Google has a flaw? Didn’t think it was possible.Written by John Romano
First off, Google is king. Yahoo buying Inktomi and Overture puts them back on top for now, but Google is clearly Yahoo of 00’s. However, we do have a few particular beefs with mighty and mostly benevolent Google. Google has a problem with one of their ad products, AdWords. AdWords is revolutionary keyword buying tool that lets small, and now big, businesses buy keyword terms that show up in ads alongside Google’s organic search results. Studying and utilizing Google system has reaped some interesting facts and a few flaws. Here are a few things we learned. A.A technique for getting most traffic and clicks (Sorry, not going to reveal that, as this isn’t a hack’em and rob’em article.) Oh, and: WARNING - NO KEYWORD CLICKS WERE HARMED OR STOLEN in writing or researching of this article. B.How to find amazingly robust and cost effective search terms (Again sorry, that technique separates a mediocre ad buy from a great one and everybody who finds good words should keep them as close to vest as possible.) C.A glitch in Google’s system that can unfairly penalize top performing search terms. That’s focus of this piece. Picture this: Johnny T-Shirt Co. spends time doing keyword research for terms suitable for marketing their business. JTCo is diligent and finds a few ripe terms that larger competitors missed, like let’s say “Gold T-shirts”. JTCo then sets up an AdWords campaign on Google with a budget at $175.00 a day with a cost per click of $0.25. The ad goes live. Customers see and click on JTCo’s ads at a 1.8% click rate. Pretty good. Business goes along for a few months, Google makes some nice money and JTCo grabs customers ahead of competition. Now here is glitch. Google expects all ads within AdWords system to garner 5 clicks per 1,000 impressions. Fair enough. JTCo’s ad for term “Gold T-Shirts” is rolling along at a 1.8% click rate (18 clicks per 1,000) so not a problem. But, if JTCo fails to get 5 clicks per 1,000 ad views just once, Google’s default programming will trigger disabling of word and give JTCo no clear way of making a case for reinstating word. It’s akin to a father being wonderful to his children then being late for dinner by ten minutes once and community ostracizes him as a neglectful father - FOREVER. We studied a real world company, www.threedayweekends.com, which had paid Google $1,092 over a month long period for a specific word. The word had received a large number of clicks and hundreds of thousands of impressions, yet when term missed five click threshold just once, late on a typical Thursday night, term was shut down.
| | Is Search Engine Submission Necessary?Written by Partha Bhattacharya
Recently, a customer of ours was insistent on announcing his new website to big search engines. Otherwise, he argued, *...how would world know that I exist...*. Indeed, belief that one *must* submit his/her website to search engines has spawned growth of umpteen agencies (some with questionable intentions) that promise *guaranteed inclusion in search engines* for hefty fees. There are others who promise *guaranteed top placement* in search engines. But that's a different story.So then, what takes..! Let's first separate grains from chaff. It's worth looking at a few apparently contradicting, yet important aspects. Google is king Recent reports suggest Google presently is most popular search engine in US. A May, 2003 research finds Google's share of *search-pie* an overwhelming 76% among US web surfers compared to MSN's only 15% (reference: article by Danny Sullivan on Aug 1, 2003 at Search Engine Watch, http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156431). In continental Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and UK), in June, 2003 average viewership of Google (about 29.06%) was very close to (in fact a little less than) MSN's nearly 29.43% (reference: article by Danny Sullivan on July 31, 2003 at Search Engine Watch, http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156441). With rapid-fire developments like Yahoo's acquiring Inktomi and Overture and MSN's plan to float its own crawler, none is sure what would happen one year hence. There are even talks of 3rd generation search engines taking over soon. At time of writing this article though, Google remains firmly atop surfers' list of most preferred search engines. Do not submit to Google Yeah, you need not submit to Google. Google will find you. It has been Google's long-time practice to extensively crawl Web so as to build its own comprehensive database of webpages, no matter whether you submit or not. In process it has *outsmarted* others in producing most relevant search results. Surfers love Google. Since Yahoo presents Google's search results and fact that Looksmart has changed its listing procedure, it is obvious that their paid-listing programs are just not working. Google's famed robot, *Googlebot*, crawls millions of webpages everyday and it's quite probable a new website will be automatically crawled sooner than one may imagine, whether *submitted* or not. One may also expect periodic visits by AltaVista's *Scooter*, Inktomi's *Slurp* and numerous other crawlers after you're *known* to Google. Google's uppishness Google doesn't like *orphan* sites. To quote Google's own words (at http://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html), *The best way to ensure Google finds your site is for your page to be linked from lots of pages on other sites. Google's robots jump from page to page on Web via hyperlinks, so more sites that link to you, more likely it is that we'll find you quickly*.
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