Archive for April, 2007

• Link Spam, Google Analytics and Content Match

  What concepts join link spam, Google’s web analytics program and AdWords/AdSense Contextual Match? It feels like the challenge the Flying Karamazov Brothers offered. Bring any three items to the show and they’d juggle them. I liked the sticky-slippery combination of bread dough, water melon and whole fish…
  The answer is, of course, Matt Cutts. Specifically [...]

  April 30th, 2007

• AdSense and Behavioural Targeting

  Matt Cutts has elliptically proposed that AdSense is a form of Behavioural Targeting. Or, maybe he’s proposing something else… Hmm. Let’s look at that.
  The proposition represents that AdSense is to Behavioural Targeting as Hydrogen Bonds are to Van Der Waals Forces.
  While both forces arise from the intermolecular behaviour of electrical charge, the Hydrogen Bond [...]

  April 26th, 2007

• Rev B: SEO, Game Theory and Intrinsically Corruptible Systems

  This is the other article on the End Of Life As We Know It. See also “Rev A“, published previously.
  A recent posting by Matt Cutts to invite reporting of paid links to Google set me thinking. One thought train lead to a fairly predictable (for me) posting. The other has lead into some stranger [...]

  April 24th, 2007

• Rev A: SEO, Game Theory and Intrinsically Corruptible Systems

  I’m pretty sure that I can see a rising interest in, and reasons for, dislodging Google’s search and search advertising dominance. However, the causes are complex and the way in which it would happen are even more subject to unpredictable accidents. I’ve now written this article twice, with different perspectives… And I couldn’t think of [...]

  April 21st, 2007

• Google, Disintermediation and Agencies

  Google probably wants to disintermediate advertising agencies. That is, it probably should offer services directly to the advertiser, allowing the advertiser and the channel to interact directly. Disintermediation was the big buzz of the dot.boom-and-bust era of the late 90’s.
  For years, my secret guide to Google has been Evans and Wurster’s Blown To Bits. [...]

  April 13th, 2007

• 5 Things Meme, Pure Time Delay and Aggregation

  I got tagged. I just noticed.
  So, one of Richard Ball’s tag targets has a 80+ day response time. The effect is that a meme can lie low and then burst into life again. Rather like Quellism, or the Black Planner.
  Five Things About Me you probably don’t know, then Five Blogs Tagged and a short [...]

  April 9th, 2007

• Microsoft AdCenter, CPC and Revenue

  When you start your own advertising platform, what expectation of revenue should you have? What does this imply for possible strategies for Redmond? Can throwing cash at the problem make it go away?

  April 5th, 2007

• Macros, Analytics, Paid Search Performance Improvement

  An outline of the interaction of web analytics and paid search, with suggested usage and some minor extensions that would improve A/B testing using AdWords.

  April 3rd, 2007