Google Mobile Search Traffic in 2011

Although there is a large gap between the number of queries and mobile’s share of search advertising, but more and more search queries are originating from mobile devices. With more and more, smart phones coming to market (which now represent almost 20% of the US handset market) Google will do what all it can do to get more penetration in to the Google search market.

Below is a forecast on US mobile search revenue and mobile internet users. According to this report, US mobile search advertising revenues would grow from $33 million in 2007 to $1.4 billion in 2012 and the number of mobile Internet users would grow from 38 million in 2007 to 92 million in 2012.

Looking at these stats it’s quite evident that there is a huge growth year on year in mobile search market. At present Google doesn’t have a separate bidding interface for mobile, both AdWords for PC and Mobile are in same interface. In terms of display ads, rates for mobile placements were much higher than on the PC in the past but ad rates have come way down over the past year. This is partly because of ad network competition and the fact that consumers are adopting the mobile web faster than advertisers and there are now many more page views than ad inventory to fill them all.

In coming years one thing to watch out would be Mobile Search. Growth in Google’s Mobile traffic has been 5X over the past 2 years. So, if you are already not using mobile search than its right time to be a part of this fast growing market.

Mobile Ad Sitelinks Now Available in Google

Mobile Ad Sitelinks is a new feature that is available globally and appears on high end mobile devices, giving users the option to access multiple landing page options for your website. While functionality is similar to Ad Sitelinks for desktop, currently only two-line sitelinks will appear for searches performed on mobile devices, as outlined in the example below for searches on Oakley sunglasses.

Desktop Ad Sitelinks have been a useful tool for advertisers, leading to an average increase of more than 30% in click-through rates. Because websites may not yet be optimized for viewing on mobile devices, navigating them to find information can be more difficult. The new Ad Sitelinks feature is a great way to drive more qualified clicks to your website, helping to send users further down the conversion funnel by sending them to the page most relevant to their queries.

Implementing Ad Sitelinks is a simple process that can be done from the Ad Extensions tab within your AdWords account:

1. Navigate to your mobile targeted campaign and click on the the Ad Extensions tab.
2. Click View campaign extension information.
3. Select View:Sitelinks extensions from the drop down menu.

4. Click New Extension to add links for the ad group or entire campaign and enter the information in the Links area.

5. To edit them, place the curser over the extension and click the pencil icon that appears.

To learn more about creating Ad Sitelinks, visit the AdWords Help Centre page at: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=188236

Google Analytics: “Site Overlay” replaced with “In-Page Analytics”

Google Analytics has released a new feature “In-Page Analytics” as a replacement for “Site Overlay” with lots on advanced features.

Below is a video from Google that demonstrates how it works and gives an overview about the advanced segments of In-Page Analytics like filters, full view and options.

For more information visit

AdWords MCC: New Client Reporting Interface

Google AdWords has changed the client reporting interface in MCC. Below is the screen shot of how the new interface looks like.



Key features of the new interface:

• No more templates: Each report today can be a basis for another report. Just click "Create Similar" next to report, and you'll create a new report based on the one you selected.
• Faster report generation: new infrastructure allows of creating complex reports more quickly and easily.
• More reports: number of reports is increased from 15 to 100.
• Increased security: For better control, in new interface, only email addresses that were invited to account can receive emailed reports. You can modify the access levels by clicking "Account Access" in My Account tab.

Please visit help center for more information.

Some Useful Videos About AdWords

Auction means prize being sold for the highest bid. But AdWords auction works a little differently, where the winner only pays the minimum amount necessary to maintain their position on the page. That means you'll only pay the minimum necessary to beat the person below you. In fact, our quality-based pricing system ensures that you'll often pay less than your maximum bid.

How exactly does this work? Here is a video explaining the same.



Adding to this, here is an overview of Quality Score and answers to some common questions about Ads Quality are covered in this video.

New "Analyze Competition" tab in Adwords Interface

Google has launched a new AdWords feature "Analyze competition" in Opportunities tab.

