So there’s been a lot of news about StumbleUpon being acquired by eBay, including a Wall Street Journal (Subscription required).
First, a recap of some of the major theories:
GigaOM had the first feasible argument: “By marrying the toolbar to Skype client, eBay can do an end run around Google’s dominance of the search business. ”
Valleywag claims that it’s basically a random purchase: “Ebay has more money, from its outrageous monopoly on online collectibles and other auctions, than sense.”
eBay Strategies presents a detailed analysis of the situation and believes that eBay may be looking at a long term angle to getting into the search business that will sidestep Google. If not, at least they’ll have a powerful recommendation engine for eBay.
My thoughts? eBay is acquiring it as a defensive measure.
I don’t think StumbleUpon and eBay can directly integrate, although I can easily see the StumbleThru feature recently introduced as working on the eBay domain - this wouldn’t require a buyout though. Frankly, SU is mainly an entertainment, and not a product-purchasing tool, and converting users into buyers will be a difficult task.
I do think eBay considered how powerful of an asset Google would have if they bought it out, and so part of the value of the purchase is in a defensive measure. Google could easily integrate Stumble into it’s toolbar (what it half-assed with the dice) and reach millions more users, receive direct feedback on websites, as well as acquire a strong social network. eBay already feels threatened with Google Checkout (competing against PayPal) and Google checkout products (against eBay) - they don’t want to give Google more ammunition.
And eBay strategies has a valid point - if they can build a recommendation engine on eBay with StumbleUpon-level relevancy, it could easily increase sales and mean massive profit boosts. Could eBay be considering entering the search with SU? Doubtful, unless it plans to buy out Ask.com or Live and integrating the two - StumbleUpon is NOT a search engine, its primary purpose and use is entertainment.
Thoughts?
May 11th, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Top, Google |
one comment
Now it’s just the last few weeks of school here at Brown University, and then I enter the real world. Really, I’m already halfway out - I’ve got a job in Ft. Lauderdale, working for Citrix as a tech consultant. Only a couple more exams and papers are in my way.
In any case, I decided to dip my fingers into the flash gamespace and see how that does. I created a prototype website called Zombie Haven with an assortment of random zombie games. As you can see, the design is basic, the layout is basic, and the advertising is minimal (One line AdSense). I stumbled the main page and started seeing hits almost instantly - over the last four days I’ve had between 1.5k and 3k visitors, mostly from StumbleUpon (about 2/3), and 1/3 from www.motika.com.mk (I’m going to assume that’s Greek).
Advertising revenues, as expected, have been pretty dismal. The first 3 days had a CPM of about $.03, although today it bumped up to about $.27 CPM. If this level of traffic and CPM is maintained or increases, this may be an area I’d be willing to look into, although it seems that it would be a high maintenance project. There are additional monetization possibilities that I’ll explore and experiment with once I believe traffic is more stable.
I’m curious to see if there’ll be an upswing in traffic around the time that 28 Weeks Later is released. Personally, I’m just a huge zombie fan and can’t wait for the sequel to 28 Days Later to come out.
May 3rd, 2007
posted in Top, Google Adsense, Monetizing |
2 comments
A recently released report ranked the top 100 brands by taking the earnings as determined by brand loyalty. Millward Brown Optimor used primary (research data) from over a million consumers and 40,000 brands as well as financial data to determine how much of the yearly income is due to the brand of each company.
Here are the top 10:
1. Google with $66.4 billion
2. General Electric with $61.9 billion
3. Microsoft with $55 billion
4. Coca-Cola with $44.1 billion
5. China Mobile with $41.2 billion
6. Marlboro with $39.2 billion
7. Wal-Mart with $36.9 billion
8. Citigroup with $33.7 billion
9. IBM with $33.6 billion
10. Toyota Motor with $33.4 billion
The sources:
April 23rd, 2007
posted in Microsoft, Branding, Google |
no comments
I feel like all I’ve been writing about is StumbleUpon recently. I promise that I’m almost done, but things just keep popping up that are nothing short of “WOW.”
