- Beware added taxes, fees, shipping, and handling costs. Sure, you may have found a great price, but make sure you're still getting one when all is said and done. Buying out of state or province could save you in taxes, but it might cost you in shipping. Check it out first.

- Allow for adequate delivery time, especially if you're buying a gift or purchasing around holidays.

Look for a secure website when purchasing:

- Secure sites will have a URL that starts with "https" instead of "http". This means your confidential information (like your credit card number) will be protected with a security certificate.  

- Look for a little yellow lock on status bar at bottom of your web browser. Double-click it to get information about certificate that is protecting site.

Be prepared: - Keep a record of your purchase. Get an order number, confirmation number, or receipt and keep it handy, even after you receive item. Treat it same as an in-store purchase.

- If you run into a problem, don't give up. Contact online merchant. Most reputable companies will want to make sure you are a happy customer.

Accessing either of API licenses must be granted, which then leads us to “Google Developer Network”; http://www.google.com/apis/, also in BETA.

Developer Kit Downloads and API Licenses are free and available from links above.

Evidently, data accessible and granted in these licenses is always behind, lagging "Real-Time". Unfortunately, this is nature of “Beast” and is a product of it’s complexity.

Take for example www.googlerankings.com . Going into a scheduled public PR update, I use it to determine directions I am headed in, on a Site...

Let's say for example, I am following 10 keyphrases for a Site and I go there (www.googlerankings.com) and input a check for position in top 1000 Sites and find that they return me in 14th place. Next, I do a GOOGLE Search and find I am really in tenth position. I moved up 4 places in "real-time" and made 1st page.....

These are good indicators of which direction I am headed in future (after any update), right?

The moral of story is... SERPs and SERP changes are a lot more important than public PR updates. There are many good tools available if we use them correctly. By "correctly", I mean, let's face it, SE's are offering free API licenses to most any developer, which afford valuable "real-time" data without penalty! If we don't like tools that are already available out there now, then we can custom develop our own, right?

"Real-Time" Marketing Data is what it is all about in a digital world. The tools are there and it is not quarterly public PR update, or how many back links we have, from anywhere.

Digital Marketing is all about “Real-Time” Data!

There’s really no other way to effectively promote yourself or a client.

The Google quarterly PageRank updates are nothing but public confirmation of achievement “after fact”, having nothing to do with mechanics of getting there!

Ken