SEOptimise » yahoo search marketing

How to Use Yahoo Pipes To Track Potential Questions on Yahoo Answers

Kelvin Newman — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 11:13:31 +0000

This is a guest post from Kelvin Newman at Site Visibility.

I’m starting to feel a bit sorry for Yahoo, not only are they seen by most people as a bit of a joke, largely the stick is unwarranted. They’ve got some great little products and services, two of which I use to this great little way of keeping tracking of easy social media interaction opportunities.

The main service is Yahoo Answers, its a hugely popular social site where users ask and answer questions. If you’ve not checked Yahoo Answers recently, go over now and have a look, there will be dozens of people asking questions related to your industry – no matter how obscure or niche it is.

The nightmare though is having to revisit the site everyday to see whether there’s anything new or relevant. Fortunately the main categories have RSS feeds so you could set up the feed in your RSS reader to keep track of the mentions in your chosen category, but your a busy digital marketer, you don’t have time to check through every question asked on the site. That’s where Yahoo Pipes comes in.

If you’ve never heard of Yahoo Pipes don’t worry, nobody has. It’s simple tool which allows you to do some very simple filtering and sorting of web data like RSS feeds. It can do some pretty clever tricks but what we want it to do is really simple. Take a feed from Answers, search for any questions that contain your keywords, discard those without and deliver those that do into a new RSS stream.

Start by dragging and dropping the a fetch feed icon from the side bar into the main screen. This will then create a box with a text field. Cut and paste the feed url from your most relevant category in Yahoo Answers. If more than one category is applicable click the addition/plus symbol and it’ll add a new text field for another category.

Next click the Operators expanding button in the side bar, find the filter button and drag and drop it between the Fetch Feed Box and Feed Output. It’ll have a text field you can type the word or phrases you want to monitor for. The drop down fields give you flexibility whether you want to look just in the Question Title and/or description Etc.

You can add more than one keyword by clicking the plus symbol, it gets quite clever now as well, you could filter questions that include SEO and PPC or you could set it up for questions that include SEO or PPC. It’s pretty self explanatory when it’s in front of you.

Now you need to connect the feed to the filter and from the filter to the out put. Click the circle and the bottom of the feed fetcher and drag it to the start of the filter, then do the same from the filter to the output. It should look something like the picture below.

Nearly there now, just save the pipe and hit the ‘Run this Pipe’ button. This will take you to a page where you can subscribe to this new feed. But I’m too lazy/busy to check my feedreader daily, so I take it a step further and use FeedMyInbox to take the feed address and email me whenever there is a suitable question.

Clever time saving trick which with a little tweaking you can use on dozens of social sites with RSS feeds. Do you monitor any social sites like this? Any tips to save time checking back for opportunities?

Online marketing in Digital Britain

Stuart Tofts — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:46:56 +0000

Last week, the UK media was full of Lord Carter’s interim report Digital Britain – the result of an enquiry into how best the country can boost its digital and communications sectors.

The report is lengthy and covers a wide variety of topics, from the development of broadband and its required infrastructure, to digital radio and public service broadcasting.

But what were the most relevant facts for the search engine optimisation (SEO) and general online marketing sectors? What should we industry professionals glean from the paper? Here are my thoughts on what the most interesting elements of the report are for the world of web-based promotions.

“It is… a sector that touches all aspects of our lives”

Lord Carter’s report notes that the average British adult now spends just under half their waking life accessing communications tools, such as TV, radio and, of course, the internet.

The communications sector is the third-largest in the country, the study notes; it is up there with the energy and finance industries and is just as vital to Britain’s economy, accounting for around eight per cent of GDP each year.

“Britain has the highest proportion of internet advertising of any developed economy”

The internet is a huge platform for promotional efforts and, as the country’s consumers spend so many hours accessing web pages, the marketers have followed them there.

By 2012 £1 in every £5 of all new commerce in this country will be online

Let’s be frank, it did not take this report to illustrate that the money being spent online is increasing rapidly – that has been apparent since the dawn of the internet.

However, it is an important part of this report. The information highway is catching up with the high street. Sometimes it beats it. This suggests to me that you can be an online business, or a high street business with a website, but not a completely offline business. Not if longevity is important to you.

The digital economy… builds our national competitiveness

Digital Britain can make us internationally competitive. Thanks to the internet and the communications sector more widely, British companies, even smaller firms, can compete within an international market.

