Google Sitemap
What is a Google Sitemap?
Google Sitemaps help Google’s search engine spider discover and index pages on your website. In its basic form, a Google Sitemap is a list of all the webpages on your website. When Google’s search engine spider reads this list, it then knows about all those webpages that are specified in the sitemap. Google Sitemaps come in two formats: xml sitemaps and text sitemaps. Both formats contain the addresses of all the webpages on your website. The XML version contains additional information about each webpage such as its last modification date and roughly how often it is updated.
How Does a Google Sitemap Help Me?
If your website does not have a Google Sitemap, Google’s search engine spider downloads a webpage from your website and scans through it looking for any links that it contains to other webpages in your website. Google’s spider then downloads all those newly discovered pages and repeats the process of scanning for links. Such download and scanning takes time. If you have a Google Sitemap, Google’s spider immediately knows about all the webpages on your website. Reading the Google Sitemap is considerably faster than having to download and scan each page. A Google Sitemap also helps if your webpages are not well linked together or not at all. In that case, without a Google Sitemap, it may take a while for some webpages to be discovered or discovered at all. Google Sitemaps eliminate that problem.
Does Google.com Index Everything?
The answer to that question is no. Google.com states, “we can’t guarantee that URLs from your Sitemap will be added to the Google index.” Even though Google.com does not guarantee that it will index everything that you specify in your Google Sitemap, a Google Sitemap should increase the opportunity that your webpages will be indexed sooner since Google will know about them sooner. If Google does not know about your webpages, they definitely will not be indexed.
If I Create a Sitemap Will It Hurt Me?
Google.com states, “In most cases, webmasters will benefit from Sitemap submission, and in no case will you be penalized for it.” Google.com uses the information contained in your Google Sitemap to learn about the structure of your website and to better schedule its search engine spider in the scanning (a.k.a. crawling or spidering) of your website.
How Do I Generate a Google Sitemap?
There are several tools available that you use to create Google Sitemap. Google.com itself even provides a sitemap generator written in the Python programming language. There are also websites where you type in your website address and its spider goes and scans your website to determine all your webpages; however, such scanning is time consuming since every page on your website must be scanned, and the process must be initiated by you. A faster way of generating a Google Sitemap is to use Google Sitemap generator software that runs locally on your website.
How Can I Automate Google Sitemap Generation?
Creating sitemaps can be an automated process. The simplest way is to install and use the sitemap.pl Google Sitemap generator software. Once you install this software in your cgi-bin directory, the software will automatically generate the Google Sitemap each time it is accessed. This software is of the type whereby you can “set it and forget it”. You can go about adding to your website and you do not have to worry about updating your Google Sitemap. The software works by scanning your website’s hard drive looking for files to include in your Google Sitemap. By directly accessing the hard drive rather than downloading webpages, the software very quickly generates the Google Sitemap. On a typical server, the sitemap.pl sitemap generator software finds about 500 webpages per second (that’s 2 ms/page).
How Do I Tell Google.com About My Google Sitemap?
There are two ways that you can use to tell Google.com about your Google Sitemap. The first method is the simplest and the quickest to do. In your robots.txt file, include a line that says “sitemap:” followed by the website address of your Google Sitemap. For example, the Google Sitemap of the bime.com website is located at http://www.bime.com/sitemap.xml thus its robots.txt file contains a line that states, sitemap: http://www.bime.com/sitemap.xml The second method involves logging into Google.com Webmaster Tools at http://www.google.com/sitemaps and adding your site to the Sites Dashboard, and then submitting your Google Sitemap. Once you add your site, click the “Verify” link and follow the instructions and you will gain access to additional statistics about your website and status information about the processing of your Google Sitemap.
In Summary, What Do I Need to Do?
1. Use a Google Sitemap Generator such as sitemap.pl
2. Add your Google Sitemap to your robots.txt file.
3. Add your site to Google Webmaster Tools
4. Submit your Google Sitemap.
Having an Google Sitemap is a good first step to get your webpages indexed. And with an automated sitemaps generator, improve the possibility of your webpages being indexed and showing up in search engine results.
Google’s Patent
Google’s sweeping changes confirm the search giant has launched a full out assault against artificial link inflation & declared war against search engine spam in a continuing effort to provide the best search service in the world… and if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out … guess again.
Google has raised the bar against search engine spam and artificial link inflation to unrivaled heights with the filing of a United States Patent Application 20050071741 on December 31, 2003. On March 31, 2005 is was available online for the first time.
The filing unquestionable provides SEO’s with valuable insight into Google’s tightly guarded search intelligence and confirms that Google’s information retrieval is based on historical data.
What exactly do these changes mean to you? Your credibility and reputation on-line are going under the Googlescope! Google has defined their patent abstract as follows:
A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data.
Google’s patent specification reveals a significant amount of information both old and new about the possible ways Google can (and likely does) use your web page updates to determine the ranking of your site in the SERPs.
Unfortunately, the patent filing does not prioritize or conclusively confirm any specific method one way or the other.
Here’s how Google scores your web pages.
In addition to evaluating and scoring web page content, the ranking of web pages are admittedly still influenced by the frequency of page or site updates. What’s new and interesting is what Google takes into account in determining the freshness of a web page.
For example, if a stale page continues to procure incoming links, it will still be considered fresh, even if the page header (Last-Modified: tells when the file was most recently modified) hasn’t changed and the content is not updated or ‘stale’.
According to their patent filing Google records and scores the following web page changes to determine freshness.
·The frequency of all web page changes ·The actual amount of the change itself… whether it is a substantial change redundant or superfluous ·Changes in keyword distribution or density ·The actual number of new web pages that link to a web page ·The change or update of anchor text (the text that is used to link to a web page) ·The numbers of new links to low trust web sites (for example, a domain may be considered low trust for having too many affiliate links on one web page).
Although there is no specific number of links indicated in the patent it might be advisable to limit affiliate links on new web pages. Caution should also be used in linking to pages with multiple affiliate links.
Developing your web page augments for page freshness.
Now I’m not suggesting that it’s always beneficial or advisable to change the content of your web pages regularly, but it is very important to keep your pages fresh regularly and that may not necessarily mean a content change.
Google states that decayed or stale results might be desirable for information that doesn’t necessarily need updating, while fresh content is good for results that require it.
How do you unravel that statement and differentiate between the two types of content?
An excellent example of this methodology is the roller coaster ride seasonal results might experience in Google’s SERPs based on the actual season of the year.
A page related to winter clothing may rank higher in the winter than the summer… and the geographical area the end user is searching from will now likely be considered and factored into the search results.
Likewise, specific vacation destinations might rank higher in the SERPs in certain geographic regions during specific seasons of the year. Google can monitor and score pages by recording click through rate changes by season.
Google is no stranger to fighting Spam and is taking serious new measures to ***** down on offenders like never before.
Section 0128 of Googles patent filing claims that you shouldn’t change the focus of multiple pages at once.
Here’s a quote from their rationale:
“A significant change over time in the set of topics associated with a document may indicate that the document has changed owners and previous document indicators, such as score, anchor text, etc., are no longer reliable.