Google claims the ‘Analyze Competition’ feature in the Opportunities tab allows you to see how your AdWords performance compares to that of other businesses advertising on similar keyword categories. Comparison data provides a number of metrics such as impressions, clicks, CTR, and average position. All data is anonymous to ensure advertiser privacy.

Categories are based on actual Google.com search terms and are matched up against your keywords, ad text, and landing page text. For each category associated with your account, you'll see a bar graph, which shows your individual performance compared to the average performance of other advertisers in the same category. The video below will give you a gist of areas this could help you on



More information about “Analyze Competition” visit

AdWords New Product Updates

AdWords Interface
New My Client Center (MCC) Feature: Labels
Labels are a new way for MCC users to organize their accounts into groups or flag clients that require attention. For example: users can identify important clients with the label "High Priority," mark active vs. inactive accounts, or identify accounts belonging to the same end client. Users can then filter the dashboard to quickly view all accounts at their current level with a specific label. For more information, please visit the Google AdWords Help Center.

New Ad Formats
Image Search redesign and launch of Image Search ads:
Google has launched a new interface for Google Images, and a new Ad format to complement it. You can now run ads specifically on Google Images with this text + image format. This new ad format can be created using the Display Ads Builder's “Image Search Ad” template and will show only on Google Images results pages. By combining an image with text, your clients can offer rich and relevant targeting to increase engagement and click-through rates.

Use these ads as a complement your client’s main search campaigns to reach users early in the purchase process as they are browsing and comparing products.

For more information, including how to create an Image Search Ad and best practices on optimizing performance, visit the Google AdWords Help Center

How is PPC Campaign Affected with Yahoo/MSN Merger?

Here is a very interesting article from Joseph Kerchbaum on 'How the Yahoo/MSN Merger will affect your PPC campaign'.

As part of the transition, Yahoo and Microsoft also have come up with joint editorial guidelines

Distribution Channel Selection and Reporting

Unlike other PPC distribution options such as search partner networks or content (display) networks where you can opt-in or out, you will not have the option to choose whether your ads appear on only Yahoo or Bing; it's all or nothing.

Within your newly merged adCenter account, your PPC advertisements will be displayed on both Bing and Yahoo search results pages (SERPs).

You may have discovered from your own historical performance, Yahoo and Bing have different audiences and their ROI can vary greatly. I have worked with clients in the past where our results in one of these search engines were strong and the other was lackluster. When this occurred, we adjusted our budgets accordingly to gain the best results.

After the merger, you won't have this option. You either display ads on both search engines or neither of them.

I guess it make some sort of twisted sense that if you can't opt-in or out of either search engine, why provide this level of reporting? The data displayed within your merged adCenter account will contain an aggregate of your Yahoo and Bing performance for each keyword and ad text. You won't be able to monitor the performance of a keyword specifically in Yahoo or Bing.

Keyword Match Type Transition and Mapping

The Yahoo Search Marketing interface provides two matches: standard and advanced. AdCenter provides three match types, similar to Google AdWords: exact, phrase, and broad. When keywords are moved from Yahoo to adCenter, their match type will have to be transitioned.

In Yahoo Search Marketing, the keyword match types are managed at the campaign and ad group level. So, in one ad group all of your keywords are the same match type.
Standard match type keywords will be transitioned to exact match in adCenter. Advanced match keywords will be transitions to broad match keywords in adCenter.

If your Yahoo account is transferred directly into adCenter you'll need to make significant changes to your keyword strategy.

For example, the canonicalization of keywords in Yahoo Search Marketing maps the singular and plural variations and common misspellings to the primary form of the keyword.

Within adCenter, the singular, plural and common misspellings are treated as individual keywords and need to be bid upon and managed separately. If you bid on the keyword "truck," you will also need to add all of the variations to your account.

Excluded Keywords Options

Both interfaces allow you to implement negative keywords. However, they offer different limits on how many negative keywords you can add to your account. AdCenter offers a wider range of options for this tactic. If you transfer your Yahoo directly into adCenter, you can expand your negative keyword list.

