Mar 01

The Bing Challenge Daily Journal: Week 1 Search Results

by | March 1st, 2011 | Posted in Search Engines | Comments Off on The Bing Challenge Daily Journal: Week 1 Search Results

The Bing Challenge Daily Journal Search Results


Day 1: Notable Spidering & Indexing Frequency Issues – Tuesday, March 1st

The Bing.com Challenge Day 1, Tuesday March 1st (2011-03-01)Today being the first day of The Bing Challenge was a busy one with client meetings in Downtown Minneapolis, an hour long webinar on landing page conversion testing, and first of the month client SEM reporting and analysis. Being busy was good because I didn’t have the time to be tempted by Google. Sheesh, this ain’t so hard. Only 30 more days to go!

Mar 01

The Bing Challenge: 31 Days of Google Free Search. Can It Be Done?

by | March 1st, 2011 | Posted in Search Engines | Comments (6)

Introducing Bing, again
It’s been almost 2 years since Bing launched in June of 2009. Yea, I know. TWO YEARS. Like many other search engine marketers I waited… and waited… and waited… and continued to wait and wonder if Microsoft’s new engine was going to stick around, or if it was destined to fade away with the likes of Northern Light, Excite, Infoseek, DirectHit and countless others that ended up in the Searching Graveyard.

Well. It’s still here. And it’s bigger than ever.

Recent surveys suggest that Bing powered searches have grown to almost 30% of the total U.S. search market. That is a larger audience than any other search engine has had, in what, 5 years? This is due in large part to the completion of their Search Alliance with Yahoo and the fact Microsoft is a marketing machine. And even though PPC search traffic from the Binghoo merger is currently only coming in at 70% of combined pre-Alliance traffic levels, search marketers now only have to manage a single AdCenter platform.

Bing Still Searching For Love

Dec 12

WebRanking’s Guide to Portland Online

by | December 12th, 2010 | Posted in Conferences and Seminars, Portland Events | Comments Off on WebRanking’s Guide to Portland Online

Downtown Portland & the Hawthorne Bridge

Downtown Portland & the Hawthorne Bridge

Portland is a thriving city with a heavy focus on sustainability, food, beer and tech. As our city continues to grow, everyday seems to offer new and exciting activities, events and retail experiences for the entire family.

Looking for a new restaurant? Like most you probably turn towards Yelp. But what about the food cart scene? Did you know that there is a fantastic web site dedicated to all things food carts? Well, there is.

You know you love grabbing a pint of beer with your office pals after work, but wouldn’t it be nice to get some inside information on the newest brew pubs, or find out what’s currently on tap at your favorite watering hole? Well, there’s a site for that (and an app too).

Nov 09

How To Succeed on Yelp (Without Even Really Trying)

by | November 9th, 2010 | Posted in Local Marketing, Top 10 Lists | Comments (3)

Yelp Logo

WebRanking is proud to present the following guest blog post by Don Bourassa, the Portland Community Manager for Yelp.com.  We wanted to personally thank Don for taking time out of his busy schedule to put together this informative post featuring 8 tips to help local businesses find success on Yelp.

Take it away, Don…

As the Portland Community Manager for Yelp.com, the number one question I hear from business owners is: How do I make Yelp work for me? The value of positive consumer reviews (and even some negative ones) to sustain and grow business is beyond obvious, but in a social media market dominated by broadcasting tools, Yelp’s model for business/consumer interaction can be a learning curve for some. Here are some do’s and don’ts to help you reap the benefits of the lush information available in consumer reviews.

1. Do: Join the conversation!

Last month alone, Yelp had more than 38 Million Visitors

Last month alone, Yelp had more than 38 Million Visitors

Every day on Yelp, millions of people (38 million last month alone) are searching, reading, and writing reviews of businesses like yours. They’re discussing your products, your service and really everything about your business. And as with any conversation, you have two roles to play: listen, and respond. Yelp gives you the tools (for free) to do both.

How, you ask? By unlocking your Business Owner Account on Yelp, you have access to a bevy of tools that allow you to do things like track page hits, post special offers and announcements, respond to reviews (both publicly and privately), add and correct information about your business like address and phone number, complete an About This Business summary, recommend other businesses, and share your business’ history.

Oct 19

Is Lead Fraud, Click Fraud 2.0? A New AdSense Scam Targeting Google AdWords Display Network Advertisers

by | October 19th, 2010 | Posted in Analytics, Pay Per Click | Comments (10)
What do Google AdWords PPC, Fake Leads, Click Fraud and Identity Theft Have in Common?

What does Pay Per Click Fraud, Fake Leads and Identity Theft have in common? Answer: The Google AdWords Display Network

Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to read is true. Not even the names have been changed to protect the innocent. What follows is an account of what at first seemed like a few fraudulent leads, but upon closer inspection included stolen personal information, unscrupulous AdSense publishers and a blind eye turned by those making money through these deceptive means.

Google AdWords Display/Content Network

Google AdWords Display Network (formerly the Content Network)

Following, are just the facts…

The purpose of this post is to draw attention to a fraudulent and deceptive practice that WebRanking has recently been a victim of involving:

  • the Google AdWords Display Network – the advertising platform that this fraud manipulated on.
  • a Google AdSense affiliate – google_ad_client = “pub-7355375012544009”; who utilized and connected to sites such as worldtool.net and bikini-wall.com.
  • Ngoc Ha Nguyen, WorldTool.net and server4vn.com – The alleged offending entities.
  • Blogspot.com (aka Blogger.com) – a Google owned property that facilitated and hosted some of the AdWords ads that generated Fraudulent Clicks and Leads.
  • Click Fraud – the manner in which We, and most likely other AdWords advertisers, have been defrauded.
  • Identity Theft – Stolen personal information of identity theft victims were used to generate fake web leads through this scam.
  • WebRanking has made an honest and sincere attempt to understand this scam, connect as many of the details together as possible, and make this information available in it’s true form.

