Dec 11,2008
In an announcement today on the official Google Adsense blog it was announced that they will be opening up and extending the Adsense feed for domains to all website publishers. This will allow anyone regardless of domain portfolio size to monetize thier domain inventory even for undeveloped domains. From the official posting:
“With AdSense for domains, users can find relevant information rather than see empty pages or “page not found” errors. Today we present ads, links, and search results on the pages, and may add other useful information in the future. To ensure positive user experience and the quality of our network, these sites are monitored for policy compliance and prohibited from using text and images designed to confuse users.”
In an interesting statement they actually say “ads on these pages convert well”. Is this Googles way of recognizing that some parked pages actually do convert users? It sounds that way to me. But for them to generalize it so much..well lets just say I dont totally agree with that. They may convert to a click ffor the publisher, but will it ultimatley convert to a sale for the advertiser? Thats the real question in my mind. SO in a war with the parking companies Google itself just became the biggest parking company of all. This is interesting to me for so many reasons. It seems they are trying to monopolize the very industry that they held in such low esteem for so long. Do No Evil? I continue to see this mantra turned on it’s nose with the passing years as Google speaks out of one side of it’s mouth saying Parking companies are bad they rip off advertisers and junk up the internet…while speaking out the otherside to say something like why dont we just shut all the competition down and become a parking company ourselves.
Whats next Google domain tasting? How about some domain kiting or warehousing? Just go ahead and snatch up t he expiring domains and push them out with your domainer ads on them. Are you also going to tweak your search algorythm to push certain domainers portfolios to the top? This would certainly increase your revenue would it not?
One domainer had this to say “I think there is a lot of upside here for everyone. Many of the parking companies are garbage anyway so those guys will probably have a lot of challenges ahead.
As for the quality parking companies I think this little shakeup is exactly what the industry needs to kick start development teams to provide better landing pages, customized features and anything to help domain owners build out parked sites.”
Is this the positive competition domain parking companies needed to get busy improving the products they offer? Or is this simply a first step towards the end of domain parking companies for the exception of Google.
Google will probably end up banning users, and tweaking rev shares and this alone may be enough to keep domainers with the high performing parking companies. Or maybe the domainers will actually show some loyalty and support for the very companies who helped them make all the money they have over the years, although i seriously doubt it.
On a positive note for parking companies it seems that so far domainers will not be able to customize, add graphics etc to the templates and pages offered by Google for Domains, and likely domainers will not be able to simply pick up the phone and get the same level of dedication and service that many parking companies offer to thier users. The only options so far seem to be picking the colors much like that of a basic adsense setup, but these options may expand as time goes on.
Only time will tell the impact this will have on the domaining industry and parking companies and Google themselves. We can only hope that 1. hundreds of people wont lose thier jobs over this 2.The internet wont become even more junked up than it is
Happy Holidays
An Update!
It appears that the feed is limited to content feed only not search. The only way thatyou get the search feed resultsis if you actually do a search. Let me know what your experiences are!
Nov 27,2008
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Domain Names & SEO
Domain names are a valuable part of your business and web presence. Most of the time people tend to view domains as a branding tool and overlook the SEO potential that the right domain can deliver. Domain name selection should be considered an important part of your web strategy. Here are some things to consider when thinking about domain names and which one you choose.
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- Does the domain name contain my keywords? – This is the emphasis of this article. The benefits of this are many. You can see more traffic, more links and more rankings to name a few.
- Will it receive type in traffic? – Domain names that are generic or short in nature sometimes get a very good deal of direct navigation traffic. Meaning the user went to the browser and typed the word followed most likely by .com
- Does it appear trustworthy or link worthy? – This can be in the eye of the beholder, but something to consider. For instance I may have credit-cards-low-rates.com and creditcards.com. Which one would you rather go to or link to based on the name? Likewise if you saw lowinterestcreditcards.com as opposed to credit-cards.com. Opt for credit-cards over the long version, and in the first example, choose creditcards.com over the longer version. This also directly relates to type in traffic. Which one do you think is more likely to get a direct navigation?
- Is the .com available? – Everyone knows .com is king, but there are plenty who disagree, however, that is for another discussion. It is a fact that more people trust, remember, search, and navigate for .com’s.
- Is the keyword domain available without hyphens or dashes? – It is always a good practice to look for the most basic version of the keyword for example creditcards.com. If you had a choice between creditcards.com and credit-cards.com opt for the no hyphen version.