The internet really is the great leveller – an innovative approach to online marketing and a decent business idea and there is no limit to what a firm can achieve.

“A successful Britain must be a Digital Britain”

Lord Carter recognises that without a decent digital infrastructure, this country would fall behind in competitiveness, resulting in an economic loss.

What is true for the country is true for individual firms – in the increasingly wide world of the web, successful companies will be the ones which are firing on all digital cylinders.

This revolution is only a decade old – still in its infancy

We are still at the beginning of the Age of the Internet. To me, this means there is still time to catch up.

A company which has not yet made the most of the web is not hopelessly after the party and it is not too late to invest.

Digital opportunities

Obviously, this report has not been about SEO, online marketing, or even just the web. It is about the implications of a digital revolution on the entire country.

However, the report illustrates just how essential the digital world is to the country’s economy, and therefore how important it is to every business endeavour within Britain.

Online spending rises. Again.

Stuart Tofts — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:59:10 +0000

Britons have upped the amount they spend online, according to a new report compiled by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) and Capgemini.

Again.

Every time they publish a report, the news is the same, online spending rises every month as Britons gradually shift their shopping onto the web. I should just publish the same story and update the numbers each time!

The IMRG/Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index August 2008 revealed spending rose to £4.8 billion (£79 per person) in July. The month before that it, the organisation discovered growth of just 24 per cent to £4.3 billion. I say ‘just’ because in May, online retail growth was more than 30 per cent.

What really interested me this month, though, was a comment made by Mike Petevinos, Head of Consulting for Retail at Capgemini UK. He explained growth is rapid, even within the current gloomy economic climate. One reason he gave was “the increased choice, price transparency and convenience that online has to offer”.

It is this choice, ease and transparency which have made the web such a successful place to operate from. However, it doesn’t matter how many consumers are using the internet to shop – if a company cannot be found then it cannot compete. Visibility is hugely important.

Keywords, budgets and marketing pennies

Stuart Tofts — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:02:29 +0000

Yahoo! has urged marketers to choose appropriate keywords for their paid search campaigns.

A post in the engine’s search marketing blog reiterates the message we tell clients day after day – choose business specific keywords.

It suggests firms bid on both generic and specific phrases, warning generic selections can quickly eat up budgets and are less likely to result in sales than more targeted choices.

This is such an important point for search engine marketing and for natural search tactics.

Yahoo!’s example is the broad word “guitar”. Now, a consumer plugging that word into a search engine could be looking for lessons, wanting to buy a guitar or seeking sheet music.

Businesses choosing to bid on that word had better have a pretty broad range of guitar-related services, or they risk wasting their marketing pennies.

So, in terms of paid search, it makes sense to target keywords which are highly specific.

However, often it is tempting to pursue generic and highly-competitive keywords through the organic results.

If a company decides its wants to aim for high rankings in the most-competitive phrases, it is important to make use of some less generic phrases at the same time.

This allows them to rank highly for business-specific keywords while they battle to climb the rankings of those more difficult phrases.

Wikipedia SEO – Are Their Google Ranking Fair?

Kevin Gibbons — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:51:07 +0000

Nathania Johnson posted some very interesting stats on SEW yesterday to show how Wikipedia’s traffic has grown 8,000% in 5 years due to search referrals. This is an unbelievable statistic but as mentioned in the article that’s what happens when Google ranks all of your pages as #1!

There’s a mixture of opinions but many SEO’s would agree that Wikipedia shouldn’t appear in Google’s top 10 for searches on nearly every piece of content they have. I think it depends on the specific search term, but in my opinion Wikipedia provides little value when ranking #1 for searches such as SEO and restaurant. Most people performing these queries would be looking for somewhere to eat, or looking for SEO advice, blogs or tools. If they wanted to find a definition a “what is …” or “define:…” query would have worked fine.

Lets take a look at the results for a Google search on holidays:

Surely people know what a holiday is!

And how do you think Wikipedia would perform if they used Google AdWords?

I would imagine an ad like this would be lucky to get a CTR of 0.1% with a low quality score, but it’s not a problem in the organic listings.

Google has become by far the leading search engine because it gives searchers what they are looking for, and there is an argument that Wikipedia mixes up the results to provide a different type of listing, I agree with this to a certain extent but in all reality it’s nowhere near being the most relevant webpage for any of the above searches. Although not all of it’s rankings are unfair, if you search for a footballer, for example, you get quality content and stats from Wikipedia which deserves it’s ranking at the top as it’s useful to the searcher.