Take, for example, Google’s new toolbar button. You click on it, and it takes you to a site that your search history would suggest that you like. Hmm… does that sound at all like StumbleUpon, where you click on a thumbs up or thumbs down, and it takes you to a site that your voting history suggests you would like?
However, an initial use of this tool suggests that it still has a long way to go before the quality of the sites is anywhere near that of StumbleUpon. My initial 20 site spree took me to sites which I recognized why I was visiting (text-link-ads, local newspapers, a few mmorpg sites as I’ve recently picked up Guild Wars). However, none of these sites were actually interesting to me, and it fails as a discovery service.
The question is, could it work in the future? With Google’s toolbar power and reach, it stands a chance. It all depends if the content delivery is as exciting as that of StumbleUpon.
April 18th, 2007
posted in Google Toolbar, StumbleUpon, Social Search, Top, Google |
no comments
So I ran a test with AdSense on my blog, knowing it would be disappointing, especially since Guy Kawasaki reported earlier that he only made $3,350 from his blog in all of 2006.
In my test run, I was making $.37 eCPM. That isn’t worth the space that AdSense was taking up.
Someone might argue, “But Mike, you didn’t place them properly! You need to place them squarely in the middle of your content!” And uglify it beyond belief while simultaneously destroying usability? That may be acceptable on a random junk site I’ve made, but not on a site that has my picture on every single page! Especially in a highly competitive market like web marketing and monetizing.
AdSense is easy, but it’s nothing more than a starting point.
April 9th, 2007
posted in Top, Google Adsense, Monetizing |
no comments
Back in August of 2006, FaceBook made a deal with MSN for exclusive third party ads. Today, on the spot where Facebook Flyers usually go (below the vertical left menu), I caught one impression of Google AdSense. Huh? What? I wish I would’ve taken a screenshot, but I didn’t get a chance to, and I haven’t been able to catch it since.
What’s going on here? We already know FaceBook is one of the worst advertising platforms in terms of ctr rates, but is MSN testing out Google AdSense now? Or is the partnership breaking down - because MSN can’t deliver publishers, or because FaceBook’s traffic is just too low quality?
March 24th, 2007
posted in Facebook, Top, Google Adsense |
4 comments
Jen from JenSense has a good summary of Google’s new Pay-Per-Action program.
Catching up on the last few days of news stories, Google AdSense has launched their new pay per action program for AdWords advertisers, meaning that publishers can now earn referral money through the AdSense program. The program is in beta for both advertisers & publishers, and AdSense publishers can apply to be a part of the beta, as can AdWords advertisers.
As you will remember, Google first began testing pay per action ads last summer.
March 23rd, 2007
posted in AdWords, Google Adsense, Monetizing |
no comments
Or so a Belgian company named ServersCheck argued in a claim made May 2006. Google won this one, but I’m not so sure it should have. All the claimant wanted was for Google not to suggest “ServersCheck Cracks” or “ServersCheck Serials” when searching for “ServersCheck”, without any financial damages, making it one of the most reasonable lawsuits against Google so far (unlike the KinderStart case).
A Belgian court dismissed a lawsuit filed by a company that said a feature for Google Inc.’s search engine offers up password-cracking tools and serial numbers to unlock their software.
ServersCheck BVBA, based in Leuven, Belgium, charged that Google’s Suggest feature could drive users who were interested in their network monitoring software to pirated versions, said Maarten Van Laere, CEO.
The lawsuit, filed in May 2006, sought to make Google modify Suggest to not offer up piracy-related terms but did not seek financial damages.
The question as to whether Google should filter out this kind of suggest is obvious to me: absolutely. It’s one thing to provide information people are specifically looking for, it’s another to “suggest” illegal activities when looking for legitimate products. However, should Google be held legally responsible for making sure that this doesn’t occur?
March 23rd, 2007
posted in Google Suggest, Legal, Google |
2 comments
Since music downloading has destroyed CD sales, Epic has resorted to putting up AdSense on some of its artists’ websites. Not only are most of the sites flash based, heavy, counter-intuitive, and, for the most part, really shitty (as is almost any musician/band site in the industry), Epic has decided to put AdSense on some of them as well. This includes Jennifer Lopez and (this one is painful) Jessica Simpson - see thumbnail.
