'google' Category

• 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

• 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

• Endgame for Organic Search?

  I’ve been busy for the last few months, and suffering from a seriously unreliable ADSL connection. When I’ve had time online, I’ve been busy meeting customer commitments, too busy to update the blog. Time spent muttering about making things work leads to some strange insights. Keeping to the consensual view isn’t helped when I read […]

  March 13th, 2007

• Click Fraud Buzz Will Grind On

  What is click fraud? Is it right that the search engines really define the industry meaning of click fraud? What if the search engines are complicit in reducing advertising ROI? What oversight exists? Could an advertiser or agency tell, or do anything about it?

  January 26th, 2007

• Merjis AdWords Toolkit 2.8.0 released - supports API version 8

  Actually this has been sitting around in my queue for quite a while. Google announced version 8 “sneak peek” release of the AdWords API back in December. For some reason I’ve been kicked off the AdWords API newsgroup. It might just have been a technical problem, but I had also been posting […]

  January 5th, 2007

• Google Announces Content Match Training Improvements

  New guidance from Google has been released today, on a temporary site, offering more information about the effective use of content match (WARNING: opens in new window - see below). We’ll be reviewing the content over the next few days, and giving Google some frank feedback.
  First and most obvious problem that it resizes windows […]

  December 21st, 2006

• Dmoz - seven weeks and counting

  Dmoz, the publicly maintained human moderated directory operated by AOL/Netscape, has been dead in the water for about seven weeks. It is now using a frozen copy of the database so that users can at least get to stable parts of the directory.
  It’s beginning to cause anguish amongst the SEO-ers. Why?

  DMOZ, the ODP and […]

  December 15th, 2006

• Twelve ways, plus a bit, less a few.

  Interesting click fraud chorus starting up here. This thought provoking piece, The 12 Ways of Click Fraud by Mike O’Krongli, is a response to the Andy Beal/Shuman Ghosemajumder articles. See also Andrew Goodman’s piece and his other one.
  I’m not entirely convinced by all of Mikes’ arguments. In the interests of trying to refine the message […]

  December 15th, 2006