Google has launched a new feature to its AdWords program which aims to improve the relevancy of their AdWords product. The new role out will start out being tested on broad match ads which appear on Google.com. ...

New! Improved targeting for your ads.
Recent improvements to AdWords ad quality will help Google show the most relevant ads to the most targeted audience possible.

How is Ad Relevance Determined?

Our ad quality improvements will help us be more precise in identifying the most relevant ads for a particular query, which may mean more clicks for some ads and fewer clicks for others.

For example, an advertiser specializing in Alaskan cruises may have selected cruises (broad-matched) for their campaign. Previously, this keyword may have been disabled due to poor performance on more popular queries such as Hawaiian cruises. Instead of disabling all broad match variations of cruises, we will now show this ad for specific query variations that are more relevant to the ad, such as Alaskan cruises.

Which ads or keywords will be affected by these relevance changes?

Recent improvements to promote ad relevance within the AdWords system will apply to advertisers in all countries and all languages. While these changes will initially only affect broad-matched keywords for ads shown on Google.com, future improvements will include other keyword matching options and Google Network sites and products.

more questions (with many repeat answers) at https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=131&hl=en_US

hat tip to Optimize Online @ Search Engine Watch Forums

Thumbshots on a major portal? AOL did it first...on Netscape France.

They even give a thumbshot of ads (or at least they did for the ebay ad if you searched for Nintendo)

The recent update has lead to Google showing backlinks for many of the sites that had their PageRank blocked.

By not showing backlinks on sites with PageRank blocked Google made it very easy to know where buying links was effective and where it was a waste. If I were them I would show the sites I blocked as backlinks without parsing PageRank through. Why?

It makes it harder for people to know where there is value and where there is not. It makes it harder to manipulate the search index and drives down the value of link renting.

More info @ blockedpr.com

With a perpetually declining user base AOL must find a way to diversify their business model.

Here's one...

Advertising.com is a large ad network with over 800 customers. They are now to be a part of AOL...

Why not, right!

Sung to the Tune of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"

Take, me out of the sand box...
Place my site in the SERPs...
Buy me some PageRank and Anchor Text,
Get my site in the Google index!
Let me search, search, search for my keywords...
If I don't rank it's a shame
For it's one, two, three months you'll wait
Man, that sand box is lame!

Found on IMR by PCarlow

Also from IMR, congrats to John on his PR 8 at IMR (which is soon to move) and his PageRank filtered down through the categories at BlueFind.

Google is already synonymous with search. Now they want to help the next generation create a better product? or do they? or more exactly, who do they want to have the students create that better product with?

The time has come for Google to "give something back", Wayne Rosing, the company's vice-president of engineering, told students while on a recruiting drive in Melbourne last week.

"There have been a lot of conversations in the company in the past two months about (how) . . . it's time for us to give something back. So our technical director, Craig Silverstein, has started a project to look at all the Google code and start figuring out what parts of it we want to give back," Rosing said. - TheAge

Many people consider MicroSoft evil based on their business savy and their crush competition attitude. Google is smart enough in their marketing strategy that they can look like the good guy while crushing the competition.

Nutch is an open source search engine which companies like Yahoo! are helping to fund. It is easy to squash an open source movement before it picks up steam. If Google can squash that idea while looking like a good guy then that is a real good deal for Google.

The reason Google wants to give back part of their code are:

• it can make Google seem somewhat open source and hopefully at least divide any open source movement in the search arena (before it grows big).

• Google gets a bunch of possitive press for giving away something that costs them next nothing and will give them a ton of return.
• how cheap is it to recruit people who have already been using your stuff? If Google search technology becomes part of the core ciriculum at many colleges then it is much easy for Google to hoard the next generation of search engine engineers.

I would say that Google is getting a bunch more than they are giving.

Recently I began playing with FireFox and it is awesome.

Because it is way better than Internet Explorer: Try FireFox

Tabbed browsing, no evil spyware taking over your browser, cleaner look, faster, etc.

Some people are building scalable predictive bid management software which is based on complex mathematical algorithms.

Former Yahoo executive Ellen Siminoff has re-emerged as CEO of Efficient Frontier, which produces a paid-search management service that was launched Friday. The service lets paid search advertisers predict the performance of their keyword purchases on paid search networks such as Google's AdWords and Yahoo's Overture Services subsidiary. source

The Efficient Frontier site states that they are the only scalable bid management solution, although I bet Kevin Lee would beg to differ.