How can Google’s algortihm change to prevent Wikipedia’s SERPs domination?
In my opinion the Google algorithm should pay less attention to the strength of wikipedia.org as a whole domain, calculating rankings based upon the inbound links to a specific page instead. If your content is of a higher quality and more relevant to the actual search term this should be out ranking Wikipedia, but how do you compete with 5 million links?

These rankings would be completely different if the algorithm considered that only 2,000 inbound links are relevant, probably less when you consider no-one should really be linking to this! :)

What do you think, does Wikipedia rightfully deserve most of it’s rankings and provide searchers with the information they are looking for? Or is Wikipedia irrelevant for many search terms and ranking far too highly?

Yahoo Search Marketing Sister Account Required for Worldwide Geo-Targeting

Kevin Gibbons — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:45:00 +0000

Something which I find very frustrating with Yahoo Search Marketing is how to display your ads to a worldwide audience. The current system only allows you to geographically target the location which your account is registered in, for example UK accounts can only target the UK and Ireland market. You can unblock targeted continents in your account settings, but this means that while your ad will be displayed outside of the UK it will only appear on www.yahoo.co.uk and not www.yahoo.com.

I found this information quite difficult to find at first but the email below from Yahoo clears up some of these issues and might be useful for people experiencing similar issues:

“We would like to inform you that even though you have unblocked the continents on your account this does not mean that your ad’s will show on the respective websites. This means that if someone in the US goes to www.yahoo.co.uk and enters a keyword that your ad will show. If however you want your ad’s to show on www.yahoo.com you would need to open a US account or other account depending on the country you wish to advertise in.

If you wish to advertise in other countries and you have an existing account with Yahoo! Search Marketing, you now have an opportunity to set up a sister account. A sister account allows you to have the same login details as your existing Yahoo! Search Marketing account.

To set up a sister account for any of our marketplaces please email us with the following information. Tell us what you would like your account to be called, which marketplace(s) you require the account(s) for and if you would like the same contact person for each account.

Once the sister account(s) have been set up for the marketplaces you require, you can transfer listings to these new accounts from your existing account.

There will be a set up fee for each sister account which varies by market:
UK account = £60
Other EU marketplaces = €50″

5 Common Content Network Mistakes

Kevin Gibbons — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:22:00 +0000

I’ve found the content network is an excellent method of getting large quantities of cheap traffic converting at a positive ROI. But in my experience most pay per click campaigns I’ve taken over have not maximised their performance on the content network, below are the main reasons why I’ve found accounts seem to under perform.

Disregarding the content network completely
Many advertisers focus only on the search network, I think Anton Konikoff’s quote about getting traffic from contextual ads at SES San Jose yesterday sums up why it’s always worth trying to target this audience; “Provides access to everyone who reads online (not just those who search)”.
Not setting individual content network bids
Some people don’t check the “Let me set separate prices for content clicks” campaign setup box, the quality of traffic from the content network is never (or at least very rarely) as high as the search network so you should definitely be setting separate bids here.
Targeting all worldwide locations
Click fraud for contextual ads is a commonly discussed issue and is one of the main reasons people choose to stay away from the content network completely. I normally begin by selecting the main English speaking countries (US, UK, Canada, Ireland and Australia). For high budget account’s it also makes sense to separate countries and regions into individual campaigns so that it’s performance can be tracked and managed individually.
Not splitting keywords into small ad groups
This has obvious advantages for the search network as you can use more specifically targeted ad descriptions for each keyword, but it also helps to monitor the cost per conversion of content network clicks more closely.
Failing to test, test, test
This is probably the final rule in every search marketing list but trial and error testing is very important to monitor how new changes have affected the account. Keeping a close eye on the cost per conversion figure will help you to set bids based upon it’s performance to keep the campaign cost-effective.

These are all fairly basic tips but I’ve found these changes have a positive impact upon many account’s advertising on the content. To improve this further you could also exclude negative sites and setup pay per action (PPA) and site targeted campaigns.

Yahoo Search Marketing Quality Score Ranking Model in UK from July 23rd

Kevin Gibbons — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 09:11:00 +0000

UK Yahoo Search Marketing accounts will use the new ranking model from July 23rd. The ranking model, which was launched in the US back in February, uses the bid amount and quality score to determine an ad’s rank in search results.

