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July 2, 2009
The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) has announced a set of rules over consumer privacy with regard to online advertising, particularly behavioral targeting. You can read IAB’s official press release, or you can get the watered-down version here.
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of behavioral targeting, it is basically a method of serving ads (usually graphical banner ads) based on your prior web usage. Huge networks of otherwise unrelated websites watch what you look at and serve ads based on your interests. For example, recently I was in the market for new golf clubs. I searched for different brands, checked out lots of websites, and pretty soon wherever I went (web mail, news sites, other non-golf related sites), I saw ads for golf merchandise.
I don’t think this will have a major impact on the online marketing world. Savvy web users know there is nothing nefarious about behavioral targeting, and most people won’t take the time to opt-out anyway, but it is worth keeping an eye on.
Filed under: Online Marketing |
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May 27, 2009
Apparently, Microsoft’s Search Engine turkey is done, as they announce “Bing”, a new search engine poised to compete with Google. Reportedly, Microsoft is planning to devote up to $100MM in advertising for “Bing” (compared to Google’s $25MM annual budget).
Filed under: Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization |
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May 13, 2009
I’m sure Google Profiles have been around for a while and — like most additional services on Google — I’ve just been ignoring it, but this recent article in Newsweek piqued my interest.
With a GMail account, you can create a Google Profile with some basic information like employment history, education, interests, and a short bio. You can check out mine here.
Right off the bat, it shows up at the bottom of the 1st page of organic rankings for my name (as well as variations like “Matthew Durgin”). Google claims that with a little click activity, this profile can actually rise in the rankings as well.
This looks to be a good self-promotion vehicle for your professional career. It’s a good reputation management tool for individuals and business alike.
Filed under: Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization |
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February 13, 2009
So, it appears that Google Audio is going away, and while it probably makes business sense for Google, it’s a product I am certainly going to miss.
For those of you that never used it, now is the time to get dirt-cheap broadcast radio advertising before the product officially disappears at the end of May.
I’ve been using this product for a year or so, and let me tall you, it really was a steal. For about $10, you could get a 30-second radio spot virtually anywhere in the country. Google sold this by CPM (based on Arbitron ratings), so more popular stations were more expensive, but at the end of the day, it came down to about a $5-8 CPM. Pretty cheap for offline, broadcast radio.
Every client I showed this to was awestruck at the affordability and the variety of available stations (Google partnered with Clear Channel on this). Unfortunately, these low, low prices probably didn’t work out too well for Google.
Filed under: Uncategorized |
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October 24, 2008
I’ve been trying to keep pretty active in the Top-Level Domain space since ICANN announced that we will no longer be bound by .com, .net, .edu, etc., and will be allowing partied to register new TLDs like .money, .paris, etc. in 2009.
ICANN finally released some information on the new TLD implementation. You can read about it here. ICANN has released a lot of details, but perhaps most important is the application fee of $185,000. This effectively puts new TLDs out of the reach of most of us, keeping them for corporations and governments, which is almost certainly what ICANN intended.
Frankly, I have no problem with this. The new TLDs are going to be confusing to most web users who are accustomed to going to .coms all the time. By keeping this restricted to large entities, it makes this transition more understandable. .espn makes sense. .mattdurgin does not.
Filed under: Online Marketing, Top Level Domains |
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September 30, 2008
Back in 2001 I was 24, fresh out of college, and earning less than my rent. Good times. Where were you? Where was your website ranked in Google??
Google has released a cool new little application to allow you to search their engine as it existed in 2001. Check it out here.
Filed under: Search Engine Optimization |
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September 5, 2008
You’ve probably heard that Google has launched its own free-to-use browser, called Google Chrome. This comes after years of Google’s open support of other freeware browsers, particularly Firefox.
Eric Lander has a nice summary here.
I’ve read and viewed numerous opinions on the new browser, but the functionality doesn’t really interest me. I’m much more interested in what Google is hoping to achieve. I don’t think it is as simple as attempting to steal away some of the Microsoft IE market share. I mean, who cares? IE already comes installed on every Windows PC and always will.
My guess is that Chrome is really just a vehicle to get people to Google’s other free tools, especially Google Docs. With Chrome, users can now use a Google browser to access Google word processing and spreadsheet tools. Thus, IE and MS Office are unnecessary. Of course, you still need Windows or some other operating system to run your computer… but I’m guessing Google will address this in the not-too-distant future as well.
Filed under: Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization |
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June 27, 2008
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the governing body for the administration of the Internet in the United States, has announced that they will offer unrestricted top-level domains. To put it mildly — this is huge.
Top-level domains (TLDs) are things like .com, .net, .org. — the extensions at the end of URLs. By opening this up, we can soon see web addresses like “shop.bestbuy”, “work.bestbuy”, “service.bestbuy”.
This is really going to revolutionize the structure of the internet, and enterprising companies are already forming to assist organizations in handling this. TLD Managers, for example, formed just hours after the announcement.
More to come on this, I’m sure.
Filed under: Uncategorized |
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June 24, 2008
I got an email this morning from Omniture announcing their new “Omniture Survey” product. This is a product to host and serve online surveys to your website visitors, similar to what ForeSee Results has been doing for years.
It’s a logical addition to a pure-play analytics package. Omniture has coverage for SEM with their SearchCenter platform, and now online surveys. I’d love to see them make a bigger splash in organic search and display advertising to round out a more comprehensive online marketing suite.
And, I can’t help but wonder how long it will take Google to offer the same survey functionality for free…
Filed under: Online Marketing, Web Analytics |
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June 13, 2008
It was announced today that Yahoo, failing to secure a deal with Microsoft, has partnered with Google. It’s a non-exclusive, meaning that Yahoo can and will continue to serve PPC ads from their own Panama system, as well as others (MSN/Live?). The deal is reportedly going into effect in September.
Presumably, you will soon be able to traffic ads on the Yahoo search network through Google AdWords.
It smacks of a move by Yahoo to stay afloat and relevant, while also further strengthening their chief competitor.
Filed under: Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) |
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