Other individuals are also quietly developing their own proprietary bid management solutions.

Automated real time feedback and adjustment is what makes bid management software extremely valuable. This is one market where software price will not be the determining factor in who is ultimately crowned king... quality and breadth of the features will.

Google AdSense Updates:
Google AdSense: What's New

4 New AdSense Languages:
Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish

Google WebSearch:
The free Google site search now also pays. When people click on ads in your site leve search or web search from your site Google splits the revenue with you.

I am curious to see if this will cause an increase in fraud since many sites which are not in expensive categories may have friends (or enemies) perform expensive fraudulent searches from their sites. This is a rather bold move by Google.

New Ad Format:
The new half banner is a 234x60 horizontal banner, available for text ad units.

More Channels:
You can now create up to 50 active channels for each of AdSense and WebSearch, for a total of 100 channels across your site.

Google AdSense Preview Tool:
The AdSense preview tool is an exciting new tool that's loaded with features. Use it to preview the ads that would appear on any web page, from a number of geographic regions. Test out color combinations. Click through to advertiser sites without generating invalid clicks, and easily add their URLs to your URL filter list.

The AdSense preview tool is a new right click option which will show you the ads that would appear on any given page, even from different geographic locations. More info on the new Google AdSense preview tool.

Not really the kind you see on TV, more the ones that send you spam. I have been getting hammered no only by blog spam (than you #42) but also by people sending spam emails out trying to promote their products about search engine marketing.

Some of these clowns are sending article submission requests almost daily to my Depression Blog website.
The irony here is that if they desire to spam that website they could just make an entry, but they don't. They email me their garbage. And so they are clowns.

They use an automated bot to waste my time so I use feedback the search engines can read so people can see they are clowns. Below I listed today's winners of the clown awards!!!

Clown #1: Jon Ricerca of Search Engine Geek

From: jonr@searchenginegeek.com
Hi aaron,

I have included an article submission for Depression Blog.

You have permission to publish this article in your ezine or
on your website.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Thanks,
Jon Ricerca
---------- BEGIN ARTICLE -----------

Does Keyword Location On Page Affect Ranking?
by Jon Ricerca
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com

One of our members asked for a study of keyword location
on a page. Is it more effective to have your keyword
mentioned in the top third, middle third or bottom third
of a page?

Here is the methodology I used to answer this question. I
gathered the results of the queries naturally performed
last month by myself and three associates using Yahoo and
Google. I then fetched the pages and divided the body
section into three equal parts for each page. I tallied
the results for the first 8 rankings on both Yahoo and
Google (keeping the results separate) and then converted
them into a percentage of the total results for each
search engine.

Here are the graphs showing Google and Yahoo results:

http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com/graphs/dfg02.gif
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com/graphs/dfy02.gif

(Note to webmasters/ezine editors: You are welcome to hot
link to these graphs or even copy them to your own site.
You are also welcome to remove this note.)

The X-axis shows the ranking (from #1 through #8) of the
search engine results in the study. The Y-axis shows the
percentage of domains that contained the keyword in the
top (red line), middle (blue line) and bottom (purple
line) thirds of the body section of the page.

It is interesting to note that pages containing the
keyword in the top and bottom third of the body section
ranked much better on Google. The top section had a
normalized correlation of +42 on a scale of -100 to +100.
The bottom third also showed a remarkable positive
correlation of +46 on the same scale. Having the keyword
in the middle third had no significant effect (no
correlation whatsoever... neither positive nor negative).

The Yahoo results were even more interesting. I generally
ignore any correlations between -35 and +35 as being
generally insignificant. On Yahoo, none of the three
sections showed any remarkable correlations. The scores
were a +17 for the top, -3 for the middle and -17 for the
bottom third of the body section. Does this mean that
Yahoo doesn't even look for the keyword in the body
section?

Advice: Mention your keywords near the top and/or bottom
of a page for Google ranking.

Jon Ricerca is one of the leading researchers and authors
of the Search Engine Ranking Factor (SERF) reports at
SearchEngineGeek.com. For access to the other SERF
reports, please visit:
http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com

++++++++++++++++++++++++

but there's more,

Clown #2: Scott F.Geld
from remove-320969@marketingblaster.com

Hi aaron,

I have included an article submission for Depression Blog.