Similarly, a spike in the number of topics could indicate spam. For example, if a particular document is associated with a set of one or more topics over what may be considered a ’stable’ period of time and then a (sudden) spike occurs in the number of topics associated with the document, this may be an indication that the document has been taken over as a ‘doorway’ document.
Another indication may include the sudden disappearance of the original topics associated with the document. If one or more of these situations are detected, then [Google] may reduce the relative score of such documents and/or the links, anchor text, or other data associated the document.”
Unfortunately, this means that Google’s sandbox phenomenon and/or the aging delay may apply to your web site if you change too many of your web pages at once.
From the case studies I’ve conducted it’s more likely the rule and not the exception.
What does all this mean to you?
Keep your pages themed, relevant and most importantly consistent. You have to establish reliability! The days of spamming Google are drawing to an end.
If you require multi page content changes implement the changes in segments over time. Continue to use your original keywords on each page you change to maintain theme consistency.
You can easily make significant content changes by implementing lateral keywords to support and reinforce your vertical keyword(s) and phrases. This will also help eliminate keyword stuffing.
Make sure you determine if the keywords you’re using require static or fresh search results and update your web site content accordingly. On this point RSS feeds may play a more valuable and strategic role than ever before in keeping pages fresh and at the top of the SERPs.
The bottom line here is webmasters must look ahead, plan and mange their domains more tightly than ever before or risk plummeting in the SERPs.
Does Google use your domain name to determine the ranking of your site?
Google’s patent references specific types of ‘information relating to how a document is hosted within a computer network’ that can directly influence the ranking of a specific web site. This is Google’s way of determining the legitimacy of your domain name.
Therefore, the credibility of your host has never been more important to ranking well in Google’s SERP’s.
Google states they may check the information of a name server in multiple ways.
Bad name servers might host known spam sites, adult and/or doorway domains. If you’re hosted on a known bad name server your rankings will undoubtedly suffer… if you’re not blacklisted entirely.
What I found particularly interesting is the criteria that Google may consider in determining the value of a domain or identifying it as a spam domain; According to their patent, Google may now record the following information:
·The length of the domain registration… is it greater than one year or less than one year?
·The address of the web site owner. Possibly for returning higher relevancy local search results and attaching accountability to the domain. ·The admin and the technical contact info. This info is often changed several times or completely falsified on spam domains; again this check is for consistency! ·The stability of your host and their IP range… is your IP range associated with spam?
Google’s rationale for domain registration is based on the premise that valuable domains are often secured many years in advance while domains used for spam are rarely secured for more than a year.
If in doubt about a host’s integrity I recommend checking their mail server at www.dnsstuff.com to see if they’re in the spam database. Watch for red flags!
If your mail server is listed you may have a problem ranking well in Google!
Securing a reputable host can and will go a long way in promoting your web site to Google.
The simplest strategy may be registering your domain several years in advance with a reputable provider thereby demonstrating longevity and accountability to Google. Google wants to see that you’re serious about your site and not a flash in the pan spam shop.
http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-1604302-10294265
Googles Aging Delay has teeth… and they’re taking a bite out of spam!
It’s no big secret that Google relies heavily on links when it comes to ranking web sites.
According to their patent filing, Google may record the discovery date of a link and link changes over time.
In addition to volume, quality & the anchor text of links, Google’s patent illustrates possible ways how Google might use historical information to further determine the value of links.
For example, the life span of a link and the speed at which a new web site gets links.
“Burst link growth may be a strong indicator of search engine spam”.
This is the first concrete evidence that Google may penalize sites for rapid link acquisition. Whether the “burst growth” rule applies to high trust/authorative sites and directory listings remains unknown. I personally haven’t experienced this phenomenon. What’s clear for certain though is the inevitable end to results orientated link farming.
I would point out here that regardless of whether burst link growth will be tolerated for authorative sites or authorative link acquisition, webmasters will have to get smarter and work harder to secure authorative links as their counterparts become reluctant to exchange links with low trust sites. Now Page Rank really has value!
Relevant content swaps may be a nice alternative to the standard link exchange and allow you some control of the link page elements.
So what else does Google consider in determining the aging delay?
·The anchor text and the discovery date of links are recorded, thus establishing the countdown period of the aging delay. ·Links with a long-term life span may be more valuable than links with a short life span. ·The appearance and disappearance of a links over time. ·Growth rates of links as well as the link growth of independent peer pages. Again, this suggests that rapid link acquisition and the quality of peer pages are monitored ·Anchor text over a given period of time for keyword consistency. ·Inbound links from fresh pages… might be considered more important than links from stale pages. ·Google doesn’t expect that new web sites have a large number of links so purchasing large numbers of brokered links will likely hurt you more than help you. Google indicates that it is better for link growth to remain constant and naturally paced. In addition, the anchor text should be varied as much as possible. ·New web sites should not acquire too many new links; it’ll be tolerated if the links are from trusted sites but it may be considered spam.
So how do you build your link popularity / Page Rank and avoid penalties?
When it comes to linking, you should clearly avoid the hocus pocus or magic bullet linking schemes. If you participate in quick fix link exchange scams, use automated link exchange software or buy hundreds of links at once, chances are Google will interpret your efforts as a spam attempt and act accordingly.
Don’t get caught in this trap… the recovery period could be substantial since your host and IP range are also considered!
When you exchange links with other web sites, do it slowly and consistently.
Develop a link management and maintenance program. Schedule regular times every week to build the links to your site and vary the anchor text that points to your site.
Obviously, the links to your site should utilize your keywords. To avoid repetition use lateral keywords and keyword phrases in the anchor text since Google wants to see varied anchor text!
Your sites click through rate may now monitored through bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files.
It’s no big secret that Google has always been suspected of rewarding sites with higher click through rates (very similar to what Google does with their AdWords program) so it shouldn’t come as a great surprise that Google still considers site stickiness and CTR tracking in their criterion.
What’s interesting though is Google is interested in tracking the behavior of web surfers through bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files (most likely with the Google toolbar and/or the Google desktop search tool). Google’s Patent filing indicates Google might track the following information: ·Click through rates are monitored for changes in seasonality, fast increases, or other spike traffic in addition to increase or decrease trends. ·The volume of searches over time is recorded and monitored for increases. ·The information regarding a web page’s rankings are recorded and monitored for changes. ·Click through rates are monitored to find out if stale or fresh web pages are preferred for a search query. ·The traffic to a web page is recorded and monitored for changes… like Alexa. ·User behavior may be monitored through bookmarks, cache, favorites, and temporary files. ·Bookmarks and favorites could be monitored for both additions and deletions, and; ·The overall user behavior for trends and changes.
Since Google is capable of tracking the click-through rates to your web site, you should make sure that your web pages have attractive titles and utilize calls to action so that web surfers click on them in the search results.
It’s also important to keep your visitors there so make your web pages interesting enough so that web surfers stay some time on your web site. It might also help if your web site visitors added your web site to their bookmarks.
