Google Changing European Agency Comissions

Danny says Google is changing their European Agency Commission Structure:

  • Commission will be tied to business brought in or grown

  • Commission will be tiered to a maximum of 12 percent
  • The new program opens across Europe from January 2006 to any qualified third party agency (at least five clients, two Google certified professionals on staff).
  • Yes, search marketing firms are eligible.

Danny also posted more about the current payout levels in the subscribers article linked to from his blog post.

Google Adds Block URL Feature

Sorry MSN, no AOL for you - at least not yet (or Richard Parsons is using the media to increase your offer price)...

AOL portal leaves beta & Time Warner sees AOL as the way forward, but is it?

I think Yahoo! & MSN are spot on with their search strategy. Going forward you are best off owning your own search service. Why? Because if you ever become too strong your search provider can give you inferior quality stuff. It is oh so easy for Google to bolt on a remove this URL feature that makes users feel like they own the results and are making the web a better place. It is a lot harder for AOL to do stuff like that without locking them into using a specific provider and getting a lower cut on future revenues as they become more reliant on that partner.

You need a Google account to be able to use the remove result feature. Remove this site adds a quick and easy way for surfers to give Google feedback without needing to file a needless spam report.

When Google first created their accounts many people were afraid to sign up because they did not want Google knowing what sites they owned. I sorta think that having a number of Google accounts with a long search history will be a great way to help influence search results.

Google Working on Predictive Market Technology?

This is where Google can really make scary scary scary profits. I am sure they want to be careful with the way they leverage their Database of Intentions, but nobody in the world has access to as much user data as Google does.

A while ago I whinged on about how Google could leverage their data to own just about any trading market in the world.

Free Secure Wifi?

Maybe. GoogleNet, coming soon...

Not sure if it will be secure enough to withstand the scud missles, though...

Disabled AdWords to be Deleted & Some Google Banned Websites to be Notified

When Google changed the AdWords system they left disabled keywords in AdWords accounts. If you did not re enable them Google will be deleting them next week.

Google is notifying some banned sites about why they were banned:

Google is trying out a pilot program to alert site owners when we're removing their site for violating our guidelines.

Many people have complained about the lack of communication between search engines and webmasters. I think the Google is smart enough to realize that if they can automate better webmaster relations that means more good PR and a larger marketshare for them. Of course, automating stuff can sometimes backfire too. Surely some search marketers are going to be beta testing the new system.

Google Moving Away from Snippets?

Dan Thies posts about seeing DMOZ and Meta description tags more in Google's search results.

In many small niche categories it may be a bit hard to build quality links outside of DMOZ & the Yahoo! Directory, and acquiring links from those may hurt your listing ad copy.

For those who absolutely recommend avoiding DMOZ & the Yahoo! Directory where else do you recommend getting links from for small niche sites?

Google Sells Print Ads

Google sells print ads in PC magazine & Maximum PC for search engine submission services and other advertisers, buying whole pages and selling the various sections to different AdWords advertisers.

Danny also thinks that some print yellow pages may be coming down the pipe from Google and/or Yahoo!. The Google print ad story is also covered on NickW's Threadwatch.

Ads bought through Google are White Hat ads.

Live Launch Google Talk, Free Computer to Computer Calls for All

So Google launched their Google Talk IM service. Unlike others, they made it fairly open such that people could create extensions and easily use it with other services:

The market is constrained by the fact that the most popular services - MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and AOL's AIM and ICQ - generally do not allow users to send messages to those on rival services.

Google hopes to change that by basing its software on emerging internet standards and by making the program interface available to third-party software developers.

This will allow some existing instant messenger software to work with Google, so Google Talk users will not be forced to use Google's software to send messages.

Google's recent desktop search was exceptionally rich with features. Google Talk could not look like much more of a modest program. It's interface is rather spartan, and sorta reminds me of an Ipod. I think the reasons for the exceptionally modest / plain design are:

  • Google wanted to keep it simple such that they really push the free voice service that goes along with it. (I wonder what the people at Skype are thinking right now?)

  • Google wants to encourage / train their users to make the system they want to use.

To get some of the features you need to have a Gmail account. Some people are added without you adding them because you have emailed back and forth in the past.

Some people with different groups of friend sets and business partners might find the feature set a bit lacking, but I think they just wanted a simple clean launch from which they could collect user feedback.

Google Updates Google Desktop, AdSense, and to Launch a Chat Service?

Google launched a version 2 of their Desktop Search product. My new computer has a bunch of RAM & raided high speed hard drives, so the additional load has not been noticable.

Gary Price has his usual good coverage of the new product. I think the Sidebar idea makes it easier to consume massive amounts of information. Sometimes when I am bored I look at stock prices or financial news to find scoops. You still have to click through to Google News to find the news, but the numbers are easy to see in an instant, although sometimes they don't make sense (not sure why the two THK prices are different).

Google Desktop Sidebar Image.

You select what channels you like, and it gives you information on from that channel / type. As you click on a category it pops out a sub box with more information.

They also have a box for web feeds, and sites that you visit often automatically have their web feed added to your feeds box.

I think it is a fairly cool product thusfar. There are also a wide array of plugins available, including one for AdSense.

Speaking of AdSense, Google has been busy on that front as well. Allowing publishers to apply extra weight and / or ignore parts of a page, and also giving publishers search terms (which may help them make additional profitable content).

Rumours are also flying about a new Google IM launching tomorrow, and they may pop VOIP into it. With people having contacts on so many different messengers I think the first mainstream messenger that lets people login to all accounts at once will probably kill the others in marketshare, especially if it is feature rich.

I still am not so high on audio though, I have grown accustom to the pause for thought that instant messaging allows.

And why would Google leave the search results alone? No reason. May as well try inline search suggestions as well.

Google is changing stuff all over the map, including a new Address Geocoding patent. Some of these patents may be bad stuff down the road for consumers.

Yahoo! is working harder on the relationship front, partnering with Verizon for $14.95 DSL services.

Google AdSense Funds File Sharing & Other Shady Sites...

Google AdSense funds the business models of websites that steal others content and run AdSense as a business model.

They believe they have absolutely no responsibility for the quality of the content which they throw ads on or make money off of, or at least this recent AdSense statement indicates that:

Google AdSense is a program for web publishers who want to display advertising on web pages they control. By placing AdSense code on their web pages, the publisher can display text-based Google ads that are relevant to the content readers see on the pages. Publishers, not Google, control what pages have ads and the content of those pages.

Google is a provider of information, not a mediator. We serve ads targeted to certain web pages, but we don't control the content of these pages. For these kinds of questions or comments, it is best to directly address the webmaster of the page in question.

So if Google is a provider of information and not a mediator, why do they ban some websites? Why don't they let me run warez, file sharing, and crack ads on Google if they are willing to fund those types of sites away from Google? If it is ok for Google to fund sites that steal copyrighted work would Google give me no retribution for scraping PageRank and making it freely accessible outside of their toolbar?

I generally like Google as a company, but they shouldn't ask for user feedback if they are going to tell their users to go screw themselves. They are probably better off just not responding, and maybe just not even asking for feedback.

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