Google Adsense is 10 years Old

Happy birthday AdSense. And thanks for the memories.

My first 4 figure paycheck from AdSense came just over 8 years ago. Like I said Old School SEO, but even I missed out on the first 20 months of this game changing Google product.

If you tried to click on the screenshot of the export...
Google Adsense is 10 years Old

Google 2013 = MSN Search 2005

So using Charlotte SEO as a daily gauge of SERP movement in high competition niches, we find more of the "great" new SERPS from all the penguins and pandas in May 2013.

In Charlotte, the top 3 stayed consistent which is expected since they are long established for one reason or another. Next ...
Google 2013 = MSN Search 2005

Mad Libs Blogging For SEO

Writing for SEO

I was told analogies are a talent I have, and while forming one I decided that it was too good not to be used for much more.

I have trained about 4 writers or staff members in writing for our clients since beginning here at my agency at the start of 2012. Every time I see...
Mad Libs Blogging For SEO

Adwords Location Insertion Discontinued

Received the notice today that Google is putting an end to the location insertion feature.  Location insertion for Adwords is a feature you're using in your account to dynamically insert your local business information into your ads based on the user's geographic location You have between now ...
Adwords Location Insertion Discontinued

Bing PPC Imported, 5 things to double check

Things to check after importing your ads from Google to Bing Adcenter. A little checklist for those importing adwords into bing ads adcenter.

1. Day and time settings. They default to the campaign level settings for all ad groups. Ours were originally set for M-F / 8am to 9pm EST. After the...
Bing PPC Imported, 5 things to double check

Google Maps a Bit Too Good?

Ok, This is about a mile from our office at CGR. I am scanning street level looking for a Off Broadway shoes to pick up some new kicks. Like others, I get hooked on zooming up and down the street with the very cool Google Maps. Did you know you can look upo with Google maps at street level? I...
Google Maps a Bit Too Good?

Blogmutt Spam, Not So Original

Blog mutt tauts itself a a blog writing service. They will write posts for you blog for the low price of 89$ per month. Their home page speaks of the all-orginal writing they provide. I dont doubt for a second that the articles can pass copyscape checks. I doubt fault the busines model and the...
Blogmutt Spam, Not So Original

Google Update Still Hitting Close To Home

My reporting for a client this morning confirms the Google update in my eyes. The update seems to be drawing a lot more from the location of the search than in the past. I do SEO for Alaglas Fiberglass pool company. The results had spiked early in the campaign and then leveled off and were moving up slowly as they got to the first page in Google.

Terms like “Charlotte fiberglass pools” remain somewhat unchanged and in the top 3 results. The one item that did make an abnormal move was the simple term “fiberglass pools”, which moved from 12th to 5th.

I have been monitoring these SERPS for close to a year and change was always steady. There have always been an occasional outlier, but in this case the one search term with no regional terms in the search seems to be the one that reacted. This confirms the earlier thinking as the IP/Location I search from (28203) seems to have added almost as much weight as having put the word “Charlotte, NC” directly in my search.

Meanwhile all other search terms that include “Charlotte” or “Charleston” in the actual search term remained somewhat steady (+/- 1 or 2).

Again, the May 2013 Google update is the “homer” update in my eyes.

Google Update Still Hitting Close To Home

Google May 2013 the Homer update?

Was May 5th the “Homer” update?


I watch dozens of the same SERPS day after day for years. One part of this obsession is that I am all about routine, the second is that everything you learn from needs benchmarks.

If you don’t know every domain in the top 30-40 results you also won’t be good at recognizing changes. So watching the absolute garbage in the “Charlotte SEO” SERP and the disappearance of many of the regulars I began to look at some of my other regular checks.

Clearly there was a major shift or even complete Google Update this past week. When I checked what Mozcast had to say about the general state of affairs and SERP turbulence I saw that Sunday May 5th was “89 degrees and rainy” which is the highest I have ever seen. From all serps I have seen this is not a panda update, penguin or simple pagerank update of days past. Mozcast doesn’t tell me much about what happens on Google, but it tells m that “I am not crazy for thinking something is happening on Google”. And the more I look the more it is obvious there is talk of an obvious may 2013 google update  happening as I write this.

So, what I already knew began to be confirmed.


Next we look at the clients I serve for my agency, as I have their normal competition and SERPS memorized as well. Huge shifts were apparent right away for almost every client.

The one sure pattern is that big name sites that rank on even the bottom level pages like Manta.com, Linkedin.com Monster.com and Indeed.com had all moved way back in the search results.

Now lets not conclude anything till we look at all that we can see.

• It is clear this is not just a reevaluation of links for website

The shift I see show far too many rags to riches rises of obscure website and far too many vanishing websites that were page one staples. This is clearly not a slight change like PR, Articles or site wide links being valued differently. This kind of change mixes up what is already there in most cases and is moves like 3 to 11 or 17 to 8.

• It’s not something only happening to exact of partial match domains.

People obsess over any change in valuating of matching domain names.

EMD and PMD.
Why is that?

• Because it’s the oldest and still best trick in the book. (Hello Bing!)


