoLink actively alters web documents, regardless of who created them. While the feature is said to assist Google users, the bottom line is that it will force content change on documents created, for the most part, by private webmasters.
A third headline yesterday led to an article about the troubles Google’s former National Sales Director, Christina Elwell faced when she told her former employer she was pregnant with quadruplets and coping with medical issues arising from the pregnancy. Just a few months earlier, Ms. Elwell was singled out for praise at a national sales meeting as a strong contributor, one of the people who made last year’s IPO successful. After telling her supervisor she was pregnant, Ms. Elwell was informed her position was terminated and offered a lesser role (which was eventually filled by someone else). "
Jim Hedger concludes: "It is however highly unlikely Google will emerge from this year with their “do-no-evil” reputation intact."
The first and possibly most damaging item comes in the form of a directive issued to Google employees banning them from speaking with representatives of one of the Internet’s most popular news services, C-Net news.
Another headline yesterday noted that Google has issued an update for its popular toolbar. In this update, the controversial AutoLink feature of the toolbar is automatically enabled. AutoLink was included in the third version of the toolbar. When active, AutoLink adds links to a document if content in that document triggers it. Currently limited to proving links to FedEx (package tracking numbers), Amazon.Com (triggered when a book title or ISBN is mentioned), Google Maps (when street addresses are placed on a document), and vehicle histories (when a vehicle ID number is entered), AutoLink actively alters web documents, regardless of who created them. While the feature is said to assist Google users, the bottom line is that it will force content change on documents created, for the most part, by private webmasters.
A third headline yesterday led to an article about the troubles Google’s former National Sales Director, Christina Elwell faced when she told her former employer she was pregnant with quadruplets and coping with medical issues arising from the pregnancy. Just a few months earlier, Ms. Elwell was singled out for praise at a national sales meeting as a strong contributor, one of the people who made last year’s IPO successful. After telling her supervisor she was pregnant, Ms. Elwell was informed her position was terminated and offered a lesser role (which was eventually filled by someone else). "
Jim Hedger concludes: "It is however highly unlikely Google will emerge from this year with their “do-no-evil” reputation intact."
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Interview with the AdSense million dollar man, Jason Calacanis - JenSense.com
Interview with the AdSense million dollar man, Jason Calacanis - JenSense.com Pearls from: "Interview with the AdSense million dollar man, Jason Calacanis...$1M a year in Google Adsense (or why 2,739 is my favorite number) - The Jason Calacanis Weblog - calacanis.weblogsinc.com _
What single change do you think made the biggest leap in your AdSense income?
1. Taking off the borders around the advertisement
2. Making the links the same color as the links on the blog
What is the best piece of advice you have for a publisher brand new to AdSense? What would you have done differently when you started with AdSense, knowing what you do now.
I would have run four ads per page, taken off the borders, and made the links the same color as the links on the blog. I would have also made channels for each position and blog so I could track things better.
How many times do you login to AdSense a day? Are you a stats junkie who checks every ten minutes? Or do you check only once or twice a day?
I have about 50 saved Adsense reports in a folder on my Opera browser. Every day I click on it and autoload the 50 pages. I then scan and look for trends. Sometimes I find a CTR spike or an eCPM of note. However, it's pretty steady at this point
"
What single change do you think made the biggest leap in your AdSense income?
1. Taking off the borders around the advertisement
2. Making the links the same color as the links on the blog
What is the best piece of advice you have for a publisher brand new to AdSense? What would you have done differently when you started with AdSense, knowing what you do now.
I would have run four ads per page, taken off the borders, and made the links the same color as the links on the blog. I would have also made channels for each position and blog so I could track things better.
How many times do you login to AdSense a day? Are you a stats junkie who checks every ten minutes? Or do you check only once or twice a day?
I have about 50 saved Adsense reports in a folder on my Opera browser. Every day I click on it and autoload the 50 pages. I then scan and look for trends. Sometimes I find a CTR spike or an eCPM of note. However, it's pretty steady at this point
"
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Adsense changes update from Google
: "There have been many improvements to AdSense over the past few months � some of them immediately obvious and others that may have slipped by you unnoticed. We like to keep you up to date with all these changes, so we have outlined the major changes below. In most cases, we have provided links to more information about the subject, but there is still a lot to read in this email! So settle in and read on for the full story."