For example, Yahoo's limits on negative keywords:

• Account level = 500
• Campaign level = 1,250
• Ad group level = 500

AdCenter limits on negative keywords:

• Campaign level = thousands
• Ad group level = thousands
• Keyword level = 1,024 characters

When moving a Yahoo account into adCenter, excluded keywords will transition over at the same level, except account-level excluded words, which will be set to the campaign level in adCenter.

Geo-Targeting Differences

The tactics for which you can target specific geographic locations differs between the two PPC interfaces. Therefore, when you transition between accounts, you should make adjustments accordingly.

In Yahoo Search Marketing you have the ability to target campaigns and/or ad groups by:

• Market
• Country
• State
• DMA
• City
• ZIP code

Within Yahoo Search Marketing the location of a user is determined by:

• Geo-modified queries
• ULM/registration data
• IP address

Geographic targeting and user location determination functions differently in adCenter. With adCenter, you can target campaigns by:

• Country/region
• State/province
• Metro area
• City

Also, the user location for an adCenter visitor is determined solely by IP address.

Ad Copy Length Differences

In Yahoo Search Marketing, your headlines can be up to 40 characters in length. In adCenter, headlines are allotted only 25 characters.

If any ad's headline exceeds this 25 character limit at the time of transition, that headline will be truncated and transitioned as inactive. I'm not certain how the headline will be truncated so this is something you'll certainly have to monitor. The adCenter team may completely rewrite your headline or they may just cut out a few words. Either way, it's a bad deal for your ad and you need to act accordingly.

Hopefully, all of the account transitions will go smoothly and advertisers won't feel too much discomfort during the change.

However, I have one tip that is pretty straight forward and should save you a lot of headaches. To avoid all of these account merger issues, you should just open an adCenter account now and build it exactly how you want it. If you already have an adCenter account, then you're already covered and you won't need to do anything.

In August or September, when you log in into your Yahoo Search Marketing account, you'll see a screen similar to the above. On this screen, you'll have three options. If you already have an active adCenter account, then you won't need to do anything.

If you choose option three for the transition (and you should) then you should receive a notification when your Yahoo Search Marketing account has stopped distributing ads and these search queries have been transitioned to your adCenter account.

Is Quality Score a gimmick by Google to make money?

Somewhere in the mid of 2005 as a revolution towards stressing on the fact of relevancy, Google came up with the concept of Quality Score. As per Google below are some of the factors that influence QS:

• Historical clickthrough rate (CTR) of the keyword.
• Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account.
• Relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group.
• Relevance of the keyword to ad and to the search query.
• Your account's performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown.
• Other relevance factors.

Since then Google has added lots of factors that would influence Quality Score, such as the inclusion of landing page quality and landing page load time and so on not to forget ‘other relevance factors’. Above all one question that hunts all SEM professionals is how is Quality Score Calculated? What are those ‘other relevancy factors’?

To all readers I would like to share the result of a test conducted across multiple accounts regarding QS. For a test period of 15 days bids were reduced drastically for all keywords with low QS (1 to 4), leading to which keywords that were consuming almost 60% of total cost of the account dropped to just 18% of the total cost contribution impression and clicks from keywords with low QS dropped by almost 80%. CTR for all these keywords went from bad to worst during this period. (Point to note: apart from bid changes no other changes such as ‘Ad Copy changes’, ‘Landing Page changes’ were done to the account). Strangely by the end of the test period QS of almost 55% of keywords with low QS (1 to 4) in the account had gone up to (6 to 7). This sudden change in Quality Score trigger’s certain question in my mind.

• What made Google to suddenly change the keywords QS to that high?
• Did Google suddenly realize that Keywords and Ads were very relevant in that ad group and it has assigned low QS and raised the QS?
• Did the past 15 days CTR (worst ever in the history of that account) match to the industry standards and hence raised the Quality Score? Finally important one
• Quality Score for these keywords were increased just because Google stopped making money on these keywords? If yes then the whole concept of Quality Score from Google is just a gimmick to make more money?

If anyone has an answer to these questions, your comments are welcomed!