- How old is the domain name? – The more generic the domain name the older you can bet it is. The age can benefit you in a number of ways ranging from previously developed sites where you can capitalize on pre existing traffic, as well as the pre existing number of inbound links. You can check a domains age in most whois services. I recommend DomainTools.com
- Are there any links pointing at the domain already? – If the domain you are considering already has a number of inbound links this can help jumpstart your SEO and increase traffic.
- Is it listed in the internet archive? – The Internet Archive or Way Back Machine is a great resource for checking what your domain used to be before you owned it. The Internet Archive can be found at http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
- Is it in DMOZ? – DMOZ.org, the internets granddaddy directory, is an ideal location to get a link to your domain. The weight on this may have diminished over time, but it is still beneficial for you to have your site listed in the DMOZ.org directory.
Can the user spell it? – A domain name that cannot be spelled is likely to never be found. Unless you really educate the marketplace on your new “IN†term.
- Is it a memorable domain name? – Will people remember it? Will it be a flash in the pan?
- How long is it? – The shorter the better. However don’t sacrifice a great name for a shoddy shorter version.
Tools
You can determine a lot of the above information with some basic research tools and some common sense. To find out more about a domain and its history you can try DomainTools.com. You can find the links pointing to a domain by using a simple query in Google and Yahoo. Type in the search as follows substituting domain for your URL. link:domain.com
SEO Advantages
Ranking
When other webmasters link to your site the probability of them linking back to you with the business name or web address is pretty high. Domain names that contain the businesses keywords automatically create inbound links to your site with the keywords in the anchor text. The domain name also gives the search engines something to think about. If you choose a domain name that is relevant to your site and if it contains a keyword, then you will be that much more likely to rank for the term in the search engines. Take the following examples into consideration for a moment. This is a search breakdown for the terms on Google and Yahoo. The terms are broad search and not exact match. Notice the trend among the top ranking domain for these keywords.
Google Examples:
1. Query: Makeup
#1 Result: makeup.com
2. Query: birthday cards
#1 Result: birthdaycards.com
3. Query: action figures
#1 Result: action-figure.com
Yahoo Examples:
1. Query: Makeup
#1 Result: Sephora.com
(however look at the next few results. They are all domains that contain the keywords.)
2. Query: birthday cards
#1 Result: birthdaycards.com
3. Query: action figures
#1 Result: action-figure.com
Notice how all the top ranked sites except for makeup on Yahoo have domain names that contain the keyword we were looking for. Now this does not mean this is the case every time, but you can see a strong trend among search results that indicate the advantages of having keywords in your domains.
In the above example, a quick check of the back link anchor text shows that there are a large number of links pointing to the domain makeup.com with makeup.com as anchor text.
Even though people linked to them using the business name or domain name if you will, the domain happens to contain the very keywords they are seeking to rank for. You can check the back link anchor text for your website with this handy tool www.webconfs.com/anchor-text-analysis.php. Simply type in the URL in question and let it start its search. When it is done you will have a pretty good view of how people link to your site.
Site links
In addition to the above benefits, keyword and exact match domains tend to get Google site links. Google site links as defined by Google “The links shown below some sites in our search results, called site links, are meant to help users navigate your site.†Although the exact algorithm is unknown there is some consensus on what seems to work for obtaining site links. All of the following situations can be created with the right domain name and good website structure.
- Site ranks first for the keyword – Domains that contain keywords have an easier time ranking for that term
- Easily spiderable website – Well structured website and navigation with a sitemap
- High click through rates from the search results page – Well formed titles and descriptions can compliment a solid domain name to gain user trust and increase the CTR
- Inbound links from relevant sites – Domain names that contain keyword will get more inbound links with anchor text links that contain keywords
- Relevant outbound links – Link to someone important in your field
- Natural search traffic – The domain appearing in the top results will increase the traffic especially for an exact match domain
In case the value of site links is not immediately obvious to you here are a couple reasons why you should want to get them.
Site links help increase your traffic and further suppress your competition by pushing them down below the fold on the search results pages. An example of this can be seen when using Google to query the term credit card. Notice how the result for the number one spot creditcardguide.com has additional links below it? Also pay attention to how it pushes down the rest of the results on this page. This is just one more way to get ahead of your competition. Not only do you want a top result, but you want the site links too.
In addition to suppressing the competition, this can lead to lowered PPC spend on some keywords. Let us assume you are bidding on the term credit card, you rank for the term credit card and you have site links. The amount you have to spend to get the same volume is much less since you have spread yourself out among the top of the search engine results page. Suppose you appear in sponsored search, organic rankings, supplemental rankings and also site links. This alone could allow you to dominate the top section of the results pages, thereby stomping the competition and vastly lowering your ad spend for said keyword, while reinforcing your brand and positioning you as a leader in the mind of the consumer.
