Google's Pricing Model

Google charges you on a CPC ("Cost per Click") basis - you only pay for each clickthrough to your web site from Google's, no more no less. You don't pay for "impressions" (number of times someone views your ad) like many first generation Internet advertising models - it's truly a results driven marketing process.

Keywords costs can vary tremendously ranging from $.05 to $11. USD or more per keyword - Google assigns a "minimum cost per click" for specific keywords based on "market value" and "performance history" via Google's AdWords Select program history. Be prepared to pay a much higher rate for very popular keywords and this is a moving target all of time - more popular this program becomes more you will be forced to pay for selected popular keywords.

Creating your Sponsorship Ad

Your Ad's position is based on a combination of CPC ("Cost per Click") you selected and relevancy of your ad - if your ad and keywords are relevant and drive clickthroughs, then your ad will rise in position on sponsored column versus your competitors. This is an innovative feature and helps to distinguish Google's program from all other PPC ("Pay per Click") campaigns (Overture and their primary competitors) - most of these programs have an "economic bias" built into them; i.e. whoever pays highest fees gets top placement.

Dynamic Ad Placement

Google's unique AdWords Discounter keeps track of your costs per click versus your competitors. You select maximum amount you want to pay for your keywords and ranking algorithm keeps track of your keyword costs, ensuring you only pay one cent above CPC ("Cost per Click") cost you specified when you setup campaign versus your competitors.

Setup Process - Sponsored Link Ad and Keywords

1) Enhanced Meta Tag Control

2) Improved Help

3) Anti-Spam Features

4) Smarter Page Generation

5) Easier Engine Management

6) Auto-Import Keywords

I don’t use WPG’s Page Generator tool, so I don’t really have a yardstick to use to compare versions and I’m not comfortable reviewing a tool that I don’t use and don’t approve of. But above I’ve listed all new features offered within WPG v2.0’s Page Generator tool for reference. Personally, I don’t think there is a need to auto-generate pages designed for specific search engines. These days with emphasis on relevancy and link popularity, it is my experience that a well designed search engine friendly site with lots of relevant content and a logical directory structure will rank well across most search engines, without need to generate extra 'optimized' pages. 

Page Critic Enhancements

1) Expanded Advice Advice provided in Page Critic now covers 85 search engines and directories worldwide. WPG claim theirs is only product in world that offers ranking improvement advice for so many engines - I don’t doubt it! Not having used Page Critic for some months, I was surprised to see depth of advice offered in v2.0 BETA. The addition of a link popularity check was a pleasant surprise, however I had to scroll through pages and pages of general suggestions to get to my page analysis scores. While providing so much advice is admirable, it makes you wonder if new users of software or persons with little experience of search engines would be able to understand all information provided. I also found some of advice to be a bit misleading. For example, when running a Page Critic check for a particular keyword ranking on Google, software came up with this suggestion:

'Purchasing and setting up multiple domains can be a great way to increase your visibility on Web and if you cross-link your domains, you can improve your link popularity for each site. However, it's best if you host cross linked domains at separate Web hosts so that first 3 blocks of site's IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx) are different. Some engines may ignore link popularity if IP addresses of sites are too close together numerically.'

You see, I just don’t agree with assumption that purchasing multiple domains is a good way to boost search engine rankings. In fact, if you set up multiple domains containing same content and search engines discover this, many will at best, ignore duplicate domains and at worst, remove your site/s from their index. 'Hiding' other domain at a different IP address is not going to protect you from this. Besides, unless you are providing substantially unique content on different domains, you are doing nothing more than filling search engines with irrelevant spam and not adding value for searcher. This particular advice was provided together with a link to FirstPlace Software’s domain store, so attempt to boost domain sales via WPG was not lost on me. I guess moral here is - take Page Critic advice with a good pinch of salt and try not to do anything that subverts search engines.

2) Enhanced Link Popularity Support  

As mentioned above, Page Critic in WPG v2.0 BETA now includes ability to check your link popularity on any of search engines you are analysing for. It also provides average link popularity scores for top ranking pages on same engines. Detailed advice is then given on how you can improve your link popularity score.   3) Smoother Interface  

The Page Critic interface has also been changed to make missions easier to set up. There are fewer pop-up prompts - these have been merged with main interface. You now also have option to save mission automatically and suppress partial matching prompt.

4) Improved Accuracy  

An interesting enhancement to Page Critic in v2.0 BETA is ability to determine if top ranking pages have changed since being indexed by search engine. A new feature in Page Critic will try to detect page changes between cached version of a top ranking page and current actual page. If it finds a page has changed, it will be excluded from analysis to prevent statistical inaccuracies. I have yet to see this feature in action, but I imagine it would greatly increase accuracy of Page Critic advice.   Upload Manager Enhancements

1) Built-in FTP Support

WPG v2.0 BETA includes its own (optional) FTP program, removing need to load 3rd party FTP programs when uploading files. When you create your missions, you can now select to have reports uploaded automatically, once generated. This is a very convenient feature that helps save time and streamline campaigns. I envisage this feature alone will save me hours per month.   2) New Report Processing Options (Pro Version Only)   As discussed above, Upload Manager in WPG v2.0 BETA (Pro Version) now allows you to remove non-ranking keywords from Concise Reports. This is a feature I don’t really like, for reasons stated above.

Submitter Enhancements

1) More Engines 2) Better Multi-Domain Support

3) Easy URL Importing

4) Built-in Spider for Quickly Gathering URL’s

5) Customize Submission Limits

6) Full Submission Verification

7) Complete Submission History

8) Easier Directory Submissions

9) Auto-Import Keywords

10) Expanded Submission Interface

11) Add Custom Engines to Submitter Assistant

12) Advanced Browser Emulation

Another feature of WPG that I don’t use is Submitter, so I won’t be reviewing enhancements to this tool. But above I’ve listed all new features offered within WPG v2.0 version of Submitter for reference.  It’s going to take a lot to convince me that submitting sites to search engines using software is better than submitting by hand. I’ve seen too much evidence to contrary. 

Traffic Analyzer Enhancements

1) Expanded Engine Support