AdSense Academy Teaches And Tests Your Adsense And WebSense Knowledge!

You must know what AdSense is if you are reading this but even if you are not, you will learn a lot through the links provided below.
If you are brand new to AdSense or have been using it to monetize your site for years, you will find some great pointers and learning tools.
At AdSense Academy, you can follow the checklist provided and will guide you through the steps to set up and run a successful AdSense account. As you progress through the steps in the each of the six sections, you'll graduate to a higher milestone. When you reach the last milestone, depicted by a rocket, you will certainly be an AdSense Astronaut, ready to take the quiz to test your knowledge.
Test your knowledge with the AdSense Academy - Inside AdSense

Federated Media Acquires Lijit Networks.

Lijit, the advertising revenue generator for online publishers has been acquired by media advertising power house Federated Media. According to Lijit they were not in need for a sale but selected FM in order to go big;
So in May, when we were first approached by Federated Media, it was a case of mixed emotion. Lijit wasn’t for sale, we were fully funded and coming off our 6th straight month of 50% month-over-month revenue growth. Profitability was within sight and occurring on and off on a daily basis. In short, we were having FUN, AND A LOT OF IT. But, at the same time, if there was bigger play to make – an industry changing and industry leading play to make – it was with FM. It all made complete sense from that first instant of thought.
Lijit will stay where they are, Boulder Colorado and work with FM Management team to make it big!
Here is the press release by FM;

Federated Media Publishing To Acquire Lijit Networks

Combined Entity Will Power More than 77,000 Independent Publishers Across the Web Via Comprehensive Advertising, Analytics and Reader Engagement Tools

SAN FRANCISCO, October 4, 2011 – Federated Media Publishing, which powers the best of the Independent Web, today announced the acquisition of Lijit Networks, Inc. Lijit is a leading provider of advertising services, audience analytics and reader engagement tools for online publishers of all sizes. The combined entity will reach nearly 300 million global unique visitors according to Quantcast.

Lijit, headquartered in Boulder, Colorado will continue to operate independently but in conjunction with the rest of Federated Media Publishing. Lijit CEO Todd Vernon and COO Walter Knapp will take on corresponding EVP of Technology and SVP of Platform Revenue responsibilities at Federated Media Publishing and will report directly to Federated Media Publishing’s CEO, Deanna Brown. Additionally, Lijit board member Seth Levine from Foundry Group will join the Federated Media Publishing board of directors, effective immediately.

With the addition of Lijit Networks’ existing publisher relationships, Federated Media Publishing will now reach more than 77,000 online publishers and nearly 15,000 expert communities, making it one of the largest companies to power publishing on the Independent Web. The acquisition vastly expands the combined company’s inventory of sites, offering premium advertisers improved scale and reach.

Publishers Will Profit and Flourish

Lijit helps publishers more thoughtfully interact with and better understand their audience by providing analytics and engagement tools that build deeper relationships, lengthen time on site and increase page views. These robust and actionable audience analytics and reader engagement tools leverage intent, behavior and demographics to help publishers of all sizes increase revenue and better engage their readers.

Additionally, the combined advertising services provided by FM and Lijit will give publishers of all sizes a revenue stream that complements existing sales efforts and helps grow and monetize their website businesses, no matter what the size.

Advertisers Can More Easily Analyze and Engage

The combination of Federated Media Publishing’s premium online advertising and conversational marketing programs and Lijit’s proprietary data collection tools will empower advertisers to better understand user intent, contextual relevance and demographic information. And by leveraging the combined entity’s extensive publisher relationships, advertisers will have unprecedented scale on the Independent Web.

Introducing Programmatic Buying to the Independent Web

Programmatic buying is one of the fastest growing trends in digital media and the introduction of Lijit’s robust RTB exchange will equip media buyers with one of the largest platforms available. Over the next few months, Federated Media Publishing and Lijit will develop a series of private exchanges that will highlight leading independent publishers. These exchanges will allow brands to engage active, passionate consumers found in highly conversational online communities and publications, while delivering premium CPM rates via FM’s conversational marketing programs.

Quotes

“The Lijit Networks team is just as passionate and committed to powering publishers as we are at Federated Media Publishing and that was a crucial element to this decision,” said Deanna Brown, chief executive officer, Federated Media Publishing. “Our combined relationships, proprietary tools and conversational marketing services will be invaluable to publishers and advertisers alike.”

“Federated Media invented how to leverage authentic voices and engaged conversations that exist in the Independent Web,” said Todd Vernon, founder and CEO of Lijit Networks. “The combination of the two companies is a game changer in the industry that unlocks new opportunities for both companies through our combined publisher network.”

About Federated Media Publishing

Federated Media Publishing powers the best of the Independent Web. We believe that the majority of meaningful engagements across digital media occur via high-quality independent sites and services. These sites leverage top digital talent to attract influential audiences who together create meaningful dialogue. Brands benefit from improved loyalty and increased sales when they become part of this authentic experience. Learn more at www.federatedmedia.net

About Lijit Networks Inc.

Lijit Networks, Inc. was incorporated in June 2006 and is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. By providing innovative advertising services, audience analytics, and reader engagement tools to over 70,000 online publishers, commercial websites and content networks, Lijit helps publishers grow their website, build their business and make more money. Lijit connects publishers with premium online advertising campaigns that are highly targeted and contextually relevant to the publisher’s audience. Learn more at www.lijit.com

Federated Media Publishing on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/Federated

Federated Media Publishing on Twitter - http://twitter.com/Federated_Media

Lijit Networks on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Lijit

Lijit Networks on Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/lijit

Contact

Clint Bagley

415-699-8280

cbagley@federatedmedia.net

Google Affiliate Network: Google Affiliate Network Fall Exclusive Opportunities Now Available

Fall is around the corner, very close, and with it brings the holiday shopping season.

Google Affiliate Network is too ready with over 40 specific opportunities for you, Google Affiliates Network publisher, to focus on. If you are a publisher and have not yet signed up with GAN, Google Affiliates Network, you can signup via the link below.