Going Back to Basics - Google AdWords

Today i have tried to answer some of the frequently asked questions in Google AdWords.

What is Ad ‘Rank’?
Ad rank is a score that your keyword receives when the quality score is multiplied by the max CPC. Formula: Ad Rank = Max CPC Bid x Quality Score

• Advertiser A. Max CPC of $1.55 with a Quality score of 7 = assigned rank is 10.9 = position 1
• Advertiser B. Max CPC of $1.65 with a QS score of 4 = assigned rank of 6.6 = position 2
• Advertiser C. Max CPC of $1.30 with a QS score of 5 = assigned rank of 6.5 = position 3

What is the difference between ad rank and ad position?
Position is the actual position of your ads on the results pages. Rank is the score a keyword receives based on it’s quality score and Max CPC and this Rank is what determines your position and what you pay per click.

How do I raise my Ad Rank?
Ad rank is determined by Quality Score X Max CPC, so if you raise one of them your ad rank will improve. But just increasing Max CPC might not directly increase your ad position, as keywords should also qualify/exceed certain quality threshold set by Google. (Hence QS has the upper hand among them)

How is Actual CPC calculated?
Actual CPC is calculated by dividing Ad Rank to beat (Ad Rank of the ad showing beneath you) by Quality Score + $0.01. Formula: Actual CPC = (Ad Rank to beat ÷ Quality Score) + $0.01

• Take B’s rank of 6.6 and divide it by A’s QS of 7 – 6.6 / 7 = 0.94 cents. 0.94 is what Advertiser A has to pay + 1 cents added to place it above B’s position for a total of .95 cents.
• Take C’s rank of 6.5 and divide it by B’s QS of 4 – 6.5 / 4 = 1.62. 1.62 is what Advertiser B has to pay + 1 cents to place it above C’s position for a total of 1.63 cents
• This process repeats until the end of the auction where the last bidder pays the minimum bid required to be active in the action.

What does ‘below first page bid estimate’ mean?
Below first page bid estimate indicates that you need to increase your bid to be placed on the first page of search results. Reasons for this could be quality score of that keyword is too low or you may be in a competitive market and your bid is not meeting the minimum bid requirement to qualify for first page.

What does ‘Rarely shown due to quality score’ mean?
This message indicates that you have a problem with your Keyword Quality, Landing Page Quality Score or possibly both. Your quality score needs to be addressed immediately.

What does ‘Low Search Volume’ mean?
“Low search volume" keywords are keywords associated with very little search traffic on Google properties. Keyword can have low search volume for a various reasons, including a lack of relevance to users‘, keyword obscurity, specificity or a significant misspelling of the intended keyword.

What is Bid Optimization/Management?
Bid management is the process of optimizing paid search / sponsored search campaign by modifying the bids to get the desired rank by specifying the maximum amount you are willing to pay per click for a keyword in order to maximize return on Investment.

How is Bid Optimized?
At present most of the PPC campaigns are optimized by manual optimization or by using bid optimization tools.

Manual Optimization enables dynamic bid changes at any given point based on the performance metrics and client goals. It is more dynamic then Bid Management tools because click trends are not uniform throughout the month/day so based on current situation and real time data analysis instant action can be taken in order to maximize ROI

Bid Optimization Tools enables maximize efficiency of spend in order to reach client goals. Bid Management Tools make Keyword-level bid recommendations based on historical data for each keyword, using sophisticated statistical algorithms within parameters / strategies set for each set of group or keywords. Most of the tools available in the market work with the concept of

• Max Bid
• Min Bid
• Target ROI %

Google Buys AdMob

Google has closed the $750 million deal on its acquisition of AdMob. Google plans to bring two teams together to improve Google’s mobile strategy. According to the blog, mobile advertising is becoming a much larger part of our clients’ and partners’ strategies and with this acquisition, it’s now a central part of our own business.” The deal is being seen as a push from Google to incorporate more search into mobile. On this note, Google writes, “As smart phones have proliferated, we’ve seen dramatic increases in mobile search volume. Over the past two years, Google’s mobile search volumes have grown more than fivefold, at an accelerated pace,

Updates that will soon be available in Google AdWords

Campaign Management Updates

In the coming days couple of new enhancements is proposed to be released under campaign management:

• Filter by image ad name: The ad text filter on the Ads tab now also returns any matching text from a display ad name. (Combine it with the new filter on ad type to quickly identify display ads across an account!)