Why would you stick an ad in prime visual real estate? Especially when the websites purpose is to sell the ARTIST (and her CD’s, incidentally). Here are just a few things wrong:
- If you’re trying to sell a product, DON’T monetize with advertising
- If you’ve made a flash site that’s supposed to be pretty, DON’T destroy the design with an ad designed to integrate with text content.
- Don’t put it it prime visual real estate.
- Don’t make sites entirely in flash. Please. There’s no good reason for it.
That’s about it. End rant.
March 21st, 2007
posted in Design, Top, Google Adsense, Monetizing |
one comment
Google’s PlusBox has now been officially announced. It was originally brought to my attention by Jonah Stein, and mentioned in this PlusBox post, where I analyzed whether it’s beneficial for the internet as a whole. In the end, it’s good for Google, good for users, but bad for websites who’s bread and butter is providing basic information that comes with PlusBox, which is currently stock info and Google Map directions for businesses.
March 21st, 2007
posted in Google Search, Google |
no comments
It’s a good day for Google, as KinderStart was defeated in the legal battle it started. Basically, KinderStart was unhappy that it went from ranking well (using black-hat SEO techniques) to not ranking at all, so it did what any good American would do - sue. And it lost, preventing it from becoming the McDonald’s Hot Coffee case of the web world.
Bruce Clay summed it up well:
Fogel’s ruling read, in part:
“While Yu has brought a novel challenge to a major corporation, it is apparent that to some extent he has overreached in doing so…Yu had a professional responsibility to refrain from filing such allegations if he did not have appropriate supporting evidence.”
That last line is the kicker! Not only was the case thrown out for being unmerited, but the judge found the whole thing so frivolous that he’s allowing Google to collect attorney fees from KinderStart. Huzzah!
…
Something we often try to explain to clients is that, for better or worse, ranking in Google, or any of the other search engines, is a privilege, not a right. You don’t get to start in the big game simply because you showed up. You have to earn it. It goes back to the Bruce-ism that search engine optimization isn’t about making a pig fly. It’s about genetically re-engineering a site so that it becomes an eagle. Google rewards eagles; KinderStart is a mutated pig. (Please don’t sue me for defamation.) That’s why they’re not ranking well.
Other good related links: Search Engine Land (links to past articles) and Matt Cutt’s.
March 21st, 2007
posted in Google Search, Google |
no comments
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been running a test on one of my small websites comparing Google Adsense to Yahoo! Publisher. The website receives a couple hundred visitors a day, has few repeat visitors, and is related to phones and calling. It’s a one page website, with two 468×60 ad spots on it. The majority of traffic is from StumbleUpon and random “fun”-related websites.
In this experiment, a script randomly rotated Yahoo! and Google ads whenever the page was loaded (Google and Yahoo! ads never appeared at the same time). I threw out the data of the first few days to allow for Yahoo! to stabilize, as AdSense had already been on the site. No special settings were used for either set of ads; Publisher’s option to self-target ads was not used. This report is based on the last 7 day of activity.
Ad Impressions
As for the results: Google showed 1609 page impressions (meaning 3218 ad impressions, since there are two ads per page). Yahoo! showed 2935 ad impressions, which is notably less and also an odd number. Considering that every page shows 2 ads, it should be impossible to have an odd number of ad impressions. As for the lower number, this could be due to simple randomness, but a ~10% difference is a large amount for simple chance to create. I’m a little sketched out by Yahoo!’s reporting capabilities, and this isn’t a good thing.
Ad Relevancy
As for the relevancy of ads, AdSense wins hands down. Take a look for yourself:
Google Adsense
Yahoo! Publisher
As you can see, Google Adsense has 4 of 4 related ads, with additional text. In Yahoo! Publisher, only 1 of the 4 ads are even remotely related, and no additional text is shown. This is likely due to an issue of advertiser volume, but it also hurts CTR rates, as seen next.
