Google is to scrap its European search advertising payments system which is worth as much as £50m a year to agencies.
The programme, called Best Practice Funding, will wind up at the end of 2008. It was launched by Google across Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2006 giving agencies that used the search engine to book ad campaigns a percentage of money back based on how much they spent on behalf of clients.
The aim of BPF was to drive search advertising across the region by allowing investment in technology, training and research to create better campaigns. BPF sees agencies get from 3% to 8% of their ad spend returned each quarter depending on how much money they place with Google and other qualifying factors.
Each agency qualifying for the programme has had two staff members trained as Google Advertising Professionals - 2,000 have gone through the process to date. "Agencies are now at a level where they don't need a subsidy," said Damian Burns, head of agency relations for Google EMEA. "Everyone should be equal in an auction system, there shouldn't be buying clout, the value for clients is in how well agency campaigns perform." Mr Burns did add that there had been a "mixed" reaction from some agencies at the news.
Some media sources argued that it is another example of Google using its hugely dominant position in the search advertising market. BPF was introduced at the same time as Google scrapped its existing agency discount system. The system, similar to how media agencies get discounts for buying TV ad slots, had been a more generous and straightforward mechanism rewarding agencies with more discount on campaign spend.
There was a backlash from a number of agencies at the time, despite no similar system being offered by Google in other regions. For those agencies that have based their business model on using BPF money as profit in place of the traditional discount for volume buying, then the news today means client contracts will have to be drastically overhauled.
"Many agencies saw BPF as a way of acknowledging bulk buying power without calling it a rebate," said the director at one major media agency. "Google has definitely helped grow the industry but on the other hand their market power means they can do this and no one can boycott them. Some agencies will now be more cynical of Google's attitude to the sector."
One senior agency executive pointed out that Google now has an increasing number of big clients that run their campaigns directly with the search advertising giant and don't benefit from BPF - putting them at a disadvantage. "BPF coincided with the end of the agency discount," said Mark Howe, the country sales director at Google UK.
"It is still wrongly assumed that this was a move designed to challenge the role of agencies. But, the end of the agency discount was completely about upholding the primacy of the auction model." One agency director estimated that BPF could see as much as "tens of millions" of pounds per quarter clawed back by UK agencies.
Google's rival Yahoo! last year modified its agency discount system for search campaigns to offer a maximum of 10% rebate, down from 15%. MSN has maintained its discount rate at 10%, according to one media agency source.
Source: media.guardian.co.uk
Google to end ad agency subsidy
October 10, 2007, 11:16 amGoogle To “Out Open” Facebook On November 5
October 10, 2007, 11:14 am
Yesterday a select group of fifteen or so industry luminaries attended a highly confidential meeting at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View to discuss the company’s upcoming plans to address the “Facebook issue.”
The meeting was so secret that all attendees had to sign confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements strictly forbidding them from discussing what was shown to them at the meeting. Notwithstanding that NDA, I’ve now spoken with three of the attendees off record to get an understanding of what Google is planning. Google’s goal - to fight Facebook by being even more open than the Facebook Platform. If Facebook is 98% open, Google wants to be 100%.
The short version: Google will announce a new set of APIs on November 5 that will allow developers to leverage Google’s social graph data. They’ll start with Orkut and iGoogle (Google’s personalized home page), and expand from there to include Gmail, Google Talk and other Google services over time.
On November 5 we’ll likely see third party iGoogle gadgets that leverage Orkut’s social graph information - the most basic implementation of what Google is planning. From there we may see a lot more - such as the ability to pull Orkut data outside of Google and into third party applications via the APIs. And Google is also considering allowing third parties to join the party at the other end of the platform - meaning other social networks (think Bebo, Friendster, Twitter, Digg and thousands of others) to give access to their user data to developers through those same APIs.
And that is a potentially killer strategy. Facebook has a platform to allow third parties to build applications on Facebook itself. But what Google may be planning is significantly more open - allowing third parties to both push and pull data, into and out of Google and non-Google applications.
In the long run, Google seems to be planning to add a social layer on top of the entire suite of Google services, with Orkut as their initial main source of social graph information and, as I said above, possibly adding third party networks to the back end as well. Social networks would have little choice but to participate to get additional distribution and attention.
Google has a number of heavy hitters engaged in the project. Amar Gandhi, who apparently wasn’t at the meeting and whose title is the rather unassuming “Product Manager, Orkut,” was previously at Microsoft where he unsuccessfully tried to integrate social networking features into Vista. Brad Fitzpatrick, the chief architect of Six Apart until he joined Google in August, is leading the charge to make the Google project as open as possible. Patrick Chanezon, Google Evangelist, is herding the cats.
