Category Archives: Google

AdSense Video Ads Coming to the UK, Ireland and Canada

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If you have been waiting to get a slice of Google’s video advertising units, then your wait is almost over, at least if you live in the UK, Ireland, or like me, Canada.

From Google’s Inside AdSense blog:

Following their success in the U.S., we’re rolling out video units over the next several days to English-language publishers in the UK, Ireland, and Canada. If you’re not already familiar with video units, they’re embedded, customizable video players that can enrich your site with relevant video content while enabling you to earn extra revenue from the relevant, non-intrusive ads that accompany the videos.

With this new launch, publishers in the UK, Ireland and Canada will be able to show videos from our YouTube content partners and choose those videos by category, individual YouTube partner, or have video automatically targeted to their site. Based on publisher feedback, we’ve also just added a feature which lets you choose individual videos to be displayed in your video units.

I am not sure how well these video units do, but I bet a bunch of people will be using them over the course of the next few months. Are you excited about this release, or if you live in the States, do we, in Canada, have a reason to be excited?

Originally posted on November 20, 2007 @ 8:58 am

Feedburner Frustrations: Google FeedFetcher Dropped Again

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So for the second time in less than a week, Feedburner is showing about half of my normal subscribers. There is nothing like seeing a little green bar being half as high as you expect it to be to get your heart racing. For a second the thought that I had done something wrong and made you all leave, and then that moment passed and I realized it was Google messing with me, just like they had for Saturday’s RSS subscription numbers.

What really bothers me about all of this is not only that the reporting has gotten worse, but also that they don’t attempt to fix it, thus making my stats look really messed up, with huge dips in performance.

How does Google mess up so bad when it comes to reporting RSS subscriber numbers from its own service?

Originally posted on November 9, 2007 @ 9:46 am

PageRank: Dragging Google Down?

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So people are still reeling over the whole PageRank fiasco we had recently, and some are wondering when the next update will be. That is the biggest problem with creating a complex ranking system: keeping it up to date. PageRank epicycles are chinks in the Google armor. It allows others to work on creating ranking systems, and it allows people to exploit their PageRank for upwards of four months. If you build up a great site, all the way to a PageRank of six, you could then for four months abuse that by adding every advertisement under the sun, and basically selling your PageRank. This could line your pocket with a fair bit of money before Google comes back around and updates things (most likely penalizing you for the “horrible” thing you have done).

Are you already planning for the next PageRank update? Are there any other metrics that are now considered more accurate to the quality of a site? Let me know in the comments below.

Originally posted on November 11, 2007 @ 6:59 pm

PageRank Madness

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Everyone today is absolutely buzzing about the recent manual adjustment of some very high profile sites. It looks like Problogger.net and Copyblogger.com are just two of the sites hit with a two point drop in their ranks.

DailyBlogTips.com has a list of sites being effected in a post entitled, “Google Changing the PageRank Algorithm?“.

One thing that I find odd about this whole thing is Google’s selection of sites as it doesn’t seem to just be high level sites, but a bunch of smaller ones as well, if you read the comments on various blogs, you will see it extends beyond the dozen or two blogs that are well known and rightfully concerned about this shift.

Many bloggers have also come up with theories pertaining to the reduction in PageRanks, and they are all spreading some fear, uncertainty and doubt around the blogosphere. It would be nice to know the real reason for these penalties, but I doubt Google will share that information.

I think this is the push that bloggers, and advertising systems needed to remove Google’s PageRank from their valuation systems. Now is the time to come up with a more complex formula to decide a sites advertising worth. Take their unique visitors, add in their RSS subscribers, look at their growth, and factor in a dozen other pieces of information, and you will come up with a system that hopefully, can’t easily be gamed.

Keep watch on your blogs PageRank, and the traffic that Google is sending you. Hopefully, this is just Google stirring the pot, and will settle down soon.

Originally posted on October 24, 2007 @ 4:08 pm

Google PageRank Penalty: Text Link Ads

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Well, it looks like Google is cracking down on paid links, and some people are being hit hard with their rank dropping. The Stanford Daily saw their PageRank drop from an incredible PR 9 to a PR 7.

I have yet to hear one person say that their rank has gone up. This doesn’t mean that people won’t see their rankings rise over the next while, but Google is on the warpath against paid links.

It looks like Text-Link-Ads and similar companies might have a huge issue on their hand, and if nothing else, it can’t be good publicity, since the majority of their pricing is based on Google’s PageRank, and people buy these links in hopes of gaining PageRank to their own sites.

I have yet to experience any negative side effects on any of my blogs, but I am a very lightweight advertising sales person. I think I currently have one text link sold amongst all my blogs.

So far many of the sites owners I have talked to aren’t concerned about their dropping rankings as they continue to focus on bringing good content and an abundance of traffic to their sites, but over time this could become a competitive edge for those willing to forgo selling text links, and monetizing their blogs other ways. These sites that find these alternative revenue builders, could then eventually rank higher in Google, causing those selling links to re-think their lack of concern.

The question I have been getting quite often by people just entering the world of advertising sales is, “how does Google know I am selling text links?” Well, with systems like Text-Link-Ads and other text link sales companies, they have you put code on your site, and that leaves a footprint that Google can then search for, and once identified, and probably checked by a real person, they can adjust your PageRank accordingly.

The whole paid link market has to change, Google is forcing them to. It is a very interesting time to be an Internet marketer.

Originally posted on October 9, 2007 @ 9:13 pm