• Compare two date ranges in the graph: Use the graph options button on the analysis toolbar to compare to a previous date range. You'll see a new "Compare to" drop-down in the graph options panel that allows you to choose between comparing two metrics or comparing two date ranges. Mouse over the points on the graph to get a quick idea of before/after data.

Keyword Tool Traffic Estimates will be soon available at Ad group level

Google is planning to introduce a new form of traffic estimates in the Keyword Tool that lets you receive traffic estimates within the context of a specific ad group.

You will be able to select specific keywords from the list of suggestions and click on the 'Estimate Search Traffic' button where you'll be taken to a window that prompts you to select an ad group for traffic estimates. This enhancement enables you to see how keywords might perform in a specific ad group as opposed to the context of a full keyword list and will give a more accurate picture of how often your clients ads might show and how they might perform.

Remarketing now available through Google AdWords

AdWords advertiser can use Remarketing to reach users as they’re browsing the web on sites within the Google Content Network. Remarketing is a simple way to connect with users, based on their past interactions with your website.

Google launched its own display re-targeting program this week, enabling advertisers to serve ads through the Google content network to visitors that had previously interacted with their site. Remarketing had been part of Google’s internet-based advertising beta since last March, and includes a variety of customization and targeting features to serve ads based on the specific actions customers have taken. For example, if you’re a search advertiser, you can use remarketing to create an integrated campaign strategy. After driving traffic to your site with search ads, you can then remarket to those users who reach your site by showing them tailored ads on sites throughout the Google Content Network.

You can easily set up and create a remarketing campaign through the new “Audiences” tab in AdWords. A remarketing campaign allows you to take advantage of the same features and reports you can use today in AdWords - it’s just a new way to reach the best audience for your ad.

Remarketing is a great way for businesses to reach users who are likely to be highly receptive to their ads and special offers. It helps advertisers and websites get higher returns.

Get more information on how to Get started with Remarketing

Google Introduces Starred Search

Google introduced a new feature this week called Starred Search that allows users to select sites from Google’s results page. The service then automatically archives the links into the user’s Google account bookmarks.

Google is introducing a new way of personalizing search results, which should really come in handy for those who usually do a search instead of typing a URL to get to a site. With the new search 'stars,' users will be able to save the results they preferred for future reference, in a way bookmarking them so that they show up at the top of the results whenever they make the same search.

The starred results are synced with the Google Toolbar and with Google Bookmarks so you can review and manage them in one place. If you have the Google Toolbar installed, you can star any web page you are visiting and it will show up when a related search is performed. With the introduction of the star feature, Google is retiring Search Wiki, the feature that enabled you to customize the search-result ranking and make annotations.

Google Analytics Ecommerce Tracking Not Working?

When it comes to tracking ecommerce transaction in Google Analytics, people usually have complaint that they have problem in tracking ecommerce transactions or data is not tracked properly. In this post I have tried to answer the following.

1. How to track e-commerce transactions?
2. How to track a 3rd-party shopping cart?

First step for tracking ecommerce transactions is generating Ecommerce tracking pixel in the prescribed format and placing it at the right place.

The actual ecommerce code to be placed on the thank you page of the website would be.

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
pageTracker._addTrans(“”,””,””,””,””,””,””,””);
pageTracker._addItem(“”,””,””,””,””,””);
pageTracker._trackTrans();
} catch(err) {}
</script>

Below is the brief explanation of generating the above code.