As you can see, Google’s new ranking criterion has evolved far beyond the reliance of criteria that can be readily or easily manipulated. One thing is for certain with Google, whatever direction search innovation is going; you can trust Google to be pioneering the way and setting new standards
Copyright (c) 2008 Titus Hoskins
As a full-time webmaster and site owner, figuring out just what Google wants has been the most challenging aspect of running an online business. For many webmasters Google is the eight ton elephant in the room and you only have two options: upset the elephant and get trampled or quickly find out what it likes to consume and try to feed it.
In order to keep Google fed, webmasters have to jump through more than one set of hoops. When it comes to getting top rankings in Google’s Index or SERPs, there are 200 of these hoops or ranking factors. And if you want to play in Google’s ballpark, you have to try and master the majority of them.
For years, frustrated webmasters have been guessing and searching for these ranking factors. Asking what does Google want? How does Google rank pages and keywords? How does Google want you to build your site?
Ten years ago it wouldn’t have mattered what Google thought of your site for it wasn’t even in the picture, but now when it comes to online search, Google is king of the hill. And as we all know, kings get whatever they want.
Besides, any webmaster worth his salt, knows Google is what counts when it comes to organic traffic - you can achieve #1 spots for a keyword in all three top search engines (Yahoo and MSN being the other two light-weight contenders) but Google will simply deliver the most traffic to your site.
Google doesn’t as yet have a monopoly on web search, but it’s getting close to 70% of U.S. traffic and in some countries it’s up over 90%. But it’s not only the search numbers which makes Google king - it is the prestige and power of the Google brand name. Google has truly permeated into popular culture and the public psyche like no other brand name in history.
Google brings respect and trust into the equation. Web users respect and trust Google to give them a quality answer to their question. That’s why it was rather ironic, that for years webmasters have been asking Google about their ranking system, their algorithm, their practices… for years Google remained for the most part silent. This was mainly to keep at bay, those who would like to “game” the system in order to get high rankings within Google.
Until now that is, maybe it’s just me but doesn’t it appear that Google is suddenly opening up about its whole ranking procedures and what they expect from webmasters. Maybe the answers have always been there, we just couldn’t find them. However, a more likely scenario is that someone high up within Google made the decision to be more transparent with it comes to webmasters and how much they would tell them.
In recent Webmaster live chats, Googlers Matt Cutts, Maile Ohye, among others… have been honestly answering questions about what Google requires webmasters to do regarding their sites. These are Q&A sessions dealing with the “burning questions” webmasters have had for years concerning Google and what Google wants. Do a search in Google for “Google Webmaster Help | Google Groups” if you will to find these sessions.
Since I run several modest sites on webmaster tools and Internet marketing I am approached by more than a few people who want me to help them build their online site or business. One of the major issues that always comes up somewhere in the process (usually phrased in different ways) is this question:
What does Google want? What does Google expect of my site? How do I get ranked high in Google?
Mainly because my chief goal is to help these webmasters understand Google better in order to build a profitable site; I have struggled and puzzled over this question for years.
What is Google’s Golden Rule?
Many experts believe it is related to relevancy - the key to getting high rankings is how relevant your content is to the question being asked? Maybe so, but in order to explain it to a would-be webmaster, I had to find the words that would most appropriately sum up Google’s prime directive?
After you go through all the SEO checkmarks, take into account the quality and uniqueness of your content, factor in the credibility and authority of your site and backlinks, and factor in the relevancy issue… this was the simple Google Golden Rule I came up with:
“Always think of your visitor first when creating any content for your site.”
This may or may not be what Google is expecting but all indications are pointing in the direction of the “visitor’s experience” and how good you or your content make that experience? Google is serving up a product, it wants the user of their product to be happy with the results. If they’re happy, Google is happy. And if everyone’s happy then the kingdom grows.
Still anything as simple and as complicated as getting top rankings in Google can’t be boiled down to a single catch phrase. You must do your homework and a good starting point would be to thoroughly read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Studying and listening to the latest Google webmaster chats may also prove beneficial and helpful.
However, there are still those 200 hoops you have to jump through and you must be extremely careful of how you build your site if you’re trying to please Google. Listen when the king speaks. Observe his rules. Be on your guard, and it helps to become just a little paranoid. And always, always remember, an elephant never forgets.
Hot Deals
Copyright (c) 2008 Titus Hoskins
Is it just me or has Google gone into overdrive? As a professional full-time online marketer I have to keep my mind firmly placed on what Google is doing. As much as I try not to because Google has probably driven more people around the bend than Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz put together.
Like any professional marketer, I monitor my numerous keywords on a daily basis - especially my major targeted keyword phrases that bring in the most sales and subscribers. For years now, I have had top rankings in Google for my chosen phrases; they move up and down, but mostly they don’t leave the first page.
However, lately I have been noticing a lot of jumping in the top listings. Links out of nowhere are appearing, links being dropped and my own links moving up and down much too quickly for my comfort. Even six months ago the Google main index seemed to be a whole lot more stable than it is now.
Within the past months, rankings within Google have become more dynamic, more fluid. They can change from day to day, what some people are calling Google Everflux. This is very similar to the old Google Dance we used to have a few years ago…when Google would update or refresh its index about once a month. Now Google is stepping out on that dance floor every day.
Once upon a time, your keyword rankings in Google didn’t change that much. Every four or five months Google would do major updates where your keywords and your site’s PageRank could have a major jump or fall in Google’s index. But have things changed? Has the whole ranking process now been speeded up? Has the Google Index now become more fluid, more dynamic, changeable daily? Updating, fluctuating on the fly?
Inquiring minds want to know…
Keep in mind, Google Everflux is not a new term. As far back as July 2002 there are references in Webmasterworld to the Google Freshbot and Google Everflux. This term referred to the re-freshing of the Google Index.
Unlike many SEO theories and assumptions, the Google Everflux is the Real McCoy. That is if you can believe the Google Guy, and there’s no reason not to take Matt Cutts at his word.
In his site or blog - www.mattcutts.com - he describes what is happening here. In a response to a comment on his blog on January 1, 2007, he gives this answer:
Quoting Matt Cutts: “…I’m not trying to side-step the issue. I believe that a data refresh, which used to be every 3-4 weeks, is now happening more like every day. So the changes in ranking that some people were seeing on the 17th or 27th during the summer months can now happen every day.”
Even more telling was Matt’s response to another person’s summary of these changes within Google.
Senaia said: “So the Index Update is what people use to call Google Dance, when it was on monthly bases. Now it’s on daily bases and they call it Everflux.
Backlinks update and Pagerank update are also types of data refresh.
So, the big scary updates like Florida… are Algorithm updates?”
Matt Cutts said: “Senaia, that’s not a bad summary. Florida and Jagger were changes in our algorithms to score documents, for example.”
However, is the current Google Everflux a more souped-up version of this re-freshing process? Google in fast-forward? On speed-dial?
Regardless of the rate of change, Google Everflux is important simply because Google is so important to any webmaster or site. There’s no denying that, whether you love it or **** it, Google will deliver the most search engine traffic to any webmaster who gets top rankings for his/her keywords. The other search engines shouldn’t be ignored, but most of your search traffic will come from Google. According to Nielsen Stats in February (2008), Google had around 60 percent (58.7 - 4.5 billion Google search queries) of the traffic on the web.