Just to remind you the above special opportunities will be available during one weekend, September 23=September 26, only so better act fast.

In order to reach these opportunities;

To promote any of these exclusive opportunities, you need to be an approved publisher in the Google Affiliate Network.
Apply for Google Affiliate Network with your AdSense Publisher ID (or sign in if you're already a Google Affiliate Network publisher).
Once approved, review the opportunities available and click the "Apply Now" link for everyone that you wish to promote.

There is also a getting started guide to get you started with first steps or more if necessary.

Follow the links below for more information;

Google Affiliate Network Signup

Google Affiliate Network: Google Affiliate Network Fall Exclusive Opportunities Now Available

PageMaps In Your Custom Search, Now Add Them Directly!

One of the reasons people like the pagemaps in their custom Search was the ability to create Richer Snippets. A new move by Google makes it much easier for users as they do not have to modify pages to expose Pagemaps, or wait for Google to crawl the site once you created them. As of today Google is allowing direct submission of Pagemaps via either Sitemaps or On-Demand Indexing requests.

From Google Custom Search Blog;

This saves time when you want to make a quick change to your metadata. If you have data you would like to be displayed on your site, such as reviews snippets, you can submit it directly to Google instead of putting it in publicly visible markup on your pages. For added security, you can even choose to add a private key to your Pagemap and we will only serve it in Custom Search results when that key is provided.

We hope you enjoy the added convenience these new submission options offer. Let us know what you think in our discussion forum.

Enjoy the Pagemaps and richer snippets

ZAGAT @ Google Might Taste Good Enough To Write A Haiku!

I heard the news on this mornings TV but when I saw a tweet by Google's Marissa Mayer that prompted me to write this.
We all have seen ZAGAT ratings at restaurants and foodies might have even hand out some cash to get the book.
Me and my partner are pretty adventurous when it come to food and we visit places from hole in the walls to five star gourmet restaurants. We are also avid travelers. Knowing the our city, county, state, country and the world is a thirst that never cease.
When it come to hole in the wall and everything in between those five star restaurants, we usually look at Yelp to get an idea and prepare our selves. We use comments to educate ourselves rather than to chose a place.
But now, will we see a change? I guess so, ZAGAT@Google might help us to learn about restaurants in our localities and beyond. We may look there to find where to eat, drink, stay, shop and play.
Official Google Blog: Google just got ZAGAT Rated!

Google Tells You How To Go About Getting A Job, Write The Best Resume!.

It is hard to bring bread to the table for many people these days and writing proper resume's are the last things in people's mind even though it should reside in frontal lobes some where.
One Google's recruiting expert, Jeff Moore tells us how to go about it. Even though the post mentioned below targets college graduates (The post is on Google Students Blog!) aspiring to become Googlers, we all can take some advise to take away from these Recruiter Tips and Tricks;

Show off your strengths – Makes sense, right? You want your resume to show off what makes you special and give recruiters a reason to interview you. The big things on your resume should make employers say, “wow!” It doesn’t really matter if it’s your education, internships or special awards, just make sure to show off your skills/experience and try to impress because (cliché alert!) you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

The devil is in the details – A detailed resume is a good resume. The more info you share, the more a recruiter or hiring manager can look at your accomplishments and determine if you are a good fit for their team. For example, which one of these candidates would you want to talk to?

Candidate A – Wrote several applications to improve efficiency within the finance group.

Candidate B – Used Java and PHP to write financial accounting application that saved the company over 25 hours a week of productivity resulting in over $100K in savings.

Remember, your resume is your message to the hiring team—tell them as much as you can so they can make the most informed decision.

Keep it short – Huh? Didn’t he just say, “tell them as much as you can”? I did, but that doesn’t mean you should write a 15 page resume. What you want is a clear, concise resume that accurately describes your accomplishments. Assuming you are a new college grad, you probably want to stick to one page. However, if you have significant accomplishments (publications, open source contributions, startups, awards, etc.) it is acceptable to go on to a second page. Lots of career services folks will tell you “one page only.” I don’t subscribe to that, as long as the content of your resume is relevant.

Spelling and grammar – I don’t even need to mention this...you get it right? We have spell check for a reason. You'd be shocked at how many resumes I see with spelling errors. Grammar and spelling mistake look sloppy. Don't be careless, and don't depend on spell check. Proof read your resume and have others proof it as well.

Know your target – Make sure your resume is targeted to the right audience. I’d recommend you add an “Objective” at the top of your resume (below your name!) that clearly states what your want to accomplish. Think of the objective as your “elevator pitch”, a concise statement to convince the hiring manager or recruiter that you are worth an initial conversation. Your objective and the meat of your resume should portray someone who is a fit for the job and company. For example, if you want a job at a specific company write an objective like this:

Objective – To obtain a fast-paced and exciting role within the Google Staffing team.

As opposed to this….

Objective – To get a job at Google.

Recruiter Tips & Tricks: preparing your resume

Do multiple links from one page to another page count?

WebSEOAnalytics asked Google Webmaster Central, meaning Matt Cutts the question;

"Hi Matt. If we add more than one links from page A to page B, do we pass more PageRank juice and additional anchor text info? Also can you tell us if links from A to A count?"

and Matt Cutts obliged an answer.
If you have a question? you too can ask it in Webmaster Help Forum: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en

Google +1 Button Can Bring Higher CTR!

When Google Adwords decide to show the +1 button (PlusOne) with your ads, users can (and I think will) +1 your content, giving you a higher CTR.
So what is this +1 Button or PlusOne button?
Usually When people make decisions, They always turn to recomendations, like I will always try to find some good reviews from trusted sites or people. Most people take their trusted ones recomendation with more value than that of Tom Dick or Harry. So when a person searches for a computer,application or a hotel, if the results pop up with recommendations from those they trust, the ads can bring more results, in many ways. Now it is possible with the +1 button, people can recommend your site’s content or ads to their friends and contacts right when their advice is most useful - on Google search.
So how do you get +1, PlusOne button on your page(s)? Follow the link provided in the text after the jump!

