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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Note: A shorter updated article about Google’s Geotargeting in 2008 is now available.
Changing the geotarget can change your paid search performance quite markedly. However, commentators, and even Google, publish some wildly inaccurate information. I’ve read a few strange myths about geotargeting, in various forums. I’ve got some clients for whom geotargeting at country, and smaller […]

Reducing the search engine ranking of competitors, known as “Google Bowling”, is getting some air time. A brief summary article “8 Ways a Competitor Can Sabotage Your Site” describes some techniques that can damage rank and steal or reduce traffic to a site. Of the eight techniques described, seven depend on weak identity online, and […]

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 […]

Various of our clients have different performance targets for paid search, evolved because of the different ways in which they can or want to measure performance. For paid search, the most common performance measurements that we see are CPA, ROAS and ROI. This article addresses CPA, the Cost Per Action.
CPA - Cost Per Action
CPA, […]

I was uncertain what effect the new algorithm changes would have on affiliates. I think I’ve now uncovered what is happening. If you aren’t an affiliate, or don’t run affiliates, this may appear to be of little interest. Bear with me, as I think this article illuminates some important principles with AdWords.
Ignoring affiliates, for the […]

Whew! My accounts are mostly set to UK time (inherited from previous account administration). So I have US spend that is now two hours after my midnight, and can clearly see the effects of the new Top Position pricing model. It means that *Phrase* match costs are going through the roof. Now that is not […]