Lots of people noticed Fitzpatrick’s social graph post (linked in paragraph above), connected the dots to his new job at Google, and speculated that Google’s has been working on something really, really big in this area. This is now confirmed and, unless Google changes the launch date, we’ll be seeing the beginning of it on November 5.
Source: techcrunch.com
The meeting was so secret that all attendees had to sign confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements strictly forbidding them from discussing what was shown to them at the meeting. Notwithstanding that NDA, I’ve now spoken with three of the attendees off record to get an understanding of what Google is planning. Google’s goal - to fight Facebook by being even more open than the Facebook Platform. If Facebook is 98% open, Google wants to be 100%.
The short version: Google will announce a new set of APIs on November 5 that will allow developers to leverage Google’s social graph data. They’ll start with Orkut and iGoogle (Google’s personalized home page), and expand from there to include Gmail, Google Talk and other Google services over time.
On November 5 we’ll likely see third party iGoogle gadgets that leverage Orkut’s social graph information - the most basic implementation of what Google is planning. From there we may see a lot more - such as the ability to pull Orkut data outside of Google and into third party applications via the APIs. And Google is also considering allowing third parties to join the party at the other end of the platform - meaning other social networks (think Bebo, Friendster, Twitter, Digg and thousands of others) to give access to their user data to developers through those same APIs.
And that is a potentially killer strategy. Facebook has a platform to allow third parties to build applications on Facebook itself. But what Google may be planning is significantly more open - allowing third parties to both push and pull data, into and out of Google and non-Google applications.
In the long run, Google seems to be planning to add a social layer on top of the entire suite of Google services, with Orkut as their initial main source of social graph information and, as I said above, possibly adding third party networks to the back end as well. Social networks would have little choice but to participate to get additional distribution and attention.
Google has a number of heavy hitters engaged in the project. Amar Gandhi, who apparently wasn’t at the meeting and whose title is the rather unassuming “Product Manager, Orkut,” was previously at Microsoft where he unsuccessfully tried to integrate social networking features into Vista. Brad Fitzpatrick, the chief architect of Six Apart until he joined Google in August, is leading the charge to make the Google project as open as possible. Patrick Chanezon, Google Evangelist, is herding the cats.
Lots of people noticed Fitzpatrick’s social graph post (linked in paragraph above), connected the dots to his new job at Google, and speculated that Google’s has been working on something really, really big in this area. This is now confirmed and, unless Google changes the launch date, we’ll be seeing the beginning of it on November 5.
Source: techcrunch.com
Websites that may merit a low landing page quality score
October 5, 2007, 10:26 am
Our landing page quality guidelines have always stressed the importance of directing users to easily navigable landing pages that are transparent about the advertiser's business and that contain relevant and original content. In our ongoing effort to provide advertisers greater transparency about our approach to landing page quality, we recently created a new FAQ in the AdWords Help Center outlining the types of business models that users have consistently commented on as providing a poor experience. You can find the new FAQ here -- and below, we've highlighted the most important points:
Types of websites that will be penalized with low landing page quality scores:
* Data collection sites that offer free gifts, subscription services etc., in order to collect private information
* Arbitrage sites that are designed for the sole purpose of showing ads
* Malware sites that knowingly or unknowingly install software on a visitor's computer
If we receive user complaints about ads for the types of websites listed above, the advertisers of those websites may not be allowed to continue running AdWords ads for those websites.
The following types of websites are likely to merit low landing page quality scores and may be difficult to advertise affordably. In addition, it's important for advertisers of these types of websites to adhere to our landing page quality guidelines regarding unique content.
* eBook sites that show frequent ads
* 'Get rich quick' sites
* Comparison shopping sites
* Travel aggregators
* Affiliates that don't comply with our affiliate guidelines
Please note that all of the above information, along with further details regarding landing page quality may be found in the AdWords Help Center.
Lastly, you may recall past Inside AdWords blog notices alerting advertisers about upcoming landing page quality updates. Since our systems frequently visit landing pages and update Quality Scores on a regular basis, we will no longer post advance notice of upcoming updates. We will, however, continue to inform you of any significant changes to landing page quality guidelines or the factors which are considered in calculating landing page quality.