You have permission to publish this article in your ezine or
on your website.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

If you no longer wish to receive article submissions, please
reply with the word "remove" on the subject line.

Thanks,
Scott F. Geld
---------- BEGIN ARTICLE -----------

Writing Articles
by Scott F. Geld
http://www.MarketingBlaster.com

Your product is fantastic your service excellent and
your customers will make huge savings - but no one is
buying.

It is a challenge familiar to many a business owner. One
sure-fire way to get your business noticed online at
minimal cost is to sit down and write about it - or
commission someone else to write about it for you.
Promotional or advertorial articles have traditionally
worked well to publicize businesses offline in magazines,
newspapers and circulars. Now, the Internet offers a
myriad of web-based opportunities in the form of
specialist news sites, portals, on-line newspapers, ezines
and newsletters - all of which require a source of fresh &
interesting content. But where should you begin?

What do your customers read?

You should first consider the types of material your
potential customers will read and where they will view or
download that material from. Perhaps they subscribe to
specific online trade circulars or newsletters published
by a site or magazine they subscribe to. Look to cover all
the options and where possible obtain subscription data so
you can determine if the target audience of a publication
matches with the audience for your product or service. You
will have little success if you target the wrong audience
who have little interest in what you are selling.

Making the content work for you

Developing the content for your article is obviously
critical to your success with this marketing method. It is
also important to realise that whilst some editors will
accept promotional material, others will not. You will
therefore need to think carefully about how your article
is constructed. One way to approach this is to have a few
different versions of the piece to hand ~ from one that
overtly promotes your product or service to one that does
so more subtly. You can then choose which version to
submit to the editor based on their preferences.

An effective publicity angle for those that do accept some
form of promotional advertising in an article is to
present your product or service as a solution to a
problem. To increase your chances of publication, look to
base it on topical events. For instance, if you are
selling anti-spam software you can base it around a piece
that discusses the implications of the latest laws against
spam. If you do not have the time to pen such advertising,
then an alternative is to have someone interview you about
a topic, and ask them to put the material together for you.

Advertising your business through promotional online
articles works wonders for businesses all around the
world. Make sure you don't miss out on this global
promotional opportunity.

Scott F. Geld is the Director of Marketing for
MarketingBlaster.com, a company providing targeted traffic
and direct links starting at only $5. For more info:
http://www.MarketingBlaster.com

Amazon now using Google A9

Amazon has switched it's search from Google to A9. Not really sure if that will make much difference to you or me, but if you like the color brown it is surely a good thing.

The Register also noted that sometimes Amazon's related products may not be related to what you are searching for.

I saw an extremely clean looking Yahoo! Search search results page today. It promted me to finally buy myself a copy of the super duper cool image capture software by the name of SnagIt.

Yahoo! has a much cleaner look and is finally clearly separating ads from organic search results.

If you click the read more link it will show you what my first image capture using SnagIt looks like.

SnagIt only costs $40 and is a hackers delight if you aim to download a bunch of pictures. SnagIt has the ability to set custom filters, let you download all the images from a site, set spidering depth level, and all kinds of cool jazz. I bet some people with porn sites love SnagIt.

Screenshot image capture software is super handy for keeping visual proof of all the crazy stuff the search engines do.

If you use a Mac you may also want to try Skitch photo editing software, as it is currently free and amazingly powerful.

eBay stores added to Froogle

MSN rushes to WMW with their own support team.
they said "Our intention is to allow folks to search on this engine by the end of the year."

MSN support goes bythe name of...MSNdude
who says the last person to the party can't be the cheesiest?
thanks Beal

What is going on with that search engine war? I don't know.
Why don't we Ask Jeeves?

Recently Ask Jeeves decided to get ready to get some more cash.

Then the spent a bit.

Shall we take a look ahead?

Yahoo! does it:
Some people think it is a big deal...others say they are juvenile.

Google does it:
Some people think it is a big deal...

Apparently you can't just throw Froogle ads wherever you want just because they are free... If you want to shop along with Google you too can grab a shotgun and shoot your own foot.

I got a free Gmail invite for whoever is the first person to write me with the subject line "don't be evil."

