Andrew R H Girdwood

Why is Google messing with blogger domains?

2012-05-25T17:40:00.000+01:00

Google has started to redirect visitors to blogspot.com domains from the UK to blogspot.co.uk domains.

For example, try this googleblog.blogspot.com link if you're in the UK or this BodyOfAGeekGoddess.blogspot.com one or even this paperwalker.blogspot.com domain. If you're in the UK you'll end up on blogspot.co.uk.

I use Blogger.com for this blog too - I use Blogger's custom domain option to stick the arhg.net in there for better branding and ease of leaving the platform. I get hundreds of emails very day, so may have missed it but do not recall getting an email alert from Google to tell me that Blogger and BlogSpot would act like this.

Why does it matter?

It matters because bloggers often have to register their domains - especially with advertisers. It means if BlogSpot users are running affiliate banners, for example, that they might be losing out on sales because the networks are discounting traffic coming from the unregistered domain.

Equally, the enforced domain redirection could be messing with analytics scripts.

Update

Google has written about this - on this help page. I'm still not sure how/if they alerted people.

In summary it's been done for censorship.

I thought this comment was telling;

Q: Will this affect search engine optimization on my blog?
A: After this change, crawlers will find Blogspot content on many different domains. Hosting duplicate content on different domains can affect search results. We are making every effort to minimize any negative consequences of hosting Blogspot content on multiple domains.

The audience IPO

2012-05-23T10:18:00.000+01:00

Image via CrunchBase

I thought it was going to be too late to blog about the Facebook IPO – no matter how interesting it is. However, today, we can read up on the discovery that Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs (the underwriters) decided to downgrade their view on Facebook and cautioned their investors on the social network’s lack of mobile monetization on the 9th of May.

This isn’t illegal. It’s just crumbled cookies to everyone else.

The Facebook public offering has been called a giant technology IPO. In stock market terms Facebook does count as a technology stock.

I’ve been calling it an audience IPO.

I treat the Facebook IPO as an audience IPO because investors are essentially tapping into the huge walled garden (fed by the Facebook platform) filled with the social networks’ mammoth user numbers and betting on that. They’re betting that this audience will make Facebook money.

I think there can be little doubt that Facebook is able to make some money from the audience via the desktop experience.

A reporter challenged me as to whether Facebook had reached its peak when it comes to monetization. I disagreed. I think Facebook can earn more from the desktop experience and I see opportunity, rather than challenges, in the other two significant digital channels; mobile and connected TV.

A trivial way in which Facebook could make significant extra revenue from the desktop without interrupting the user experience at all would be add the Google VC backed VigLink to the site. Facebook could earn from purchases inspired by the network. If they didn’t want to support the Google venture then Skimlinks, as once tested by Pinterest, could be used instead. Facebook could even conditionally turn the affiliate tracking on and off depending on whether brands were spending.

Alternatively, Facebook could introduce its own pre-roll on video content or ads overlays. YouTube has taught the web to accept this on videos. Facebook could move on the back of that acceptance. Facebook could even do that to YouTube videos in a way similar to Coull.

So what about the mobile and connected TV audiences? The connected TV audiences do feel like an issue for the future but it is not that much of a stretch to imagine causal gaming on the platform and Facebook’s potential roll in that.

The mobile app already includes “trending stories” and that is an easy route to monetization. The Karma app deal is another very obvious but clever step towards more mobile money.

This post isn’t to defend the IPO price. We will have to see whether it was talked up and then almost secretly cut by the insiders before the rest of the market could react.

This post is to say that Facebook’s ability to connect to an audience across desktop, mobile and connect TV is where I believe the value in the company sits. I think the social platform has plenty of growth left in all three of the digital channels when it comes to this audience.

Learning something new with #commschat

2012-05-21T21:08:00.000+01:00

Today, I took part in Commchat. I'm sorry to say I hadn't encountered the hour long Twitter debate before. I will, however, tune in again. It's a collection of communication brains (PR mainly) debating the topic of the week.

Half way through I decided I'd capture the chat. I've just started.

30 seconds - open Storify, select Twitter, deselect retweets and search for #commschat.
15 seconds - to write the above
45 seconds - click "More" on the 20 tweet selection default to go back an hour and collect 180 results - pressing "add them all"
15 seconds - oh, Chrome browser wobble time...

