Graham Charlton

Graham Charlton is Editor of the Econsultancy blog, covering e-commerce, SEO, and more. He also contributes to our Best Practice Guides and other reports. You can contact him at graham.charlton@econsultancy.com.

Internet social lending 'may threaten banks'

A new study has claimed that the social networking boom could eventually threaten the dominance of traditional lenders.

A study by the Social Futures Observatory think-tank found that many consumers would consider borrowing through online ‘social lending’ communities rather than high street banks and other traditional lenders.

by Graham Charlton 24 November 2006 13:21pm 0 comments

Google denies using analytics to determine minimum bids

In a discussion on Webmaster World on Wednesday, Google’s AdWords advisor denied that the company uses information gathered from its conversion tracking and analytics data to determine bids for keywords.

Back in June, Google introduced changes to its algorithm which determines ad position and cost, this placed greater importance on the quality of landing pages.

by Graham Charlton 24 November 2006 11:43am 0 comments

Five Christmas email marketing tips

Tom O'Leary at the Messaging Times has some sound advice to help you manage your Christmas email marketing campaigns.

Tom has five tips on how to streamline your email marketing to make the most of the Christmas retail season...

by Graham Charlton 23 November 2006 14:36pm 0 comments

Research reveals top 10 UK etailers

A new report has looked into the performance of the top 28 UK retailers as measured by traffic, and has found much room for improvement.

The research, carried out by Marketing Assistance Ltd on behalf of Blast Radius, looked at the whole online shopping experience, from from first visit to returning unwanted items.

by Graham Charlton 23 November 2006 11:27am 0 comments

Flickr launches new camera finder

Flickr has spotted a new revenue stream via the launch of its camera finder service, which displays the most popular cameras used on the photo sharing site.

Flickr is using the data from photos uploaded to the site to display the most popular makes of cameras and camera phones.

by Graham Charlton 23 November 2006 14:27pm 0 comments

Ten Christmas tips for affiliates

Shawn Collins has published some useful tips for affiliates to maxime their commissions during the Christmas period.

The tips, published on Collins' blog, come from Performics and the e-tailing group.

by Graham Charlton 23 November 2006 18:14pm 0 comments

Google's shares top $500 - where will it end?

Google’s shares reached the $500 mark on Tuesday, the highest point since the company went public in April 2004, when he shares were priced at $85.

Stockreply believes the shares will reach the $1,000 mark, and speculates when that mark might be reached...

by Graham Charlton 23 November 2006 14:32pm 0 comments

Is long-term domain registration a search ranking factor?

Webmaster World forums recently hosted a discussion on whether or not a site’s search engine ranking is affected by the length of time a domain name is registered for.

The theory is that registering a domain name for ten years indicates to Google that the domain’s owners’ have made a long term commitment and therefore the site is less likely to be spam.

by Graham Charlton 21 November 2006 18:25pm 1 comment

Musicovery - a new web radio station

Musicovery is a new web radio application which allows you to visually customise the genre and style of music you want to listen to, before streaming it through your browser.

Musicovery launches

Users of the visual search engine MusicPlasma will recognise the design of the site. Essentially, this is MusicPlasma with the added benefit of streaming radio. Founders Frederic Vavrille and Vincent Castaignet are responsible for both sites.

by Graham Charlton 21 November 2006 18:30pm 0 comments

Wordpress takes on Six Apart with new edition

Automattic, the company behind Wordpress, has announced a partnership with RSS platform provider KnowNow to extend its publishing tools to the enterprise market.

Through the deal, the two companies have developed KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition, a blog platform for businesses which will be in direct competition with Six Apart’s Movable Type.

by Graham Charlton 21 November 2006 12:18pm 0 comments