Let’s say you own a hotel in Madrid. Brian is having a lovely stay at your hotel, and visits your site to look up local attractions. He sees the +1 button you've added to your page, and clicks it to recommend your business to his friends and contacts.

When Brian's friend Ann plans her trip to Spain, she signs in to her Google account, searches on Google, and also sees your hotel's ad – plus the personalized annotation that Brian +1’d it. Knowing that Brian recommends your hotel helps Ann decide where to stay during her travels.
+1 annotations help users know when your organic search results and ads are relevant to them, increasing the chances that they'll end up on your site.

As results become more personal and relevant, we believe that users are not only more likely to click, but they're more likely to act as well. +1 annotations bring you pre-qualified users, who just received recommendations from their friends and are actively looking for your content. This powerful combination may result in more conversion and deeper engagement with your site overall.

To make it easier for visitors to +1 your content, you can add +1 buttons to your pages. Get the code at http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button

Via Google Ads

Supercookis Are Back Again, This Time From MSN Hulu !

Remember our "How to remove Adobe Supercookies"? yes you can use that article and more tools to keep you data and browsing history off those greasy hands.
Geemodo: MSN Hulu Using SuperCookies To Track You (How To Remove Included)

How Google Interprets Underscores And Dashes In A URL.

Matt Cuts explains how Google interprets underscores and dashes in a URL. If you Want your question to be answered on a video like this? Follow Google Webmaster Central on Twitter and look for an announcement when they take new questions: http://twitter.com/googlewmc

Google Catalogs, Shop Favorite Catalogs On Your Tablets!

I am sure all of us have flipped through those inviting glossy catalogs, even involuntarily sometimes. Since the online shopping and social interaction associated with shopping, like all other day to day tasks, is changing, Google is making the task easier with Google Catalogs, a free app for your tablets.
Currently you can shop brands like Anthropologie, Bare Escentuals, Bergdorf Goodman, Crate and Barrel, L.L. Bean, Lands’ End, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sephora, Sundance, Tea Collection, Urban Outfitters and Williams-Sonoma, and more.
With the Google Catalogs on your tablet you will be able to;

• Interact: Zoom in to see products up close, tap on tags to learn more about an item or, in some catalogs, view inspiring photo albums and videos.
• Find products in nearby stores: When an item catches your eye, instantly find it in a store near you or tap “Buy on Website” to visit the merchant online.
• Express your creativity: Create a collage of your favorite catalog pages and products. If you need inspiration, you can check out collages created by others.
• Share with friends: Email a product or collage to all your shopping buddies.
• Get instant access to new catalogs: Add catalogs to your Favorites and get notified each time a new issue arrives.
• Discover new products and brands: Search for products within or across multiple catalogs to find exactly what you’re looking for.

Pretty and neat.

Official Google Blog: Shop your favorite catalogs with Google Catalogs

inMobi Ads Ruling Smartphones!

InMobi published a lot of information and infographics to let us know why everyone in the mobile business is at Google and Android!
Voip IP Telephony

Devil Of An Ad, You Will Never Know What It Is About!

An Evil ad? No It is an Devil of and ad, Only way to stop is to pull the plug! Enjoy!

via Noob.us

Shazam Gets New Funding And Plans To Enter TV Ad Market With Shazam for TV.

Sharzan, the company that offers audio fingerprinting technology letting users identify music users hear and want to listen to again later and purchase the same. Users just hold the phone to the direction of the song they are hearing and the app will recognize and direct the user to correct destination.
Sharzan now enjoys over 150 Million users and looks like wanting to test familiar but new waters, TV Advertising. They got $32 million to do that as well.

London, UK – 22 June, 2011 - Shazam®, the world’s leading mobile discovery company, today announced that it has raised $32 million in new funding led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), with existing investor DN Capital participating. The investment will be used to support the company’s continued growth and the development of Shazam’s real-time discovery and sharing App which creates an engaging, interactive mobile commerce platform for brands as it expands into television with Shazam for TV.

“Shazam has experienced incredible growth over the last year and established itself as the ultimate mobile App for media discovery and interaction,” said Matt Murphy, Partner at KPCB. “The recent additions of Shazam Friends, synchronized lyrics in LyricPlay, and Shazam for TV are just the start to expanding the functionality of a magical technology.”

With the 150 millionth Shazamer just around the corner, Shazam is on a trajectory to achieve 250 million users within two years and continues to dominate the mobile discovery market.

“Over the last 12 months, Shazam has seen a 100% increase in the number of people downloading its mobile application each week, making it an integral part of their life,” said Dennis Phelps, General Partner at IVP. “With four million tags a day, Shazam is uniquely positioned to capitalize the increasing propensity of consumers to use their mobile devices for discovery, sharing and commerce.”

This coveted reach is the reason leading networks such as NBCUniversal and MTV have worked with Shazam to incorporate Shazam for TV into their shows during the last year. With millions of consumers already accustomed to Shazaming for more information, networks and advertisers don’t have to invest in establishing a new behavior to further engage with their audience. In fact, according to Google, 72% smartphone owners use their phone while consuming other media – like watching TV. By creating Shazamable shows and commercials, networks and brands can give their viewers an unobtrusive “second screen” experience without interrupting what they’re watching. Additionally, Shazam works with these producers and advertisers to create a rich, interactive experience that gives viewers more information about the shows and products they love rather than just a simple “check-in.”

“Music is still at the core of our DNA and will always remain fundamental to who we are. Our expansion into television is a natural evolution of our technology and we are excited to have delivered the same powerful discovery experience for broadcasting and advertising that people have always loved with music,” said Andrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam. “Our size and growth is unparalleled in the industry and gives our network and brand partners reach not available with anyone else. This investment will support our continued growth, both organically and through acquisition, as well as the ongoing development of new features and products, keeping us at the forefront of innovation.”