View the story "The Future of Digital with #commschat" on StorifyThe Future of Digital with #commschatA debate on the future of digital communications - thanks to http://commschat.com/Storified by Andrew Girdwood · Mon, May 21 2012 16:06:38I had a good time - Twitter should be this fast-paced always @CommsChat @andrewgirdwood #commschatCatThanks everyone, and good to meet you all! #commschatMontse CanoA belated congrats to them - they both won last years Digital Impact Awards. details of 2012 up at http://digitalimpactawards.com #commschatCommsChat@mynewsdesk_uk Try balancing hard work w/storytelling, relevancy & usefullness w/o fatigue or staleness! #commschatAccentureInteractive.@mynewsdesk_uk I think it depends on the brand. Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable - Robert Stephens #commschatMatt Weatherall@CatTurner yes, it is about relationships. Long live PR! http://get.mynewsdesk.com/en #commschatMynewsdesk UK@CommsChat @catturner @andrewgirdwood thanks to all another interesting one - now time for a cup of tea #commschatAmanda Coleman@CommsChat @AndrewGirdwood any more questions? I'm just getting fired up #commschatCatThanks to everyone who took part in #commschat! And to everyone else for putting up with busy hour :)Andrew GirdwoodThat takes us to 9pm. Its been a great (and quick) hour. A big tweet to our guests = @catturner and @andrewgirdwood #commschatCommsChat@alexpackham how did you measure that decrease? #commschatJonathan Lloyd@alexpackham Thanks for the info! #commschatMontse Cano@AndrewGirdwood #commschat gets out cheque book ! Lolpferron.@pferron We aim to charge you as MUCH as possible :) #commschat Your pain is our gain!Andrew Girdwood@alexpackham good work! #commschatCat@AndrewGirdwood #commschat what's that look like on the client billings? ;)pferron@AndrewGirdwood yes, iPads for everyone! Digital producers #commschatJonathan Lloyd@AndrewGirdwood And look at us all now! It's five to 9! Always-on, indeed. ;-) #commschatCommsChatBrands have to work very hard. They have to tell their stories, be useful, be relevant. Every day. Without getting tired or stale #commschatMynewsdesk UKWork harder yes, but smarter too - trim the digital fat and get savvy about social - its about relationships, just digital ones #CommsChatCatWork harder yes, but smarter too - trim the digital fat and get savvy about social - its about relationships, just digital ones #CommsChatCatFor examples of how we're adapting at ODEON, see here: http://www.nma.co.uk/news/odeon-decreased-negative-sentiment-by-61-after-taking-social-engagement-in-house/4001637.article and here: http://www.conversocial.com/customers#case-studies #commschatAlex PackhamWe need to embrace the Always-On culture - even if some clients don't yet want it #commschatAndrew Girdwood#commschat There's the rub. Nobody, but nobody, joined a social network to 'engage' with a 'brand'. Knowing why they did is key to successSteve Downes#commschat @AndrewGirdwood You have to work SO much harder. People are clever and naturally reject anything falseCatTherefore we're all going to need to work a lot harder, faster and meet consumer demand for info #commschatAlex Packham@CommsChat you need to be more integrated with offline endeavours no more working in silos and digital coming last or first #commschatpferron@CommsChat A lot harder, I reckon. In B2B, things are hard already #commschatMontse CanoPeople expect immediacy now. You can access information via Google instantly and so consumers expect the same from businesses #commschatAlex PackhamYou have to work much harder. You need to be useful, engaging and relevant. You need to work smarter too #commschatAndrew Girdwood#commschat If social search is the future then why aren't we all excited about Google+?Matt Weatherall@CommsChat Just a little Devil's Advocate over here ;) I heart @Pinterest as much as the next scrapbooker #commschatCatSo lets move to topic 5/ User relationships with online brands are changing – so how much harder will you need to work? #commschatCommsChat.@JonathanLloyd Yes, I agree. In many ways it's empowering to local managers - and, wonderfully, helps build communities offline #commschatAndrew Girdwood@alexpackham @CommsChat @AndrewGirdwood full circle back to ambient? ;) #commschatCat@AndrewGirdwood apply that at the local level and I think it gets really interesting #commschatJonathan LloydSEO still primary strategic focus for many of our customers. Key is creating lots of relevant, rich content & promoting it well. #commschatMynewsdesk UK@CatTurner @CommsChat @AndrewGirdwood Would you rather search per SEO or social data? Love to see how that pans out. #commschatAlex PackhamIs you want to dabble with "new" social search today pop over to http://bit.ly/JhZOlZ and have a play. I enjoyed it #commschatAndrew Girdwood@CatTurner 3rd party developers add so much when API given away, constantly push product further. as they did with twitter. #commschatCommsChat@CatTurner 3rd party developers add so much when API given away, constantly push product further. as they did with twitter. #commschatCommsChat@KLBarber @socialcamapp @viddy @CommsChat yes! I recall 12secondsTV ALL THE TIME. Sad its not here :( #commschatCat#commschat Search won't eventually dominate. Online behaviour will mirror offline and search will take it's place behind entertainmentSteve Downes@CatTurner @CommsChat @AndrewGirdwood Social search is coming. Lets ask the question in 10 years and see!? #commschatAlex PackhamWhat Search + Social together teach is that "brands" are earned media, not owned or paid for media. Evolution. #commschatAndrew Girdwood@amandacomms @Stevejuice @CatTurner Relevant content, I´d say. #commschatMontse CanoPinterest works like a polished version of Tumblr. Once brands weigh in heavily, it could just get drowned in ads if used wrongly #CommsChatWilliam OsbornWhat Search teaches us is that sites should be a digital asset and not a vanity project. #commschatAndrew Girdwood@alexpackham @CommsChat @AndrewGirdwood - and how about social search - what we're discovering from one another #commschatCatRe: Pinterest, putting up examples of 2011 Digital Impact Award winners. We'll add 2012 shortlist when out #commschat http://pinterest.com/communicatemagAndrew / Communicate@AndrewGirdwood Search is getting the hype it deserves, but people tend to forget the big picture. Everything works together #commschat #seoMontse Cano@Darcie You should tune into #commschat for the last 10 minutes :)Andrew Girdwood@Stevejuice @CatTurner so true - good content is essential #commschatAmanda ColemanSorry if you've seen before but evry time Pinterest's mentioned I'm compelled to show our board of newsrooms http://ow.ly/b3qcz #commschatMynewsdesk UK@CommsChat Or are users over it already? I Pin less than I did a month ago. I'm like - meh I'll Tweet it. #commschatCatPinterest's API may allow brands to run flash sales, to update boards inline with Search Surges and certainly to time/mass posts #commschatAndrew Girdwood@AndrewGirdwood 100% even awell known online clicks & mortar retailer is tasked with a ROPO metric competition entries not enough #commschatpferronA recent stat I heard, 90% off web browsing in the UK starts with a Google search. Search is 100% the dominant online function #commschatAlex Packham@CommsChat please elaborate #commschatCat@CatTurner agreed - but once Pinterest release the full API I think it has potential to be much much more. #commschatCommsChat@CommsChat Thanks @mynewsdesk_uk! I am having fun. But where is my wine? #commschatCatI'm deep into SEO and PPC but I don't think Search will rule. Search is one aspect of Engagement and Engagement will rule #commschatAndrew Girdwood@alexpackham I agree. #commschatMontse Cano@Stevejuice CONTENT IS QUEEN! #commschatCat@pferron and you tweet with great timing - for we move onto topic 4 - Search: Will this become the dominant online function? #commschatCommsChat@WillOsborn its just freaky - I mean yes, I and everyone in London are fans of @BarackObama on FB - doesn't mean we'll get on #commschatCat@CommsChat *blushes* (just due to the wine though...) #commschatMynewsdesk UK.