In an effort to gain market share from its shady competitor, Baidu, the search engine that came to dominate the largest online market in the world by offering illegal music downloads to Internet users and has since been sued over copyright infringement and a slew of other things, Google China has officially launched a free and legal music downloading service. The service, which has been in beta release since August 2008, represents a partnership between Chinese website top100.cn, which is partly owned by Google, and major record labels like Warner Group Corp., EMI Group Ltd., Sony Music Entertainment, and Universal Music, along with 14 indepedent labels. How will it work? Users searching for music will be directed to top100.cn for high-quality downloads, and advertising revenue will be roughly split between the record companies and the website. In a market where the majority of its 300 million Internet users use search … Continue reading
Category Archives: Google
Evil Google Broad-Match Solved with Raw Query Hack
One of my biggest gripes about Google AdWords is the insanity that can be their “expanded broad match”, which just so happens to be Google’s default keyword setting. You can read one of my earlier rants about broad match here , but this time we will focus on a great way to actually solve the problem! So, quick recap: when you enter a keyword into Google – let’s use “purse” as a real life example that we saw with a client. Google’s broad match algorithm will match your keyword to a wide variety of user queries. Some of them are helpful: “buy purse”, “coach purse”, “leather purse” might be okay. But others, “wallet”, “luggage”, “lottery purse” are obviously a waste of money! The real problem, however, is how to actually determine what queries Google is matching your keyword to; if you log into AdWords you will see that “dvd player” … Continue reading
The Google Stimulus Plan: 2 Improvements That Hurt Or Help?
If Google had a stimulus plan, maybe this is the beginning. Google recently changed the fee structure of Google Checkout to reflex PayPal’s pricing. Doing so upset many users, some even started a Facebook Group against the fee hikes, but the new fees will result in more money in the bank for the big G. But here comes new news, if you haven’t already heard, yesterday Google announced on their official blog that they will be implementing two new features, both aimed at “making sure you have the highest quality search experience possible.” Sounds innocent, but how innocent are they really? The first feature implemented is the expanded list of useful related searches (as seen above on a search for dementia). What exactly is this? These are the search results that appear near the top or bottom of a search engine results page (SERP) for popular and high-traffic terms. Image … Continue reading
The Media vs. Google: Who’s Really At Fault?
vs. Earlier today, Adage reported on an interesting controversy between big media and Google. The controversy in rooted in the fact that big media wants to exert more control over their positioning in Google’s search engine results pages. Upset by the fact that amateur bloggers, new-school content aggregators, and even Twitterers often rank higher than more ‘authoritative’ media sites like CNN or The New York Times for popular newsworthy searches, media companies and content executives are gearing up to go to battle on April 30th, when Google will host the next closed-door meeting of its Publishers Advisor Council. But it’s not only special treatment these publishers are asking for; they also want a peek into Google’s algorithm and a clearer understanding as to how the search engine ranks sites. In essence, they want the recipe for Google’s secret sauce…and they aren’t likely to get it. As most of us know, … Continue reading
4 Things You Can Do With Google Analytics
Last Friday I attended the first session of WproUniversity, a series of educational seminars given by Wpro staff to keep our team abreast of all the latest in SEM. The topic was Google Analytics (GA) (not exactly new but highly relevant nonetheless) and it was hosted by our knowledgeable President and CEO, Mike Mothner. While I’m not sure I understood all the points discussed, I did manage to come away with a few nuggets of practical advice and a topical understanding of how GA can be used to gain insight into the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns, content, and website design. Let’s take a look at 4 things you can do with GA to improve your bottom line. 1 – Determine the value of different sources of website traffic Using GA you can identify exactly how users are getting to your website. The GA interface divides traffic into 3 main … Continue reading
I Told You Personalized Ads Were Cool
Greetings, and happy Monday! Some of you may recall my post from November 2008 entitled “Why I Started Paying Attention to Internet Ads (or How Facebook Changed My Life),” and if you don’t, check it out. It’s a good time. In the post, I discuss my errant love of online marketing, my bizarre stint in the implausible world of reality TV, and the truth about writing email copy, aka “spam” – a term today that can pretty much refer to almost any form of unfiltered, mass communication designed to reach as many people as possible in the hopes that at least some of them will click. The downside of casting such a wide net is two-fold: you end up sending Rogaine and Viagra offers to teenage girls with little use for either, and your messaging is invariably diluted by that of competitors casting nets equally as wide. On the other … Continue reading