Recently, Shazam released its latest enhancement to its premium applications with Shazam LyricPlay in Encore and (SHAZAM) RED on iOS, allowing music lovers to view lyrics synched in real-time to music. Creating a more personal, interactive experience, LyricPlay has multiple themed visualisations giving Shazamers a unique and innovative new way to see lyrics to songs they are tagging, so they can sing-along or just find out the words to the track. Previously, Shazam released Shazam Friends, which allows Shazamers to see a real-time feed of what their friends are tagging.

Shazam has more than 100 employees and is headquartered in London with offices in Palo Alto, New York, Los Angeles and Seoul. The Shazam App is available on iOS, Android, Java, BlackBerry, Windows, Symbian and all other major platforms and is available in more than 30 languages and 200 countries around the world.

Sharzan

Getting Your Coffee, Tea and Beer Right With Local Search!

Google Maps is the starting place for us, when we are searching for anything local, be it on the desktop or our iPhones or Androids.
Google (Lat Long) is telling us that this is going to be even easier, starting from today, because search results will have most frequently used phrases to describe the places in local searches.

So I followed up the given example, Rose & Crown, a place we usually hang out in Palo Alto, CA. You can see the results below. I also tried out other places like Peet's Coffee, Pizza places etc and information is beginning to flow.
For now it will work on Google Maps but expect to see the feature in Place search on Google.com and Google Maps for mobile soon!


Google LatLong: Introducing Descriptive Terms in Local Search Results

Display Advertising Will Become A $200 Billion Industry.

via Donttreadonme.tv

We were told so by the Vice President of Display Advertising at Google, Neal Mohan at the end of an lengthy and valuable post. Well I followed the link he has given. Yes, He has some backing for that statement, former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt has told "The online display market could quickly become a $200 billion ad business—if it gets its act together." at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual meeting in La Quinta, California, last February. The keyword is Getting the act together.
What Neal Mohan pointed out might help to get the this act together. So I had to take down the following notes he made, just to keep as a reference for myself. Basically he is putting the ball in people's court for the future of display ads.
If you are working with ads, I think the following 6 pointers could do wonders, provided that you are in the same camp as me.

1. The number of display ad impressions will decrease by 25 percent per person. Today, people are bombarded by online ads, but they don’t connect with most of these ads in a meaningful way. I believe the trend will be for people to ultimately see fewer, but better ads.
2. Engagement rates across all display ads will increase by 50 percent. As ads become less cluttered, more relevant, more engaging and more attractive, we’ll see the rate at which people interact with display ads (such as watching videos or playing games) increase dramatically.
3. People will have a direct say in 25 percent of the ads they see. Whether by choosing to watch—or not watch—video ads, updating their ads preferences to customize the ads they see or actively subscribing to or choosing to receive particular ads, users will be more in control of when and how they see ads online.
4. 35 percent of campaigns will primarily use metrics beyond clicks and conversions. Technology is helping marketers measure their ads with new tools that look at factors like emotional engagement and impact on offline behavior (like in-store shopping choices). We see a longer-term future where these become the primary metrics used to measure the success of a campaign, meaning marketers will be able to deliver the ads that potential customers say they like the most.
5. 25 billion ads per day will tell people why they are seeing them. We believe it’s important to give people as much information as possible about why they see particular ads. That’s why we’ve always included an “Ads by Google” notice, and now the AdChoices logo, on ads across the Google Display Network. We strongly support the widespread use of this logo by members of the display industry and by 2015, believe that this sort of notice will become ubiquitous.
6. Over 40 percent of online Americans will name display ads as their favorite ad format. We recently conducted a survey with YouGov of more than 1,000 U.S. Internet users, asking them what ad formats they liked. The number of people who said they preferred display ads trailed slightly behind the number who liked glossy magazine ads, cinema ads and even sky-writing—formats that have been around for more than 50 years! We think this will change. Display ads provide an incredible platform to engage, excite and inspire. If we as marketers, publishers and technology providers can deliver experiences that delight the user, we can take this industry to new heights.

You can read about Eric Schmidt's $200 billion mention here and Neal Mohan's post by following the link below.

Official Google Blog: There’s a perfect ad for everyone

Admeld In Google's Hold For $400 Million!

AdMeld,  is an advertising optimization for publishers, run by publishers, supposed to have been acquired by Google for a sum of $400 million as per industry sources. Admeld was launched in 2007, and had investors like Foundry Group, Spark Capital, Norwest Venture Partners and Time Warner Investments.


But this also brings to surface another story. CEO Michael Barrett who was fired by Rupert Murdoch for failing to meed revenue target of $1 billion from MySpace.I guess he will have a nice exit or a great entrance to Google.
Admeld Via TechCrunch

Will Facebook Be The New Online Advertising Tsar?

Everyone is elated or alarmed about facebook growth and the focus on facebook advertising is no different. Techcrunch even has a series of articles discussing about "how Facebook will eat Google's lunch" and as a part of this series, they had a nice article about;
How facebook over take Google in advertising revenue, a prediction of course.
But it is again based on other estimated ad revenues that facebook might have received.Again, I have never clicked on an facebook ad (I have clicked on Google Ads) but that might be because I spend much less time at facebook than most people.
The estimated ad revenue for facebook is estimated to be about $2 Billion in 2010 and over $4 Billion in 2011.
The article I am talking about is written by Hussein Fazal CEO of AdParlor, who advertises on facebook, yes on the right hand column. You can find the truth about facebook advertising and revenue from people who handle some of the advertising on facebook
Techcrunch
Adparlor

AdMob Celebrating One Year At Google As It Takes In Mobile Growth, Gracefully

It is one year (To this Friday) since AdMOb came in to the Google fold. Within that year, mobile world has transformed with estimated like 300 million smartphones being shipped, widening the playing field of Mobile Advertising, and of course hundreds of thousands of apps and mobile sites working as gateway to these ads.
AdMob too has grown along with the industry, according to google blog, within one year, AdMob network has grown 3.5 times. Now it is serving 2.7 billion ads a day. That is huge.
The new comer to the mobile playing field, the tablets, have grown too, withing fast six months alone to 300%. So the AdMob network is also accommodating the growth with ads tailored to tablets, specifically with capability to utilize high def screens, touch, tap and swipe features that everyone is using on the tablets.
Mobile App developers also get help to grow their business with new features like improved campaign management, new ad formats and better ad targeting options. But most of all, developers could take advantage of AdMob's "mediation" feature to deliver the most valuable ads from competing ad networks. It is now available in the Google AdMob Ads SDK.