@pferron I think I know the pain you speak of. Imagine you need an online to offline factoring in order to show the value #commschatAndrew Girdwood#commschat You don't need to worry about platforms. Produce brilliant content and it'll get found. Need to work harder if it's mediocreSteve Downes@CommsChat The last few people I've had follow me on @Pinterest have been boys! Is the gender gap closing? #commschatElizabeth SharmaUm - @Pinterest is already the next big thing - content curation is a change in user behaviour already @CommsChat #commschatCat@AndrewGirdwood SEO great 4 commerce sites ROI agree but conversation with MD of non ecom brands make outreach a tough sell #commschatpferronI name Rakuten as one of the "magic shop keepers". They're investment in Pinterest is telling. Watch that space. #commschatAndrew GirdwoodCan I just say a big thanks to @mynewsdesk_uk By sponsoring the evening theyre helping it happen. &theyre taking part! #commschatCommsChat@CommsChat Find reasons behind first! Too many platforms around. So, diversification was always possible. #commschatMontse Cano@CatTurner Agreed, until apps can really tailor who and what you can find, and who can find you, it's just not relevant #CommsChatWilliam Osborn@amandacomms @brideyrae yes - and @soundcloud too! Purporting to be the @Instagram of sound following their brand refresh! #commschatCat#commschat it's all about @viddy - if the muppets have been there, you know it's a safe bet.Heather Healy.@mynewsdesk_uk @CommsChat Facebook bought Glancee. The brand may not be known but the public will experience the effect #commschatAndrew Girdwood@Communicatemag Thanks! #commschatMontse CanoWe've seen tremendous growth from Pinterest. &that is before theyve even released their API properly. surely still next big thing #commschatCommsChat@amandacomms am a big @Soundcloud fan but am still waiting for this network to have it's moment much as I'd like to see it... #commschatbridey-rae lipscombe.@alexpackham I use @getglue a lot - they pivot in the right direction. Trying to come to the UK. To be decided. #commschatAndrew GirdwoodAmbient location = stalker alert. Right now its too vague to be truly helpful - it just gives away too much @CommsChat #commschat #privacyCatI'm sure I'm not the only one who doesnt know about Highlight or Glancee. Can someone explain? #commschatAndrew / CommunicateThe next network to takeoff will be Zeebox. 18 months time it will be you or someone you knows TV partner in crime #commschatAlex Packham@brideyrae @CommsChat and don't forget audioboo which has a lot to offer #commschatAmanda ColemanLocation aware apps don't have the following they need to work yet. This gives time for testing out ideas before it really takes #CommsChatWilliam Osborn.@pferron The ROI question is like a ghost. Best answered through SEO, I fear, when it comes to Outreach but that undersells #commschatAndrew Girdwood@amandacomms #commschat agree and the clean up a great example of a tangible result as you mentionedpferron@AndrewGirdwood agreed, even whilst preaching to the converted at #sxsw the uptake was minimal... #commschatbridey-rae lipscombe@EssexInspector welcome inspector. Always been impressed with comms efforts from police - we've often have @amandacomms here at #commschatCommsChat@CommsChat if we are to believe the hype then yes, but I'm going to place my bets on no this year. More focus on social video #commschatbridey-rae lipscombeI just uninstalled Sonar becauase I didn't use it. I needed it to be more aggressive. Not sure the public is there yet. #commschatAndrew GirdwoodWe thought so post #sxsw, but in fact I think its social video apps like @Socialcamapp or @viddy @CommsChat #commschatCatFor Mynewsdesk, engaging in a niche community like #commschat is way to better understand concerns of market & also (hopefully) build trust.Mynewsdesk UKIf you're into digital communications and social media, @CatTurner is giving you gold right now - check out her Twitter feed. #commschatNick BasonI can't see location based services getting the traction they are hyped to get. Too many average services, with scattered users #commschatAlex PackhamThe new S in social+search? Serendipity. We want/need it, true, but I'm not sure it's here yet. #commschatAndrew GirdwoodStill 30 mins left to join #commschat - @CatTurner talking about and answering Qs on online comms trendsDirk SingerStill 30 mins left to join #commschat - @CatTurner talking about and answering Qs on online comms trendsDirk Singer@pferron it is about finding tangible results - real examples not just facts and figures #commschatAmanda Coleman“@amandacomms: With disorder last August social media was essential in restoring normality - shouldn't forget this #commschat” +1Sasha TaylorAre ambient location services such as Highlight and Glancee the next key networks? #commschatCommsChatRecent @TheRabbitAgency Instagram campaign, launched with 2 super users in community each month resulting in 50,000+ entries #commschatbridey-rae lipscombe@AndrewGirdwood can we know where you're drinking it. Which is my neat segway to topic 3 ... #commschatCommsChat#commschat interested 2 know what the ROI 4 your outreach efforts equates to? Biggest barrier for adoption is linking the effort to reward?pferron@AndrewGirdwood Red wine here. Always red with Mynewsdesk. #commschatMynewsdesk UKHalf way line : time for the second brandy, right? :) #commschatAndrew Girdwood@AdamFairclough you're welcome! Also see @dirktherabbit's super stats blog for more of the same :) #commschatCatStart by educating your client/sholders that it's better to directly engage with your smaller desired audience rather than mass #commschatbridey-rae lipscombe@CatTurner Wise words. It takes time & love to properly engage & integrate in a community, so don't spread resources too thin. #commschatMynewsdesk UK@CatTurner Selective slightly better word :) #commschatAlex Packham@amandacomms @alexpackham totally - evolution not revolution (I heard someone say this once, but its for real true) #commschatCatBeing selective about your communities is an absolute but don't let that become an excuse for too narrow an outreach #commschatAndrew Girdwood@alexpackham Picky is right - or rather, selective - and evolve *with* the community - help shape your comms strategy around it #commschatCat@alexpackham @CatTurner isn't that about having a strategy and keeping evolving and revising it? #commschatAmanda Coleman@MontseCano dont forget the hashtag #commschatAndrew / CommunicateFind the key influencers in your 'world' and understand the circles they move in. #commschatMynewsdesk UK@WillOsborn 100% - Never use a scatter gun approach, only target (work with) communities that make sense for you and your brand #commschatCat@AdamFairclough a blog post and slideshare (mobile stats) I posted recently http://rab.bt/statsmobile #commschatDirk SingerCommunicate to niche communities in their language, in a way that they are comfortable with, practitioners must join & study #commschatbridey-rae lipscombe...Evaluate performance against those targets and adapt, rinse and repeat. #commschatAlex PackhamCommunicators need to be picky, social isn't cheap and never stops evolving. Find a few sites, have a objective + targets...