For the normal analytics code, you will have call 2 functions “_addTrans() and _addItem()” after pageTracker._trackPageview(); We need to call the _addTrans() functions. (details are explained below)

<script type="text/javascript">


var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXX-1");
pageTracker._trackPageview();
pageTracker._addTrans(
"1234", // Order ID
"Mountain View", // Affiliation
"18.28", // Total

"1.29", // Tax
"5", // Shipping
"San Jose", // City
"California", // State
"USA" // Country
);

pageTracker._addItem(

"1234", // Order ID
"DD44", // SKU
"T-Shirt", // Product Name
"Green Medium", // Category
"11.99", // Price
"1" // Quantity
);
pageTracker._trackTrans();
} catch(err) {}</script>

If your website initiates a purchase checkout process on a different subdomain (for example, if you send customers from www.bangaluru.com to shoppingcart.bangaluru.com):

Add the following line (in bold) to your tracking code on both your store site and your shopping cart pages:

Google Analytics can track data from a shopping cart on your own domain, or even on other domains, with the addition of some code. If your store site is on a different subdomain or domain than your main site, follow the instructions below to configure your pages.

If your website initiates a purchase checkout process on a different subdomain (for example, if you send customers from

www.mystore.com to shoppingcart.mystore.com):

Add the following line (in bold) to your tracking code on both your store site and your shopping cart pages:

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x");
pageTracker._setDomainName("mystore.com");
pageTracker._setAllowLinker(true);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

If your website initiates a purchase checkout process on a separate store site (for example, if you send customers from http://www.mystore.com/ to www.securecart.com):


1. Add the following lines to your tracking code on both your store site and your shopping cart pages. This code must occur above the code in Step 2.
   

   
<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x");
pageTracker._setDomainName("none");
pageTracker._setAllowLinker(true);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

2. Change the links from the main site to the secure site to use_link as follows. Please note that your analytics tracking
   code and calls to _gat._getTracker (shown in Step 1) must be placed on the page above the call to_link. If your current links look like:
   

<a href="https://www.securecart.com/?store=parameters"> Purchase Now </a>

change them to:

<a href=" https://www.securecart.com/?store=parameters" onclick="pageTracker._link(this.href); return false;">Purchase Now</a>

Google Ad Planner is now DoubleClick Ad Planner

Google Ad Planner is now renamed to DoubleClick Ad Planner. The product remains free and open for everyone and can continue to use Ad Planner regardless of whether or not you are a DoubleClick customer.

Google's DoubleClick products enable the end-to-end planning, buying, serving and measurement of display ads across the web. Since Ad Planner's media research and planning tools are a significant part of these it is brought under the DoubleClick brand.

URL still remails the same, you can visit Ad Planner at www.google.com/adplanner.

Analysis Tools in AdWords Campaigns Tab

Over the last several months, we've been introducing new ways to analyze and segment your campaign data. As we continue to introduce more data types, we want to make sure that it's easy for you to access these reporting controls. That's why we've introduced a new analysis toolbar in the Campaigns tab of your account. This toolbar consolidates key functionality from the "Filter and views" and "More actions" menus, and appears at the top of each of your data tables:







(click for full size image)



You can use the toolbar to quickly apply a filter to the data you're viewing or customize the columns on each tab. You can also gain important insights into performance across different networks or time periods by using the "Segment" option:





Controls to show or hide paused or deleted campaigns and ad groups are also now available in this toolbar:



Just like the integration of the popular Search Query and Placement Performance Reports in the Campaigns tab, our hope is that this new toolbar will further streamline reporting and help you to get the most out of your AdWords data and your advertising campaigns.

Bid Ideas Now in the Opportunities Tab

Google has introduced a new feature for the Opportunities tab. All these days Opportunities tab provided keyword and budget ideas for optimizing your account. Now Google is adding more functionality by introducing Bid Ideas.

Bid Ideas are based on bid simulator data, customized bid ideas was a feature that was introduced to help the advertiser to determine the exact bid that would make most of the advertising budget and higher ROI.

Bid ideas are shown with their estimated cost, impression, and click impact. A graph showing clicks versus cost for a range of bid amounts pop up as soon as bid ideas are clicked. The graph will include your keyword's current bid (marked in gray) and the proposed bid (marked in yellow).

