| LED Digest 2180: Who's Using AdWords? |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom 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 adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. June 12, 2006 Issue no. 2180 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ======= NEW ==================== --== Who's Using AdWords? ==-- ~ Martha Retallick "What successes are you having?" ==== CONTINUING ================= --== The Sandbox Myth ==-- ~ Steve Pronger "I believe the sandbox effect is quite real and understandable. I've seen it happen..." ~ Chris Nielsen "I'm not sure what this has to do with the idea of the Sandbox..." ~ M. Motherwell "The problem is that we aren't discussing anything we have defined." --== AdSense Experiences? ==-- ~ Mark Roberts "I noticed that 95%+ [AdSense ads] were to my direct competitors." ~ Allan Gardyne "I wish the AdSense rules allowed us to discuss specifics." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Blogging for Revenue ==-- ~ Martha Retallick =========== NEW ================================== From: Martha Retallick Subject: AdWords While we're on the topic of AdSense, I was wondering if we could take a side trip over to the world of AdWords. As in, who's using them? What successes are you having? Reason for my question: I'm using AdWords to build traffic to one of my sites. I can't say that my budget's getting hammered by clickers who aren't becoming customers. Quite the opposite. I'm in search of clicks. Martha Retallick Western Sky Communications http://www.westernskycommunications.com ======== CONTINUING =============================== From: Steve Pronger Subject: Sandbox myth > I probably won't listen unless you have a high-level graduate > degree and/or considerable experience in information retrieval > systems. I don't consider anecdotal evidence as proof. - Shari Thurow, LED 2177 > It makes perfect sense to me that Google would treat new sites > differently than sites that have a history and I think the sandbox > effect is the result of testing and observation. - Chris Nielsen, LED 2178 Makes perfect sense to me as well Chris. Now I realize that many people blame the sandbox for poor search engine performance, when in fact it's often due to the site not being well optimised or linked. Often the site has not even been fully indexed, in which case it will never rank well. I can usually get most of my sites fully indexed within about a week. For LEDers who are having trouble getting their sites indexed I've included my "to do" list at the end of this post. But, for Shari to suggest that only those who posses a "high-level graduate degree" have any insight as to how search engines deliver results, is rather presumptuous, if not plain arrogant. So, even though Shari has dismissed my argument before I've even made it, I'm going to make it anyway. I've been building sites for a while and believe I have a fair idea of what it takes to get them to deliver decent search engine results. I believe the sandbox effect is quite real and understandable. I've seen it happen many times. Here's an example; http://www.bestbusinessbuyes.com.au is a client's site which lists businesses for sale. It's a very active site and is updated almost daily. It currently ranks well on the 3 majors for it's targeted keywords. But for many months Google just would not rank it. On MSN and Yahoo it was #1 for "business broker australia". On Google, nowhere. Not even in the first 100 pages. Good content, frequently updated, dozens of high quality inbound links, good PageRank, Yahoo directory listing, on-page optimization etc. Nowhere. Just didn't make sense. Out of frustration I started an AdWords campaign. Within days it started showing up in similar positions to MSN and Yahoo in organic results. Was the AdWords campaign the "trigger" which released it from the sandbox? At the time I suspected it must have been, but I've tried the same thing on other sandboxed sites without the same thing happening. Perhaps it was a coincidence. But it seems obvious to me, that a site which ranks well on other search engines to go from nowhere to top 10 overnight, and not gradually climb the rankings as you would expect a site with growing content and links to do, has been deliberately held back. What was the trigger? Time delay period passed? Who knows. Perhaps someone with a high-level graduate degree can explain it to me. Anecdotal? Unscientific? Perhaps. Maybe I should go get that degree. But I suspect I'll come to the same conclusion. Call it what you will, but Google insists on making sites prove their worth before they are allowed out to play. Here's my "to do" list for fast indexing, if not necessarily fast ranking. 1. Create a Google Site Map This is not the same as a regular sitemap on your site. It's a special file which you create and upload to your site. Google will use this file to spider all your pages and even report back to you on your indexing stats, HTTP errors, crawl errors, search query stats and more. https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ http://enarion.net/google/phpsitemapng/ (Free Google Site Map Generator) 2. Get a free sitemap / search from FreeFind.com (http://ww.freefind.com) FreeFind will crawl your site and create a sitemap page, hosted by them, with links to all your pages. They also have a great site search function. Here's what my sitemap page looks like: http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=32405908&m=0&p=0 3. Add your site to Social Bookmarking sites. http://Del.icio.us/ http://furl.net/ http://www.simpy.com/ http://www.jots.com/ Sort of like bookmarking sites on your own computer, except you actually share those bookmarks with other users. Some of these sites will create direct, one-way links from high PageRank "authoritive" sites. What better way to get indexed? Some sites will not create direct links but the bookmarks you create will be shared with other sites who WILL create direct links. Generate direct traffic and more links by creating 'tags" for your bookmarks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking Find the RSS feed for each personal page you create at the social bookmarking site (look for the little orange RSS or XML button). Right-click it, select "Copy shortcut" and add the feed to your Google Personalized Home Page, My Yahoo and My MSN. Look for the "Add Content" links. 