Google Anticipated Microsoft Exec Fight - Forbes.com
Summary so far.....Google Anticipated Microsoft Exec Fight - Forbes.com: "Newly released court documents reveal that Google Inc. anticipated a fight with Microsoft Corp. when it hired a top executive away from the software behemoth to launch a new research and development center in China. "
Monday, August 01, 2005
Urchin and GoogleAnalytics.com.
Cre8asite forums. Google - Urchin and GoogleAnalytics.com. [ Search Engine Optimization, Usability and Web Design. ] bragadocchio posts about a thread at Threadwatch called GoogleAnalytics.com - Urchin on it's Way?, about a new domain name that Google registered, in light of Google's purchase of Urchin.
He also links to a patent application release with Urchin's name on it at: United States Patent Application: 0050165889: "United States Patent Application" System and method for monitoring and analyzing internet traffic - this " at how data from specific users is kept together using a "Visitor Centric Data Modeling" approach. It also provides some interesting techniques for trying to identify who thoses visitors are."
He also links to a patent application release with Urchin's name on it at: United States Patent Application: 0050165889: "United States Patent Application" System and method for monitoring and analyzing internet traffic - this " at how data from specific users is kept together using a "Visitor Centric Data Modeling" approach. It also provides some interesting techniques for trying to identify who thoses visitors are."
Slashdot | Google Patents RSS Advertising
Slashdot | Google Patents RSS Advertising: "IO ERROR writes "Google [1]filed a patent application for targeted advertising in RSS feeds about a year and a half ago. The USPTO has now assigned it a number and [2]placed it online. The patent application covers both targeting in RSS feeds and geotargeting by IP address. It gives some insight into how Google's ad servers work."
United States Patent Application: 0050165615: "Embedding advertisements in syndicated content Incorporating targeted ads into information in a syndicated, e.g., RSS, presentation format in an automated manner is described. Syndicated material e.g., corresponding to a news feed, search results or web logs, are combined with the output of an automated ad server. An automated ad server is used to provide keyword or content based targeted ads. The ads are incorporated directly into a syndicated feed, e.g., with individual ads becoming items within a particular channel of the feed. The resulting syndicated feed including targeted ads is supplied to the end user, e.g., as a set of search results or as a requested web log. Embedding of targeted ads into syndicated feeds and/or user response to the embedded ads is be tracked in an automated manner for billing. The automated targeting and insertion process allows ads to be kept current and timely while the original feed may be considerably older. "
United States Patent Application: 0050165615: "Embedding advertisements in syndicated content Incorporating targeted ads into information in a syndicated, e.g., RSS, presentation format in an automated manner is described. Syndicated material e.g., corresponding to a news feed, search results or web logs, are combined with the output of an automated ad server. An automated ad server is used to provide keyword or content based targeted ads. The ads are incorporated directly into a syndicated feed, e.g., with individual ads becoming items within a particular channel of the feed. The resulting syndicated feed including targeted ads is supplied to the end user, e.g., as a set of search results or as a requested web log. Embedding of targeted ads into syndicated feeds and/or user response to the embedded ads is be tracked in an automated manner for billing. The automated targeting and insertion process allows ads to be kept current and timely while the original feed may be considerably older. "
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Google hit with job discrimination lawsuit
Shenanigans....Google hit with job discrimination lawsuit | CNET News.com: "A former Google sales executive has filed a lawsuit against the search giant, alleging it engaged in job discrimination while she was pregnant with quadruplets. "
Monday, July 25, 2005
Google - Record Number of Searches in Q2
E-Commerce News: "While Google's market share for search increased from the first quarter, when it was 35.9 percent -- as did Ask Jeeves' share, which climbed from 5.3 percent, and AOL's, which jumped from 9.1 percent -- Yahoo's share fell from 31.2 percent and MSN's from 16.3 percent.
