Many an affiliate has seen their revenue from AdWords marketing disappear, often overnight. Initially, Google decided that an affiliate running an ad alongside the primary merchant was a “double serving” violation, in which case the affiliate was almost always excluded from purchasing the word in question. Then Google added affiliates Web sites to their list of “types of sites that may receive low landing page quality scores”, which meant that even if an affiliate wasn’t buying the same term as the primary merchant, the affiliate could still get … Continue reading →

I was in Los Angeles last weekend and wanted to catch up with an old friend that I hadn’t seen in a while. Problem was, I didn’t have her email (she recently left her job and I only had her email address), nor did I have her phone number (I switched to an iPhone and lost all my old phone numbers). All I had was her mailing address, and I had two days to reach her prior to my trip. So the obvious solution here would be to … Continue reading →

The results are in from Marin Software’s Biggest Search Geek contest and look who shows up as the #9 biggest search geek – that’s right David R of Pacifica, CA, yours truly! Now you might think that I’d be content to revel in my top 10 finish, but if you look at the finishers in positions #5 through #8, there’s something amiss – all four finishers are from CT (three from Norwalk, one from Hartford), and all of them scored pretty much exactly the same (three scored the … Continue reading →