July 18, 2008

Google's Matt Cutts on Spam, Ranking, and Your Search Future

Matt Cutts has now earned international film star status.

Google Webmaster Central in Germany has created an SEO video with excellent production values - particularly by YouTube standards. They've even translated Matt into German:

Hallo an alle User aus Deutschland! Ob ihr nun User, Webmaster oder ein SEO seid - ich freue mich, hier die Gelegenheit zu haben, ein bisschen mit euch zu sprechen. Ich hoffe, dass ich bald die Möglichkeit finde, auch einmal nach Deutschland zu kommen. Bis dahin bin ich froh, dass wir hier viele talentierte Googler haben, die sich um den deutschen Markt kümmern und den Kontakt zu deutschen Webmastern halten.

We were hoping they might dub Matt into German for the video with English subtitles, but no such luck. You will find out a number of cool things, including Matt's vision of search in the next five years.

For example, do you know when Matt first came across spam at Google?

After this interview, you will.

To find out Matt's true vision of the future of search, you'll have to read SES Magazine, available only at SES San Jose.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Legg Mason Continues Support Yahoo's Current Board

In April, before Microsoft's ultimatum for Yahoo to accept its bid came to pass, Legg Mason threw its support behind Yahoo. Now the investor group is continuing its support of Yahoo and plans to vote for the current board at the upcoming August 1 shareholders meeting.

However, Legg Mason did advise Yahoo and Carl Icahn to bury the hatchet by the time of the meeting. Icahn has submitted a proxy board to replace the current board and has been in talks with Microsoft for a deal should his board win.

Legg Mason owns 60.7 million shares of Yahoo, adding up to 4.4% of the total shares.

via Reuters

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Auto-tagging Adwords and URL Redirects: Please Pass the Gclid

To pass the gclid or not to pass the gclid, that is the question. At least, if you're trying to tag your AdWords URLs in Google Analtyics it is. On the Google Analytics blog, they're talking about using auto-tagging in Adwords in order to facilitate easy viewing of info in Analytics. But problems may arise if you've got some URL redirecting going on.

Basically, auto-tagging inserts a little snippet of code into destination URLs. But if you have several redirects, the snippet could get stripped. That snippet is "gclid." What happens if the gclid gets snipped?

While Google Analytics still records the visit and the subsequent user activity, it doesn't have the information necessary to properly attribute the visit to your Google ad. As a result, some of this traffic will be included in the "direct" category while other visits may show up as "not set". Furthermore, your Adwords Campaigns report in Google Analytics may show cost metrics, but your visits columns may show zeros.

If this is happening to you, you have two options.

Ask your site administrator to configure their servers to pass the glid
Manually tag your Adwords

So how do you figure out if you're passing the gclid? Follow these steps:

Scenario 1 If your destination URL has no query parameters and looks something like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/:
1. Paste this URL in your browser's address bar, but before you press Enter, append "?gclid=test" to the end, like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?gclid=test.

2. Now press Enter.

3. If the gclid is present on the final landing page URL, you're golden.

Scenario 2
If your destination URL already has query parameters and looks something like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?param=a¶m2=b:

1. Paste this URL in your browser's address bar and before pressing Enter, append "&gclid=test" to the end, like this: www.i_will_redirect_you.com/?param=a¶m2=b&gclid=test.

(This is why the "?" and the "&" distinction were important to note earlier. It's a matter of URL syntax. Luckily, auto-tagging knows the difference.)

2. Press Enter.

3. If the gclid is still there, you're in good shape, and need only to enable auto-tagging.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Buys Russian Ad Agency for $140 Million

Google is looking to extend its global ad reach with its purchase of a Russian ad agency. Rambler Media has sold Begun advertising agency to Google for $140 million. Begun serves up contextual ads. Rambler will also contract search technology from Google as part of the deal.

"Google is very committed to giving Russian users, advertisers and partners the best possible service and experience," said Mohammad Gawdat, Managing Director Emerging Markets, Google. "This agreement will result in better search results and more relevant advertising for our Russian users and publishers."

In 2006, Google opened a development center in Moscow, and tapped another Sergei, last name Burkov, to run the place. Burkov was the founder of Dulance, which Google acquired in the process of opening their Russian center.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft's 18% Growth Disappoints Wall Street

Google wasn't the only one reporting second quarter revenues yesterday. Microsoft also dished, though they label the same period as their fiscal fourth quarter.

The software giant made $15.84 billion last quarter, up 18% over the same quarter last year. Annual revenue was $60.42 billion, which was also up 18% over the year prior.

The growth rate is not good enough for Wall Street, however, as the stock was down nearly 5% at the time of this post. Analysts see Microsoft as struggling in a weak economy.

If making $15.84 billion in three months is struggling, then I want to suffer!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See More Posts From:

This Week | This Month