Google Advertising Professional Program

Google Advertising Professional
The Google Advertising Professional program was...

Designed for professionals who currently manage or want to manage multiple AdWords client accounts, the Google Advertising Professionals program can help you become a more successful ad manager – for free.

You have to comply with their rules, spend at least $1,000 in a 90 day period, and pass a test. The test costs $50 to take. Wonder how it helps you make more money for free when the test costs $50? ;) Google AdWords Learning Center
Google has a bunch of free tutorials and quizes which can help prepare you for their test.

Google AdWords Test
I just took the test and it was 104 multiple choice questions. I was given 1.5hrs to take the test and was required to get a minimum score of 75%. A few of the questions are a bit confusing but most of them are rather easy. If you know much about AdWords you should be able to take the test in under an hour.

After you pass the test and spend enough money on AdWords you can get your shiny Qualified Google Advertising Professional Logo

Google Advertising Professional FAQs
There is a large online Google Advertising Professionals Support FAQ section as well.

My Client Center
Allows you to link together up to 500 AdWords accounts and access them from a single login.

New AdWords Tools
I have not tried either of these out, and neither are officially endorsed by Google in any way, but a few newer bolt on AdWords tools are AdWord Accelerator and AdGooroo.

MicroSoft's MSN Search to Debut Tomorrow?

There aren't many details behind the story or how exactly the debut will be different to the currently available MSN technology preview. Danny states limited details are available and gives a brief history of MSN search.

Various Internet News...

TV Search?
Google is working on it...

Namebombing
Tim Bray talks Namebombing...you saw it here first. ;)

Interesting
The (Transparent) Shopping Society

Go FireFox
Google thinks FireFox is cool...

SEO Toolbar
Not sure if this sends your data to SEO Inc or not, but if not then some may find their SEO Toolbar useful. A while ago my buddy Dale Brown also created a SEO Toolbar offering.

Open Source Developer Search
Koders
(thanks Andy)

In Search of Disclosure
PDF about search engine disclosure of paid placements

Lock Your Domains...
ICANN new transer policy

New Smarter Google AdWords Keyword Evaluation

Google is using predictive modeling to try to help serve up more of your ads.

New AdWords Status Ratings
In the past Google stated ads were strong, moderate, or at risk. The new ratings are normal, in trial, or on hold.

How the New AdWords System Works
If Google has enough keyword data from prior ads on your keywords and it indicates that your ad should perform well Google will start your ads off in normal distribution. If they have inadequate data on your keyword then they will give the predicted CTR a small boost to help start you off in normal.

If past ads for the same keywords show that the ad is not likely to perform well then the ad will start off "on trial." Your account can only have a limited number of on trial keywords in it at any given time. They'll continue showing the "on trial" ads until they are statistically confident their CTR is below or above 0.5%.

If you have more than the max alotment of words which are expected not to perform well then the additional ads will go into the "on hold" category. The on hold ads will be tested based in the order of expected clickthrough rate.

More info on the Google AdWords Changes

RSS Ads, Public Spam Reporting

Pheedo
RSS Ads are here...Overture and Feedburner may be nearing a partnership too.

Getting Less for Your Buck...
PPC prices rise 14% on the month.

Public Spam Report
goes awry... DaveN states why many "spammers" still use blogs and guestbooks:

Blogs are now a smoke screen. I monitor the same areas as you, and I saw a site come in to the top 20 with only 20 backlinks before the blog screen went up..

Generally it is a bad idea to post public spam complaints. Its doubtful that search engine reps will see them before they get snipped (or react to them if they do), and you may introduce additional competitors to your keywords while making enemies.

SEO Forum Growth, Google Posts AdWords Content Policy

SMA UK
Releases membership rates.

Go Big or Stay Home
Less than a month old, the Uncover the Net directory just joined the World Wide Web Consortium, already has over 100,000 pages in Google's index, and is running a free site submission program this month... click here for details of the promotion.

Google
Stock 30 points off its peak. Perhaps the market did not like the new (finally published) AdWords Content policy.

She Comes and Goes...
RCJordan starts a thread about how SEO Forums build up and die off...lots of great comments there too.

Talk to me:
Speegle

Sterling Blog Comment Spam
Having a blog is a good way to track what markets are exceptionally competitive or which ones people think are worth a ton of money. I have been getting a bunch of forced sex spam recently...apparently some people are into that, and it is perhaps a hard market to penetrate.

Today I just got a comment from Sara B Sterling, pointing at http://www.sarahsterling.com/

Notice the Sterling anchor text...bet that becomes a silver website.

Canadian Dollar:
At 12 year high against the US dollar. After the election some Canadians are looking to use the additional funds to rescue people from the states, while others just want to buy the blue states outright.

DMCA Being Used Against Google

Political Search Engine Marketing

Google Vote Logo.

Google for President:
Steven Berlin Johnson is probably one of my 3-4 favorite authors. He writes awesome books and lots of cool articles.

Not too long ago he wrote Google for President, which looked at how the presidential campaigns were missing the boat (no, not the swift one) on buying Google AdWords ads.

Participatory Democracy:
Democracy only works if you actively participate. Over the last two months I have been running a smallish campaign on Google AdWords for the presidential election. I wrote about my line of logic and my actions in a boringly named article Political Search Engine Marketing.

I do not care much for either canidate, but think now is a good time for change. Whether you think I am right or wrong it is a fact that our government, our society, and our world would be far better off if people questioned authority and spoke their mind a bit more often.

Anyone think Political SEM is going to get huge?
Just in case it does I registered the domain name. No intention of making a site for it anytime soon, but if I really start to dig politics it could be a fun way to get into some mischief. There are lots of other things I want to learn about too though :)

Other SEO / SEM Blogs Covering the Election ;)

Traffic Power Sinks to New Lows :-(

Las Vegas Tribune article...

New Google AdWords Features...

Ads Diagnostic Tool
Choose one of the two options below to find out why your ads may not be showing for a certain query.

Change Maximum Cost-Per-Clicks (CPCs)
Filter your Ad Groups or keyword lists, then adjust multiple maximum cost-per-click (CPC) amounts all at once. <--- not sure how new this is, but it has the new logo next to it.

Faster Reports
Reports of all sizes are now faster and more reliable than ever.

From the horses mouth

Pages