But 60 percent is not the true percentage; from close examination of my different sites’ traffic logs I know Google gives me around 90 percent of my search traffic. Maybe I am over optimized for Google, but even when I manage on rare occasions to get number one rankings in all three search engines for a minor keyword, Google is still the one sending the most traffic.
Since this search traffic is extremely important to my livelihood, I keep a close watch on my major keywords in Google. Movement up or down just a few places means an increase or decrease in my traffic. Google has changed. It is not the same search engine it was 6 months ago. Not by a long shot.
What does this mean to your site or keywords?
It probably means you have to put your link building efforts into overdrive if you want to get a top listing in Google and keep it there. It will probably mean that you have to be constantly creating valuable content and quality-relevant links related to your site’s topic in order to remain competitive.
This is what you should be doing in the first place, but now you will have to work harder to keep your links in those top positions in Google. At least this has been my experience lately.
One thing I have noticed with my keyword rankings, links from the so-called Social Bookmark sites (Digg, Reddit, Squidoo…) have become very important to Google. Real people reading and ranking real content. This is what these social media sites are all about, and it seems Google is placing more emphasis on these sites.
I say “seems” because with Google, nobody knows for sure. However, I can see in my daily monitoring of my own keywords - Google Everflux is real and is probably here to stay.
Over time old links you had are being dropped, as Google re-ranks their links and index. The whole fall-out from Google’s paid link crackdown is still being played out as webmasters scramble to devise new ways to juice-up their links. Google is firing back with new ways to keep its index supposedly honest, an ongoing, turbulent battle that will probably get more turbulent. As new sites and links become important there will be a constant change in the rankings within Google.
Google also seems to be favoring big, resourceful authority sites for the top positions in their SERPs, giving these sites 6 or 7 sub-headings and links - all in the top spot.
Which means it will be much harder for the smaller marketer to compete. Of course, it is only a matter of time before big, large corporations completely dominate all the major profitable keywords on the web, in Google and elsewhere. Once big business figures out what’s going on and realizes just what keyword control in their industry will give them.
That may be a little extreme, but like any valuable resource, it won’t be long before multi-national corporate giants eat up the little guys/sites via keyword branding and dominance. It will take some time, and since there are millions of small niches there is still some marketing room for small sites to cash in. But our days of glory are numbered…
For now, if you count on Google for your search traffic, keep building quality links/content daily and don’t forget the all important social bookmark sites… make sure you’re building some good links from them. One simple solution that has given me hundreds of social bookmark links in the past year is simply adding the free AddThis.com button on my sites. Just let your visitors bookmark and build links for you in these social media sites.
Keep a blog or blogs and tie in your site with links and trackbacks. And make sure you tie/connect your site to the whole blogosphere. Don’t forget to add video/audio to your site, as those formats will play an ever-increasing role on the web.
No matter what warp-speed Google finally decides upon, valuable content is still the key to getting top rankings in any search engine. Adding fresh, valuable relevant content to your sites each day will keep them in the picture.
If that doesn’t work, you can always take up speed car racing - I heard it is supposed to be very calming on the nerves. And I bet you one backrub none of them will have ever heard of Google Everflux.
eBay Market Watch
Does anyone remember search engines before Google? Some of us may, but chances are that we’ve long since been Google converts. In fact, 60% of the search traffic in the United States goes through Google. Google arrived on the scene in 1998 with its funny name that plays on the word Googol (a number written as 1 plus 100 zeros). But Google is much more than a search engine. Google in its current state is an overwhelmingly effective internet marketing tool.
Google, the Marketing Machine
Although Yahoo and MSN are still widely-used search engines, all internet marketers know that Google is the only one worth worrying about. That’s because the vast majority of Google’s traffic is searches. This is a key point for marketers. Most people using Google are searching for something, often products or services, so marketers need to make sure that their products and services are showing up in Google searches. Google is the middleman between consumers and business and, as everyone knows, the middleman can end up being very rich and very powerful.
Using its Adsense program, Google now offers Cost Per Action (CPA). This means that internet marketers reap larger returns in exchange for displaying Google’s links. All professional marketers know that promoting affiliate products gets you 10 times the revenue of putting Adsense on your own site. But when marketers use CPA within Adsense, Adsense suddenly makes more sense to online marketers.
Google has also recently acquired DoubleClick. DoubleClick also includes Performics, a huge online affiliate marketing program. As a result Google can take any user from search to checkout.
Ecommerce and internet marketing are growing at an unbelievable rate. If a company were able to control a majority of those transactions, it would have unmatched power. Because so many consumers inherently trust Google and its search results, marketers who have managed to get top listings for their keywords will have money to throw away. In the same way, marketers who know how to most effectively use Adsense and Adwords realize that Google is a prime source of online income.
But Does Google Play Fair?
Google claims that its PageRank system is an online democracy of a sort. Votes in this case come in the form of links to your site. The more websites link to you, the more popular you are and the higher your page will be ranked in Google’s Search Engine Page Results.
Most SEO experts agree that Google has been fair so far. After all, their ranking method allows even the smallest pages to be highly-ranked if they are popular enough. Google even cracked down recently on sites that offer paid-links, which leveled the playing field for those webmasters or marketers without the financial means to pay for traffic.
But everyone agrees that there is some danger in the fact that Google controls every step of the marketing process: search listings, Adwords, and Adsense. Although there is some concern about a monopoly, Google would probably never risk its popularity by doing something so obviously unethical.
How Will Google Grow?
Google just keeps growing, and there’s no reason to doubt that it will eventually control all aspects of online marketing. As the internet continues to evolve, and as online media continues to permeate so many aspects of everyday life, it only makes sense that Google will use every possible outlet for marketing to the increasing numbers of internet users.
Getting Yourself on Google
Internet marketing is an enormous undertaking and can be overwhelming to say the least. While many internet marketers have chosen to navigate the worlds of Google, Adsense, and Adwords by themselves, many others have chosen to utilize the services of SEO experts and internet marketing consultants who have many combined years of experience in the business. As Google continues to exert its power in the online world, a savvy marketer must know how to use it to its greatest potential.
Pop News Daily
Most businesses want a cost-effective way to bring in more customers. The challenge is to find prospects who are thinking about your products at the exact time that you reach them.
With Google AdWords, it is possible to target prospects at the very moment they are thinking about buying your products or services. Most of you know how it works: If someone does a Google search on digital cameras, for example, she sees ads for digital cameras. If someone does a search on organically grown coffee beans, he sees ads for organically grown coffee. Google AdWords enables you to implement precisely targeted advertising.
Here’s how to maximize your success with Google AdWords. With proper preparation and execution, starting Google AdWords can be like planting a money tree that will provide your business with a steady stream of revenue.
What Is Google AdWords?
Open up a Web browser and go to the Google Web site. Type in the search term coffee and click search.
Essentially, two types of search results come up: on the left and below are the organic search results that no one has sponsored. On the right side of your browser window and sometimes above the organic results are the Sponsored Links. The Sponsored Links are paid advertisements—they are always identified as such by the heading Sponsored Links.
