Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
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Daily Search Forum Recap: March 5, 2009
Posted: March 5th, 2009, 10:00pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Search Forum Recap
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Advertisers: Are You Noticing Less Searchers?
Posted: March 5th, 2009, 2:57pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdWords
Rimm-Kaufman posted data that shows how their are less people searching for products and services to buy, leading to less sales, which impacts the overall PPC budgets. Yes, all related to this global recession.
I laid out the key points in my Search Engine Land brief:
- Approximately 20% reduction in sales from search ads from last year
- Approximately 20% reduction in his costs from search ads from last year
- The average order value from search ads dropped 10% from last year
- The conversion rate from search ads seemed to remain stable from last year
- There may be more competition in the space, but hard to prove
One advertiser noticed this himself and posted a question at Google AdWords Help asking if others noticed this. The only response we have so far is from a Google representative, AdWordsPro, who wouldn't comment about what Google has seen.
Advertisers, take the anonymous poll and let us know if less people are searching and clicking on your ads.
Less Searches & Clicks For Your Search Ads?
( polls)Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.
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Google Ad Blindness: Google Introduces Expandable AdSense Ads
Posted: March 5th, 2009, 2:43pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google AdSense
In a day and age where 70% of Google publishers are reporting less earnings with Google, Google needs to take bold moves to get more people to see and click on their ads.
Google introduces expandable ads. The ads will be displayed on publisher sites and they can click on the ad to make them expand into a much large ad that overlays over the content of the page. The expandable ads can contain movie streams, show video game clips, or display various views of an item for sale.
Google said this won't disrupt the end user because it has to be clicked on to be expanded, will never be "double its width or height," the "user may close the expanded panel at any time," it won't change your content, and it has to comply with their terms. There is a comprehensive help section devoted to expanded ads at Google AdSense Help.
Here is a sample ad:
Publishers await to see if this helps earn them more money. Who is the real loser here? I guess the searcher or the average consumer. Outside of that, the advertiser, publisher and Google are all winners.
Also, this may lead to publishers trying new tricks to get people to click on the ad. Note, clicking on an ad to expand it does not generate cost to the advertiser, it is only the click that leads to the advertiser's landing page that has any cost.
By the way, Google is also testing more interactive ads, according to Amit Agarwal.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.
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When Search Spam Gets Evil: "Craphat"
Posted: March 5th, 2009, 2:32pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Spam
There are different levels of search spam. Some search spam involves creating spam on sites you control. Some spam involves injecting links into third party sites, hacking sites, infecting computers, phishing attempts and so on. Where does search spam cross that line and become "evil." That is somewhat of a debate, but Danny Sullivan is coining the term "craphat" in order to differentiate between "blackhat" and "whitehat" SEO. Because, many believe that "blackhat" SEO is not necessarily "evil" and that some people who consider themselves "blackhat" go to extremes that make some "blackhats" not want to be considered blackhat anymore. Which is why I think the industry hats and colors are melting a bit.
Danny created a Sphinn thread to discuss this topic, the topic of "craphat" SEO. How does Danny define this work?
Real crap? Automated link drops. Anyone who runs a blog, look at the shit that your comment filter catches automatically. It’s a crap harvest. Manual off-topic link drops, like we delete routinely here. Gibberish pages that say nothing and serve no purpose either than to get a rank and shove some Google AdSense ads at the top of them. Or one of my favorite examples, or not so favorite because it’s so sad, how a memorial site that Mike Grehan did for a friend got covered in link spam, adding to the further stress his widow was already under.
Danny thinks the industry should "try to stamp out." But being a realist, Danny knows "it won’t get stamped out," but adds, that it "doesn’t mean we shouldn't try."
Spam is getting worse and worse by the day and people are going to extremes they may have never thought they would go to. Matt Cutts discussed this in detail with his Virtual Blight video.
How can we make a difference and help prevent this type of stuff? Can we?
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
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Google Confirms Algorithm "Change" But Down Plays Brand Push
Posted: March 5th, 2009, 2:13pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: Google Optimization
About a week and a half ago, there was the start of discussion around Google's brand push in the algorithm. Some people started noticing that for some queries (mostly generic queries), more "big brands" were showing up in the search results.
The discussion started at WebmasterWorld and then Aaron Wall provided some statistical data to back the rumors. HuoMah, then chimed in, trying to keep SEOs on their feet and thinking logically about this.
In any event, Matt Cutts of Google made a video talking specifically about this change:
In the video at 1 minutes and 17 seconds in, Matt said, they made a "change" but he wouldn't call it an "update", but rather a "minor change." In fact, in Google they call it the Vince's change (see 1 minute 30 seconds in). In short, he said this impacts a relatively small number of queries, not the long tail ones and it is more about "trust," the "quality" of the page, the page's "PageRank" and "value" then about brands.
One example he gives at 2m12s is that if you type in eclipse into Google, the first result is not from Mitsubishi. So he says it is not "brand" focused but more about trust.
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.
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Are You Still Offering SEO Services Paid By Performance?
Posted: March 5th, 2009, 2:03pm CET by rustybrick
Tags: SEM SEO Companies
There are many ways to price your services. In the SEO world, you can charge a monthly fee, you can charge by hour, you can charge for results, you can take a piece of the action and so on. The Pay for Performance model is popular amongst some SEO firms, while others prefer the steady and secure income of other pricing models.
Search Engine Guide has a very nice write up on this model named Is the Pay-for-Performance SEO Model Still Viable? The article goes into the various forms of Pay for Performance, including (1) Pay Per Ranking (2) Pay for Traffic and (3) Pay Based on Revenue. Stoney deGeyter shares his personal experience with these models and concludes "while some SEOs have figured out how to make the pay-for-performance pricing model work for them, I remain skeptical."
There are over twenty comments on that article and it went hot on Sphinn. I thought we run a poll, asking you guys, do you still offer Pay for Performance payment models in this new economy? Take the poll:
Do You Offer Pay For Performance SEO Packages?
( surveys)Forum discussion at Sphinn.