#commschatAlex PackhamWell... @CommsChat simple: immersion. You can't "get" to a community unless you get the community #commschatCatWith more niche communities brands can't aim to get all of them. They need to find the communities that resonate with their brand #CommsChatWilliam OsbornCommunicators need to understand their relevant niche communities. First step is discover them, if they don't already know them. #commschatMynewsdesk UK...And most have failed. Now these very niche social sites are appearing, yet again forcing companies to respond and get involved #commschatAlex PackhamAgree MT @AndrewGirdwood That personal connection drives mobile (and digital). A what's next prediction; more -personal digital- #commschatCat@CommsChat Will Osborn, I'm a masters' students in Consumer Psych. with Business #CommsChatWilliam OsbornMarketers need to be a part of and useful to communities. MUST. There can be no drive-by. This is resource expensive but needed. #commschatAndrew GirdwoodIts interesting, FB came along and had something for everyone, and still does. Everyone tried to copy this model...#commschatAlex Packham@CatTurner a client appeared on Watchdog - we watched as twitter accounts set up purely to respond, 50% from twitter for iphone #commschatHeather Healy@AdamFairclough yes! Check it: http://mashable.com/2011/03/23/mobile-by-the-numbers-infogrpahic/ #commschatCat@brideyrae & @heatherhealy G'd evening. Welcome to tonight's #commschatCommsChat.@CatTurner Agree. That personal connection drives mobile (and digital). A what's next prediction; more -personal digital- #commschatAndrew Girdwood....With this mind, how can communicators get to those communities? #commschatCommsChattopic 2 Social behaviour is diversifying and becoming more select – people are withdrawing to the platforms that work for them... #commschatCommsChatLets move to topic 2 (coming in 2 tweets as its so long) but first, a heads up, next week's commschat is an HTML5 special #commschatCommsChatEvening #commschat. Apologies for lateness. Adam tweeting from behind the red square : )Mynewsdesk UKWe're working on hybrid apps currently but moving towards web apps as the divide lessens #commschatMichelle Allen@AndrewGirdwood its making mobile personal and totally relevant #commschatCat@commschat hello! sorry to be late to the party #commschatHeather Healy.@CommsChat I can certainly confirm mobile projects, native and html 5, are booming. Lots of client interest. #commschatAndrew GirdwoodLets have a quick show of tweets on those working on native apps or HTML5 (or both). Either for themselves or for clients #commschatCommsChat@amandacomms exactly - and this trend won't change - we're all sharing a hell of a lot more than this time last year already #commschatCat.@CatTurner @Communicatemag and in Local Search mobile is already well ahead of desktop #commschatAndrew GirdwoodWith disorder last August social media was essential in restoring normality - shouldn't forget this #commschatAmanda ColemanResponsive Sites and design is very much about building for mobile and desktop in one go http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_Web_Design #commschatAndrew GirdwoodWe see many setting up Twitter feeds on their mobile during times of crisis (or complaint) to make a single query to a brand #commschatCatThere may be a HTML5 rush whenever it's finally rubber stamped as finished. Think Responsive Sites and that 50% figure is likely #commschatAndrew GirdwoodAB-SO-LUTELY @CommsChat - not only for the consumer but behind the scenes with group-messaging apps. Handset is always faster #commschatCatMobile usage is growing at a phenomenal pace, but i think mobile websites will eventually out traffic apps for companies. #commschatAlex Packham@AdamFairclough & @NafisaNathani evening to you both #commschatCommsChatMobile+social media can help alleviate but also serve to exacerbate a crisis in any given situation - immediacy response is key #commschatNafisa NathaniWe believe that mobile strategies will surge, as smartphone access is predicted to overtake desktop as soon as next year #commschat eep!Cat@AndrewGirdwood i read some research saying that 50% of enterprise app in 18 months will be on HTML5. Think that's likely? #commschatCommsChatWill be taking part in tonight's @CommsChat as much as I can while viewing the discussion through my phone! #commschatAdam Fairclough@JessicaNorthPR @CommsChat @CatTurner Yes, Bupa, Boots & SimplyHealth all spring to mind. People research health online #commschat #clientsAndrew GirdwoodInteresting! Nature comms industry dramatically changing. Apps one example branded content, offering services to customers #commschatNafisa Nathani@CatTurner you won best crisis award at last years Digital Impact Awards. Does mobile help with crisis.. speed of response etc? #commschatCommsChat(hello! I'm Michelle, a graphic designer who currently specialises in iOS and Android apps) #commschatMichelle Allen@CommsChat @AndrewGirdwood @CatTurner I just wondered if you'd seen many healthcare brands move towards digital campaigns yet? #commschatJessica NorthHTML 5 and native apps are different beasts. HTML 5 can't replace all native functionality so we have 3 types #commschatAndrew Girdwoodglad youre joining in @_missallen & @JessicaNorthPR #commschatCommsChatCant see mobile apps being a good advertising platform yet. I think most would rather pay circa 69p than have ads in apps #commschatAlex Packham@CommsChat Hi I'm Jess, an undergrad from Bournemouth and currently working in a healthcare agency #commschatJessica NorthFollowing #commschat with the lovely @CatTurner'Michelle Allen@AndrewGirdwood Are apps as we know them on the way out? Is HTML5 going to change the rules again? &will that make life easier #commschatCommsChat@drunk_ondigital dont forget the hashtag when you post #CommsChatAndrew / CommunicateLet's also keep in mind there are different types of apps; native, html 5 and hybrid. They all have different attributes #commschatAndrew Girdwood@CommsChat yes, we're doing all kinds of awesome stuff with mobile apps - we're just not making them (yet) #commschatCatAndrew from Lbi @bigmouthmedia here. SEO has become much harder and apps are just one of the many new fronts #commschatAndrew Girdwood@alexpackham HI Alex, good to see you here again tonight #commschatCommsChatHello Andrew (@CommsChat) I am Cat I run a wee kick ass social agency called Rabbit >:) #commschatCatAnd @andrewgirdwood, do apps make SEO harder? #commschatCommsChatAlex - look after Social Media for ODEON Cinemas. Looking forward to tonights #commschatAlex PackhamOK - lets start with a quick shout from @catturner - you guys at Rabbit doing much on Mobile? #commschatCommsChatLets kick off straight away w 1st topic - Mobile: is 4G on its way? Are apps proving themselves as an advertising platform? #commschatCommsChatIt's always polite, however, to give a little intro first. & so - my name's Andrew, & I'm the publisher of Communicate magazine #commschatCommsChat