Put Some Thought Into It
I hope you have gained a little better idea of how the right domain choice can benefit your whole business and the impact the domain can have on your traffic volume and visibility. With a little work, research, and patience you will see the fruits of your labor in web traffic & revenue, while increasing the value of your domain name and your web property.
Yahoo Music Previews
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Yahoo
Sep 30,2008
Yahoo has implemented a cool music listening feature as a result of their partnership with Rhapsody. Now users will be able to do all the same things they could before like viewing artist photos and videos, or viewing song tracks and official website, with the added bonus of listening to full versions of tracks up to 30 a month as opposed to the sample that users where once limited to. The tracks will play in the new Yahoo Foxy Player and you can do all of this without ever leaving the search results page or logging in! Google has also announced in a Google Labs project that they are indexing audio content. Imagine being able to search for a phrase and limit the results to audio or video files. Could be pretty interesting. This may even lead to new forms of marketing and advertising in files, or for the search giants themselves as pre roll ads for the service they are providing.
Quality Score Changes In Google
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Google
Sep 30,2008
The Google quality score has recently undergone some changes to make it more accurate and provide users with higher quality advertisers. Google is introducing some changes in the coming days and you should notice a few things different in your adwords account. One of the changes is that quality score will now be measured at the moment of each search query. You will also notice that the keywords are no longer marked inactive for search and your minimum bid will disappear and be replaced with first page bid.
So what does all this mean for you? Well it will allow for a dynamic landing page quality score instead of a static one. This will hopefully allow domainers to make improvements to their sites and bring down some of those 10.00 minimum bids to a more reasonable price. This should also allow your ad’s to show when most relevant and increase conversions.
First page will replace minimum bids. This will give an idea of how much you have to bid to show in a placement again. For a while it was completely unknown. At least now you know that you can bid x amount and show up on the first page of search results. This is based on the “exact match” keyword, ad quality score, and competition on that keyword.
No more inactive for search! This is cool because due to the new quality score we can now have the opportunity to serve up in more highly converting places and not show in less optimal spots. This is a huge improvement over judging the ad quality one time and scoring it as a static score for all websites and search queries you may be bidding on. This could help some advertisers gain a little more volume, however if you had an abundance of inactive for search you may find that they don’t get a lot of traffic after the changes either. I recommend going through and cleaning up your keywords for underperforming ones and place emphasis on less keywords that are very targeted. Structure your ad groups so they make sense and all keywords within the ad group are related to each other. In addition to this remove keywords that have not had at least 100 impressions for the month. These will drag your ad quality score down. These should be positive changes for everyone the publishers, the advertisers, and the users.
The Other Guys - 2nd Tier PPC Search Engines
- Author: Travis
- Filed under: General
Apr 17,2008
So your thinking off using a second tier search engine to drive some extra traffic to your site at a cheaper rate and get more conversions right…well kind of but before you jump into it and start bidding on hundred or thousands of keywords lets take a step back and think about a few things.
What Exactly Does 2nd Tier Mean?
Well a 2nd tier PPC provider has a smaller market share and generally less well known, but that doesn’t mean that they wont be effective. The 2nd tier search engines and PPC platforms drive billions of searches a month. The cost can vary, but its not uncommon to find clicks for a portion of the price of the major three aka Google, Yahoo (Formerly Overture) and MSN.
What Should You Look For?
Well you should first know what your goals are and what you expect to get from the PPC campaign. You wont see quite the same results from these 2nd tier guys as you do the big ones so keep that in mind. Each one can tend to have a different type of user that makes up the majority of the market share of searches done on that platform. For example eZanga has a lot of promotional driven and contest hungry users between the age of 18-25. Now that only represents a portion of their user base, however it would seem to be the biggest share. Also think about click fraud since sometimes the smaller search engines don’t have a good fraud system in place. I would suggest that you implement test campaigns for your market and demographic in a couple of the engines first then see how well it performs before you jump right in and pump up the budget.
Who Are These 2nd Tier Providers?
Well there are getting to be more and more, but I will tell you about the ones that I know of and have dealt with personally.
ABC Search
ABC Search offers click fraud and some pretty new data options for advertisers. Their site says they do over 2 billion searches a month. $25 dollar minimum deposit and a .05 cent minimum make them a good choice to compliment your PPC campaign with.
