jadmin Site Reference has a new article on Google’s new semantic indexing in it’s algorithm. While search engines have traditionally focused on keyword density and link popularity, the semantic web promises relevancy based on natural language. The article is a great introduction to the concepts of semantic indexing.
Terry Semel, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Yahoo warned that ad sales were growing in two key sectors, but not growing as quickly as they had hoped. Semel’s warning was about the Auto and Financial services sectors. He added: “But Yahoo was careful to note that it cannot tell whether the current slowdown is a sign of broader trouble or is limited to ads from the auto and financial sectors.“
Favicons are the small icons you might see for sites in your favorites / web bookmarks. While they have been around a while, some browsers show them to you more prominently than others. IE 7, due out any time now, uses the tabbed browsing features that have made Firefox, Flock and Safari such popular browsers. IE7’s tabs will show your favicon (if you have one), and give your site a boost in professionalism among your visitors. If your site was developed by Hyper Dog Media, rest assured your site already has a favicon: We make it standard issue of the sites we develop. If you need a favicon, you may find this free favicon generator tool to be helpful.
A new article titled Top Ten Cameras on Flickr is a brilliant idea. The article has already been featured on Slashdot.org. The website it resides on will receive both excellent exposure(from a great demographic!), and tremendous page relevancy for the keywords “Top Ten Cameras”. It is hard for me to think this happened by accident, of course! What makes the article much more compelling than other articles circulating on the internet with that topic? Well, this article uses info from Flickr to automatically generate the list. Without that nugget, this list would be the same as every other “Top Ten Cameras” on every other Camera review blog. With such an interesting twist, this article is a coup for a very competitive keyphrase. How could you create such a list for your website? What unique twist would captivate your audience?
RSA Security’s newest password management survey found that one of the greatest threats to corporate security is the weak password. Employees that change their too often, or have to juggle too many passwords for login to various services, are likely to choose weak passwords or even write them on a scrap of paper near their station. I am a little suspicious a survey that highlights RSA security as the solution to this problem, but it is valuable to stop and ask yourself “Do I have too many passwords to keep track of?”. Sure, too many passwords lead to “irresponsible password behavior”. A single login and password for every service is usually a bad idea, too. Once an intruder has access, they could wreak tremendous havoc. A sensible alternative is to choose Four passwords that you can actually remember. Make each password incrementally more random, if possible. Choose the weakest password, and use it to sign up for services that only need a password for the most rudimentary of tasks. Use the “second level” password for sites that may have some personal information – your name, address, etc. Save the “third level” password for sites that have your credit card on file. The final password is to be used only in online banking and/or paypal. Gee, so simple. But who can keep track of Four passwords, anyway?! Good luck out there – no one ever said good security was easy! (More information on the password survey)
Some page content can give Google’s AdSense the wrong impression of what your page may be about. On a page with multiple topics, your AdSense ads can come up with ads that are neither relevant nor profitable. To get around this problem, Google AdSense has a little known feature called “Section Targeting”. To particularly emphasize a section, enclose the text in these tags: <!– google_ad_section_start –> The text to be emphasized is here <!– google_ad_section_end –> To have a section of text ignored, use this variation: <!– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) –> Text to ignore goes here <!– google_ad_section_end –> There is currently no limit as to how often you can use these tags. However, it may take one or two weeks before you see any changes. It is important to give AdSense big chunks of text to work with – avoid giving sections of text that are too small.
A couple of high profile lawsuits against Google and Yahoo Search Marketing have made smaller advertisers stop and think about how much fraud might be happening in their PPC campaigns. After stopping and thinking, however, many search advertisers are willing to live with click fraud. How to investigate click fraud Several AdWords consultants we work with will not even investigate click fraud for clients without a certain minimum of AdWords business (think thousands per month). It just isn’t worth the effort, unfortunately. To investigate, precise traffic measurements and testing procedures must be enacted. This is beyond most AdWords consultants, as it is more of a technical process than a marketing one. Who are these PPC clickers / fraudsters? A few reports have appeared in the news the last few years highlighting houswives in India making $300/month extra income by clicking ads. A Black Hat SEO technique is to click your competitor’s ads until their daily budget is expended. While Google and Yahoo Search Marketing do make efforts to prevent click fraud, obviously more could be done. As long as money is to be made in Google Adwords, most advertisers are going to be too busy honing their campaigns instead of focusing on click fraud.
Slashdot has an interesting discussion about the Ultimate Blog Post. If you want to reap the traffic(and/or server downtime) that can result from a post on slashdot, digg or stumbleupon, it is important to consider what stories get the most exposure. Also consider whether your affiliate ads or products/services are correctly targeted to the demographic that will be visiting.
Companies like Burger King are using mySpace and facebook profiles to market directly to certain demographics. As younger audiences are lucrative and maybe a little too marketing saavy, companies are setting up profiles to target customers in a familiar setting. Business Week has an interesting article on Burger King and Chase marketing to kids where they live.