Another feature that AdMob gained at the Google is integration with other Google advertising products, providing single point of control of ads, b e they are targeted desktop, video, mobile and tablets. Recently Google announced the availability of DoubleClick Rich Media ads on the AdMob Network on the AdMob network.
So I guess the growth is just starting. Happy Birthday AdMob, I am sure we will see many more of these birthdays.

Official Google Blog: AdMob celebrates one year at Google as mobile growth accelerates

rel="nofollow", Should I Use Them On Internal Links?

Matt Cutts answers a question from a user regarding rel="nofollow" usage within a site. I knew about the question but did not know definitive answer, until I watched the video.


Have a question? Ask it in our Webmaster Help Forum:http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en

Want your question to be answered on a video like this? Follow us on Twitter and look for an announcement when we take new questions:http://twitter.com/googlewmc

Understanding New Google Analytics Overview Reports

 
I have been a fan of Google Analytics for a long time. If you are running any kind of web site, it is advantageous to use the tools provided by the Google Analytics to better your site. I always find a point to fine tune on my sites, after spending a few moments with Google Analytics.

If you want to also learn more about Google Analytics, there are many a resources. Today I am going to point you tone such resource and a fine article, Google Analytics blog. Specially about the new Google Analytics that is in beta now.
Google Analytics blog has a series of posts highlighting the new Google Analytics. The new version of Google Analytics is currently available in beta to all Analytics users. In addition to blog and help links, you can also follow Google Analytics on Twitter for the latest updates.

The new article (Find the link at the end of this post) explains about the Overview Report. I have been using the Google Analytics overview report for years but just reading the article, I found information how to use the data that have been available to me all this time and never used. The article carries one through the Overview report's graph (like switching between line graph and motion graph, which I love), Reports and Intelligence overview. That is where I spent most time learning. So, if you have anything to do with SEO or a website maintenance, follow the link below to learn some trick of the trade, available, totally free for you.
Google Analytics Blog: New Google Analytics - Overview Reports Overview

U.S. and Canada-Based AdWords Customers Free Phone Support

Google AdWords is changing to support advertisers better. So far the support has been limited to email and online support. Which is good when you have enough time on your hand. But sometimes, when everything is on fire, you need phone support to manage your mega advertising projects.
And that is what U.S.- and Canada-based AdWords customers getting today.
Why the change you may ask and according to Google AdWords, it is you! You asked for it and you are getting it.
You still can use online resources, like AdWords Help Center, to make a successful ad campaign better.
You can also learn about AdWords at the AdWords Help Forum and AdWords Online Classroom which offers free online courses on a wide variety of AdWords topics.

The Number is 1-866-2Google (1-866-246-6453). You can call AdWords specialists between 9AM-8PM Eastern time, Monday and Friday. Also make sure that you have your AdWords customer ID ready when you call, as this service is only for current customers.
Official Google Blog: Free phone support for AdWords advertisers

April Fool Comes Too early to Techcrunch, Bashes Mattcutts, Webspam, Adsense

on twitter

Matt Cutts is battling Merissa Mayer and Nikesh Arora for spam and Google revenue. There were even talks of a $40 Million Yacht named "The Adsense". But most telling is what Matt Cutts have said!
"Cutts refused to comment specifically on this story, although he did say in an email exchange that Google absolutely does not use humans in determining search results and that the algorithms make ranking decisions based on a proprietary blend of a variety of signals, such as how much revenue Google generates from the results."
Techcrunch

Introducing the new AdSense mobile interface - Inside AdSense

Last week, Google AdSense introduced a new beta AdSense interface for mobile devices. Before this interface everyone, be it mobile or not had to use the desktop interface when dealing with AdSense.
The new beta interface is very convenient and allows one to easily check earnings, get important alerts, and view reports. Best of all is even browsers without flash support is also supported.
If you are planing to test or use, the new AdSense mobile interface, please make sure that you select the "New Adsense Interface" on your desktop. It is still pretty basic compared to the desktop interface but we are certain it will grow in to a better product.
To test just visit http://www.google.com/adsense on your mobile browser.
Once you have used it please join the AdSense support forum share your thoughts and provide feedback.
Introducing the new AdSense mobile interface - Inside AdSense

Laws Of Display Advertising physics

I am a bit close to physics and when I saw the post about physics and advertising, I was a bit intrigued!
Recently Android Team made headlines for being closer to the outer limits of our galaxy and the Google Advertising, not to be out done, created this "Big Bang" of their own.
So they laid out these three "laws of display advertising physics" in relation to the display advertising;

1. The Theory of Relativity: The distinction between different advertising technologies (like ad networks and demand side platforms) is blurring. Each of these technologies provides similar ways to achieve your marketing goals, depending on how you want to manage your campaign.
   
   
2. Fusion Theory: There’s a few different ways to deliver ads to people. Each on their own is powerful, but combining these different ways unlocks the best results.
   
   
3. The Law of Perpetual Motion: New technology is driving rapid change in display advertising—which is constantly improving marketers’ creative palettes and the way that ads are bought and sold. Embracing new media and technology provides a key way for marketers to differentiate and grow their businesses in a new universe.

Great but I think Android Team still got the edge! :)

Official Google Blog: The three laws of display advertising physics

100 links or fewer per page, Google Guideline, Is It Still Valid?