ASK.com
Ask is at its core based on the Looksmart PPC platform. It has been upgraded and modified by Ask.com to have some different features from its peers. I might add that while there are several 2nd tier providers that utilize the Looksmart PPC platform, they don’t necessarily have the same traffic sources. Minimum bid is .05 cents and minimum deposit is $15.
advertising, contextual search advertising, and display banner
advertising via its Advertiser Networks; and an Ad Center platform for
customizable private-label advertiser solutions for online publishers. Looksmart has a minimum bid of .10 and a minimum deposit of $15.
E-Zanga
eZanga was started in 2003 by Richard Kahn and Angel Pabon. They have click fraud technology they call Traffic Advisors. This system is also based off of the Looksmart PPC platform.
eZanga’s advertising system comprises two systems which allows for national “Big Pond” advertising and
local “Small Pond” advertising. eZanga has a minimum bid of .05 and a minimum deposit of $0.
7 Search
7Search.com has been around since 1999 and currently has over 1.5 billion searches a month. Minimum bids of .01 and a minimum deposit of $25.
Final Thoughts
As always remember to track your conversions and ad spend and also think about your long term acquisition cost and if its working for you. Keep an eye out for click fraud or sign up for a click fraud service. Remember to test the waters with your campaign before you jump in with both feet. Also a last note if you have a publisher feed from a major provider such as Yahoo or Google, be cautious of your pages traffic quality score. This could take a hit from some of the traffic provided by smaller engines or 2nd tier PPC platforms. It all really depends on your business model. Many of the above vendors offer great sign up promotions so I would suggest taking a quick look around to see if you can find a sign up bonus coupon or code to get your account some free money.
Mar 12,2008
In a recent attempt to clean up the traffic and help the cpc and conversion of clients, yahoo among others have began to cut down drastically the ability to practice arbitrage with their feed. In an email I recieved a week or two ago from ParkingDots, they informed me that Yahoo would be closing the feed and they would be closing the business. What does this mean for other parking companies out there? Obviously they were unable to aquire an alternate top tier feed so how will this affect the industry leaders? Heres the email for your reading pleasure!
Subject: ParkingDots is permanently closing on 3/9/08
Importance: High
Hello. You were recently informed of the end of our Yahoo feed for your parked domains, and the subsequent contract we expected to sign with another Tier One feed provider. Unfortunately, the arrangement with the alternate provider did not work out as we’d expected. The consequence of this is that ParkingDots will be closing our doors effective this Sunday, March 9, 2008 at midnight. All the domains you have pointed to us should be redirected immediately to an alternate parking company. You might want to consider the following parking companies for your domains -
If we have not spoken to your personally today to explain the events unfolding, it is because we did not have a valid phone number in our system for you. We apologize that we are only able to reach you via email.
Any monies owed you will be paid according to our normal payment schedule, approximately 45 days following months end.
Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions.
Barbara Reininger
Product Manager
.Mobi Settles music.mobi!
- Author: Travis
- Filed under: General
Feb 27,2008
It appears that .mobi has settled in the case of music.mobi. After a long brewing debate and absurd proposals from .mobi, they have finally given the antics a rest and handed the domain over to the auctions original domain winner. For more information about the .mobi story check out this link http://www.namepros.com/dot-mobi/403779-i-bid-611-000-music-mobi.html. Check this out and think twice before entering into an auction with sedo or even buying a .mobi. I think ICANN needs to regulate things a bit more closely. Does anyone think the .ASIA will be an even bigger scam….. I sure do. In the .mobi situation you had the ability to purchase names, but all premium names were to be auctioned off. So if you want jimmyshungryhouseofhamburgers.mobi no problem…simply log into your registrar and buy it. Now lets say you want hamburgers.mobi…well now that is different. Shouldn’t it be first come first serve? There never was an open market for these “Premium domains” they are all auctioned off to the highest bidder to put more money in the pocket of a greedy company. Now lets take a look at the .ASIA extension. Can you guess what they want to do? You got it…AUCTION OFF EVERY DOMAIN!!!!!! So if you and another guy look into the same domain name that is two interested parties, now you must bid against each other for the .ASIA domain. There is no fairness or openness to this method.
Yahoo Lowers Minimum Bid
- Author: Travis
- Filed under: Yahoo
Feb 27,2008
According to an email from Yahoo Search Marketing, minimum bids are no longer fixed at $0.10. This could be due to a improved ad network since Yahoo has taken great measures to begin fighting arbitrage traffic. I think this is a great step for Yahoo to take. Google already allows the advertiser to bid less than .10, and has also tightened its quality scoring and guidelines to fight the arbitrage. In the end i think we may see a better conversion for advertisers, and better payouts for publishers. The email below is directly from Yahoo. I thought i would include it for you to see.