4. Submit to Paid Directories There are good free directories around but a paid listing will be reviewed and accepted much quicker. My favorites are: http://www.skaffe.com/ http://www.bluefind.com/ http://www.goguides.org/ A very comprehensive list here: http://info.vilesilencer.com/main.php?rock=seo-friendly.php 5. Submit comments to blogs Find blogs which: a) accept comments b) has a discussion on topics which interest you and you can contibute to c) allows URLs to be posted Don't spam them or use software for automated postings. My favorite is: http://www.bradfallon.com 5. Start a Blog Blogger is the easiest for the non-tech types (http://www.blogger.com). Host your blog on your own site. Blogger will show you how to do this when you set up your blog. Post often. Submit your blog to RSS submission sites: http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/ Add "tags" to your blog posts so sites like Technorati detect and list your tags: http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html Ping when you post: http://pingomatic.com/ Cheers Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Chris Nielsen Subject: Sandbox myth > If you search for James Miller, I'm usually in the top four, > despite not being by any means the most famous... - James Miller, LED 2179 I'm not sure what this has to do with the idea of the Sandbox, but I have seen on quite a few occasions, one just yesterday, where a site will come up well in a search for the same words in a domain. Google does not try to determine all of the words contained in a domain, since the intent of the owner would not be possible, but they do seem to pay attention when they can remove the spaces from a query and find and exact match to a domain. Without knowing more about your site, I would say that is the likely reason for your good results. Thank you, Chris Nielsen www.vioxx-search-engine.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: M. Motherwell Subject: The Sandbox Myth > There is no such thing as a Google Sandbox. It's one of > those terms that self-proclaimed search engine "experts" > came up with to explain why their methodologies don't work. - Shari Thurow, LED 2177 I am not Alan Perkins, but if I may weigh in on this ;) The problem is that we aren't discussing anything we have defined. What is the non-existent Sandbox that Shari talks of, and what definition does she not believe in? I know what a SERP is, but I really don't know what the term "sandbox" means. It is very easy to dismiss anything when we choose not to define it, which is, IMHO, exactly what Shari did. By not actually choosing to critique any specific definition of the term, Shari was using a straw man argument. Shari's position is like saying "God does exist". OK, which God? All of them? Some? What? The word "God", despite being one we know, isn't defined tightly enough. And Shari's subsequent comments on the foundation of SEO, whilst accurate and succinct, are irrelvant, as even given that she is right (and she is), that still doesn't discount the possibility that even with the foundation intact, the Sandbox isn't real. So, what do *I* think? I think that this reworking of Shari's comment is pretty accurate a lot of the time: It's one of those terms that people use when they fail to rank. But even then, I do believe that the Algorithm Google is using does take time filter in new sites. Why I don't know for certain, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this view (amongst the even greater body of evidence that is aweful), and plenty of potential technical reasons why (starting with the historical link stuff, and working right the way through to new server setups that are designed to keep certain popular queries cached). In any case, to fob the sandbox off as non-existent is perhaps more a sign of the clientelle one has the priviledge of working with (I have never first hand experienced this effect on any site I have worked on for a client because I never work with small startups, although my own hobby sites have sufferred), than it is a sign that the effect isn't real. M. Motherwell -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Mark Roberts Subject: AdSense Here is another question about Adsense (while we are on the topic). I tried Adsense at one time for my Bird House site. After a couple of weeks, I began to review some of the ads that I was seeing. I noticed that 95%+ were to my direct competitors. I felt I was inviting my site visitors to go on to other sites. Once your potential customer clicks on to another site, it is difficult to get them back for a number of reasons, even if you really had a better product. I promptly removed the ads. Any one else had experiences like this? Or, know of a way to prevent this? or, is it just better for ecommerce sites to stay away from Adsense. I can see that site providing only content or information could greatly benefit from Adsense. Just would like to get some talk going. Mark Roberts Roberts Computing Systems http://www.robertscomputing.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Allan Gardyne Subject: AdSense Brad Waller [LED 2179] says AdSense click rates will still be "anywhere from a fraction of a percent to a few percent". Yes, that's what can happen if you tack AdSense ads on to an existing site, especially if the site has cluttered pages in which many items compete for attention. However, if you design a new site with AdSense in mind, keep the pages VERY simple and place AdSense ads in the best positions recommended by AdSense in its "heat map" - www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=17954 - it's possible to achieve double-digit click-through rates. I wish the AdSense rules allowed us to discuss specifics. Allan Gardyne www.associateprograms.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Martha Retallick Subject: Blogging as a Revenue Source There's been a lot of gale-force hype about blogging, the new must-have fashion accessory for your website. And, true confession, I've been thinking of adding a blog to one of my websites. Part of my motivation for doing so is that I also publish an e-zine, and am finding that it just doesn't pull sales the way it did two or three years ago. I'm wondering if maybe the blog won't be a better way to attract paying customers. So, my question for the group is this: Who has a blog that has had a positive effect on company revenue? Martha Retallick
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