Source: adwords.blogspot.com (The official source for information about AdWords)
Types of websites that will be penalized with low landing page quality scores:
* Data collection sites that offer free gifts, subscription services etc., in order to collect private information
* Arbitrage sites that are designed for the sole purpose of showing ads
* Malware sites that knowingly or unknowingly install software on a visitor's computer
If we receive user complaints about ads for the types of websites listed above, the advertisers of those websites may not be allowed to continue running AdWords ads for those websites.
The following types of websites are likely to merit low landing page quality scores and may be difficult to advertise affordably. In addition, it's important for advertisers of these types of websites to adhere to our landing page quality guidelines regarding unique content.
* eBook sites that show frequent ads
* 'Get rich quick' sites
* Comparison shopping sites
* Travel aggregators
* Affiliates that don't comply with our affiliate guidelines
Please note that all of the above information, along with further details regarding landing page quality may be found in the AdWords Help Center.
Lastly, you may recall past Inside AdWords blog notices alerting advertisers about upcoming landing page quality updates. Since our systems frequently visit landing pages and update Quality Scores on a regular basis, we will no longer post advance notice of upcoming updates. We will, however, continue to inform you of any significant changes to landing page quality guidelines or the factors which are considered in calculating landing page quality.
Source: adwords.blogspot.com (The official source for information about AdWords)
The perfect incoming link for high search engine rankings
October 5, 2007, 10:01 am
Incoming links are one of the most important factors for high search engine rankings. If your website doesn't have enough incoming links then it's very difficult to get high rankings for a competitive search term.
It's important that you get the right kind of links. If you have 20 good incoming links then you'll get better rankings than with 100 bad incoming links.
So what makes a good incoming link? There are several points that can make a link better than other links:
1. The link should use the keyword in the anchor text
If you want to get high rankings for a search term like "buy brown shoes" then the links to your website should use exactly that text. The text that is used to link to your site ( the "anchor text" ) influences the words for which your website will get high rankings. Make sure that the texts that are used to link to your website contain words for which you want to get high rankings on search engines.
2. The link should be from a relevant page
Links from related web pages usually work better than links from unrelated pages. Links from unrelated pages won't hurt your rankings but Google likes links from websites that are related to yours better.
3. The link should go to a relevant page on your site
While it's okay to get links to your home page it is better to get links to the page that is most relevant to the chosen anchor text. If the link text is "buy brown shoes" then you should make sure that the link goes to a page that deals with brown shoes. If the link text matches the content of the linked pages then it's more likely that your web page is really relevant to that term and it's more likely that you'll get high rankings for that search term. In addition, you increase the user experience. If a surfer clicks on a "buy brown shoes" link it's much more likely that he'll buy on your site if he gets the correct page.
4. It's good if the link is from an authority site
Links from pages with high authority will help to increase the TrustRank of your website. Links from websites with high PageRank have a positive effect on the rankings of your own site. Unfortunately, the Google PageRank that is displayed in the green bar in Google's toolbar is not the PageRank that Google uses for its ranking algorithm. The PageRank displayed in the toolbar is outdated, often wrong and more a gimmick than a real help. You'll often find websites with low PageRank that rank higher than pages with high PageRank in the search results.
Don't trust the green pixels and use common sense. If a website is well known and if the site has good search engine rankings then it's likely that it is also an authority website.
5. The link must not have a nofollow attribute
The nofollow attribute tells search engines that they should not follow a link. Links with that attribute don't help your search engine rankings. Unfortunately, you have to check the HTML code of your link partners to find out if they use a nofollow attribute to link to your site.
Source: Axandra Newsletter
It's important that you get the right kind of links. If you have 20 good incoming links then you'll get better rankings than with 100 bad incoming links.
So what makes a good incoming link? There are several points that can make a link better than other links:
1. The link should use the keyword in the anchor text
If you want to get high rankings for a search term like "buy brown shoes" then the links to your website should use exactly that text. The text that is used to link to your site ( the "anchor text" ) influences the words for which your website will get high rankings. Make sure that the texts that are used to link to your website contain words for which you want to get high rankings on search engines.
2. The link should be from a relevant page
Links from related web pages usually work better than links from unrelated pages. Links from unrelated pages won't hurt your rankings but Google likes links from websites that are related to yours better.
3. The link should go to a relevant page on your site
While it's okay to get links to your home page it is better to get links to the page that is most relevant to the chosen anchor text. If the link text is "buy brown shoes" then you should make sure that the link goes to a page that deals with brown shoes. If the link text matches the content of the linked pages then it's more likely that your web page is really relevant to that term and it's more likely that you'll get high rankings for that search term. In addition, you increase the user experience. If a surfer clicks on a "buy brown shoes" link it's much more likely that he'll buy on your site if he gets the correct page.