The email from Yahoo reads:
| Starting in the next several weeks, the minimum bids for a number of Sponsored Search keywords will no longer be fixed at $.10. Your new minimum bids can be lower or higher than $.10. Content Match minimum bids currently will remain at $.10.
This update is intended to align your minimum bids with the value and quality of your keywords. It also is designed to help improve the overall search user experience by rewarding advertisers for better quality with lower entry points into keyword markets. The amount set as your minimum bid on a keyword in Sponsored Search can vary depending on multiple factors, such as: • The relevance of your keywords (as measured by the quality of the ads associated with them) A keyword term becomes “active” — switched “on” in the system and eligible for display — when your bid is equal to or greater than your minimum bid. If your bid falls below your minimum, your keyword will not be displayed. You’ll be notified of such changes and will have some time to adjust your bid. What You Should Do to Prepare • Improve ad quality to potentially receive lower minimum bids. • Learn about updates to the account interface. For more information on this change, please read our FAQs. |
|
Yahoo Delivers Knockout To Arbitrage!
- Author: Travis
- Filed under: Yahoo
Feb 22,2008
It seems that Yahoo is pulling the plug on its domainer’s or parking companies that are performing what is known as arbitrage. Arbitrage is the process of buying a domain based on the keyword you wish to advertise for and parking it or hosting publisher ads, while at the same time driving cheap traffic to those domains via a PPC provider. The concept is simple. Come up with a competitive term that pays high to the publisher, while driving relevant traffic to that site for a fraction of the cost. The domain parking companies that utilize the Yahoo ad feed have sent warnings in various forms about arbitrage and how it is strictly prohibited. What do you think this will do to the domain industry? Will we see parking companies begin to struggle for survival, or will they shift gears and adapt to the situation. It will certainly change the way some people have been making their living over the past several years.
VoIP, Inc. Launches ”RazrClick,”
- Author: Travis
- Filed under: General
Feb 21,2008
Earlier this month VoIP launched RazrClick a Pay Per Call advertising
service. Now for those of you who may not be familiar with pay per
call, it is a form of advertising similar to PPC with the exception
that with Pay Per Call the advertiser will actually get a phone call.
This
is basically how it works. The merchant defines his relevant keywords
or terms and chooses the desired vertical or category. The advertiser
can set up Geo Targeting with most providers to really get granular
with the market and delivery of their ad. After the campaign is set up
you can create the ad containing your pitch or company name, address, a
description of your service or goods, and a toll free tracking number
that will reroute to your phone and allow you to track your potential
sales calls.
One clear advantage of Pay Per Call over Pay Per
Click is the click fraud that is rampant in Pay Per Click is currently
not an issue with Pay Per Call. Even though Pay Per Call is just
getting started, it is projected that by 2009 the Pay Per Call revenue
in U.S alone will top 4 billion dollars. Advertisers pay
on average $8 to $10 per Pay-Per-Call considerably higher than they
might pay for a typical Pay-Per-Click
ad. VoIP, not only intends to capture a share of this Pay Per Call
market with the release of RazrClick, they intend to capture the whole
thing. They claim that they have the only existing patent for the
technology and plan to aggressively pursue any infringer’s.
“There are many companies that are providing Pay-Per-Click
advertising. However, after careful research and consulting with
attorneys we believe we have the only patent in this space,” stated
Anthony Cataldo, CEO VoIP, Inc. “We intend to aggressively pursue all
infringers so that our shareholders can reap the benefit of the value
this patent affords the company; additionally we believe that all
providers of this type of advertising/technology are directly
violating our patents.”
Anthony Cataldo was also quoted as saying
“We have identified over 100 companies that have willfully infringed on our
patents. We intend to stop the infringement and defend our technology and the
patents behind it. These patents and the business they represent will be
utilized to provide the shareholders with the value they deserve and have long
awaited,” stated CEO Anthony Cataldo. “Citing case studies, in reference to
Click to Call, from Fortune 500 companies such as Continental Airlines, the ROI
was 50x cost of service. The service showed a 35% lead conversion rate twice
that of traditional leads and reduced website abandonment by over 25%.”
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. In the end regardless
of the patent, I believe that Pay Per Call will offer a great
additional solution to a well rounded marketing campaign.
Meta
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