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Google has announced a new version of Google Earth in which they have completely rethought how you might interact with the 3D world. They've redesigned the navigation to make it much easier to fly from the heavens down to the streets of your town. And with all of the great user-created buildings in the 3D Warehouse, they have made it easy for you to get right up close to see the rich detail.
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When Google decided to acquire DoubleClick nearly a year ago, many in the search marketing industry were very concerned that Google now owned a SEO company - Performics. It would be a huge conflict of interest to have a organic search index and yet at the same time be making money providing a service that helps companies to improve their positioning in that index. When the acquisition was finally approved last month, Danny Sullivan wrote an open letter asking Google to do the right thing.
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Now that Google officially owns DoubleClick, there is another dilemma at hand and that is they also own a SEO company. Is this a conflict of interest? Absolutely! Let's face it - Google is now in the SEO business - selling services through DoubleClick's Performics to people who want to rank well on search engines, including Google. This also places Google in the paid inclusion business, something it called evil back in 2004, when it went public. Danny Sullivan has written an open letter which basically urges Google to somehow spin off the company and fast.
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It is all over the blogosphere - sites known for selling text link ads or Google PageRank have been slapped with a PageRank reduction for their own sites by the almighty Google itself. Is this a worldwide PR update with a possible algorithm change or is it more along the line of a hand job? Seeing that a couple of sites we launched several months ago are still at a "0" PageRank, even though they have a good amount of links pointing to them, I'd have to say the latter. The question that remains to be answered is, "should publishers and those buying links be worried?"
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I started my Monday off with a strange phone conversation. I had put together a proposal for a potential client for both SEO and paid search management. The SEO portion of the proposal involved an initial cost which would allow us to develop and implement a strategy to optimize their site so that they could improve their visibility for organic search. Following up today with a phone meeting, my point of contact said they had just spoken to someone at Google who said that "Google" themselves would optimize their site for nothing - no initial investment, no set up costs, free. The potential client's next question - "Why would we pay you to do something that Google will do for free?"
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I was asked recently if Google's dominance in search would ever change, at least anytime soon, to which I responded that I did not believe so unless they make a major mistake. And what is the most crucial area that Google needs to pay close attention to? How they handle privacy. More and more Internet users are worried about the amount of information Google and other search engines have on them. In fact, my father recently told me that he was through with Google because he feels they have become a type of "big brother." He does not trust their privacy policy practices.
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In May, Google announced that they had begun to roll out "universal search" features, where their search results pages would contain more than just web pages and documents. Additional content would include videos, images, news, maps, books, and even stock quotes. In a blog post on the subject, Marisa Mayer wrote, "With universal search, we're attempting to break down the walls that traditionally separated our various search properties and integrate the vast amounts of information available into one simple set of search results."
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Alex Kinnier, a Group Product Manager at Google, has shed some additional light on why Google went after DoubleClick in April of this year, an acquisition that is still in process of completing. The post first of all provides a short history lesson on how online advertising ha evolved since its birth. We then are reminded what ad serving actually is and how it works. Before revealing the exact reasons why Google is buying DoubleClkick, the author points out some differences between the two companies - Google sells ads while DoubleClick provides ad serving.
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Joe Sinkwitz from the Pay Loan Affiliate Blog has put together a "report card" on Google's acquisition progress over the years. Not only does he list the date, the company and the type of product or service Google acquired, he scores each acquisition as good, bad or mixed.
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Unless you have been living in a cave for the last month, you have no doubt heard of Google's plan to acquire online advertising company, DoubleClick. Along with that deal, they will acquire search marketing company, Performics which DoubleClick had purchased beforehand in 2004. This has created a stir of controversy among search marketers who are now concerned over the fact that Google owns a search marketing company. Will they embrace it of which there would then be concerns over whether Google would give them preference over other search marketing efforts? Will they sell it to avoid the obvious conflict of interest? Or will they simply shut it down.
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Why buy one company or one chunk of technology at a time when you can own the entire infrastructure everything runs on? Phillipp Lenssen over at Google Blogoscoped has put together a fake press release dated about ten years ahead announcing Google's acquisition of the Internet for $2,445.5 billion in cash.
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I am just barely back in Phoenix after SES New York and what do I see all over the place in my feeds this morning? News that Google has won the acquisition of DoubleClick. The price tag rivals their recent acquisition of YouTube - $3.1 billion in cash! I don't typically like to rehash news but this is big. So what does this mean for Google advertisers? What does it mean for their competitors? read on for a f few summaries from various sources that might provide a clue.
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That is the lesson that KinderStart.com has learned as their case against Google is thrown out of court by Judge Jeremy Fogel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The judge also imposed yet-to-be-determined sanctions on KinderStart legal counsel Gregory Yu for making unsupported allegations against Google. Additionally he granted Google the right to seek attorneys fees for the costs of defending against these specific charges.
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Is Google looking to dominate the world? Many believe so. They certainly have their hands in more things than most people can keep track of. A video entitled "Master Plan - about the power of Google" suggests that not only is Google becoming too powerful but that they have obtained a mass of information on people, disregarding our privacy. The video even suggests that Google is sharing this information with the CIA.