    However, only Google has the data regarding the true identities of AdSense publishers, Blogspot account holders, fraudulent visitors’ IP addresses and the parties whom benefit financially from this fraud.

    If you believe that you may have been a victim of click-fraud through the Google Display Network that resulted in fraudulent leads, please contact Google directly.

    Leads for top level, well known brands, at least for our boutique search agency, don’t come around every day. Or even every month for that matter. And when they do, they usually don’t fill out the “Free Consultation” request form.

    And you certainly don’t get 9 in a one week time period.

    In The Beginning…

    Jul 16

    Understanding Google AdWords Pay Per Click Keyword Match Types: Exact, Phrase, Broad, and +Modified +Broad

    by | July 16th, 2010 | Posted in Keyword Research, Pay Per Click | Comments (28)

    Google AdWords Logo


    Yes! It finally happened. Earlier this week, on July 14th, Google AdWords rolled out their new Broad Match Modifier (BMM) keyword matching option to all of their advertisers in the United States. Since BMM had previously only been available to AdWords advertisers in the UK and Canada, it’s release to US campaigns is something that has been eagerly awaited.

    Google AdWords New Broad Match Modifier - BMM

    When AdWords first announced the new modified broad keyword matching, they released an infographic to help marketers visually understand how BMM works and relates to existing match types. The infographic shows a very small set of examples of keyword matches that you can expect to have your text ads displayed for.

    New Pay Per Click Keyword Match Types

    After spending a month running and analyzing modified broad match keywords in a few Canadian AdWords campaigns, we developed a few matching techniques and initial bidding strategies that are represented in the following infograph. We feel that this is a better representation of the tiered levels of match type bidding, traffic potential and keyword matching. In particular we have expanded upon the new BMM match types with 3 possible levels of matching that we call: “Anchor Modified Broad Match“, “Dual Anchor Modified Broad Match“, and “Fully Modified Broad Match“.

    Google AdWords Pay Per Click Keyword Match Types: Exact, Phrase, Expanded Broad and Modified BMM (Broad Match Modifier)

    Google AdWords Pay Per Click Keyword Match Types: Broad, Anchor Modified, Dual Anchor, Full Modified, Phrase and Exact Match.

    Jun 23

    Google’s Keyword Broad Match Modifier: The AdWords PPC Targeting Savior

    by | June 23rd, 2010 | Posted in Keyword Research, Pay Per Click | Comments (16)

    First off, before I get into praising (below) the new Google AdWords’ Broad Match Modifier (BMM), let me state for the record that I have been extremely disappointed with Google’s “Expanded Broad Match” since it’s inception!

    Google AdWords

    Why?

    Well, when Google AdWords first changed their normal Broad Match keyword targeting to this Expanded Matching option, I half jokingly referred to it as their new Pay Per Click “Money Algorithm”. This term seemed to fit very well because this “Mo-gorithm” took perfectly good broad keywords and corrupted their individual intent by algorithmically matching them to many different words for the sake of displaying higher bidded terms over many queries, thus inflating competition for search impressions and causing AdWords advertisers to lose a substantial amount of control of their targeting capabilities.

    Here is an example of the loss of control and “Expanded Targeting” that Google’s current broad match triggers:

    May 25

    3 Social Media Guidelines for Keeping Your Private Parts Private

    by | May 25th, 2010 | Posted in Social Media | Comments (4)

    Are your private parts private on your social media accounts?

    Are your private parts private on your social media accounts?

    There has been a lot of discussion as of late regarding Facebook and their new “Your Information is not as private as you might have thought it was” privacy policy. While I really don’t have anything new to add directly to this conversation that hasn’t already been said, it does lead to a discussion about the importance of filtering your social media presence for both your personal and professional personas.

    By keeping the following simple guidelines in mind you can hopefully avoid those awkward “I can’t believe my Mom now knows I party like that” moments.

    May 21

    Google Celebrates PAC-MAN’s 30th Anniversary with an Interactive Video Game Logo

    by | May 21st, 2010 | Posted in Search Engines | Comments (1)

    Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 marks the 30 year anniversary of when the Pac-Man video game was released. To celebrate this phenominal interactive computing milestone, Google has changed their homepage logo to an interactive one that you can play the Pacman game live, online and right from Google.com. Pretty Cool!

    Google PAC-MAN 30th Anniversary Interactive Video Game Logo

    Google PAC-MAN 30th Anniversary Interactive Video Game Logo

     
    Watch a video of me wasting time playing Field Testing this interactive search engine feature:

    May 06

    Google Officially Launches New Logo and Search Page Layout

    by | May 6th, 2010 | Posted in Search Engines | Comments (10)

    Google New SERPs Navigation

    Google New SERPs Navigation


     
    It’s official! Google has officially launched their new search engine result pages (SERPs) format and also an updated and cleaner looking logo.

    We first noticed Google testing their new SERPs format back in April.

    Since then we have been left to wonder if and when the new search page layout would go live ad if there were any changes that would be made to their format as well.

    It appears that the only thing missing from the early tests is the “Not Entirely Unlike” section.

    From “Not Entirely Unlike” to “Something Different”

    Google SERP Test: "Not Entirely Unlike"

    Test SERP: Not Entirely Unlike

    New SERPs: Something Different

    New SERPs: Something Different

    Google Logos – Then and Now

    Googles Original Logo

    Google's Original TM Logo

    Google's New Logo

    New Cleaner Looking Google Logo

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