Sacrifice versus slacktivism in the digital era

2012-05-17T09:35:00.000+01:00

I caught this video over the weekend and made the mental note to share it.

Better late than never... but really, how hard was it for me to have shared the video earlier? A simple tweet would have done it and with that tweetI would have helped promote the cause. That's worth something. Right?

China, creativity and copyright

2012-05-07T17:27:00.000+01:00

Back in 2011 I speculated about the 3D printing challenge to copyright. I maintain that this is a valid concern.

There are other concerns, though, and one of the most humourous is the creativity coming out of China. I think the following images make my point.
(P.S. Blogger needs better image gallery functions)

Google updates nav bar: Drive replaces Documents

2012-04-24T17:48:00.002+01:00

Google launched Google Drive today. You can dig in here. A host of companies from DropBox to insync will take notice.

Early evidence is that Google really will push Google Drive. The Google nav bar, the black strip across so many Google properties, has been updated. Google has replaced the "Documents" link with "Drive".*

In fact, once you sign up to Drive you can no longer access docs.google.com as you get redirected to drive.google.com

* This may be the result of downloading and logging into Drive.

Clever Twitter ad for Smart car Argentina

2012-04-24T10:51:00.000+01:00

If you pop over to @smartarg you would be allowed to wonder what was going on with their account.

Here's a snapshot.

Actually, knowing some of my readers - you've probably already guessed. Here's the ad they produced.

And yes. I might concede this wasn't very helpful for the community and isn't really an example of earned media. I don't think is the agency trying to cope with Twitter by pretending it's a broadcast/TV channel instead. This is just a solid, creative, idea.

The Gadget Show and the invisible iPhones

2012-04-12T09:52:00.000+01:00

I’ve been more internet quiet than usual this Easter break as I’ve been on a little trip down to Birmingham to see The Gadget Show Live.