As participants in this automated auction, each of these advertisers is bidding for the keyword coffee. They pay only if someone is interested enough to click on the advertisement; if nobody clicks on the ad, the cost is zero. The higher the advertiser bids on a keyword, the higher in the rankings the ad appears and the more likely Web searchers will see it. Ranking means visibility, though you do not have to be at the top of the rankings or bid the highest amount for prospects to see your ad and click on it. Your goal is to get the lowest cost per click (CPC) and the highest quality clicks (sales and leads) for your budget.
Finding Your Niche
Sometimes with popular keywords (like coffee), there are many companies competing. On the other hand, popular keywords get millions of searches, so there might be enough clicks to go around.
The only way to find out if a particular keyword will work for you is to try it. The problem is that many other advertisers are bidding for the popular keywords, so your CPC is likely to be high. You are more likely to get a low CPC with more obscure, highly targeted keywords. It will take some thought to come up with the right keywords.
Our coffee roaster would probably want to try the keyword coffee, and watch it like a hawk as it could result in many low-quality clicks (not many conversions to leads or sales). If a keyword does not produce high-quality clicks after a reasonable trial period (a couple of weeks), then remove it; it may even be obvious sooner that a keyword is costing money but not producing results.
Perhaps our coffee roaster sells shade-grown coffee that protects Central American songbird habitat. While far fewer people are searching for shade-grown coffee than just coffee, it is likely to yield a lower CPC and higher quality clicks.
Do some brainstorming and write down an initial list of keywords that match your market niche. This process of finding targeted keywords will be a useful exercise to help you focus your campaigns and maximize your return on investment.
Getting Started
The first thing you need to get started with AdWords is a goal. Is your goal to make direct sales via e-commerce on your Web site? Is your goal to capture sales leads that you can follow-up with and make the sale? Alternatively, is your goal a combination of both? Once you have determined a goal, you need a Web site that helps you achieve that goal.
Your site should be eye-catching and well-organized and should include landing pages for your products or services. To see some examples of landing pages, do a search for your services, and look at what other companies in your market are doing.
The landing page can be your homepage if your site tightly focuses on one product or service you are advertising (e.g., this permission-based email marketing site). Otherwise, the landing page should be within your larger site and should focus on the specific product or service you are advertising.
If you are selling directly from your Web site, it should include a secure e-commerce system. Any good, technically competent Web design firm can set this up for you.
If you want sales leads, then your site should include a call to action to persuade people to request more information. The way they submit a lead is to click on a link to a lead-capture form. You need a form that at a minimum sends you—or the appropriate sales staff—an email, but ideally it should also create a lead for you in a customer relationship management (CRM) system such as SalesForce or SugarCRM.
Whether you are selling directly from your site or capturing leads, your site should always have obvious ways to contact you using whatever method the prospect feels most comfortable using: a contact form, email, or telephone. Some company sites make it hard to figure out how to contact them for more information.
It is important to have a number of people—both inside and outside of your company—test your Web site for usability and ease of use. Prospects should never have to wonder how to buy from you or how to contact you to ask a question about your products or services.
Signing up for Google AdWords
Once you have a goal, Web site, and landing page, you are ready to sign up for Google AdWords. Learn by doing. It is easier to write the advertisement and select keywords using the tools that Google provides during the sign up process.
If you plan to spend at least $30/day on AdWords, Google offers a JumpStart program to help you get started using AdWords. Google JumpStart specialists will help you create a campaign. The cost of the program is $299, but Google will apply that as a credit toward the cost of your initial clicks.
Campaigns and Ad Groups
The Campaign level is where you set your daily budget, language targeting, location targeting, ad distribution preferences, and the start and end dates for your campaigns (if applicable).
The Ad Group level is where enter your keywords and the advertisements themselves. Each Ad Group has one or more ads. Write at least two ads for each ad group so you can try different approaches and compare the results.
In my experience, it has been beneficial to create multiple campaigns so I can experiment with different parameters and compare the results.
Targeting
Choose the language you want to target, and then the countries or territories. This requires some thought. Can you offer your product or service globally, in just the United States, or in just your city or region? You can target your campaign to the world or to specific countries, regions, states, or cities.
For even more precise targeting, you can even target your campaign to a certain number of miles from your business or even an area bounded by coordinates.
Writing Your Advertisements
You have just a 25-character title to get surfers’ attention, and a 70-character ad to get people interested enough to want to click on your ad. It is not a lot of text, so make it pithy.
Write the Headline, the text of the ad, and enter the Display Link (always link to main page of your Web site), and then enter the Destination URL (your landing page). The Destination URL might be your main page or a page within your main site dedicated just to selling the product at hand.
Here’s a fictional ad example:
Headline: Shade Grown Coffee Beans
Description line 1: Shade grown coffee. Tastes
Description line 2: better & saves valuable rainforest.
Display URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com
Destination URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com?&utm_id=coff1
Another example:
Headline: Shade Grown Coffee Beans
Description line 1: Coffee that tastes better and
Description line 2: protects valuable rainforest.
Display URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com/
Destination URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com?&utm_id=coff2
Conversion Tracking
To track the conversion rate of your campaigns—i.e., how many sales or leads you get for your investment—requires a little preparation. You will need to have your webmaster embed snippets of code to the appropriate pages on your Web site. Google explains how to set up and implement your conversion tracking code here, including example code.
Google Analytics
In the fictional advertisement examples I gave, you may have noticed codes in the destination URLs: “coff1″ and “coff2″. These are tracking codes that facilitate the tracking of a wealth of information by Google Analytics.
Google Analytics, which Google has integrated with AdWords, is a very powerful service for tracking the success of both your organic and paid search results for your site. It will help you better understand your site visitors’ experience in detail. In addition, you can learn what keywords bring in the best prospects, and which of your campaigns are delivering the best return on investment. You can use Google Analytics to track marketing campaigns other than AdWords as well.
Google Analytics is too big a topic to cover much here, but I will devote a future article entirely to this powerful marketing tracking service.
Choosing Your Keywords
As I mentioned earlier, it is important to pick good keywords. Initially, choose both general keywords and narrowly targeted keywords, and carefully evaluate the results. Keep keywords that are getting you results, and remove keywords that are not working for you. You will probably need to run your campaigns for a while before you will have enough information to determine which keywords are succeeding for you.
In the keyword space provided in the setup process, list the keywords or keyword phrases you would like to use. Because people tend to type fast when they search the web, be sure to include common misspellings of your keywords. Here are some example keywords that our fictional coffee roaster might use:
* coffee
* coffe
* shade grown coffee
* shade grown coffe
* shade grown
* shade coffee
* coffee shade grown
* shade grown coffee migratory birds
* benefits of shade grown coffee
* gourmet coffee
* gourmet coffee beans
* gourmet coffees
* coffee beans
* gourmet coffee beans
* organic coffee
* organic coffee beans
* certified organic coffee
* coffee beans organic
* mail order organic coffee
* bulk coffee
To get more keywords, enter a keyword into the Keyword Tool Box and click on Get More Keywords. This will generate additional keywords, some of which will be relevant to you and some of which will not be relevant. Keep the relevant keywords and toss the rest.