Click-Through RatesÂ
Adsense had a per-ad CTR rate of 1.3%. Publisher had a CTR of .3%. Ouch. Google wins this one as well, although this problem will solve itself once more advertisers start working with Yahoo!. In the end, Google had 42 clicks and Yahoo! had 10 clicks.
Total Money Made
Now this is the most important section for most people. Who ended up making more money? The average CPC of the caller area is relatively low, so this hurt Google’s CPC. The lack of Yahoo!’s targeting actually increased the CPC and increased it’s return. Without further ado, I present the results:
- Google: $6.74
- Yahoo!: $6.54
Yahoo! loses by a bit. Ouch. Sorry Yahoo!, between the lack of contextually topical advertising and the low CTR, I’m going to have to argue AdSense is still a better result, and a better service for customers.
Winner: Google AdSense
March 16th, 2007
posted in Contextual Advertising, Yahoo! Publisher, Top, Google Adsense, Monetizing |
no comments
It appears Google is doing well with its cross-medium advertising.
AdAge claims that both publishers and advertisers have had good responses using the programs.
At The Seattle Times, the test has already produced six-figure incremental ad revenue, said Mike Lemke, the paper’s senior VP-sales and marketing. “After the test, we think that it’s a viable new channel that meets the specific needs of certain advertisers who probably would not otherwise give our products a try, just because they’re either out of market or they don’t tend to use newspapers.”
…
EHealth spent $100,000 on newspaper ads in 12 markets including Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and Chicago. “We specifically designed the test so we could measure lift in website traffic,” Mr. Telkamp said. “We are very pleased with the results. We definitely felt that the platform made buying print media across a broad array of alternatives convenient. It was easy to enter, modify and place bids. Plus, we were able to upload our ads to the platform, so no additional work was required. The platform’s tracking tool was also very good.”
…
Eric Mastel, president of Max Media in Virginia Beach, Va., was a skeptic when he signed a deal two years ago with dMarc Broadcasting — a company Google bought in January 2006 for its automated radio-advertising platform. But after he tested the system in two small stations in North Carolina, it impressed him with its efficiency and, even better, by delivering ad rates triple that of the regular networks in the market.
Good words all around. Let’s see more.
March 12th, 2007
posted in Google Print Ads, Google Radio, Google, Marketing |
no comments
And the answer is “No.” A new policy was just added:
 “Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines.â€
March 12th, 2007
posted in Google Search |
no comments
Jonah Stein of SEOmoz recently took a look at the effect of Google’s new PlusBox.
PlusBox is a new plus sign that appears next to search results and shows additional information related to the query, such as stock prices.
Will this deprive users of additional traffic? Yes. Will it provide users with a better search engine experience? Yes. If this process continues, then all basic queries will eventually be answered by Google.
Will this be better for the internet? Perhaps. Many websites will lose significant amounts of traffic, and people will be forced to create more unique and advanced content. In any case, Google’s content advancement threatens many more basic websites and will rearrange the nature of the internet itself.
March 10th, 2007
posted in Top, Google Search, Google |
2 comments
Recently, Kev from SEOptimise ran a test comparing two identical ads, one pointing to a .com domain, another to a .co.uk version of the same domain:
The .com version shows a much higher CTR rate, but more importantly, a much higher conversion rate as well. He saved 1 pound per conversion as a result.
This test was run in the UK (so people shouldn’t distrust the .co.uk domain), and Kev plans to run it in other countries as well.
This just shows how much more trust is associated with a .com.
March 5th, 2007
posted in AdWords |
no comments
I was looking at my traffic stats earlier, when I noticed something unusual. Take a look:
AWstats is annoying in that it doesn’t tell you which search engine sent you this, or from what page. So I dug into my logs, and I found this as the referrer:
http://search.live.com/result.aspx?q=sex&mrt=en-us&FORM=LVSP
Now, we all know the Live! search engine is still far from perfect, but why is it sending me traffic from the keyword “sex“? Unfortunately, this link doesn’t work, so I can’t tell exactly how this one person found my site through this search, but if anyone knows what FORM=LVSP stands for, I’d like to know, because this blog has nothing to do with sex.