Here’s the email sent out by Yahoo! this morning:
“Dear Advertiser,

With new features like ad testing, geo-targeting and fast ad activation, the new Sponsored Search gives you more ways to connect with customers searching for what you sell.

During the week commencing July 23rd, 2007, we are introducing a new ranking model in the UK that considers an ad’s quality and bid amount. The new model is designed to help you spend less time in bidding wars with other advertisers and more time creating the most relevant, effective ads, which can help drive better results for your business.

Here’s a quick summary of this important change:

Both bid amount and ad quality will determine an ad’s rank in search results the week commencing July 23rd, 2007.

This will replace the current method, in which ads are ranked by bid amount only (bid-to-position).

This is designed to allow you to focus less on competitive bidding practices and more on the quality of your ads.

By improving the quality of your ads and making them more relevant to users, you may be rewarded with a better ranking and/or a lower cost for your ads.

Example of How Ads May be Ranked
The graphic below helps illustrate a scenario that may result from this change:

Note: The graphic above is provided for illustrative purposes only, and will not actually appear in your account.

What is “Ad Quality”?
Ad quality is determined by:

The ad’s historical performance – its click-through rate relative to competitors and normalised for position.*

The ad’s expected performance – determined by various relevance factors considered by Yahoo! Search Marketing’s ranking algorithms, relative to other ads displayed at the same time.

Overall ad quality is displayed in a graphical form by the quality index.

Other Important Things to Know

We recommend that you review your current max bids. Keep in mind you may be charged up to this amount.

Standard match type ads will no longer receive priority placement over Advanced match type ads.

Once you’ve upgraded to the new Sponsored Search system, you’ll be able to gain an understanding of your ad’s overall quality by looking at its quality index.

To learn more about the quality index, the new approach to ad ranking and helpful tips, please click here.

Regards,
Yahoo! Search Marketing”

Yahoo! Panana on it’s way to UK!

Kevin Gibbons — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 09:17:00 +0000

I receieved the following email from Yahoo! Search Marketing this morning, look’s like we won’t have to wait too much longer for the Panama platform in the UK:

“Dear Advertiser,

The New Sponsored Search Is Coming!

We previously announced that an improved marketing platform is on its way, full of advanced, easy-to-use features that will help you better connect with customers looking for your products and services on Yahoo! Search Marketing’s distribution network. Please take a moment to read our plans for assisting you during the transition to the new Sponsored Search.

We’ve been thoroughly testing our systems to help ensure a quality experience once advertiser accounts are upgraded, and will shortly begin the process of notifying advertisers about their account upgrade.

You will be notified of your upgrade date two weeks in advance of your upgrade. You will also be able to access a preview of what your account will look like after the upgrade, to help you become familiar with the features and the layout of the new control panel. If you’re happy with your preview, we encourage you to upgrade your account during this week. This will help ensure that your upgraded account closely resembles the preview.

Many resources will be available to help you make a smooth transition. We’ve created an extensive Upgrade Centre to assist you during the transition. Full of tips, tutorials and FAQs, the Upgrade Centre will walk you through all of the new features, as well as the best practices for managing your new Sponsored Search account. You can find all of these resources by visiting the Upgrade Centre at newsponsoredsearch.yahoo.co.uk.

Please note that there will be no change at the time of account upgrades to the way listings are ranked; they will continue to be ranked by bid as they are today. Over the coming months, we will change the way ads are ranked, taking ad quality into account, as well as bid. More detailed information will be provided regarding this change before it occurs.

Your new upgraded account will be governed by new Terms and Conditions which will take effect on upgrade. We advise you to click here and print off the new Terms and Conditions and make sure you are happy with them. You agree that these Terms and Conditions shall apply to your account when it is upgraded.

We look forward to bringing you the new Sponsored Search.

Regards,
Yahoo! Search Marketing”

Pay Per Click Roundup 23/4/2007

Kevin Gibbons — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:13:00 +0000

I meant to post this on Friday but didn’t quite get round to it, anyway here’s a recap of the pay-per-click advertising news I found of interest during the last week.