As a geek I’m aways interested in the tech. As a digital marketing bod I’m always interested in the signals being sent.

One signal I got loud and clear was that there’s something up with the iPhone.

Caution first - this is just one show. A single example does not make a trend. That said; this is a fairly significant show and the iPhone news last year was very different.

This year the iPhone was nowhere to be seen. The iPad was everywhere. Booths sold it. People used it. I even saw one chap on a Facetime call with his kid - letting the kid see the wonders of The Gadget Show Live remotely. There were a few Android tablets but not the please-please-buy lines of them as was the case last year.

The iPhone itself didn’t really feature. We had mobile operators there who and their staff didn’t really seem bothered about the iPhone either - I don’t even recall seeing them on display (though I’m sure they were there). When it came to gadget phones then the buzz was all around high end Android phones.

I did find one iPhone specialist stand. It was a place that sold bling encrusted iPhone cases. I think that sums up what the Gadget Show seemed to be suggesting has been happening to the iPhone. The device seems to be coming a dadPhone.

I can only speculate as to why this is the case - sure, I expect lots of rightly deserved tech attention around the next and best iPhone. I wonder, though, whether the longtail of older iPhone devices still in use is acting as a bit of weight on the brand now.

I suppose it’s also likely that the iPhone is now so ubiquitous that no one felt the need to spotlight it during the expo. That’s possible but wasn’t the impression I got.

The Gadget Show Live was interesting to digital marketers for other reasons too. For example, both Polaroid and Kodak made an appearance. I know how an almost ironic Instagram photograph of a Polaroid display and a photo of Kodak promoting the “Google cloud”.

The Telegraph, the newspaper people, also had a stand. The point of the stand was the promote technology and apps. That’s to say, the Telegraph booth reminded the techheads of the Gadget Show that the newspapers’ content was available electronically. This is certainly an interesting reflection on the twists and turns that the marketing of content has taken in recent years.

I’ve a larger, more generic review of the show, else blog.

Who is Eadweard J. Muybridge?

2012-04-09T00:19:00.000+01:00

It's Eadweard J. Muybridge's 182 birthday today. Google have - and this caught me out - decided to mark his birthday with a Doodle.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. Muybridge pushed technology on in the way Google admires. Born in April 1830 and died in May 1904, Eadweard Muybridge was an English photographer who took on the "Standford and the galloping question" wherein he used photography to discover whether or not all four of a horse's hooves are off the ground at the same time during a trot.

They do all leave the ground.

On a slightly sour note, he was found not guilty of murder, partly due to insanity, after shooting his wife's lover.

Should Nielsen buy a SSP?

2012-04-04T17:48:00.001+01:00

Image via CrunchBase

The news is out today that UKOM has dropped Nielsen in favour of comScore.

Nielsen and comScore are really useful assets for any marketing agency to have access to but both have their challenges.

There's a game I play with Nielsen data. It's called "how much is it really?" and it applies to their estimates of what big brands are spending on Display. Sometimes I know the right figure (we might be running the account) and Nielsen are out by a factor of x3 or x4.

One of the advantages comScore has fought for in recent months is comScore Direct. They let sites tag themselves for free. comScore gets better data. Those sites make sure they're not underselling their page views - although it's been controversial.

Here's where this blog post turns into a brain dump of speculation.

Should Nielsen buy an SSP?

Having a Supply Side Platform would give Nielsen two important things;
1) tags on sites
2) accurate floor prices for Display

However, this seems like quite a sideways leap for the company. Except, there is Nielsen Online and that seems much closer to the SSP model.

What do you think? A savvy move or insanity?

New hobby; trolling Facebook sponsored story surveys

2012-04-02T19:56:00.000+01:00

I actually like Facebook efforts to bring social ads to their platform. You can see the traditional CPM and CPC ads beating a slow retreat as Facebook works hard to find social/engagement ads to replace them.

However, the challenge with any interactive ad is that people might interact with them - people like me.

I'm harsh when it comes to surveys. If I want a yes/no response then I dislike being forced to put the "maybe" option in - even though people beg for it. Equally, I'm sure the ability Facebook gives for the survey audience to ad their own responses is useless most of the time and harmful some of the time.

For example, I was a shameless troll in this paid-for survey from "Social Ad Tools". Then again; perhaps they knew they were letting people offer their own responses and perhaps this is what they wanted.

Google's TV ad: Google+ Tom

2012-03-30T14:53:00.000+01:00

On YouTube Google Channel UK have just uploaded a video called "Google+: Tom".

I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict it's the TV ad for Google+ that we know is coming. The ad itself is supposed air during "Britain's Got Talent" and was put together by Adam & Eve.

How I coped with a Twitter plugin too close to malware

2012-03-29T16:45:00.000+01:00

On Friday the 16th of March I was sent a few tweets from friends who found that Google's Chrome browser warned them against visiting blog.arhg.net. It was worried about malware.

I couldn't recreate the warning. I couldn't find any sign of malware or of any hacking. A few hours later everyone had confirmed that the warning had been dropped.

On Monday the 19th - the start of a week of business travel for me - the warning came back. For everyone. Google's search results warned people about malware and blocked clicks to the site. The timing wasn't great.

By Tuesday the 20th I found some time to get online again and investigate. Google Webmaster Console was so useful. Thanks Google. The console put a warning about malware on the screen for me to notice and sent me an email alert. The same console listed the pages it was worried about and actually highlighted the worrying code.