Google Webmaster Help Channel and Matt Cutts explained why the 100 Links per page limit does not hold value now. He also explains why you should have thousands of links and how that could affect the page rank. Mr. Cutts answered a question from "Blind Five Year Old, from San Francisco California. Short but very valuable informative video.

Groupon + ShopSavvy = Deals Near You!

ShopSavvy, the app that everyone use to do comparison shopping near the location where one is or online is getting a new partner today, Groupon!
Shopsavvy help you to find the best deal by analyzing the barcode you scan and doing a product lookup to find comprable deals on products nearby or online. ShopSavvy  Groupon partnership will help the app to push further in to the Geo Location arena and to offer Shopsavvy's over 10 million users the ability to see relevant local deals in its “Deals” tab.

“ShopSavvy plans to enhance Groupon’s value for our users by sending them only the deals we know they will be interested in, based on their shopping history, location and preferences,” co-founder Alexander Muse confirmed.

Via TechCrunch

Coke Sends "Happiness Truck" To Rio

Following up on Coke's successful Happiness Machine video, Coke has created the new video, Happiness Truck, with an international flavor.


Somehow I like the Happiness Machine!

Ad Blitz Best Super Bowl Ad : Eminem Chrysler Ad

Even though it is two weeks ago we were glued to TV with beers in our hands, the super bowl excitement still goes on. The YouTube contest to find the best Super Bowl Ad continued and You tube now has announced the winner of best Super Bowl Ad, it is the Eminem Chrysler Ad below. Alas we liked the Volkswagen Super bowl Ad. I guess cuteness has no place in this rapper world perhaps out of place, like the Groupon Chinese Curry! It seems Cars dominated the Superbowl ads anyway.


YouTube Blog: Ad Blitz winner revealed

AdSense eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions): Explained

effective Cost for Per thousand iMpressions, sounds pretty technical but in simple words, it is the amount of revenue one can expect to earn from AdSense, per every 1000 impressions shown on one's site.
eCPM could be helpful in many ways to a site owner or a publisher. it is a fine example of how your site and advertisements on it are performing. ( If you were looking for eCPM on your AdSense control panel, you will not find it. But what you will find is the RPM, Revenue Per thousand iMpressions, which means the same as eCPM.)
On the control panel, one could check performance data, broken down in periods and you will see the RPM based on those period. day, yesterday, last 7 days, last 30 days and so on. Longer the period, more accurate the data will.be.
Now that we know what it is, the obvious next question is "what are the factors that govern the eCPM? and another sure fire question, "what could one do to improve and earn a high eCPM?"
But the good people of AdSense have come to our aid and have kicked off a two part video series to explain and inform all about AdSense eCPM.
The first part of the series, AdSense Manager, Matthew Carpenter Arevalo introduce us to the basics of how eCPM is calculated and explain how to analyze the causes behind any changes in your eCPM.


There is more information on eCPM at the help center as well.
Understanding your eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions): Part 1 of 2 - Inside AdSense

Chrome 10 Beta A Supercharged Browser

Faster browsers will turn the internet experience a complete and smoother one. Such experiences can only result in better profits for business'. Chrome seem to be doing a fine job in providing us with browser that get  faster and faster, in months not years.
Don't take my word for it, just look at the chart below which shows the latest iteration of Chrome, Chrome 10 Beta is 66% faster than the Chrome 9, in the V8 Benchmark Suite. You can pitch your current browser against Chrome and see to performance.

This version brings GPU accelerated video and I am sure we will see a significantly less CPU usage, now we experience with any browser. Synchronizing saved passwords, which could be encrypted, is added to syncing bookmarks, preferences, themes and extensions. So now you can do seamless transitions between computers and have all the tools at your fingertips.
You can find Sync capabilities under "Personal Stuff" under Chrome's setting dialog.



Google Chrome Blog: Faster than a speeding rabbit: speed, sync, and settings

AdWords Automated Rules, Every Advertiser Can Use Them Now.

Google announced today that all AdWords advertisers could use the AdWords automated rules. Last December Google AdWords allowed some of it's advertisers to use and test the AdWords automated rules, which automated changes to the AdWords account based on specific criteria.
It is very advantageous for AdWords advertisers who change their accounts a lot like stopping and starting their ads based on certain times, adjust bids and other such tasks.
To get started, Google has a lot of help at AdWords Help Center, where you could learn how to use the feature. If you are a user of the feature you also can provide feedback to compliment or point out ways to improve the program by filling up this survey.
Automated rules now available to all advertisers - Inside AdWords

Valentine Day, Shoes of Prey, And A Lot Of Analytics, But No Cocolate.

Google Analytics blog alerted us to the JAPAC article (Link Below) how Shoes of Prey using Google Analytics and Google Alerts to be informative about blogs and websites that generate traffic and of course sales.

The company keeps tab on referrals and other traffic sources and using Google Analytics Intelligence Alerts to single out most valuable of the lot, the converting traffic.
In addition to Google Analytics, They also use traffic patterns and other information to stay on the top.
Best of the article is that they explain the techniques used in their method, follow the link to find out.

So where is the Valentine? yes just like Jeff Gills and Vinoj Vijeykumaar, I am sure Matt Cutts would have ordered these shoes instead of Heart shaped Pizza. ( I gave her a nice dinner and I got Chocolate)
JAPAC: Shoes of Prey Stay Alert to Positive Buzz Via Google Analytics Blog: Happy Valentine's Day

Google Chrome Will Let Me Keep My Opt-Outs

Google announced today that it's  Chrome will  let me Keep My Opt-Outs, allowing me to opt out permanently from ad tracking cookies, like Adobe Supercookies (But I wonder if embedded flash on Chrome does it or we have to shut the doors on Adobe ourselves, like described in the preceding link).
The  Keep My Opt-Outs is available as an extension for download in Chrome.
The reason behind the Keep My Opt-Outs is the FTC's interest in protecting US consumers from AD tracking companies, with "Do Not Track" initiative. The Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) formed by a group of advertising companies already let people opt out of personalized tracking for the purposes of personalizing advertisements. There are also many online advertisers and trade associations have also joined a major self-regulatory effort to enforce a uniform privacy icon for ads, as well as opt-out guidelines.
The Google's Keep My Opt-Outs is filling the technical void that exists today to just that, The extension alleviate most of the problems of opting out from these ads and yet allow regular ads to appear.
You can read more at Google Public policy blog.