Just for fun, explain what evil is in your email too...

Also, if you miss out on that one I have one more that I will give away in my next newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter if you scroll down a few posts :)

<update> congrats to Marius, our winner today from Germany</update>

Nigritude Ultramarine SEO Contest winner for the first prize is the Merky Forums. Merky won a free mini ipod (and probably some SEO clients if he is smooth).

In a month we shall see if Merky is a player or a stayer :)

Many other people are now on to one of his secret tactics (spamming Wiki sandboxes) so we shall see if he can hold on. Popular blogger Anil Dashes recently joind the contest so the blog world may make a big splash in the later parts of this contest. The #2 ranking site so far is a blog by Phillip Lessen.

Keep up to date with the lastest contest facts at SearchGuild.

Finally!!!

For those of you with a Mac who are angry at the PageRank gods for not giving you PageRank in your Googlebar there is now a free toolbar PageRank hack created by Nick Stallman.

I am a Windows fool so I have not tried it out. I think my next computer might be a Mac though...

(found on SearchGuild blog)

Many people tell you to use quality content but fail to define what quality content is.

I decided to try my best to answer the question with an article I wrote for by the name of "What is Quality Content."

Let me know what you think of me article :)

Some Automated Bots are off the mark. When I linked into my page about Traffic Power & Cold Call SEO Google decided to reject the ad because I did not state my affiliate status? Clearly this was the action of an automated bot or a person who did not look at the page...I know that sometimes they do review pages because one time on my other site they sent me an email about a page for speaking of the AdSense ads which "were off to the side." Clearly though this is not an affiliate ad...

Campaign: 'Campaign #16,' Ad Group: 'Traffic Power'
----------------------------------------------

AD TEXT:

Cold Call SEO is Bad
Were you recently cold called by
someone selling SEO services?
SEObook.com/cold-call-seo-facts

Action taken: Suspended - Pending Revision
Issue(s): Identify Affiliate Status

The Link Appeal Tool has link appeal since I am linking to it. I think I used the word link to much...anyway here is the link.

This is another one of Will's cool free tools over at Webmaster Toolkit. It looks at the PageRank of a page as well as the number of outgoing links on that page to give you a guestimate of how much value that link would have to help you decide whether or not it is worth going after.

Search Engine Watch has opened their new SEO Forums. Only a few hundred posts so far.

With how intertwined that site is within the Internet.com network and how popular and powerful of a site SearchEngineWatch already is, it will be interesting to see how open they are able to keep it and how well they will be able to fight off spam.

Upon further glance they seem to have a triangle which allows you to flag moderators when a bad post occurs.

<2nd update>What effect will this new forum have on other SEO forums?

I have noticed that there is some really really cheap traffic and link popularity to be purchased on blog websites.

Some sites get tons of pageviews, and some have tons of link popularity. Some blogs have both and prices that do not cost the farm.

If you look through an article about the most famous blogs in the world you can see just how cheap this ad space is selling.

The first blog is a lawyer blog and the second site listed is the New York Times, but if you scroll past them you can see some pretty cheap ads.

Gawker is one of the most famous blogs on the web (and it costs $400 / month or $150 / week). I am probably not going to be advertising on the Gawker website today, but currently someone is with a Texas Holdem website.

I am sure that link is probably cheap for someone in the gaming industry. Those affiliate checks online casinos send you can get fat. I had one page from when I first started learning about the web that got me a few grand without me actively promoting it...

If you used the right political message or were marketing an amazing idea the cheap entry price of advertising on Gawker could easily pay for itself tenfold.

Once you look at some of the slightly less popular blogs the price drops sharply. Advertising on one of the top NanoBot site is $60 / month.

Some second and third tier blogs are priced dirt cheap. I think the two biggest players in the blog ad arena are:
http://www.marketbanker.com/mb/
http://www.blogads.com/
There are also some smaller players too, such as
http://www.textads.biz/

I may soon promote a stupid idea I just came up with :) More on that later...I thinking...

Sometimes during the Google dance your PageRank will flop around as you get data from one server then the next. WebmasterBrain (Creator of Proogle Prog) recently created a PageRank lookup tool which shows the PageRank of your site across different Google Data Centers.

You also can view updated Google PageRank by changing your hostfile to query the the Google Data Center that got updated first, but this tool is way more convenient.