That’s just more proof the Live! isn’t going to be competition anytime soon.
March 4th, 2007
posted in Blog History, Top, Windows Live |
9 comments
Google’s not going away for a long while as the top search. Why? It’s still got it. MSN, the #3 ranked engine, still doesn’t.
MSN recently filed a patent for removing duplicate search results, including removing organic results if the same page or site appears in the paid section. I have a feeling this is a “feature” that will never see the light of day because of how absolutely idiotic it is. I know why they’re doing this: the bottom line. It makes sense - if the organic listing is removed, people will be more likely to click on the paid listing, and M$ makes more money, right?
Wrong. Any decent search marketer with good, quality sites will immediately pull all money out of AdCenter because it’ll remove their natural ranking. And natural rankings are better because 1) they’re free and 2) they’re more trustworthy.
Once all these guys have pulled their money out, cost-per-click will drop drastically, meaning that the bottom for AdCenter earnings for publishers will drop out and they’ll be looking at a penny-per-click. Ouch. MS would, in one fell motion, blow the brains out of its entire ad operation.
On the other hand, Google just filed a patent for allowing people to remove pages from search results, and using this information to determine spam pages and affect ranking. That’s smart. Let the masses do the work of finding bad pages for you, and people have an incentive to do it.
When I run into a bad, spammy page, I don’t ever want to run into it again, so it would make sense spend the few extra seconds to remove it from my personalized search. Additionally, pages that deceive me in the search results would also earn my wrath. This new Google option would allow me to vent my anger by knocking the page out of my own listings, and putting a vote against it in the grand scale of the index.
Of course, there is the possibility of abuse, but I have faith that Google will have a stringent enough system in place to make it difficult, and have enough human fall-backs to catch the few cases that fall through the cracks.
Google: 1. MS: 0.
March 4th, 2007
posted in Top, Google Search, Windows Live, Google, Marketing |
no comments
Ask.com recently poked at Google for the failure of its schwag pen in the middle of ‘crucial notetaking‘.
So Google responded by sending them an advanced pen whose architecture is based on “redundant arrays of inexpensive drafting stuff.” Included was a letter, shown below (click to view in full size).
So my question is, where can I get one of these sweet, light-up pens? Matt?
February 27th, 2007
posted in Ask.com, Humor, Top, Google |
no comments
Google, in response to Quigo’s growing market share, has announced that they’ll soon be showing the exact URL’s of where advertisers’ ads are appearing. It’s good to see some more competition in the AdSpere - if you include search page impressions, Google owns 80% of contextual advertising.
I’m sure it doesn’t want to give up that lead, since that’s where the majority of its income comes from.
February 26th, 2007
posted in AdWords |
no comments
NoFollow is standard in websites now, and so is robots.txt. This article by Google tells you exactly how these work, and exactly how they DON’T work.
Basically, rel=nofollow in a link means that the bot won’t follow that link, but if the target page is linked from another place, Google can still find it and index it. Robots.txt is a better way, but more for domain-wide stuff. Finally, it explains how to use meta tags to not index, and not cache pages. Some useful info - thanks Google!
February 22nd, 2007
posted in Google |
no comments
According to sources, Google acquired Adscape Media, a company who designs systems for displaying advertising within videogames without disrupting gameplay. Total cost: $23 million.
Could it be that we’ll soon be seeing AdSense in video games like World of Warcraft? If AdSense is integrated into video games, its more likely that it will be in smaller, flash minigames rather than large-scale games. I imagine Google will be keeping the majority of this company separate from the main group.
But imagine going to your local WoW shop and seeing an AdSense banner - “Buy a real axe! Real axes at i-love-axes.com!”
Kind of kills the gaming buzz, doesn’t it?
Thanks to SEO By the Sea for the heads up!
February 17th, 2007
posted in Google |
no comments
So as I mentioned a week ago, GMail has opened its legs for everyone to use. While it’s still technically in training, GMail’s already pimping itself out in 40 languages, except, of course, in Europe, where GMail lost its name battle to Daniel Giersch’s G-Mail. Over there, they call it “GoogleMail” - those crazy Europeans! But they love GoogleMail all the same.