Now, you have a good starting list. Later, you will want to add new keywords and remove non-performing keywords. A good keyword is one that yields conversions: customers or good leads.
Google Search vs. Google Content Network
Google AdWords can place your add in essentially two places: Google search and the content network. Google search are results from searches that prospective customers do directly using www.google.com. The content network consists of Google partner sites and sites that run advertisements through Google’s AdSense program.
In my experience, Google search has yielded much more quality clicks than the content network. The content network is worth trying, but I recommend putting it into a separate campaign so you can measure its results against your Google search campaign.
The content network is opt-out, and it is not possible to opt out during the setup process. However, to opt out of the content network for a specific campaign, you can go back to campaign settings and uncheck the checkbox for content network.
Then setup a separate campaign where you focus on the content network and opt out of the search network. Compare the results between the two campaigns. It is possible that you will find Google search is more productive than the content network, but of course your results may be different from mine.
If you want to keep it simple until you are more comfortable with AdWords, I recommend starting with just the search network. Then come back in a few weeks and set up a separate campaign to try the content network, then compare the results with what you are getting with the search network.
Your Daily Budget
Your daily budget for your campaign is the ceiling on your daily spending. You can set this number at whatever you want. It is a good idea to start out with a relatively low daily budget while you refine your AdWords effectiveness. As your ad campaigns succeed and bring you more business, you will likely want to increase your budget.
Start with a daily budget of about $10-$15 per day and gradually increase that amount as you fine-tune your approach.
Your Bid
In addition to your daily budget, you will need to set a maximum bid that you are willing to pay as a cost per click (CPC). This requires some trial and error to get right. Being the highest bidder is not really what that you want. Instead, you want to get the most quality clicks you can for your budget. If you bid too high, your CPC will be too high and will eat up your budget too fast; if you bid to low you will not get enough clicks and hence enough sales.
You might try starting with a bid of $2.50, and see what happens for a day or two. Then gradually raise or lower the bid, depending on results. If clicks consume your daily budget in a couple of hours, then lower your bid. If the advertisements are not getting many clicks, then raise your bid. Continue this process until you find the optimal bid.
Leads and Sales
What if visitors are clicking on your ad but are not buying or contacting you? That likely means your ad is working but your site or landing page is not persuading prospective customers to take the next step. It can also mean that your product or service needs some work to become more competitive. Compare what you are offering to what your competitors are offering.
The simplest things can make a dramatic difference. When your landing page is not getting you conversions, change one thing and see what happens over the next day or two. That way, you can determine which changes work. Do not be afraid to try possible solutions, knowing that some changes will fail and some will work well.
Recently, one of our landing pages was not getting enough conversions, so I made some minor changes to the wording on the page and conversions started going up the next day. On another page, we replaced our very simple order form with a much more elaborate version. Our sales for that service immediately plummeted. We simply changed the order form back to the simpler version and sales picked up again immediately.
Harvesting From the Money Tree
The Google AdWords money tree is now planted, optimized, and working to bring you leads and sales. What do you do now? Harvest it, of course, by solid follow-through and providing the best possible service for your clients.
Go back from time to time and take a look at your results. Make adjustments to your budget and bids as needed. Write another advertisement that takes a slightly different tack. Remove an ad that is not producing high quality clicks for you. Make some improvements to your Web site to see whether you can increase your conversion rate.
Practice Kaizen—a Japanese word for continuous, incremental improvement. Even if your Google AdWords money tree is providing good yields, there are always ways to improve its performance.
So pour yourself a cup of good coffee, and get started using Google AdWords today!
eBay Market Watch
What is a Google Sitemap?
A Google Sitemap is a very simple XML document that lists all the pages in your website, but the Google Sitemaps program is actually much more important than that. In fact, the Sitemaps program provides a little peek inside Google’s mind - and it can tell you a lot about what Google thinks of your website!
Why Should You Use Google Sitemaps?
Until Google Sitemaps was released in the summer of 2005, optimizing a site for Google was a guessing game at best. A website’s page might be deleted from the index, and the Webmaster had no idea why. Alternatively, a site’s content could be scanned, but because of the peculiarities of the algorithm, the only pages that would rank well might be the “About Us” page, or the company’s press releases.
As webmasters we were at the whim of Googlebot, the seemingly arbitrary algorithmic kingmaker that could make or break a website overnight through shifts in search engine positioning. There was no way to communicate with Google about a website - either to understand what was wrong with it, or to tell Google when something had been updated.
That all changed about a year ago when Google released Sitemaps, but the program really became useful in February of 2006 when Google updated it with a couple new tools.
So, what exactly is the Google Sitemaps program, and how can you use it to improve the position of your website? Well, there are essentially two reasons to use Google Sitemaps:
Sitemaps provide you with a way to tell Google valuable information about your website
You can use Sitemaps to learn what Google thinks about your website
What You Can Tell Google About Your Site
Believe it or not, Google is concerned about making sure webmasters have a way of communicating information that is important about their sites. Although Googlebot does a pretty decent job of finding and cataloging web pages, it has very little ability to rate the relative importance of one page versus another. After all, many important pages on the Internet are not properly “optimized”, and many of the people who couldn’t care less about spending their time on linking campaigns create some of the best content.
Therefore, Google gives you the ability to tell them on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 how important a given page is relative to all the others. Using this system, you might tell Google that your home page is a 1.0, each of your product sections is a 0.8, and each of your individual product pages is a 0.5. Pages like your company’s address and contact information might only rate a 0.2.
You can also tell Google how often your pages are updated and the date that each page was last modified. For example your home page might be updated every day, while a particular product page might only be updated on an annual basis.
What Google Can Tell You About Your Site
Having the ability to tell Google all this information is important, but you don’t even need to create a sitemap file in order to enjoy some of the perks of having a Google Sitemaps account.
That’s because even without a Sitemap file, you can still learn about any errors that Googlebot has found on your website. As you probably know, your site doesn’t have to be “broken” for a robot to have trouble crawling it’s pages. Google Sitemaps will tell you about pages it was unable to crawl and links it was unable to follow. Therefore, you can see where these problems are and fix them before your pages get deleted from the index.
You can also get information on the types of searches people are using to find your website. Of course, most website analytics tools will give this information to you anyway, but if the tool you use doesn’t have this feature, then it’s always nice to get it for free from Google.
But the best part of the Sitemaps program is the Page analysis section that was added in February of 2006. This page gives you two lists of words. The first list contains the words that Googlebot associates with your website based on content on your site. The second list contains words that Googlebot has found linking to your site!
Unfortunately, Google limits the number of words in each list to 20. As a consequence, the inbound links column is partly wasted by words such as “http”, “www”, and “com” - terms that apply equally to all websites (hey Google, how about suppressing those terms from the report?). That said, this list does provide you with a way to judge the effectiveness of your offsite optimization efforts.
When you compare these two lists, you can get an understanding of what Google thinks your website is about. If the words on your Site Content column are not really what you want Googlebot to think about your site, then you know you need to tweak your website’s copy to make it more focused on your core competency.