Dirty Little Pennies, Google Algorithm And BlackHat SEO

It looks like the first failed and the second works. The third, BlackHat SEO worked for a while and failed when it was discovered.
I just finished reading an article on NYTimes on Dirty Little Search Secrets, directed to by a tweet by Google Spam Guru Matt Cutts. Blackhat SEO, can backfire sometimes, like it did in the case of J.C.Penny;

J.C.Penny has managed to come through with $17.8 Billion dollars of holiday sales, for the first time since 2001. So even though Penny denies it, experts think the blackhat SEO helped J.C.Penny amass some cash through link love. Links that can bring you up in the Google searches, back down when Google or it's algorithms detect the fact. J.C. Penney just experienced both;

   At 7 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, J. C. Penney was still the No. 1 result for “Samsonite carry on luggage.”

    Two hours later, it was at No. 71.

    At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Penney was No. 1 in searches for “living room furniture.”

    By 9 p.m., it had sunk to No. 68.

    In other words, one moment Penney was the most visible online destination for living room furniture in the country.

    The next it was essentially buried.

It is a very good article, 5 pages long with a lot of information.

NYTimes.

Retail Advertising, Tips and Tricks From Google Retail Advertising.

Google AdWords team managers will be writing a series of articles focusing on tips and tricks for online adverting for particular industry. It kicked off this month with initial blog post "Tips and tricks for Financial Services advertisers" focusing on Financial Industry.

This weeks article focuses on Retail Industry and seasonality! Seasonality is a common thread for all retail business, be it a Mom and Pop shop selling products, small travel business, tiny service company and say a clothing store.
Your product and services will change with the seasons and so should your advertising.
Just say instead of feel the heat to stock up on swimsuits, use available tools to find out actually when people are looking for swimsuits and the search volume. One way is to use last years information, to visualize insights into swimsuits, like above. The pattern is obvious but have a look at how the search volume changes over the time, and by state. Perhaps Local Business could learn some thing there. In any case, year over year, you can see that swimsuit search starts early as January (People going Hawaii or other warmer climes?) . So the trick of advertising as early as possible, will bring in those customers to your business.
But something I learned is "Remarketing Tool", A Google Ad Innovation. See the video below for an introduction. It allows you to keep a track on your customers and offer your products as times change. Like people who purchased flowers from you on Valentine day might also be interested on your Mother's day specials. (For more information on holiday sales, checkout www.google.com/thinkholiday)
Either way keep optimizing your advertising. Continues attension will lead to a very well shining advertising vehicle. Start with going places with Google Places.



Google Retail Blog: Tips and Tricks for Retail Advertisers

Click-to-Call For Smartphones Are Calling Advertisers,

Google Click to Call for smartphones are in a swing and swinging advertisers their way. So are the users, who realize the value of having a click2call number included in an advertising campaign. According to the two posts below, Click-to-Call for smartphones has come a long way, with a little push and support from Google. But the Click-to-Call ads on both search and the Google Display Network are generating millions of calls every month on mobile phones and driving strong performance for advertisers.
If you are an advertiser, it is pretty easy to add Click-to-Call for smartphones to your campaigns;

• Location extensions -- display your local business phone number to nearby users on mobile devices with full browsers. View instructions for enabling location extensions.
• Phone extensions -- display your national or vanity phone number to all users on mobile devices with full browsers. View instructions for enabling phone extensions. 

Official Google Blog Via Click-To-Call For Smartphones, How Googlers Do It

Is Volkswagen Super Bowl Ad, The Best Super Bowl Ad?

The Volkswagen super bowl ad pulled a good one here, the cute factor has almost makes you forget about the taroubles we have, even the car, almost

Groupon Super Bowl Ad, China Does Not Like The Fish Curry!

looks like Groupon got noticed, at least their super bowl ad got noticed, (we are talking about it now) perhaps not in a very good way.
The ad which ends up Timothy Hutton eating fish curry in a Chicago based Himalayan restaurant did not curry flavor with China, perhaps because,

"The Tibetan people are in trouble, Their culture is in jeopardy," Hutton tells us with beautiful music against even more beautiful Tibetan backdrops and people.

Everyone, well almost everyone, (except the likes of Groupon's ad agency) know China is sensitive about Tibet and specially when a company like Groupon plans to expand in to China, the need to walk a fine line, when dealing with it. The ad was to generate support for The Tibet Fund, an organization that aims to preserve Tibetan culture.
Hutton continues, "But they still whip up an amazing fish curry!" with the commercial switching to Hutton sitting in a Chicago-area Himalayn restaurant.He continues to talk about a 50% discount he and other Groupon users got at a Himalayan restaurant in Chicago.
There were mixed reactions, Chinese people were not very happy with it, the owner of the Himalayan Restaurant in Chicago is not happy with it and even the Ad executives who praises the shock value of the Ad asks people to stay away from politics.
Groupon has reacted ""Like standing too close to a rainbow, viewers' hearts are warmed" by the Super Bowl ad.via Twitter. I am all for supporting Tibetan and many other people who are suppressed, but Groupon can help to keep its value up by playing a bit different, when socializing local business, you need to act better and try to catch every one, say like the Volkswagen ad! The best super bowl ad!
CNN

Deprogramming : Hyundai Super Bowl Ad

Which Super Bowl Ad is Better? #youtubeadblitz

Talk about your favorite commercials Just make sure to use the hashtag #youtubeadblitz
http://www.youtube.com/adblitz