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Have you noticed any changes in the way Google search engine results pages look when searching for local businesses? They just announced today the closer integration of maps, address and contact info and even reviews of local business when they detect a local search query. In fact, Google states that we will see this kind of information every time we search for a place, business, or other local information. In addition to providing the basic contact information and map locations for several choices at the top of the page, they will also show ratings and provide one-click access to reviews.
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Michael Gray (Graywolf) writes an excellent post highlighting two areas of hypocrisy currently practiced by Google - the nofollow tag and paid reviews by bloggers. He points out that Google is using fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) to corral web publishers to their way of thinking. No doubt that when Google is responsible for 50% or more of your web traffic they can easily bully webmasters into submission.
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Google has made some changes to its AdSense policy, some minor but another that may have a major impact on many publishers. The minor changes deal with their referral program, using images next to ad units, AdSense for search, and copyright material. The bigger change that will impact publishers deals with their Competitive Ads and Services Policy. Read on for run-down of the changes as well as link to Jennifer Slegg's thorough analysis of how this may affect publishers.
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Matt Cutts wife is gone on vacation. With that you would think that Matt would be taking it easy but not so. Rather he has been posting like crazy at his blog. Therefore Rand Fishkin thought it might be a good time to ask Matt some specific questions - eleven to be exact. Seeing that Matt was absent from the SES Chicago show last week, possibly Matt would take some time to answer a set of questions that offer multiple choice answers? The answer was yes which produced a nice list of juicy tidbits regarding Google outlook on web sites and search marketing.
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In an interview with Andy Beal, Google’s business product manager for trust and safety, Shuman Ghosemajumder, has clarified that Google's click fraud rate is less than 2% of all "invalid clicks", which means the actual number is more likely just a fraction of one percent! This in contrast to the 20% or so that most click fraud agencies report. Andy was able to gain inside access to information never before seen outside of the walls of the Googleplex. Whether that was intention or not, it proves that the click fraud rate discovered by most AdWords advertisers is on average less than 2% of all clicks through Google’s system. Read on for link to article.
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Announced at PubCon in Las Vegas, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to come together and accept a standard protocol for submitting web pages to their crawlers via site maps. Google was the first to develop a site maps program where one could submit a feed to the Google index and not only ensure their pages are crawled but identify any potential problems. Now MSN and Yahoo follow suit. A new site (Sitemaps.org) has been launched that will contain more information on the subject.
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The Inside AdWords Blog makes an announcement today that another update is coming in relation to the quality of advertiser's landing pages. Two changes will take place in how AdWords evaluates landing page quality. The first involves incorporating landing page quality into the Quality Score for your contextually-targeted ads, using the same evaluation process as they do for ads showing on Google and the search network. The second involves improving the algorithm for evaluating landing page quality and incorporating landing page content retrieved by the AdWords system.
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This is probably not a surprising headline for most of us who feel that Google is taking over the world. The Raw Story has the details on how Google has just surpassed IBM as the third largest technology company in the world worth a whopping $145 billion. Compare that to IBM's $139.5 billion valuation and you can see that they have a good lead on them and are now biting at the heels of Cisco and Microsoft who still holds the #1 spot.
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Google has released its own Custom Search Engine product which allows users to create their own search engines that reflects their knowledge and interests. What makes this offering different from others such as Rollyo, Eurekster and Yahoo Search Builder? AdSense! Not only can you create a custom engine that searches the URLs you add to it, you can earn money by running AdSense within the search results.
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Do you target specific geographical regions with your AdWords account? Have you wished for a way to test to see if those ads are actually showing for the regions you are targeting? Well now you can preview your ads related to specific regions and localities. Inside AdWords announces a tool that allows you to preview your ads no matter where they're targeted. The search results and ads displayed are not active, so you can preview at will without accruing impressions or accidental clicks. Additionally, you can refine the results page by adding location attributes and values manually to the URL of the ad preview page.
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Google announced today that you can now display AdSense for search results within your own site. In this manner, you have the freedom to offer users web search while still maintaining the look and feel of your site. You can keep elements like the header, footer, and site navigation panel the same for the search results
page you create. I have yet to try myself but it sounds very cool.
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Are there really only four major search engines that dominate the search landscape today? Pretty much but there are a variety of search "services" that still exist. However, most of these are powered by one of the four major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN & Ask). Following is a quick rundown of what the current state of "who powers who" looks like... at least today anyway.
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Are you tired of seeing your Open Directory descriptions show up in the Google SERPs? Well now you have a choice. Google has finally added support for the NOODP tag. They are the second engine to recognize this tag now after MSN added support for it in May of this year.
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Google has recently updated their landing page quality scoring system for AdWords in order to provide a better user experience for those who actually click the ads. This change will target advertisers whose ads lead to a poor user experience. The result is that their minimum bids will increase. What constitutes a poor user experience? Mostly landing pages that consist of nothing but ads or have very little content along with a bunch of ads. As a "quality publisher" (one who runs AdSense but has quality content to go along with the ads) I'll be watching closely to see how this affects profits.