If, on the other hand your inbound links don’t contain any keywords that you want to rank well for, then perhaps you should focus your efforts in that direction.
Above all else, you really want these two lists to agree. You want your inbound linked words to match up to the site content words. This means that Google has a clear understanding of the focus of your website.
Additional Benefits of the Sitemaps Program
Google has even started notifying Sitemaps-participating Webmasters if they are breaking any of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This can be very valuable information if your site suddenly becomes de-listed on Google and you don’t know why.
Only Sitemaps participants can get this information, and it is only provided at Google’s discretion. In fact, Google will NOT notify you if you are creating worthless websites that offer no original content, or if you are creating thousands of doorway pages that are redirecting to other web sites. Google doesn’t want to give the sp@ammers any clues as to how to improve their techniques.
How Do You Get Started with Google Site Maps?
The first thing you must do is obtain a Google Account. If you already have a Gmail, Adsense, or Adwords account, then you are all set. If not, you can register an account by visiting the Google Accounts page (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount).
Building your sitemap file is pretty easy to do if you are familiar with XML, and if you aren’t you can always use a third-party tool such as the ones that are listed on Google’s website (http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html). Google also has a “Sitemap Generator” that you can download and install on your server, but unless you are fairly adept at managing Python scripts, you should probably stick to the third-party tools.
At any rate, once you have your Google Account and your Sitemap file built, the rest is very easy. All you have to do is:
Log into your account (http://google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/siteoverview)
Type your website’s URL into the “Add Site” box and click on “OK”
Click on the Manage Sites link for the website you are adding, and add your sitemap file to your account.
Google Sitemaps - An Excellent SEO Tool
Google Sitemaps help Googlebot quickly find new content on your website. They allow you to tell Google what’s important, what’s new, and what changes often. The tools provided to webmasters through the program can play a vital role in helping you understand how the search engines (especially Google) view your website.
Using this information you can dramatically improve the position of your website and quickly clear up any issues Google finds. You can also use the tools provided by Google to gauge the effectiveness of your off-site optimization efforts so you can better focus your time and energy on activities that bring you the most success.
eBay Market Watch
Copyright (c) 2008 Titus Hoskins
Forget the Computer Age or the Internet Age, centuries from now our current time will probably be referred to as the Google Age. This assumption is not exactly a great leap of faith; Google has quickly permeated into mainstream culture to become an underlying factor of everyday life, a tightly woven backdrop to our lives.
But never make the mistake of trying to define Google as just a search engine or you will miss the true calling of this little “Backrub”, which was the original name used by its founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1996.
Google as we now know it debuted in 1998. The name Google is a twist on the word Googol, a number represented as 1 followed by 100 zeros. After everything is said and done, it will more than likely refer to Google’s net worth - monetary or otherwise.
But forget search engine, for regardless of the founders’ intentions or company’s objectives, Google is and has always been the ultimate marketing machine. A massive marketing machine that is just now gearing up and aiming for more and more lofty heights. These heights seem to increase each day as Google quietly rolls out program after program.
All noble ambitions aside, Google is the perfect marketing machine. Google has no equals, and it is very close to getting a stranglehold on the real power behind all marketing, which is information.
Marketing is information. Information is marketing.
Great marketing is supplying the right information at the right time. Google more than any other entity on the web or in the world, for that matter, fulfills this criterion at its very core. Google is re-writing the book on how products are marketed.
Google now has over 60% of the search traffic in the U.S., with a staggering 7.3 billion monthly searches. In some countries Google’s search share is 80% or more. (Source: comScore) Those webmasters who have number one keyword listings in all three of the major search engines will know Google is the only game worth playing because it delivers by far the most traffic.
While MSN and Yahoo! are still major players and are listed in the top 5 traffic sites on the web, what most people don’t realize is that (unlike the other two) almost all of Google’s traffic is search traffic. From a marketing perspective this is extremely important since search traffic can deliver the highest conversions (sales) mainly because it lets you capture the potential customer or client when they are in the right mindset to buy or to perform an action.
Obviously the key to successful marketing is finding the buyers and clients for your products and services. Google has forged itself as the ultimate “middleman” as more and more of the world’s business is performed in cyberspace. And as everyone knows the “middleman” can reap huge profits and hold enormous power.
Google, within its Adsense program, now offers CPA or Cost Per Action where marketers can now receive larger returns for displaying Google’s links on their webpages. As any professional marketer will tell you, you can get 10 times the revenue by promoting affiliate products rather than the Adsense code on your sites. But by adding CPA and other affiliate products within the Adsense program, Google has made it more attractive to serious online marketers.
Another step in that same direction is Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, which includes the massive online affiliate marketing network Performics. This means Google can now bring any customer full-circle from initial search to checkout.
This may have dire consequences for large, lucrative third-party affiliate networks like Commission Junction and LinkShare. Online marketing and ecommerce is growing at a blistering rate, and the company that controls the majority of these transactions will wield enormous power. Will make the Medici look like paupers.
Those marketers who have managed to acquire number one listings for their targeted keywords in Google’s organic search are smiling all the way to the bank. Mainly because Google commands enormous trust with the surfing/buying public and this is demonstrated through higher conversion rates. Likewise, those who have mastered the Adsense and Adwords programs will know Google is an excellent source of online income.
Most of the complaints against Google stems from its PageRank system, which is supposed to be Google’s version of online democracy in action, a link is a vote for your page or content. The higher the number of links, the higher your page will be ranked in Google’s index or SERPs - Search Engine Results Pages.
So far Google has played fair, giving even the smallest webmaster the opportunity to capture top Google listings if they produce superior or popular content to the surfer. Some would even argue Google’s recent crackdown on sites offering paid-links can be seen as evening the playing field for the small webmaster or marketer who obviously doesn’t have the economic clout or resources to buy their way to the top of Google’s listings.
Keyword rankings may be the ultimate equalizer and determiner of online wealth. Those who can reach the top positions for their chosen profitable niche keywords will have companies and service providers lining up to do business with them. The fallout can prove extremely lucrative for both parties.
However, few marketers or webmasters forget who is really holding the cards; Google controls all steps along this marketing tunnel with its search listings, Adwords and Adsense programs. The only dark spot on the horizon could be monopoly issues, but Google probably has enough reservoirs of public goodwill and deep enough corporate pockets to squash any claims.
As Google’s dominance in the search market becomes greater, Google will have control of all segments of the online marketplace. Why should Google stop there, why not go into Radio, TV… as the Internet gradually mutates into a billion+ interactive TV channel universe (as many believe it will) who do you think will be at control central offering you a nice free remote?
Then there is also Google’s planned broadband 700 MHz bid; one can only speculate on Google’s intentions. But Google must find a way to transmit its information at no cost to its users. Could it mean free wireless Internet for everyone on free Google boxes or gadgets of some form, usable and accessible anywhere in the world? Anything is possible because the stakes are so astronomical and the marketing revenue so vast, Google must get its information seamlessly and instantly to the end user at all costs.
