As reported in Search Engine Roundtable, Google recently announced that they are ready to start spidering AdWords landing pages to assess “quality score.” In Google’s own words: “If a landing page has informative content related to its AdWords ads and keywords, these keywords will receive higher Quality Scores and potentially lower minimum cost-per-click bid (CPC bid) requirements. Poor quality landing pages or those that restrict visits by our system are likely to experience a decrease in quality scores (and a potential increase in CPC bid requirements).” This is … Continue reading →

Many of you were likely bombarded this weekend by multiple emails from Google AdWords announcing the details of the $90 million click fraud settlement in Arkansas. To be clear, this is not a new settlement – it is the same one that was announced last March. The emails you are now getting are part of Google’s obligations in the settlement. As I noted when this settlement was originally announced, I believe that the only people who truly win from this settlement are Google and the plaintiffs’ lawyers who … Continue reading →

It’s not often that I use the massive audience of this blog (all 12 of you) for work-related purposes, but the time has come! Adteractive is looking for a search engine optimization expert to lead our efforts in, surprisingly, SEO. Some of the incredible benefits of this job include: Reporting to me (you can even get sneak peek of up and coming Blogation articles)!; Joining a leader in performance-based marketing (over $100 million of profitable revenue, two years in a row and counting . . .); Driving an … Continue reading →

While the ultimate measurement of a search engine is whether it is profitable for your business, there are plenty of intangibles that also need to be considered. In particular, I consider four key metrics: 1. Traffic volume: does the search engine have the ability to deliver a lot of volume to you? 2. Traffic quality: what percentage of the traffic converts, and what percentage is click fraud? 3. Customer service: how responsive is the search engine to your queries. Do they make you feel like you are a … Continue reading →

These days there is a lot of advice floating out there about SEM. Here’s my recommendations on who to trust and who to take with many grains of salt. Who to Trust: 1. Forum Posters: For whatever reason, people who post on forums like WebMasterWorld or Search Engine Watch seem to be very forthcoming with accurate information. Perhaps its because they enjoy feeling like an expert, or perhaps its the egalitarian nature of forums, but I find that the best way to get an answer to a hard … Continue reading →