| LED Digest 2047: AdWords vs Overture PPC |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest post, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. November 16, 2005 Issue #2047 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ======= NEW ===================== --== Anybody Using Google Analytics? ==-- ~ Rich Dudley "...you're essentially agreeing to share site information with Google..." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== AdWords vs Overture PPC ==-- ~ Carrie MacKenzie "Google ate up the money very quickly, and Overture converted more sales..." --== The Business of Accounting ==-- ~ Carrie Cassidy "...remember to discuss how to protect your personal property." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Google Droppings ==-- ~ Michael Martinez ======== NEW ==================================== From: Richard Dudley Subject: Google Analytics I'm curious if anyone's looked into Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/). Some time ago, Google purchased Urchin, which was one of my favorite webstats packages, and has now relaunched it as a hosted service branded "Google Analytics". It's apparently free for now, and probably will remain so, since the information is all posted back to Google, they're literally reaping a goldmine of information. All a site owner needs to do is add a small JavaScript to each page, and you're good to go. For site owners, you're getting a very decent stats package for free, and good information about who's visiting your site, but you're essentially agreeing to share that information with Google, who can include it in whatever public aggregations they see fit. I have reservations about that. Personally, I look at what stats packages a host offers, and only host with those who have good stats packages with the hosting plan. Rich Dudley www.bloomeryweddings.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Carrie MacKenzie Subject: Pay per click - AdWords vs Overture > In my experience, you get more clicks for the $$ > from Adwords, but the rate of conversion is much > more volatile - and ultimately slower - than Overture's. > True? False? Anecdotal at best? - Noah Masterson, LED 2046 In my experience, that is true. Google ate up the money very quickly, and Overture converted more sales, although I found if I was in the top 3, both just ate up the money quickly, so with Overture, I ended up striving to be 5th or 6th, as I seemed to get more serious inquiries in that spot, and I cancelled Google. I will likely be cancelling Overture and Looksmart in January as well... but if I ever need to go back to pay per click... it will be Overture that I return to first. I will be keeping my pay per clicks on Bridal Network, as it has worked out well for me with it's highly targetted audience. Thanks :) Carrie MacKenzie ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Carrie Cassidy Subject: Accounting > ... what information and paperwork should I gather > before my first consultation [with my accountant]...? > Any other tax / finance / business-related tips? - Noah Masterson, LED 2046 When you meet with your accountant, remember to discuss how to protect your personal property. Depending on the type of company you construct, your personal assets may be vulnerable if you were to be sued or fined by a taxing authority. There are simple things like whose names appear on personal checking and savings accounts, that are obvious to an accountant and not so obvious to a busy entrepreneur. Of course, complex arrangements like how the company is held (sole proprietorship, inc., llc, subchapter S, etc.) would need the accountant's input and possibly a lawyer's as well. Yes, it's a pain, but the pain of preparation is small by comparison to the pain of error. Carrie Cassidy ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Michael Martinez Subject: Google droppings > We've heard word that Google is going through a massive > update, nicknamed "Jagger," that seems to be giving big > benefits to long-established "authority" sites and giving big > penalties to sites that use hidden text, bad linking strategies, etc. - Beth Ann Earle, LED 2046 The October 2005 Google Update has now finished and many sites which had lost their rankings during the update have since returned to the top ten. The in-update speculation about what Google might be going after was -- as usual -- largely off-base and completely unwarranted. However, some people reported in detail -- especially toward the end of the update -- results they were seeing for some of their own sites. I also had the opportunity to examine many Web sites that I don't control. There does appear to be a discernible pattern in the aftermath of this latest update. Google may have developed a methodology for profiling backlinks. They have never demonstrated this kind of capability in the past. It appears to me that the pages which have not returned to top ten listings rely predominantly on one type of inbound linkage. One site I examined had a lot of duplicate content (autogenerated for users, unintentionally left unblocked for crawlers). The links on those duplicate pages would all have looked the same. One site I examined, and several other people who have written about some of their own sites dropping, relied almost completely on directories for backlinks. These are not "bad" directories, but rather are standard business directories, yellow pages directories, etc. I use many of them in my daily research, and they are not simply trying to get people to click on Javascript ads from Google and Yahoo! And several people have indicated that, of their sites which rely extensively on reciprocal linkage, all seem to have remained sunk deep in the search results. So, putting all these indications together, I feel that Google has found a way to determine if your backlinks come from similarly structured pages. Think of it as Google stripping away most of the content to look at how the pages are built. They figured out how to filter fake directories in their July 2005 update. Now they seem to have a means for identifying a page structure. Hence, if all your links come from a homogenous class of sites (only directories, or only reciprocal links, or only autogenerated content, etc.), Google seems to understand this. The sites that have sprung back up in the listings have anywhere from a few dozen to a few thousand links. Number of backlinks doesn't matter. There is no indication that "quality" matters, either. Rather, it all points to whether your links are derived from a variety of page types or just one type of page. So, while the SEO community will undoubtedly question and debate this and other analyses, I think people are going to have to look at Link Balancing for their link building campaigns. Google wants to see natural linkage. Right now, the standard advice that is given out in many SEO forums and tutorials is to go submit your site to directories, exchange links (1-on-1) with other sites, write articles for free article submission services, distribute press releases, and add content to your site. Several people have now speculated openly that Google may next turn its attention to all the fluff articles and press releases that have been published over the past 18 months. I tend to agree. I think the Google engineers read enough SEO forums and tutorials to know what the current trends in manipulation are. So, free article submission and press releases may or may not continue to be helpful. It's time to become innovative again, before the curve shifts (as it always does). Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "We're having something a little different this year for Thanksgiving. Instead of a turkey, we're having a swan. You get more stuffing." - George Carlin |