• Because entire companies base their business model around it working (Hello there Yodle!)


• Because Mozcast shows no major change in the match factors EMD (though PMD‘s dropped hard, but not enough to explain all the changes.)


• Because my trained eye sees no change surrounding this factor, if anything I would say I see less, but it’s negligible.


• Because even a doubling in value of domain name in rank would not explain the rise and fall of sites, just the reordering of what is there.

• This Google Update is not a penalty for any strategy

This is apparent, because the risers from rags to riches are not simply leap frogging people getting slapped down. These risers are small website competing (from my location setting*) with the big boys and winning.

So we see it is not just a simple penguin or panda walking in the room with the red button.

So what is it?

Read More.

Google May 2013 the Homer update?

Homers Are Winners In Google Update

Continued from here. in Post about May 2013 Google Update

To validate any guessing game it is best to make checks on your own and formulate a conclusion based on the patterns you see with your own eyes. The conclusion that seemed to me was a drastic emphasis on location setting and local businesses.

Thus the “Homer Update”.

I first noticed this with one of my clients www.logicaladvatage.com. This is a brand new website only 2-3 months old in a field where nobody ranks. We build the site with the best on page SEO and planning. We target every page for a phrase that we covet and we write and link to support that preset strategy.

All that said, after 60 days a new site has no business being the #10 ranking site on Google for “Application Development” , which is 573 Million results.

This client had been forewarned that they existed in a keyword market (different from competition) that will always be flooded out with hard to pass websites. Many of the keywords this client desires trigger pages from Linkedin, Manta, Indeed.com, Monster.com and Careerbuilder. This is one of those searches were you need to be happy with top 10 because of all the cross-over with other major industries.

Well aside from the fast rising, almost every one of these major domains have fallen multiple pages. Our client shares the first page with Oracle, Amazon and about 7 other domains that have never even cracked the top 20 in the past.

This client also made the leap from #22+ to top 2 positions for 7 other terms we covet.

This company is Charlotte based, and Charlotte is clearly indicated throughout the body and writing we use in SEO.

 

So what happens when I move my location setting to Huntersville, NC (10 miles north)?

Not in the top 100 positions.

 

Now let’s look at one of my other daily checks. “Auto Insurance Company”

Zip Code 28203 in my search setting has Charlotteinsurance.com at #7

Zip Code 28078 (Huntersville +/- 10 miles away) Charlotte insurance not list in the top 100 results.

Charlotte Insurance is a competitors of one of my clients and a very well SEO’ d and established website.
Let’s Look At “Charlotte News”

First page results are all Charlotte newspapers and tv stations. But sneaking in there is a blog from Charlotte, vermont at #8. On an interesting note if you goto page 3 and 4 you see about 14 listings for this domain ” charlotte.news14.com” in a row. I always wonder when Google seems to have run out of ideas for who to rank with the algorythem being applied. But the fact that this one local source is landing 20 pages before a single LA Times, NYTimes, WSJ.com, Huffpo or similar poswerful domain makes me wonder and conclude the same as before about local value skyrocketing.

Now when I change to Zip Code 14612 (Rochester, NY) I get the identical results for “Charlotte News”, which is to be expected since Charlotte in the search dictates my local variables in the calculation and trumps the search settings.

While I am still researching this. So far it is the “Homer Update”.

Homers Are Winners In Google Update

Google Patent Results Everywhere

Full SERP Image

Google patents may want to list a few patents on self control. In searching out the Google Engage Pizza box promotion to learn more about this campaign I came across some weird results. When searching Google engage pizza box on Google .com I get one article at the top about the promotion itself and the next 9 results are all google.com/patents/ listings for companies that have patented pizza box designs. Considering I haven’t used the word “patent” in my search, and I did use the very powerful terms “Google” and “pizza” I am having a hard time believing that patents are what is most relevant to the result.Part of this type of SERP is often how much juice a site, site folder, or site’s page has. The Google patents service has existed since December of 2006 and I can’t say I ever remember a SERP being so stuffed with results from them.

Might be time for Google to turn the “knob” down a little bit on how important these pages are for people searching.

If I didn’t type “patent” or a “synonymous” term I don’t think I need 14 of the top 15 pages listed being from a single Google website.

Google Patent Results Everywhere

Google Engage Pizza Night

Hey, google bought me a Pizza!

I feel somewhat guilty seeing how I didn’t buy them anything (unless you count all the doorway pages I fed them 8 years ago).

On second thought, having made around 6 figures on Adsense and assuming somewhere near a historic 50%/50% split, Id say they should have thrown in some Crazy Bread as well.

Google Engage is the agency title for those who are resellers or providers of Google’s advertising. Most often Engage menbers are agencies, freelance SEO’s and similar providers that use Google as a regular product in their offerings. I am an Engage agency for many years through my former company and freelance work, and now also through CGR Creative  where I work as Director of Online Marketing.

So today I got the care package:

• A giant stack of the standard buy $25 get $100 free adwords coupons for new customers


• A cool promo shaped like a pizza with the line Buon Appetito and “made fresh spring 2013″


• A $40 Visa debit card that I just activated and will go Amazon shopping with soon.