The problem was the Publitweet Twitter plugin once covered by TechCrunch. Google was worried about the plugin's home domain and since it had a JavaScript call back to the domain Google was worried that any site that used it might also be a malware risk. The good news was that no malware had actually been detected on my blog.

It took a few seconds to fix the problem. I just deleted the suspect code.

Then I hit the "Request Review" button provided by Google alongside the malware warning.

In hindsight, that may have been a mistake. I waited.

I put together a Google+ post to warn other webmasters about Publitweet and in I wondered how long the re-scan would take.

Over the next couple of days Google's Webmaster Console warned me that traffic to key pages of the site had dropped suspiciously. It was obvious why.

Google stopped crawling the site. Right up until I had requested the review Google had been checking the site every day. The list of warnings about suspect URLs had previously had a few entries - but it stopped with just two URLs Google had looked at on the 20th.

I tried to encourage Google back to the site by doing a manual "Fetch as Googlebot" request on the URLs. The fetch worked. The URLs were re-submitted back to the index. Nothing happened on the Malware warning front.

Yesterday, after about my 100th tweet to say my site had malware, I started a Google+ thread limited to just a few people - helpful Google engineers, malware experts, etc - and shared the problem. Within a few minutes I got my first reply - from someone at Google who usually goes out of their way to help. I won't name drop - but thanks.

After a few more comments from other helpful souls the consensus was the same. I might have hit that "request review" button too quickly. There was concern that the server might have still held on to a cached copy of the risky code. I was hoping this wouldn't be the case since the blog is part of blogger.com. Google owns that. Surely they can cope with their own cache?

One engineer suggested that malware review requests can be turned around in a day; but 2 to 3 days is about right. I resolved to re-request the review and sit tight for at least 3 days.

That's a type of conversation I couldn't have had on Twitter.

By the end of the day, less than a handful of hours later, Chrome stopped warning against visiting the site and an hour after that the Google SERPs block was lifted.

The takeaways:

There's always a risk in adding a plugin
Always sign up to Google's Webmaster Console
Beware caches - perhaps wait a while before asking for a malware review
Malware reviews shouldn't take much more than four days

Long-form journalist site Matter crowd sources $140,000

2012-03-26T14:14:00.003+01:00

Matter promises to do long-form, thoughtful, journalism on the web. In a pitch on Kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/readmatter/matter the team have raised more than $140,000 - beating their $50,000 goal.

The pitch video features Cory Doctorow, co-editor of Boing Boing, Alex Ohanian, co-founder of reddit, Matt Haughey, founder of Metafilter and Evan Doll, co-founder of Flipboard. In the video they go up against some of the more annoying blog tricks (which many in the blogging side of the business short hand as 'seo') and make a case for why we should fund, expensive, investigative journalism for tech.

I'm keen to see Matter succeed.

I also think it sets an interesting precedent. I wonder if we'll see blogs turning to Kickstarter for funding. Can you imagine what Mashable might raise if they asked their audience to seed fun a new hardware section?

Curating the curators

2012-03-17T22:58:00.000Z

Commerical curation platform Percolate.com has a video that's chocking up the views and is worth watching. One of the reasons the video is doing well is that it features a host of tastemakers who, of course, are inclined to tell their followers to watch the video. The other reason it's doing well is that the video is worth watching.

Blogging about curation seems a little short of the mark, though. To do something different-yet-the-same I turned to a different curation platform, Storify, dusted an account off and fired it up. The Storify below is a sample of what the curators featured in the video have been curating.

More social extentions showing in Google UK SERPs

2012-03-15T12:02:00.001Z

Google.co.uk does not yet have Search+.

However, some Search+ like effects have started to appear in the SERPs today and they follow on from the "latest posts" rollout that started yesterday.

I don't have MoneySuperMarket in my Circles and yet, on Google.co.uk, when I search for [moneysupermarket] I trigger their latest posts to appear in the old ad space on the right.

Compare that to the same search on Google.com. Spot the difference? I have the option to add MoneySuperMarket to my Circles in .com. I don't have that in the .co.uk because Search+ hasn't integrated Google+ with Search over here yet. I don't have the personalised results suggestions at the very top of the page either.

Use social media to stop competitors brand bidding

2012-03-14T18:09:00.000Z

Brand bidding is always a controversial subject. I certainly know of companies who would happily explore solutions to make it go away.

Google+ with the integration into Search+ may now be such a solution.

Google is testing adding "latest posts" into the right-hand side of the search results. This does not get rid of all the PPC because ads can appear at the very top or the very bottom. It's just harder work to qualify for the top position and not as an effective brand bid to be in the bottom.

The screen grab below shows the effect in place for my name. I'm no brand. I've a fairly small social media footprint - so if my name can trigger this response then this level of SERP dominance is certainly within reach for most brands. If, that is, Google decides to roll it out and if we ever see Search+ outside of America.

I hope we do. I like Search+.

Me versus my blog

2012-03-13T13:09:00.000Z

Infographic search engine and hosting platform, Visual.ly has launched beta access to their new create service. It's free. It lets you create infographics for free.

Sure, there are some restrictions - you have to pick from templates and in this early beta phase there are few to pick from. Data, however, is automatically mined from public sources like Twitter.

This is great news for someone like me who often wants to explore areas and have engaging content - but I've no artistic ability whatsoever.

What you get from the service depends on how clever you are in picking interesting ideas to data mine and your strategy for handling the infographic. The cost, however, is free.