4. It's good if the link is from an authority site
Links from pages with high authority will help to increase the TrustRank of your website. Links from websites with high PageRank have a positive effect on the rankings of your own site. Unfortunately, the Google PageRank that is displayed in the green bar in Google's toolbar is not the PageRank that Google uses for its ranking algorithm. The PageRank displayed in the toolbar is outdated, often wrong and more a gimmick than a real help. You'll often find websites with low PageRank that rank higher than pages with high PageRank in the search results.
Don't trust the green pixels and use common sense. If a website is well known and if the site has good search engine rankings then it's likely that it is also an authority website.
5. The link must not have a nofollow attribute
The nofollow attribute tells search engines that they should not follow a link. Links with that attribute don't help your search engine rankings. Unfortunately, you have to check the HTML code of your link partners to find out if they use a nofollow attribute to link to your site.
Source: Axandra Newsletter
The Art of Website Maintenance
October 4, 2007, 10:11 am
Now that you've designed and launched your website, you have a powerful marketing tool for your business. But, your website is only as useful as the content is current. The process of keeping the content on your site current is called website maintenance, and it's important to keep both visitors and search engines supplied with new information. Just like regular maintenance on your car, you have to make changes on your website every few months to make sure that things run smoothly.
If you update the content on your website on a regular basis, potential clients will be drawn back to your site to find out "what's new". The search engines pay visits to websites in their queue regularly. The catch is that you'll stay in the queue only if you update your site regularly. If the search engines visit your site several times in a row, and don't find anything new, they may decide not to come back-which can be a blow to your search engine rankings.
So, when is it appropriate to update your website? You don't want to waste time and monëy nitpicking at your site if you don't have updates of real value to add. You should update your site if you've:
- Grown your skills. Have you gotten a new accreditation? New licensing? Improved your skills? Any change in your skill set is a great reason to update your website - and your potential clients - with your new capabilities.
- Expanded your products or services. Do you have a new offering? Add it to your website and start making new sales in that area.
- Completed a successful project. If you've just finished a project, include it on your website. Create an online portfolio, add a case study - build a section on your website to use as a place to show the world your success.
- Gotten more testimonials, or added to your client list. Including more feedback on your offering helps to build your credibility. Be sure to get a testimonial from each of your successful client projects. Updating your testimonials regularly will also show clients who have visited your site a few times that your offerings are "up to snuff".
- Written an article. Writing articles is a great way to keep your website up-to-date and to put more content on your site. Search engines love content-rich sites, and visitors will love to see the new information. So, if you write articles to educate your clients and promote your business, be sure to place them on your website as well. They're likely to be full of keywords related to your area of specialty, which will help your ranking in the search engines.
- Issued Press releases. You should post all press releases and other information you publish about your company to your website. You nevër know who may be visiting, and you may get written up for your accomplishments.
- Made changes in your business. Have you hired someone? Changed your business structure, and you're now required to notify the public of that? If so, you should probably review your website and evaluate how you can add that information.
- Made Yearly checkups. You should do a basic review of your site at least once a year, to make sure that the content is current. Some things to look for include:
* Your copyright statements should be updated yearly
* Test and validate your links, to ensure that they still work
* Your time references should be changed. If your "About" page says how many years you've been in business, this is the time to change that!
* Your pricing and offerings - do you have new products or services? Have your prices increased over the past year?
Spotlight any major updates on your home page as well, so that people will learn of those updates as soon as they enter your site. The search engines will also discover the new update as soon as they enter your home page if you leave a bit of information, with a link to the full story, on the home page. That will act as a breadcrumb for the engine to follow - the engines will follow your link to learn more about it.
Any of these reasons, and dozens of others, are great reasons to make changes to your site. If you make keeping your website current a priority, it will pay off with better search engine rankings and increased sales and leads through your website.
Once you've decided to make your changes, the next choice is how to go about doing that. There are two steps involved in maintaining your site:
1. First, decide whether you prefer to edit your content on paper or online. This can be done in a couple of ways. You can start by printing the pages that have outdated information and then updating that information on paper first. Or, you can copy and paste the outdated content from your website into a word processing program such as Microsoft Word and then edit that file on your computer.
2. After you have updated your text content you can choose either to make the changes yourself or to hire a web designer to make the changes. There are several tools that you can use to make changes to your site yourself. We recommend an easy-to-use tool called Macromedia Contribute. It's fairly inexpensive, its simple to set up and learn, and it allows you to back up to older versions of your site if you make mistakes.
