Archive for January, 2008

• Apples, not Turtles

  This article was triggered by unreliable internet connections, especially after upgrading to Apple’s latest Mac OS X release, Leopard. It’s a reflection on Brand, the Pareto Principle, and Perception, which is why it ties, strangely, to Internet Marketing.
  There’s an almost certainly apocryphal story that someone was presenting cosmology to a non-scientific audience. At the [...]

  January 30th, 2008

• Google - Doing Less Evil

  I frequently hold forth here that Google abuses the real source of its’ wealth - advertisers. The “Do No Evil” mantra is applied to users, but Google does horrible things to advertisers, remorselessly. After years of criticism from Richard Ball and me on the AdWords Help Forum, and joined more recently by other voices, Google [...]

  January 28th, 2008

• AdWords Search Query Reports

  Quite a few people have written about using the fairly new Search Query Reports, and the sometimes surprising ways in which Google can extend Broad Match. Here’s another insight into AdWords. Look at the first two clips of screenshots, and notice that the impression volume reported is radically differently on keyword search.
  This first screen [...]

  January 14th, 2008

• Pride goeth before a fall

  Whooee, I’m going to have to watch my step. I monitor my presence on the web, mostly using Google Alerts and similar facilities. This is mainly because of my interest in online identity and especially because of the interaction of search and identity - a fairly common theme in these articles. I know who I [...]

  January 11th, 2008

• Pointlessly Ranking High In SERPS

  Lijit is a useful tool, and so is the new-ish Google property, FeedBurner. Between them, they describe the searches that lead people to this blog. Looking at the searches that lead people here, provides some insight into how search engines determine rank, and the techniques that SEOs use.
  As of the day this article was [...]

  January 9th, 2008