• An offer that I can win a trip to Google in California if I regeister $10,000 of more new clients. (Or a new jacket for $1000)

So thanks to Google for the Pizza, and for not topping it with Penguins or Pandas.

 

Google Engage Pizza Night

Hey, that's a cool website

So not my style to stop from working to admire the simplicity, intent and ease of use of a website. I am online searching SERPS pretty much every night. I arrive at work 30 minutes before anyone else everyday and am often the last to leave. I then come home and (very sadly) get in front of the computer. I have a great catchy 6 letter domain that will make a great social media website that I am trying to find time to develop. I am also sitting on top of a great EMD (exact match domain) that I will need about 5-6 days to turn into a 1200 page affiliate lead website for the home plans industry.

 

The short version is, I have too little time for the half done websites and affiliate income projects sitting on my brains “back burner”.

But in my frantic attempts to turn my little free time into a residual source of income I stumbled on a great Google Analytics and SEO website.

Check out this link

Clean and easy to read blog posts and lessons, very sharp and clean icons and menu and a simple floating centered design that looks great in a mobile browser.

The simplified large font website that easily converts to mobile browsers is the way of the future thus far. One page designs that use #anchor tags to jump to content and simulate fast loading user experiences are all the rage.

So, for whatever it is worth guys. Great website. Less is more in a world where half our blog’s hits are on 4 inch screens.

Now if you looked at their website and have a hard time appreciating the beauty of ease of use and clean readable layouts…

For you check out the Life of Pi website, which may be the coolest website you have ever seen in terms of bells and whistles.

(pretty good movie as well)

Hey, that's a cool website

Adcenter Won't Import Adwords Campaigns?

So I got this stinker today

We ran into a problem submitting your Google sign in info. Check your sign in info and try again. If that doesn’t work, there may be a problem on Google’s side 

As per Bing support today there is a new known issue forcing you to have to approve access to your Google account from Bind Adcenter. THis is what Bing Adcenter is recommending currently while they work on this issue. The cause may be related to this notification I received in Adwords as follows?

Now you can connect an AdWords account to up to five MCCs.  Multiple linking allows multiple agencies, third parties, and clients to link to a single account. All MCC linking now allows UI and API access

 

 

Here is the fix process when you cant import adwords into bing due to this new error message: (sigh)

Advertisers seeing the ‘Invalid username or password’ error when attempting to import Google AdWords campaigns via the Bing Ads UI should follow the link ‘give this application access to your account – http://support.google.com/mail?p=client_login. In Google Mail, there will be an alert that will allow the advertiser to give Bing Ads permission to access their data during import.

Joseph: So apparently, there was an update in AdWords recently that is causing the log-in into AdWords from Bing Ads to not work, because Bing Ads would now need permission to access and import data from AdWords, you see.

Now the problem is that this particular Adwords account did not use a Gmail when it was created, and I havn;t received the notification from Adwords that someone was trying to access it and to give Bing Permission.

So here I sit waiting for escalation to a supervisor.

 

 

If you try to import Adwords into Bing Adcenter and receive that error message when doing the adcenter import of you adwords campaigns:

1. Look for a notification perhaps triggered by the attempt

2. Know you’re not alone

3. The problem just started yesterday Morning April 11th, 2013

4. Pushing the ease of importing is Bing’s #1 selling point and they must be frantic to fix this

5. Logging in or out to Adwords during the process won’t help

6. Adding an attached Gmaila ccount with hopes of seeing a setting on the IMAP page will not help

7. Attaching a gmail to get a notification won’t happen

 

UPDATE:

Call from Bing, he wanted to confirm that I didnt have a Gmail account associated to my Adwords account (a client’s). He was told by the next level up I must have one? In case you don;t know, you must have a Google account for Adwords, but not a Gmail. When I tried the link they sent as a fix I was prompted to create a Gmail since the “fix” they gave was for Email access issues.

Adcenter Won't Import Adwords Campaigns?

Todd Kron, Digital Marketing & Advertising, Charlotte, NC

My name is Todd I am a born geek. 25 years ago I was with my Commodore 64 with two disk drives, a tape drive a plotter and a Black and White monitor writing 30,000 lines of BASIC code to make a program to pick football game winners. I was 13, had played soccer all my life and spent endless hours on my computer.

I pursued IT originally, getting 5 Microsoft certifications, COmpTIA's A+ certification, and switched gears as my desire to craft stories in selling peaked. I got my Google Certification in both display and search marketing, Bing Adcenter certified, Hubspot certified, as well as Individually certified in Google Analytics. I spent a decade of late night learning programming, web design and building database driven PHP websites. I have lived full time off of online income for about for 12 years, having designed, ranked and turned a strong ROI on Wordpress, Joomla, Magento and custom HTML websites with hundreds of different approaches and strategies.

I read nightly on trends in UX, analytics and human behavior on the web. I am Todd Kron on Twitter here, LinkedIn here, The Search Marketing and SEO blog I try to find time to add to, and my namesake site is here. Also on Diigo, yes even Diigo.