Google AdWords

On the Radio: more on Audio Ads – Inside AdWords
Introducing preferred cost bidding – Inside AdWords
Using Google Analytics with Website Optimizer – Google Analytics Blog
Google AdWords Preferred Cost Bidding Not Welcomed – SERoundtable
Google Pay Per Action First Results For Publishers & Advertisers – SERoundtable
Does “GoogleClick” Spell The End For Bid Managers? – Search Engine Land
New Google AdWords Dashboard Looks Like Yahoo Panama – Search Engine Journal
Google Ads Tracking Mouse-Over – Google Blogoscoped
How to lower your AdWords minimum bid – eWhisper.net

Yahoo! Search Marketing

Faster, Simplified Online Customer Checkout – YSM Blog
Upgrades and Enhancements – YSM Blog
Punctilious Punctuation – YSM Blog
Despite Panama, Yahoo Earnings Fall 11 Percent — Investments Blamed – Search Engine Land

Microsoft adCenter

adCenter Quality-Based Ranking – adCenter Blog
adCenter’s New Quality Based Ranking has Issues – PPC Discussions

General Pay Per Click

Ad Copy that Increases Conversion or Click Through Rate – eWhisper.net
PPC, the Classic Geo-Targeted Mix – aimClear
Google, Yahoo Speaking More Freely on Click Fraud – Search Engine Watch

Search Engine Strategies PPC Roundup

Kevin Gibbons — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 23:57:00 +0000

I’m not quite sure where to start this week as my FeedReader seems to have been overflowing with news from Search Engine Stategies over the last few days. I’ve picked out the main PPC stories from SES New York in addition to the rest of this weeks pay per click news.

Search Engine Strategies

Meet the Search Ad Networks – Bruce Clay
Advanced Paid Search Techniques – Bruce Clay
Ads In A Quality Score World – SERoundtable
In House Big PPC – SERoundtable
Getting Traffic From Contextual Ads – SERoundtable
Landing Page Testing & Tuning – SERoundtable
Creating Compelling Ads – SERoundtable
Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues – Bruce Clay
Web Analytics & Measuring Success – Bruce Clay
Admitted: “We Do Arbitrage” – Traffick
Microsoft adCenter: Today and Tomorrow – SERoundtable
Video Recap and Reflections on SES – New York 2007 – Pepperjam Blog

This Weeks other PPC news:

Google AdWords

The next step in Google advertising – Official Google Blog
A new case study on botnet-based click fraud – Inside AdWords
Improve your account performance with expert help – Inside AdWords
Reach and Frequency reporting now available – Inside AdSense
Using AdWords for Keyword Research – Link Building Blog
Google Releases Detailed Content Network Reports – Marketing Pilgrim
Use Google AdWords & AdSense Distribution Data to Broker Direct Ad Deals – SEO Book
Increase Conversion Rates with the Google Website Optimizer? – Marketing Pilgrim
There are Inconsistencies in Google Adwords Minimum Bid Prices – PPC Lab
Will Similar Google AdWords Campaigns Affect Display of Ads? – SERoundtable
Why Do Google AdSense and Google Analytics Impressions Differ So Much? – SERoundtable

Microsoft adCenter

Microsoft adCenter and Superpages to use Quality Score – eWhisper.net
MSN adCenter Update Coming Soon – Search Engine Watch

General PPC

Turn Your PPC Advertising Campaign Into An Effective Search Marketing Machine – Search Engine Land
The first 100 impressions: What your paid keywords can tell you – Marketing Pilgrim
Thomson provides PPC buying to listings customers – e-consultancy

PPC Weekly Roundup – 07/04/2007

Kevin Gibbons — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 05:11:00 +0000

Here are the main stories from the world of PPC over the past 7 days:

Google AdWords

Google confirm two changes to how top ads are displayed and make Website Optimizer available to all.
Brad Geddes discusses what determines the ‘Account Quality Score’, ‘AdGroup Quality Score’ and ‘Keyword Quality Score’ for AdWords?
John Battelle reports that AOL are to launch white label AOL-only AdWords system on Monday.
Jennifer Slegg starts a new blog with some great early posts such as Targeting keyword variations for increased search & pay per click traffic, Using dynamic keyword insertion in AdWords URLs for higher click throughs and How to Brand with Google AdWords & Pay Per Click.
Vinny Lingham posts about Google’s new metric: Impression Share.
Search Engine Guide takes a look Inside Google’s New Pay Per Action for Advertisers.
SERoundtable posts about Google entering TV market with TV commercial trial.
And the Inside AdSense blog confirms some fresh, new look AdSense ads.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

The YSM Blog confirm that short ad descriptions will be required from May, they also post an intro to finding your editorial status.