"
"
About Google Scholar
About Google Scholar: "Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web."
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Google buys Brazil firm for research center
Google buys Brazil firm for research center: "Web search leader Google said Wednesday that it bought Brazil's Akwan Information Technologies, which it will use to set up a research and development center for Latin America. The small Brazilian company develops information search systems for companies"
Optimizing for Google AdWords' New Quality Score System
Optimizing for Google AdWords' New Quality Score System: "by Greg Ives - KeywordRanking
In the coming weeks, Google will release a new method for deciding when your ads show up. Out with the old system of 'on hold, in trial and disabled' keywords and in with 'the quality based system,' where keywords are either active or inactive...
There are several issues that will be challenging for marketers.
Inexperienced advertisers will likely increase their max CPC to retain their paid search rankings. This only provides a short term solution that will drain your budget and leave your ad costing too much.
Increasing CPC is one thing you can do in order to attain active status, but the correct thing to do prior to spending more money per click is to improve your quality score through optimization.
In addition, inexperienced advertisers are likely to erase existing keywords that aren't activated but could easily become so by changing the structure of the account, budgeting, etc (see below). This could lose them some easy return on keywords that convert.
To keep your keywords activated an experienced agency will:
* alter the structure of the account, campaigns, ad groups and keywords
* alter campaign budgeting
* refine content targeting
* optimize for your max CPC
* select proper keyword matching
* ensure rotation of quality ad text
* proper keyword selection
* build out campaign negative keywords
* implement content website exclusion"
In the coming weeks, Google will release a new method for deciding when your ads show up. Out with the old system of 'on hold, in trial and disabled' keywords and in with 'the quality based system,' where keywords are either active or inactive...
There are several issues that will be challenging for marketers.
Inexperienced advertisers will likely increase their max CPC to retain their paid search rankings. This only provides a short term solution that will drain your budget and leave your ad costing too much.
Increasing CPC is one thing you can do in order to attain active status, but the correct thing to do prior to spending more money per click is to improve your quality score through optimization.
In addition, inexperienced advertisers are likely to erase existing keywords that aren't activated but could easily become so by changing the structure of the account, budgeting, etc (see below). This could lose them some easy return on keywords that convert.
To keep your keywords activated an experienced agency will:
* alter the structure of the account, campaigns, ad groups and keywords
* alter campaign budgeting
* refine content targeting
* optimize for your max CPC
* select proper keyword matching
* ensure rotation of quality ad text
* proper keyword selection
* build out campaign negative keywords
* implement content website exclusion"
Monday, July 18, 2005
Google PageRank
SiteProNews: "Google PageRank
Update Analysis By Dave Davies
The most current PageRank update will undoubtedly cause a largër stir than usual in that many sites have shown drops in their visible PageRank while at the same time showing significant increases in their backlinks. This fact reveals that one of three things has occurred in this latest update:
1) Google has raised the bar on PageRank, making it more difficult to attain a high level, or
2) The way they are displaying their backlinks has changed, or
3) The way they calculate the value of an incoming link has changed.
Concludes: "if you've noticed that everyone around you has stayed the same or increased in PageRank try to remember this, there's nothing you can do about where you're currently positioned in regards to PageRank and it will probably be another 3 months before Google updates the public PageRank again so ... start building some good quality (high relevancy, solid PageRank) links. Work towards an increase in the next update.
Panicking now won't help, intelligent reaction will."
Update Analysis By Dave Davies
The most current PageRank update will undoubtedly cause a largër stir than usual in that many sites have shown drops in their visible PageRank while at the same time showing significant increases in their backlinks. This fact reveals that one of three things has occurred in this latest update:
1) Google has raised the bar on PageRank, making it more difficult to attain a high level, or
2) The way they are displaying their backlinks has changed, or
3) The way they calculate the value of an incoming link has changed.
Concludes: "if you've noticed that everyone around you has stayed the same or increased in PageRank try to remember this, there's nothing you can do about where you're currently positioned in regards to PageRank and it will probably be another 3 months before Google updates the public PageRank again so ... start building some good quality (high relevancy, solid PageRank) links. Work towards an increase in the next update.