The estimates shown are not predictions or estimates but they are variations of last 7 days performance. While this tool doesn't know enough about your advertising goals to make a recommendation of which specific bid is best for you, it does provide useful data and good insight on bid ideas to consider.

BingHoo! - Search Deal Approved

Microsoft and Yahoo! have received approval from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission for their search deal announced in July 2009. The 10-year agreement deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! to combine the companies’ search platforms brings together the number 2 and 3 players in search together, providing advertisers a combined audience of 577 million searchers worldwide. Bing will serve as both the organic and paid search platform for both Yahoo and Microsoft. Yahoo will manage the exclusive worldwide salesforce for both companies’ paid search services. Display media will be maintained separately.

According to their press release, the transition will begin in the “coming days” and the companies have set a goal of completing that effort by the end of 2010.

The key terms of the agreement are as follows:

• Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites and Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in enhancing display advertising technology.


• Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.


• Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.


• Bing will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.


• Bing will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.

Below is a video from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discussing about the search agreement with Yahoo!

Likewise video from Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz discussing about the agreement

Google Acquired Aardvark

Google acquired Aardvark this week. Aadvark is a San Fransisco based social graphing site that draws on a user’s social network to answer user generated questions. Founded by former Google employees, the social search engine has accrued 90,000 users since its launch in October.

Google acquired Aardvark for 50 million dollars. So, why did Google pay 50 million dollars for a 90,000 person network? Well, according to Hadley Reynolds, a search industry analyst for IDC, “The success of the social sites is a threat to Google, and the Buzz announcement and the Wave before it show how seriously it is taking the challenge.

It looks like Google is taking a step towards becoming a leading player in the question-answering business competing against Yahoo answers and Ask.com.

Google Search Results with Social Touch

Yahoo! New Search Improvements for New Year

Yahoo! has launched a new tool that makes account creation with Yahoo! Search Marketing easier and faster.

Advertisers who use Google AdWords can convert the AdWords campaign data into Yahoo! with this new tool. AdWords campaign files can be imported by simply clicking the “Import Campaigns” button.

If you have already tried this new feature then you should be shocked to see that even ads with description line of 71 characters are accepted. When you are importing file from AdWords and if you have ads with 35 character each when it is concatenated with a space it would total-up to 71 character & it is now accepted in Yahoo! Search Marketing. Shocked? but true!

Has their be an amendment on the character limit?
Has Yahoo! updated its Ad copies short description character limit from 70 to 71?

To get answers for these questions, we will have to wait for the next posts from Yahoo!

Yahoo! New Year Updates

Yahoo! has started the new year with new search advertising enhancements for users and advertisers.

Sponsored Search Advertising has 2 new features that will give advertisers more transparency and better control over their accounts.

• Network Distribution
• Different bidding option

Network Distribution
This new feature enables you to set up campaigns or ad groups targeting Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Partners, or both.

If you select Yahoo! Search, your ads will appear only on Yahoo! search results pages. If you select Yahoo! Partners, your ads will appear across our partners’ pages, including WebMD, Buy.com, CNBC and CitySearch.

With the network distribution feature, you can choose for your ads to appear only on Yahoo! search results pages, only on Yahoo! partner implementations, or across the entire network.

Different Bidding Option
With the help of the new bidding feature even though if you run ads on entire network, you have the ability to fine-tune your bids with different bids for Yahoo! Partners.

With this feature advertiser has better control over the spend and optimize ad with seperate bids for Yahoo Search and Search Partners.

Google Last Quarter Profits Declared!

Breaking records and surpassing Wall Street’s expectations, Google has reported a profit of nearly $2 billion for fourth-quarter on Thursday.

On the backdrop of last week’s threat of Google pulling out of China over censorship and cyber spying, Google has reported a $1.97 billion. Fourth-quarter revenue totalled $6.7 billion, a 17% increase.

Google made serious efforts in 2009 to expand its revenue base with Google Apps, YouTube and its smartphone, but still the majority of profits still came from search engine advertising.

Google CFO Patrick Pichette said fourth-quarter results were "very strong" in many of the major markets the company operates in around the globe. Revenue from outside the United States totaled $3.5 billion, representing 53% of total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2009, up from 50% in the fourth quarter of 2008.