Microsoft adCenter

The adCenter blog this week talks about capitalizing the display URL in adCenter, Integrating your offline marketing efforts with an online strategy and the release of a new Microsoft adCenter welcome guide.

General PPC

Andrew Goodman takes a look at multivariate landing page testing.
SERoundtable cover the launch of Yell’s own PPC advertising solution.

There may be a couple of items I missed as I’m catching up at the moment after getting back to the UK yesterday. After going back 17 hours from Sydney to LA and then forward another 8 hours to GMT I’m still trying to work out which timezone I’m in at the moment, up at 4.30am today so I probably should be somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic at the moment! :)

PPC Weekly Roundup – 31/03/2007

Kevin Gibbons — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 15:52:00 +0000

Here’s this weeks collection of PPC news:

Google AdWords
Pay-per-action beta — your questions answered – Inside AdWords
AdWords Editor’s “Top 10 Favorites” – Inside AdWords
The Guide to Creating AdWords Pay Per Action Campaigns – eWhisper.net
AdSense Publisher View Of Google Pay Per Action – Search Engine Land
Is There a Doman Wide Quality Score in Google AdWords? – Search Engine Roundtable

Yahoo! Search Marketing
Yahoo’s Panama ad platform will launch in UK / Europe in Q02 – JenSense
Judge Approves Yahoo Click Fraud Settlement – Search Engine Watch
You Complete Me – Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog

Microsoft adCenter
Ad Titles and Dynamic Text – adCenter Blog

PPC
E-Consultancy Offers Paid Search Briefing – Search Engine Land
PPC And Your Good Name: Sales From Brand Searches Aren’t Incremental – Search Engine Land
Does “Set It & Forget It” Still Work In The PPC Game? – Search Engine Roundtable
Things You Shouldn’t Care About in PPC – PPC Discussions
Yes, Co-managed PPC And SEO Campaigns Work – MediaPost Search Insider
Google & Yahoo Ranking Look at Domains Rather Than Individual Pages – Search Engine Journal

Yahoo! Duplicating YSM/YPN Blog Content

Kevin Gibbons — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:23:00 +0000

While researching this weeks PPC links I noticed that the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog has several posts which are republished identically on the Yahoo! Publisher Network blog. I understand that there’s probably a lot of information which is relevant to both site’s readers but surely it would make more sense to use the story on one blog and then post a link to this item on the other, rather than duplicating the post on each blog?

The example I found was this post on YSMBlog.com which is duplicated here on YPNBlog.com. Similarly Google’s method also may not be ideal as the Inside AdSense blog this week had a post which was also relevant to Google AdWords but not featured on the Inside AdWords blog, so in this case AdWords readers who don’t subscribe to the AdSense blog may have missed this.

PPC Weekly Roundup – 23/03/2007

Kevin Gibbons — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:17:00 +0000

Here is this weeks roundup of pay per click news:

Google AdWords
Pay-Per-Click Beta Test – Inside AdWords
Google Launches Pay Per Action Ads – Search Engine Land
AdWords Optimization Tips: Part 3 – Account Structure – Inside AdWords
AdWords and AdSense: a perfect pair Inside AdSense
Google’s New Text Link Ad Unit – Search Engine Roundtable
Adsense to be Completely Replaced by Pay-Per-Action? – Search Engine Roundtable

Yahoo! Search Marketing
Panama Ad Ranking Algo Explained – Search Engine Watch
Yahoo Steps Up Click Fraud Efforts – Search Engine Watch
Quality is His New Job, For One – Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog

Microsoft adCenter
Get Help Uploading Your Campaigns into Microsoft adCenter with QuickLaunch – adCenter Blog
New adCenter tool for determining page sensitivity – JenSense

General PPC
Buy Branded Keywords? A Case Study on Traffic, Conversion and RPV – Jonathan Mendez

It’s quite possible I missed a couple of stories from the world of pay per click as I’ve been away for most of this week, so please feel free to post any links in the comments section.