Goals and ECommerce Tracking With Google Analytics - Web Analytics TV #16

The Google Analytics is one of the best sites to measure your web site performance. Be it a one hundred thousand page views per year or over a billion page views per month (Reddit, uses Google Analytics to measure / analyze humongous visitor statistics) all have the same capabilities. Like some analytics sites, which give you a taste to lure you in and charge you for the best information, Google Analytics does not do that. You get a lot of information about your sites.
As vastly informative as it is, you need some good training to get the best out of Google Analytics. Of many help and support avenues available for Google Analytics, one that stands out, Web Analytics TV.
Web Analytics TV is an interactive in some sense as you and me get to ask questions from Google Analytics team. You can also vote on your favorite question if someone has already asked the question. All this is done at GA Moderator site. The chosen question are answered by Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, usually with a guest expert.
They also present "Analytics Ninja of the Eepisode" and gifts like copy of Web Analytics 2.0.
So start the learning process by watching the latest episode, #16. The discusion agenda with the time line is below the video and so is the link to the Analytics blog.

* (0:34) Detecting new local search engines in Google Analytics
* (1:11) Effects of browser Do Not Track features on Google Analytics
* (2:50) Is there anything you can do to reduce sampling in reports
* (4:56) Measuring visitors who have visited one page for more than 30s
* (5:50) Is passing a random visitor id in a visitor level custom var allowed?
* (7:03) Tracking Google Places paid ad referrals
* (8:18) Using jQuery to track outbound links
* (9:18) Ways to filter or segment on the day of week
* (10:05) When will Google Analytics work on devices that don’t support Flash
* (11:06) How to track e-commerce and goals that happen on a 3rd party site
* (12:37) Unique visitor metrics now available through the API
* (14:38) Tracking Ecommerce transactions in one web property in different profiles
* (15:45) Is it OK to track the name and email address with Google Analytics
* (16:23) Can you use events to track outbound links on your site
Google Analytics Blog: Web Analytics TV #16 - Goals and ECommerce Tracking Edition

Reduce Your SEO Work. Get To The Top On Google, And BING Will Automatically Put You On Top, Two For One.

May be BING needs tarsorrhaphy, as they have denied the fact they are getting Google results, perhaps they can't see, due to drooping eyelids!
I think folks at Microsoft thought they were smart when they started using Google search results. You say What? Yes I too said What gives? Yep, all crawlers to a network can fetch the same data, right. Yes so Google folks did some clever stuff, like creating until I saw this post by even smarter Google folks.
They have known that Bing was binging on Google results with a discovery of which started with a search on tarsorrhaphy, misspelled "torsorophy" and set out to dig evidence.
Next few months, they noticed that results for all kinds of queries: popular queries, rare or unusual queries and misspelled queries appearing on Bing, including results that Google thought mistakes of it's own algorithms.
In late October 2010 when Google noticed Google’s top search result appeared at the top of Bing’s ranking for a variety of queries in increased numbers.
So from then on the game was on; they created [hiybbprqag] and inserted page from Google's results which had nothing to do with the word.

We gave 20 of our engineers laptops with a fresh install of Microsoft Windows running Internet Explorer 8 with Bing Toolbar installed. As part of the install process, we opted in to the “Suggested Sites” feature of IE8, and we accepted the default options for the Bing Toolbar.

We asked these engineers to enter the synthetic queries into the search box on the Google home page, and click on the results, i.e., the results we inserted. We were surprised that within a couple weeks of starting this experiment, our inserted results started appearing in Bing. Below is an example: a search for [hiybbprqag] on Bing returned a page about seating at a theater in Los Angeles. As far as we know, the only connection between the query and result is Google’s result page (shown above).

Yes the results appeared on Bing pointing to the same result with had nothing to do with the query. This happened many a times it seems, according to Google Fellow Amit Singhal.
I like the following result, which queried [delhipublicschool40 chdjob] (Google inserted a credit union as a result to this query. You can see the result below.



Nice, all you SEO types, only need to work with Google, you will be automatically promoted to top in BING!
Google thinks, these experiments confirms their suspicion that Bing is using some combination of:

• Internet Explorer 8, which can send data to Microsoft via its Suggested Sites feature
• the Bing Toolbar, which can send data via Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program

Official Google Blog: Microsoft’s Bing uses Google search results—and denies it

Facebook Ads Perform Five Times Better!

Mashable is telling us that facebook ads are doing much better than standard banner ads. According to a study done by Webtrends on more than 11,000 ad campaigns on facebook, They found out that the average click-through rate (CTR) for Facebook ads in 2009 was 0.063% and 0.051% in 2010 — substantially more than the industry standard, also, they cost more, $0.27 to $0.49, CPC, Cost per Click. But again, these numbers as per mahable as there was no links to the Webtrends study. Perhaps Webtrends did not publish it.

Mashable

Socializing The Local Business', FourSqure And Groupon CEO's Talk DLD11

The CEO's of FourSqure And Groupon were interviewed at DLD11 conference in Germany. Both the companies, which has strong presence in Local Business,
Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley says that FourSqure is more than a social business, It is Social with location. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason says he does not know what Social Commerce means but say local ecommerce means a lot.
It a candid interview and and you will learn a lot about socializing Local part of the Business, here are two questions and answers, there are many more at TechCrunch.

Q: What’s the biggest misconception about Foursquare?
Dennis: The company’s size is the first. Second is that some people seem to think Foursquare is for hipsters in New York and San Francisco. That’s certainly how we got started, but we have a lot of international usage, all over the world. It’s a big surprise for us.
Q: What are the biggest challenges when growing as fast as Groupon did?
Andrew: Our growth may have been quick, but it was incremental. We started in Chicago, and it took us 5 months before our second city, and then the time shortened each time we launched in a new city. So we took our time to develop the original playbook, and we try to copy that strategy with our international expansion.
By creating a strong cultural foundation, and hiring great people and entrepreneurs. So we provide the playbook, they execute.