One can only guess at the enormity of the marketing power Google will yield in coming years as the Internet slips out of its teen years. But it won’t be just marketing, the influence of Google on all aspects of our lives will probably grow exponentially and that influence will be huge.
For the true power of Google is only just now beginning to be glimpsed; only as more and more of the Google pieces fall into place will we truly fathom what life will be like in the Google Age. Google’s power, reverence and respect will no doubt be so enormous it may lead some to make comparisons to a higher power that has guided most of the life on this planet so far. Which could also lead one to muse, at least they got the first two letters correct.
Search MP3s, Lyrics, Videos
Last month I submitted an application to Google to be considered for their AdSense program. After confirming my e-mail address, almost immediately I was invited to place ads on my website. Within hours I began to accumulate some data on pageviews and click-throughs and could see what my month-to-date total was. I was impressed.
The JavaScript Code When your website is approved, you’ll receive your own publisher number and the appropriate JavaScript code to paste onto your webpages. When your page is displayed, here’s the process that Google probably goes through in showing the ads:
1. A visitor’s web browser requests a page on your site. 2. This activates the JavaScript code on the page, sending the URL of the requested webpage to Google’s database. 3. Google looks up in its database the most prominent keywords or keyphrases for that webpage. 4. Then Google searches for the highest paying ads that match these keywords 5. Google places the appropriate ads on your webpage for your visitor to see — all in seconds. Pretty nifty.
How Much Does Google AdSense Pay? As a publisher, you share in the revenue that Google receives from its PPC ads. Google, however, hasn’t announced a formula for sharing revenue with publishers in its Terms and Conditions document. Google’s audacity to ask publishers to enter into a blind agreement is one measure of publishers’ hunger for advertising dollars — whatever dollars — and an indication of the trust Google experiences in today’s marketplace. So what is the revenue split? We aren’t told, though the actual amounts are proportional to the market value of keywords that describe your content. This gives me some idea of possible gross revenue for my site. I am not at liberty to disclose the average click-through rate and average PPC payment per click on my site, though that information is made available to me daily and cumulatively.
In talking to well-known marketers, I hear guesses of a publisher’s share ranging from 25% to 60%. For all we know Google could be striking different deals with different sites, especially those over 20 million pageviews per month that have greater clout in the marketplace. I would guess the publisher’s share to be as much as 50% of the gross PPC revenue — though I could be way off. None of us has enough information to make an accurate judgment and Google isn’t talking.
What the Godfather gives, we bow and accept gratefully without any questions for fear he might put out a contract on our websites. Here are the factors that contribute to the amount of money you can make on your site:
1. PPC value of the predominant keywords on your website. “Life insurance” for example, would be high. “Fish tank filters” would be low. 2. Amount of traffic you generate to your web pages. 3. Prominence of the Google ads 4. Click-through rate for the ads that appear. 5. The unknown revenue share that Google is paying.
Business-focused sites will do very well with Google AdSense, but information sites that don’t contain high-paying keywords won’t receive nearly as much.
Will They Accept My Site? Google AdSense tells us that the following sites are not acceptable: sites with excessive profanity; hate, violence, racial intolerance, or advocate against any individual, group, or organization; hacking/cracking content; drugs and drug paraphernalia; pornography; gambling or casino-related; content; incentives of any kind for users to click on ads; excessive advertising; other content-targeted and/or text-based ads on the pages displaying AdWords ads; pop-ups that interfere with site navigation or are for downloads; and ads that mimic AdWords ads or appear to be associated with AdWords ads on your site. Google says it will monitor sites that are showing their ads and suspend sites that don’t abide by their rules.
Does a person from Google look at a site before deciding to accept it into the program? If it’s a new site with little traffic, a human surely views the site. Don’t submit a site that isn’t ready for prime time, has “under construction” signs, or looks tacky. It’s a lot easier to get your site ready first, than try to convince Google to re-examine a rejected site. On the other hand, if your site has lots of incoming links and is generously spidered by Google already, you might receive approval within minutes after confirming your e-mail address. Once you are approved, you can login and get HTML to paste into your webpages.
The Automatic Ad Agency If you’ve ever worked with ad agencies or tried to solicit individual advertisers to place ads on your site, then Google AdSense will feel like a breath of fresh air. Google handles the entire relationship with advertisers. There are no run dates for publishers to schedule, no banners to install, no invoicing, no reporting. Just apply, paste in the JavaScript code, and Google’s “automatic advertising agency” works for you day and night finding willing advertisers, taking orders, and matching appropriate advertisers with your site.
Problems for Publishers That doesn’t mean, however, that Google AdSense is problem-free. As I mentioned above, Google’s unwillingness to specify revenue share percentages doesn’t bode well. Sure, Google is just feeling its way in uncharted territory and has to stay profitable when the inevitable competition arises. I don’t think publishers should get too confident in Google’s current largesse. What Google gives, Google can take away — either as a result of economic squeezes or greed. A more mundane problem is finding inappropriate ads appearing on your webpages. Fortunately, this is much easier to fix. You can filter out any ads you find from competitors or that you find distasteful. (I had to exclude some ads for cheapo e-mail addresses to spam with.) Just list the advertiser’s domain name under Advanced Options | Site Filter List.
What do you do when the ad just doesn’t seem to correspond to the content on your webpage? Adding the appropriate keywords or keyphrases to the title tag, Meta description tag, and headlines should help Google do a better job of matching ads with your content.
Problems for Advertisers Advertisers who use Google AdWords have the choice of limiting their ad to show only on the Google search engine, but you can choose whether campaigns also appear on the network of search sites, the network of content sites, or both. Google AdSense on content sites gives advertisers a new opportunity. Previously, their revenues were limited by the click-throughs that could be generated on Google’s search engine and search partner sites. Now the pool of appropriate content sites is greatly widened, offering greater traffic and more sales. But their is a price for this greatly increased ad coverage — potentially lower responsiveness for the same cost per click. When people use a search engine, they are looking for answers or solutions to click on. But when they are reading the text of a content site, they aren’t in the same searching, clicking mode. They’ve already found what they were searching for and are now trying to absorb it. This will affect the click-through rate, but also the likelihood that these users will complete a transaction.
Publishers are rejoicing today. But what if three months from now advertisers come to the conclusion that content sites are less responsive and routinely exclude them from their advertising coverage? Or refuse to pay the same prices for content sites that they do for search engine exposure? It’s too soon to tell.
Implications of Google AdSense One thing is certain: Google AdSense is changing the way websites are being monetized. AdSense “rewards you for creating sites rich in high-quality, focused content … the sort of sites that make the Net a better place.” Google is going to grab a whole lot of business away from those who try to ‘make crime pay’ — no need for nasty tricks, useless marketing gambits, in-your-face ads, etc.
Instead, Google is rewarding those who ‘make grime pay’” — that is, those willing to do the hard work to produce quality, focused content. Thought for today: Should you apply to put Google AdSense on your website? If your site seems appropriate, yes, by all means do so. Google AdSense represents a significant opportunity for content publishers to monetize their content. And so long as this partnership benefits both publishers and advertisers who pay the bills, this could be the start of a new and brighter future for both.
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