'internet strategy' Category

• SEO vs PPC

  Andrew Goodman has an interesting start on a discussion of the relative merits of PPC and SEO. I think he’s found an worthwhile thread, but I believe that there’s a different type of analysis to be usefully applied. It is that clicks have different meanings; here is one model for looking at what clicks mean.
  I […]

  March 16th, 2008

• Web Marketing In Context, 2003 Survey

  Most businesses follow the Kevin Costner “Field Of Dreams” visionary model for their website:
  “If You Build It, They Will Come”.
  Annoyingly, this model usually fails. Let’s have a look at how people think about their web marketing and why they end up either ravingly happy or cynical depressives about their efforts. Web Marketing, or Internet […]

  March 10th, 2008

• Anatomy of a Web Spam Attack

  We’ve recently watched spammers at work, from initial contact through to dropping a litter trail across a site. This is on one of our own sites, rather than a client site, so we’re happy to share what we’ve seen. Because this activity doesn’t involve client data, and is clearly activity that is not intended to […]

  September 9th, 2007

• Top Position: Higher CTR, Higher MinCPC.

  An article on Search Engine Land adds more information to the flimsy FAQ. So the top position is supposed to have a higher (unpublished and incomparable) CTR as a criterion, and a different (unpublished and incomparable) MinCPC as the qualification to appear.
  The auction still seems to be built on the generalised second price model. […]

  August 10th, 2007

• Google Top Position Pricing Motivational Analysis

  Google announced yesterday (2007/08/08) that the pricing system for placing adverts above organic search results is to change. What effect will this have on advertisers and other Google stakeholders, and what reasons might Google have for doing so?
  As you might expect, a first pass analysis suggests that Google is using this to increase revenue streams. […]

  August 9th, 2007

• Google is destroying the web!

  Adam Lasnik, Google’s missionary to the heathens, fired up to convince webmasters to use links only if they fit the citation model, wrote a few months ago that he and Matt joked that people are often bragging they have an undetectable technique to raise rank. The interview (second link in this paragraph, to Stone Temple) […]

  July 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

• 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

• Economist, Google and the UK

  The Economist quotes Eric Schmidt talking about Adland’s test tube, on UK advertisers being at the leading edge. The Economist is one of my favourite magazines, along with New Scientist and the stimulating Harvard Business Review.
  There’s surely some mistake, though. If the UK is such a leading edge and buzzing place, why do all […]

  December 15th, 2006

• SME’s Failed by IAB “Media More Engaging”

  The Internet Advertising Bureau in the US (there’s another IAB in the UK) has just started advertising a promotion for internet advertising. They offer a microsite that is a microcosm of everything you should avoid doing in Search Engine Marketing, as a small business hoping to gain visitors. It’s also pretty much against most recommendations […]

  December 4th, 2006