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Google has release another feature into their AdWords controls - dayparting. You can now choose not only the days but the times that your campaigns run. Want to turn ads off on the weekend? No problem. Do you only want to serve ads a certain time of the day? No problem.
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Many webmasters have noticed that since the full implementation of the Big Daddy software update to the Google algorithm, that fewer and fewer of their pages have been finding their way into the index. What could be causing this? Is Google finally cleaning up the quality factor of their index, riding it of pages and even sites that don't meet new quality standards? Aaron Wall of SEOBook has written a lengthy and excellent article on the subject entitled, " The Google Crawling Sandbox."
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In an email sent to Froogle account holders, Google has made the announcement that Google Base, a new project thought to allow Google to compete with Craigslist and eBay, has swallowed up Froogle and that Froogle feeds will now have to be submitted through Google Base. Existing account and product information has already been transferred and is now viewable in Google Base. Along with Froogle, content should also be viewable on http://base.google.com.
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Google has released an AdSense API which allows web developers and hosts to integrate AdSense into their website offerings. The types of sites they are looking for include web hosts, blog hosts, Wiki hosts, forum hosts, and web publishers, all of which must receive a minimum 100,000 page views per day. If you qualify, read on to learn more.
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Are affiliate sites going to be a thing of the past in Google's search results? They could be if webmasters of affiliate sites do not adhere to Google new guidelines regarding them. Yahoo has frowned on affiliate sites for some time. Now has Google joined the fray? Read on to find out.
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Google is adding dayparting to AdWords. Advertisers have been asking for it and now they will get it - the ability to schedule ads to show on weekends or weekdays only, or on other set days the advertiser specifies. Dayparting is also included allowing advertisers to schedule their ads during specific hours, such as to run late at night or at lunchtime only.
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In a special edition of The Daily SearchCast, Danny Sullivan finds himself at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California where he takes the opportunity to interview Matt Cutts, a chief software engineer at Google and also quite famous as a liaison between the search engine Google and webmasters looking to market their sites.
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Google vs. Microsoft. Microsoft vs. Google. The two giants have been at each other's throats this week as they battle on various fronts. First, Amazon and A9 (owned by Amazon) are no longer carrying Google search results but rather results from Microsoft's Live Windows. Secondly, Google is whining over the new Microsoft browser, claiming that users will be forced to use Microsoft's search results and not have much choice in using others.
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Google's has hired Israeli-born Ori Allon and along with it, acquired a text-search algorithm Ori developed called Orion. This search engine tool which is being developed in Sydney, Australia, will supposedly revolutionize the way people retrieve information from the net, making searches much less time-consuming by working with existing search engines and expanding on their function.
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USA Today recently ran a story "Google's Hidden Payroll" in which they report on how AdSense is making a big difference in people's lives in developing countries such as India, the Philippines and Egypt. Individuals with web sites are running AdSense ads and in turn are earning what we may consider in the United States a nominal income but to them is quite substantial. AdSense is changing the economic status of many people's lives in countries where making a decent living is not always possible.
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ClickZ News reports on a new deal where Verizon's SuperPages.com will use its Yellow Page advertiser's surplus cash to buy Google AdWords.Google already has similar deals with BellSouth and Dex Media, however the SuperPages deal differs in that advertisers don't pay a flat fee for a guaranteed number of clicks.
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As a follow-up to a story I blogged on Monday regarding Google's move to Arizona and whether that location would be Scottsdale or Tempe, it has been confirmed that Tempe is the winner. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is expanding in the Valley with an engineering, operations and IT support functions office as part of a worldwide effort to build engineering centers in locations where there are great engineers, in this case, Arizona State University.
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In the latest of acquisitions, Google has acquired Writely, a collaborative word processor that runs in a web browser. The acquisition was noted on both Writely's main Web site and on a blog run by Writely co-founder Claudia Carpenter. Now with a word processor in its arsenal, Google continues to tread on ground that was once sacred to Microsoft.
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Google is coming to Tempe, for now at least. That is the news from The Business Journal of Phoenix - Google is planning to move into large, temporary office space in Tempe and is expected to end up permanently in either Tempe or South Scottsdale at a newly constructed facility near Arizona State University. Either permanent location will allow Google to recruit computer science and network engineering graduates from ASU's main campus in Tempe.
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Chris Sherman reports at SearchDay that Google has just added several new features to its Desktop project, three of which Google considers "major" enhancements while others bolster the utility of the program.
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Nick Wilsdon, also known as NickW on many forums, shares with us what information Google might have access to as a domain name registrar in an article entitled, "What does Google know about your domain names"? When Google became a domain registrar back in February 2005, people began to wonder what they were up to. Were they going to sell and maintain domain names such as GoDaddy, DirectNIC and others do, or was there another motive up their sleeve? Possibly their interest lies in the additional information they have access to as a registrar?
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