Search marketing stats round up
Here's a selection of recent social media stats, taken from a range of sources, including Econsultancy's Search Marketing Statistics document, which forms part of the Internet Statistics Compendium, and other reports...
Google fights scammers with one strike and you're out policy
Malicious ads are on the rise and just as AdWords is an appealing platform for legitimate advertisers looking for a massive audience, Google's self-serve ad service is a juicy target for scammers looking for the same.
From ads that hawk scammy get-rich-quick products to ads that lead users to web pages infested with malware, malicious ads pose a significant threat to Google. After all, if users come to fear where Google's results (paid or unpaid) might lead them, Google risks losing one of its most valuable assets: the trust and confidence of its users.
Google's trademark policy change worries retailers this holiday season
Google changed its policy on trade marked key words in the U.S. this May, and while it's still too early to fully monitor the implications of those changes on brand marketers, the holidays may become a proving ground for the switch, if the price for search ads goes up as much as some marketers are fearing.
Brand searches go up during the holiday season and Google's self-policing new policy means that key word violators will have more opportunity to buy branded key words and disparage, criticize or otherwise overtake brand searches from trademark owners.
According to ClickZ:
"The holiday season will be a real proving ground, to see how quickly Google responds to issues," Jeremy Hull, account leader at Range Online Media, told ClickZ. "Do they have an adequate team in place, with policies and procedures that are scalable for the holidays?"
The five biggest myths about Google
On the internet, few companies receive more attention than Google. And for good reason: Google touches so many individuals and businesses. From search to its 'side projects', just about everything Google does creates interest.
Google's prominence, not surprisingly, has led to the creation of many myths. Here are my top five.
Nielsen: Display ads send more traffic to retail sites than search
Display advertising is starting to look like the little ad format that could lately. Online advertisers are moving away from click-through rates as a metric for display success, large companies from Google to Yahoo are stepping up their display efforts and now Nielsen has come out with numbers that imply display may be more effective for retailers than search advertising.
According to Nielsen, less than 10% of online retailers' web traffic, on average, comes from search engines. That's good news for display ads. But is it true?
Google pulls the trigger, gets into lead gen
In late August, we reported on a lawsuit filed against Google by LendingTree alleging that Google was planning to offer an online lead gen service related to mortgages using technology offered by a LendingTree vendor that was contractually forbidden from working with LendingTree's competitors.
While the status of that lawsuit is unknown, it is now official: Google has entered the lead gen business.
Why SEM isn't all that
You have to love a contentious headline. In this article, I won't be declaring search engine marketing (SEM) dead. What I want to explore are the various ways you should support this kind of marketing elsewhere on your website.
Is Google really capable of detecting paid links and webspam?
Paid links are something I've written about lately as the possibility of Twitter data being incorporated into the Google and Bing search indexes has raised the spectre of a much more complicated situation vis-à-vis paid links.
In the case of Google, the rules are clear: paid links are bad. If you get caught buying or selling them, you could find yourself in a world of hurt. But just how good is Google at detecting paid links? If the example I'm about to give is any indication, it's not good at all.
Four steps to profiting from a decent domain name
If you're an entrepreneur, or budding entrepreneur, making money online can sometimes seem like a real challenge. In my opinion, that's often because entrepreneurs focus on the wrong thing. They want to create a 'startup' and become the next Facebook or Twitter.
That's a tall order and, for most of us, a recipe for disappointment. But if you're willing to start out small and work hard, profit on the internet isn't so elusive.
Yahoo delivers big profits, but does it even matter?
When earnings season comes around, everyone sort of expects Google to deliver. But Yahoo? It has been a while but Yahoo managed to follow Google and delivered investors a solid third quarter yesterday. Profits surged by 244% and the company's stock rose by 5% in after-hours trading as a result.
According to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, "we had a solid third quarter that signals our major businesses have stabilized". She pointed to the new Yahoo homepage, the company's big ad campaign and global expansion as signs that the company is on the right path.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
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Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