Panicking now won't help, intelligent reaction will."
Monday, July 11, 2005
Google Doesn't Know it All
Steve Rubel points readers of his blog Micro Persuasion to: Google Doesn't Know it All: " Can't Find It On Google where people can talk about what they can't locate using the search engine."
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Google wins copycat Web domain dispute
Google wins copycat Web domain dispute - BizReport: "The National Arbitration Forum said on Friday that Google Inc. has rights to the Internet domain names googkle.com, ghoogle.com, gfoogle.com and gooigle.com, which are similar to its own google.com domain...
The NAF hears thousands of domain disputes each year under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in a dispute process that is an alternative to trademark lawsuits."
The NAF hears thousands of domain disputes each year under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in a dispute process that is an alternative to trademark lawsuits."
Friday, July 08, 2005
London blasts rock the Net; sites, blogs respond
Internet Daily: "News Web sites in the United Kingdom were hammered for almost four hours after the London bomb blasts occurred.
Roopak Patel, senior Internet analyst at Keynote Systems Inc., said the average measured U.K. site took four times longer than normal to respond.
Hardest hit were the BBC (www.bbc.co.uk), Sky News (www.sky.com/skynews/home) and the Financial Times (www.ft.com).
'The average response time for a home page on the Internet is two to three seconds,' Patel said in an interview. 'So that means some sites took up to 10 seconds. That's doesn't seem significant until you realize the hardest-hit sites were experiencing such traffic they dragged down the average of the 37 other sites [in the Keynote (KEYN: news, chart, profile) U.K. "
Roopak Patel, senior Internet analyst at Keynote Systems Inc., said the average measured U.K. site took four times longer than normal to respond.
Hardest hit were the BBC (www.bbc.co.uk), Sky News (www.sky.com/skynews/home) and the Financial Times (www.ft.com).
'The average response time for a home page on the Internet is two to three seconds,' Patel said in an interview. 'So that means some sites took up to 10 seconds. That's doesn't seem significant until you realize the hardest-hit sites were experiencing such traffic they dragged down the average of the 37 other sites [in the Keynote (KEYN: news, chart, profile) U.K. "
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Google, partners to back broadband venture -WSJ
Internet News Article | Reuters.com: " Google Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Hearst Corp. are investing about $100 million in Current Communications Group, a start-up that offers high-speed Internet connections over electricity lines, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. "
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Keeping an Eye on Google
Keeping an Eye on Google: "A new report offers fascinating, in-depth insights on how users interact with Google search results, based on studies using eye-tracking technology.
The report, from Enquiro, Did-It and Eyetools, is a comprehensive white paper that builds on an earlier press release that described Google's 'golden triangle' of search results.
The study found that most viewers looked at results in an 'F' shaped scan pattern, with the eye travelling vertically along the far left side of the results looking for visual cues (relevant words, brands, etc) and then scanning to the right, as if something caught the participant's attention.
The new study expands significantly on the initial findings, offering a detailed look at the methodology used and much more granular conclusions examining all aspects of Google search results. For example, the study showed that searchers react to organic results differently than they react to sponsored listings. "
The report, from Enquiro, Did-It and Eyetools, is a comprehensive white paper that builds on an earlier press release that described Google's 'golden triangle' of search results.
The study found that most viewers looked at results in an 'F' shaped scan pattern, with the eye travelling vertically along the far left side of the results looking for visual cues (relevant words, brands, etc) and then scanning to the right, as if something caught the participant's attention.
The new study expands significantly on the initial findings, offering a detailed look at the methodology used and much more granular conclusions examining all aspects of Google search results. For example, the study showed that searchers react to organic results differently than they react to sponsored listings. "
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
July stock of the month: Google
July stock of the month: Google - Internet Services - Internet - Analyst: "Google's surge past $300 a share in June helped push the dollar volume trading of the stock to $112 billion according to data compiled by the Hulbert Financial Digest, making it the July stock of the month for Trading Strategies."
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