Happy Valentines Day everyone, and don’t forget to support your local pro. They need their love too!
February 14th, 2007
posted in GMail |
no comments
Googlers will be attending SES London and speaking about site architecture. There’s a long post on their Webmaster blog with site architecture tips and their speaking schedule. The tips are pretty basic, but I’m sure their talk will go into much more depth and I look forward to hearing all of the information that comes out.
Wish I could be there!
February 12th, 2007
posted in Google |
no comments
Looks like Google has added site-wide, subdomain, and subdirectory penalties to what look like spam pages to Google. Simply put, if it seems too concentrated with keywords and keyphrase, or too unnatural in its language, Google will penalize you (assuming you’re a spammer) for it.
Of course, some legitimate webmasters will also undoubtedly get hit, and they’ll have no idea, as they’ll never see it in webmastertools.
SEOBook has a fantastic summary of the current situation.
In Google we trust?
February 11th, 2007
posted in Google Search |
no comments
People have had mixed responses to Google’s Personalized search. Surprisingly little has been said about it- Graywolf is bitching about it, and Search Engine Land is cautiously accepting it. Who else is writing about it? (damn, I wish Google Reader had a search feature)
I think it’s the best damn thing ever.
In fact, I think it’s almost herald of the “new” generation. Granted, I use this term loosely, but if Web 1.0 was content based on computer algorithms, and Web 2.0 was user-chosen content, then the next logical step would be to have a hybrid; one that would take the user input, throw it into a personalized algorithm to give you an absolutely unique set of highly specialized results.
StumbleUpon has already done this - their algo matches up our interests with other peoples similar interests to give us personalized results. Unfortunately, their system is a bit too haphazard to work as a search engine, but is a fantastic tool for channel-surfing the web. In terms of idea, it’s far more advanced than Digg.
And what about Digg? Why isn’t it jumping along on the personalization bandwagon? It would solve many of their problems - how can you scheme onto the front page of digg if everyone has a different, customized page? And you already KNOW what people like - they’ve been telling you since Digg’s creation. Take that information and USE IT.
There’s going to be a lot of negative reaction in the web development market, because people aren’t going to know how to react, and testing will be more difficult - forever. That’s a bad thing for legit SEO’s, but an even worse thing for spammers and black-hatters.
Things are getting shaken up. Let the fall-out begin.
February 8th, 2007
posted in Digg, StumbleUpon, News, Top, Google Search, Google |
4 comments
GMail, a client pretty much all of us have (multiple) accounts on, is now “officially” in open beta. Granted, it really doesn’t change anything, and it’ll be in open beta for likely the next 12 years (bets are now open - $10 to anyone that gets the official release right).
It’s a symbolic release. Beta forever!
February 7th, 2007
posted in GMail |
one comment
The Windows Live search API is now out of beta. The requirements state you need to be running .NET on a Windows server, but if I understand correctly, there is/are .NET frameworks for linux systems? Cookie to the first person to tell me if I’m right or wrong.
Anyway, Live still has a ways to go until is algorithm catches up to Google and Yahoo!
February 7th, 2007
posted in Windows Live API, Windows Live |
no comments
Google’s been getting bashed for the inaccuraccy of the link: command for a while, and it’s finally gotten around to fixing it (somewhat).
If you log into Google Sitemaps / Google Webmaster Central, you’ll notice that there’s a tab for links. Going into shows you what inbound links Google knows about. It’s useful, and very similar to Yahoo’s! Site Explorer. As a comparison, Google has 593 inbound links to MikeBogo.com, Yahoo has 588.
Couple of important caveats from Matt Cutt’s anouncement -
1) Not all the links are showing up yet. Much better than what link: provides, but still not 100%.
2) Just because a link is in there, doesn’t mean its passing rank.
So there’s still a lot of guesswork, but we’ve got a much better tool to work with now. Cookie to you, Google!
February 6th, 2007
posted in Yahoo! Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Central, Blog Tools |
no comments
