Google Tests “Commercial” Results In Organic Listings
No one is admitting anything yet, but..... check the results yourself by doing a search for "on demand" at Google. This short article gives a possible explaination what is going on.
How Do the Search Engines Stack Up?
Did you ever wonder which search engines are used most for shopping search? What about for entertainment or news? A new report detailing behaviors associated with search engine use has been released by Hitwise. This report identifies clear strengths for…
Competition Forces Googles Contextual Network to Become More Transparent
We all know how wonderfully forthcoming Google is with information about the inner workings of their programs... Not! Well the competition from Yahoo's new Publisher Network is forcing Google to explain themselves better to their consumers. Google has launched "Inside…
Google AdSense testing larger ad size
DMNews is reporting that Google is testing a new, larger ad size. The new ads allow 200 characters in the description whereas the current limit is 95 characters. I think in most cases that will mean a better conversion rate…
Yahoo! Takes On AdSense, Launches Publisher Network
The latest round in the competition between Yahoo and Google was announced today. Yahoo has added ContentMatch to it's PPC offerings. The program is much like the Google AdSense program contextually matching PPC ads to small and mid-sized publishers sites.…
More Eye-Tracking Info from Google
Hi There! I'm back from vacation and ready to get back to the nitty gritty of SEM! Just this morning, I was talking to a client about conversion on his site and relating my previous post on eye tracking. Then…
Browser Compatability – Not Just A Techie Issue
One of the common questions I'm asked is, "do I have to worry about Firefox?" My standard answer is, yes, you do need to consider other browsers including Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, etc. because there are over 16 million people who…
Local Search Players Enhance Offerings
ClickZ has a short story about several deals in the hot Local Search space. The most interesting deal is between YellowPages.com (which includes SBC SMARTpages.com and BellSouth RealPages.com) and AOL Yellow Pages. The deal adds a lot of bang for…
Are You Asking the Right Question?
How's your conversion? Are your site visitors getting what they need to easily make the decision to buy from you? I really appreciated this article about conversion rates and the "right" question. If average conversion rates are around 2%, that…
Page Hijack Exploit: 302, redirects and Google
Last week, I was working on a SEO report for a client and came across several very strange listings for him at Google. The title and descriptions were correct, but the URL of the page was wrong. Wrong as in,…