PPC Links – Weekly Recap

Kevin Gibbons — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 08:19:00 +0000

Here’s a collection of this weeks PPC links from around the blogosphere:

Google AdWords

Google AdWords are looking for more testers for audio ads.
Google AdWords click-to-play ads are now available in the UK.
Here are some instructions about how to export your Google AdWords campaign.
Invites are being sent out to test CPC for site-targeting.
SFGate.com write about how Google’s AdWords confuses transgender terms with teen porn.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

The Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog talks about how you can assign different user roles using Panama.
Search Engine Roundtable asks is a perfect quality score in Yahoo! Search Marketing possible?

Microsoft adCenter

Microsoft adCenter released a Content Ads Webinar.

PPC

Shoemoney posts some landing page tips.
Andrew Goodman writes for Search Engine Land’s new paid search column, titled paid search back-checks, slays dragons, asks for little in return.
Another Search Engine Land article looks at the 5 secret PPC agencies don’t want you to know.
Jonathan Mendez posts 5 lessons from multivariate tests on Google PPC ads.
And I asked should you pause PPC campaigns while on holiday?

Pay Per Click News – Weekly Roundup

Kevin Gibbons — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 08:18:00 +0000

Here’s a recap of this weeks main pay per click news:

Google AdWords

Adamap notices the Google keyword tool showing number of previous month’s searches.
Search Engine Roundtable confirms that Google AdWords Qualified Professional certifications are valid for two years.
The Inside AdWords blog discusses how the MyChange History Tool can be a handy tool for troubleshooting account behavior.
Andrew Goodman explains why Google Website Optimizer is a win-win situation for improving AdWords performance.
Google update their AdWords promotional credits policy.
I posted an AdWords CTR test to compare the performance between a .com and .co.uk display URL.

Microsoft adCenter

Search Engine Roundtable reports about Microsoft refunding adCenter advertisers too much!
The Microsoft adCenter blog release a 2-part query string usage post about what exactly is a query string? and the new query strings offered in adCenter.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

The YSM Blog posted instructions on how to find your account ID.
SEW post some more early Yahoo Panama results.

General Pay Per Click News

eWhisper makes an interesting point about how PPC has developed to become more focused on-page content and relevancy, while SEO has evolved with marketing becoming a far more important factor.
And Joe Whyte posts 18 PPC secrets to help you improve your efforts and maximize your ROI.

Here’s last weeks PPC news in case you missed it!

PPC News – Weekly Roundup

Kevin Gibbons — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 22:39:00 +0000

Here’s a weekly roundup of this weeks PPC news:

There will be a PPC webcast next week from Search Marketing Now.
JenSense spots Google AdWords testing a yellow background on ads above the search results.
Google confirm that click fraud is 0.02% of all clicks.
Search Engine Roundtable reports that Canadian companies are invited to be Google AdWords Qualified Professionals.
The Inside AdWords follows up it’s AdWords optimisation tips post about assessing your industry and audience with part two assessing your website and goals.
Google are to share it’s list of content partners in the next few months.
There are reports of paused Google AdWords ads still running.
Yahoo! Search Marketing bids remain $0.10 but grandfathered bids are removed.
And Microsoft adCenter beta is now open to everyone.

Last week I wrote a recap post about recent Google AdWords news, this is something I plan to do more of in the future to cover any PPC news I may have missed (or just not blogged about) during the week.

How to improve Yahoo Search Marketing ad quality

Kevin Gibbons — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:52:00 +0000

The Yahoo! Search Marketing blog have 3 posts which discuss how you can increase your ad quality using the new ranking model:

Part I – Ad Text
Part II – Ad Testing
Part III – Keyword Insertion

5 Yahoo! Search Marketing Panama Tips

Kevin Gibbons — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 11:27:00 +0000

Yahoo! are upgrading U.S. accounts to Panama tomorrow and the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog have posted 5 best practices to make sure users are ready for the new ranking model.

“Here are five practices that you, if you have upgraded to the new platform, should put in place right away in order to get the most out of the new ranking model, and out of your account:

1. Include keywords in your ad (use our Insert Keyword feature).
2. Carefully determine keywords for your ad group.
3. Use ad testing to learn which messages are performing best for you, based on click-through rate normalized for position
4. Use our Excluded Keyword feature to help optimize your Advanced match type.
5. Review your current bids and set a campaign budget to meet your business goals.”

Panama will not be available until later this year in the UK, so far I have only seen screenshots of the new interface but I do manage a couple of American Yahoo! Search Marketing clients so I’m looking forward to seeing the new system in action!