We suggest that you use this tool to make only simple text changes. More complicated changes - for example, to the overall design or navigation - are more difficult to make, and having a professional make those changes will save you energy and frustration.
If you are comfortable with a more complicated software program, then we recommend a professional-grade tool such as Dreamweaver. With a better software package, you'll be able to make some of the more complicated changes yourself.
By building more and more current information into your website, you will also begin to build trust with your potential clients, since they will have a snapshot of what's currently happening in your business available to them. Your website can go a long way towards making sure that your online prospects know, like, and trust you - which can lead to more sales from your website.
Source: sitepronews.com
If you update the content on your website on a regular basis, potential clients will be drawn back to your site to find out "what's new". The search engines pay visits to websites in their queue regularly. The catch is that you'll stay in the queue only if you update your site regularly. If the search engines visit your site several times in a row, and don't find anything new, they may decide not to come back-which can be a blow to your search engine rankings.
So, when is it appropriate to update your website? You don't want to waste time and monëy nitpicking at your site if you don't have updates of real value to add. You should update your site if you've:
- Grown your skills. Have you gotten a new accreditation? New licensing? Improved your skills? Any change in your skill set is a great reason to update your website - and your potential clients - with your new capabilities.
- Expanded your products or services. Do you have a new offering? Add it to your website and start making new sales in that area.
- Completed a successful project. If you've just finished a project, include it on your website. Create an online portfolio, add a case study - build a section on your website to use as a place to show the world your success.
- Gotten more testimonials, or added to your client list. Including more feedback on your offering helps to build your credibility. Be sure to get a testimonial from each of your successful client projects. Updating your testimonials regularly will also show clients who have visited your site a few times that your offerings are "up to snuff".
- Written an article. Writing articles is a great way to keep your website up-to-date and to put more content on your site. Search engines love content-rich sites, and visitors will love to see the new information. So, if you write articles to educate your clients and promote your business, be sure to place them on your website as well. They're likely to be full of keywords related to your area of specialty, which will help your ranking in the search engines.
- Issued Press releases. You should post all press releases and other information you publish about your company to your website. You nevër know who may be visiting, and you may get written up for your accomplishments.
- Made changes in your business. Have you hired someone? Changed your business structure, and you're now required to notify the public of that? If so, you should probably review your website and evaluate how you can add that information.
- Made Yearly checkups. You should do a basic review of your site at least once a year, to make sure that the content is current. Some things to look for include:
* Your copyright statements should be updated yearly
* Test and validate your links, to ensure that they still work
* Your time references should be changed. If your "About" page says how many years you've been in business, this is the time to change that!
* Your pricing and offerings - do you have new products or services? Have your prices increased over the past year?
Spotlight any major updates on your home page as well, so that people will learn of those updates as soon as they enter your site. The search engines will also discover the new update as soon as they enter your home page if you leave a bit of information, with a link to the full story, on the home page. That will act as a breadcrumb for the engine to follow - the engines will follow your link to learn more about it.
Any of these reasons, and dozens of others, are great reasons to make changes to your site. If you make keeping your website current a priority, it will pay off with better search engine rankings and increased sales and leads through your website.
Once you've decided to make your changes, the next choice is how to go about doing that. There are two steps involved in maintaining your site:
1. First, decide whether you prefer to edit your content on paper or online. This can be done in a couple of ways. You can start by printing the pages that have outdated information and then updating that information on paper first. Or, you can copy and paste the outdated content from your website into a word processing program such as Microsoft Word and then edit that file on your computer.
2. After you have updated your text content you can choose either to make the changes yourself or to hire a web designer to make the changes. There are several tools that you can use to make changes to your site yourself. We recommend an easy-to-use tool called Macromedia Contribute. It's fairly inexpensive, its simple to set up and learn, and it allows you to back up to older versions of your site if you make mistakes.
We suggest that you use this tool to make only simple text changes. More complicated changes - for example, to the overall design or navigation - are more difficult to make, and having a professional make those changes will save you energy and frustration.
If you are comfortable with a more complicated software program, then we recommend a professional-grade tool such as Dreamweaver. With a better software package, you'll be able to make some of the more complicated changes yourself.
By building more and more current information into your website, you will also begin to build trust with your potential clients, since they will have a snapshot of what's currently happening in your business available to them. Your website can go a long way towards making sure that your online prospects know, like, and trust you - which can lead to more sales from your website.
Source: sitepronews.com
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