How Does Search Engine Identify Synonyms?

Recent post on Google Blog gives an overview in to how Google interprets synonyms in search queries and results.

The post offers a rare insight into Google’s algorithms and a deeper understanding into how system is understanding synonms. The post discuss about how the computer program understands synonyms and analysis about synonyms impact and quality.
According to the post, “Google measurements show that synonyms affect 70 percent of user searches across the more than 100 languages they supports". A test was conducted on a set of queries and analyzed how precise the synonyms were and the result was, For every 50 queries where synonyms significantly improved the search results, they had only one truly bad synonym.

Google has recently made changes to how synonyms are displayed. Historically, synonyms such as stemming variants were made bold — like the word "picture" for a search with the word "pictures." But Now, Google have extended this to words that their algorithms confidently think mean the same thing, even if they are spelled nothing like the original term. This helps you to understand why that result is shown, especially if it doesn't contain your original search term. Example: If you search [pictures developed with coffee] you can even see the result that has the word "photos" bolded in the title.

Controversial Conflict Between Google & Apple!

Google with its recent launch of Nexus One shows, how competitive the smartphone market has become. The Nexus One competes directly with the iPhone and its wireless handset operating system rivals the iPhone OS.

On the backdrop of increasing rivalry with Google, Apple has started discussion with Microsoft for making Bing as the default search engine on the iPhone’s Safari Web browser. BusinessWeek reported that, the two companies had been negotiating for weeks over a possible partnership on the iPhone.

Google Being the default search engine on the iPhone carries the financial benefits from Ads revenue. Closure of this deal between Apple and Microsoft may mean that iPhone owners would automatically get Microsoft's Bing as the main search engine leading to a loss in Google's market share and would also help Bing gain market share in the quickly growing area of mobile search.

Sachin Scores 44th Test 100!

Sachin Tendulkar smashed his 44th Test century today on the second day of the opening Test Match against Bangladesh. His Century helped India to reach a decent score. India were allout for 243 runs.

Tendulkar resumed play from 76 and scored his century in 166 balls with 11 boundries and 2 sixes.

Sachin Tendulkar Reaches Another Milestone

On the backdrop of poor batting performance from India in the first Test Match against Bangladesh, Sachin Tendulkar standout and crosses another milestone of 13000 runs in Test Match Cricket. He is the first batsman to reach a score of 13000.

Sachin went into the game with just 30 runs to reach this milestone & he reached this milestone in a style by pulling the bowl to boundary in the 36th over of the match.

Master Blaster is the highest run getter in both Test and ODI versions. In Test Match Cricket at the end of first innings against bangladesh he has scored 13075 runs in 163 matches with an average of 54.72 wherein he has scored 44 centuries and 55 half centuries.

His scores in ODIs is much more impressive with a huge record 17,394 runs from 440 ODI’s averaging 44.71, which includes 45 centuries and 93 half centuries.

AdWords New Keyword Tool (Beta)

As a part of continuous upgrading process to its Tools, Google has come up with a new keyword tool currently in Beta phase.

This new tool has some real good additions wherein we can choose to view keywords by categories like Finance, Sports, Apparels and many more. The feature that was available in Search Based Keyword Tool (SBKT).

Let us look in to some of the features of this new Tool:-

Keywords Searching – Previous keyword tool had 2 options firstly searching by entering keyword and secondly by entering the website URL. New addition to this Beta version of the keyword tool is search by inserting a list of your high CTR keywords and the tool will provide relevant words for them.

Keyword Sorting – Keywords can be sorted according to search history, competition, estimated Avg. CPC, ad share, search share, CTR and a few more other options.

Add or Remove Keyword Categories – With this new keyword tool you can easily choose to add or remove a keyword category. For example if you choose “Loan” under Finance category, You will have the option of not showing words related to unsecured, secured or debt consolidation.

This tool is an advanced version of the current keyword tool and has incorporated some positive features from Search Based Keyword Tool.

Here are some of the screen grab of this new tool.