I predict the current cost of infographics to decline. Just as well.

As an illustration I've asked Visually to make one of its head-to-head infographics. In the example below it's comparing me to one of my more popular blogs.

It's a shame that blogger.com isn't very good at displaying infographics.

I think what this represents is a downwards pressure on the price of creative. Equally, it's also putting pressure on strategy to perform - it's strategy that extracts the value from the creative.

Google's new SEO announcements at SES London

2012-02-22T23:04:00.000Z

Today was the second day of the main Search Engine Strategies conference in London. One of the very last sessions of the day was with Google and contained some key SEO insights.

Author authority signals

Some SEOs, including this blogger, suggest there is a category of quality signals that could be called “author authority”. This is based on very heavy suggestions from Google via Matt Cutts but is not accepted by all SEOs. What is certain is that Google has a new(ish) markup that lets qualified authors connect their content with their Google+ profile and have this connection displayed in the search results.

Google did not confirm (or re-confirm) today that there was a quality signal collection for authors or that there was a connection between ranking signals and author markup. This is in-line with Google’s typical communication/no comment on the details of their algorithms even though they have previously blogged that trust and expert authors are factors that the Panda examines.

However, Google encouraged publishers to make use of the author markup. The exact word used was: behooves. If you are a publisher then it behooves you to use the author markup.

Going beyond Google+

In response to a challenge from the audience, Google admitted that they are looking to expand the profile connected with the author from Google+ to include other social profiles.

Such a move would likely be covered extensively by press and would help ease anti-competitive concerns. It is one to watch carefully.

Google will add crawling support for pushState

Disclosure: Google’s initial commends on this were in response to my question, although the presentation later revealed a prepared slide which confirmed the original statement.

Google currently supports an initiative called the AJAX crawling scheme. This encourages site owners to run a headless browser and map user friendly URLs to exposed rich content within AJAX sections of sites. HTML 5 offers web designers an alternative to some of the more widely used AJAX techniques today.

Google confirmed that they will continue to support the AJAX crawling scheme.

In addition, Google will add pushState support to their crawling. This is to ensure compatibility with some HTML 5 techniques.

Googler Ian Hickson is liaising closely with HTML 5 development and Google’s crawling team.

Expect Google to blog on this topic in the (relatively) near future.

Social Signals matter and updated SEO guidelines

Google had already confirmed that social signals impact SEO although there was some debate about this again at this week’s conference.

In Wednesday’s session, Google revealed a set of bullet points that represent SEO tips for 2012. The green text is used to highlight especially important tips or new additions. This photograph clearly shows that follows, +1s and ‘votes’ matter. What counts as a vote was not discussed.

In addition and as an expansion to having relevant content was the suggestion that social media news sites and devices are a consideration too.

Google is addicted to speed

The session made explicit mention of the problem the search engine faces when slow websites are returned high in the results. Google admitted that they considered marking slow sites with a red dot, average loading sites with a yellow dot and swiftly loading sites with a green dot in the SERPs so users could see in advance. However, this suggestion was rejected due to a number of concerns – including how webmasters would react to such a public branding.

Wait, wait... was all this revealed in a secret session?

This was not a secret session. Instead, this season was headlined as “Getting to grips with HTML5” and was presented by Google’s Maile Ohye. Maile is a name that all SEO agency bods should know.

Running in competition to this HTML 5 was a popular debate as to whether SEO was dead (or whether it just needed a new name). It was this session that attracted the most attention.

On one level this is ironic – an echo chamber of SEOs debate whether the traditional concept of SEO has a future while, just a few metres away, through just one door, Google is discussing the HTML 5 future and the SEO implications of that.

It is important that the SEO community do recognise that SEO has changed incredibly over the last few months. We’re swiftly moving towards the point where old SEO is redundant and new SEO is not a widely held skill. The additional technical requirements that HTML 5 may bring to SEO are good news for an industry looking for reasons to show its value whilst also being a challenge to individual SEOs hanging on to the past.

Key Link Building Strategies: Search Engine Strategies 2012

2012-02-21T14:55:00.000Z

Image via Wikipedia

Chris Boggs of Rosetta and SEMPO moderates a session with Patrick Altoft of Branded3 and Lisa Myers of Verve Search. This is the basic link building session and Chris predicts it’ll overlap significantly with the training sessions held on Monday.

Patrick Altoft of Branded3

Patrick argues that not enough attention is given to link building (really?) and that once your on-site SEO work is done the vast bulk of your monthly activity should be the hunt for links.

It’s important to conduct a link analysis before you begin any work – without the analysis you won’t know which is the right strategy to follow.

One form of link analysis is to study the anchor text distribution of your client in contrast to their competitors. This will tell you whether you need more brand anchor text or generic. He points out that the voucher code space is one where many of the major players are lucky enough to have keyword domain names. This means they can build brand and generic links at once.

Another form of link analysis is to us SEOMoz data to study domain authority and link quantity as a graph. Domain authority is the x-axis and link quantity is the y-axis. Sites should aspire to be on the right and high up. This reflects their site having more high quality links than their competitors.

Patrick suggests there aren’t that many types of links as you can boil them down into less than a dozen categories.

Syndicated links are gained when content distributes around the internet and should be used with caution. It’s too easy to get too many poor quality links in this way. Make sure you have plenty of good quality links before you try and push syndicated links too hard.

Patrick explains that link exchanges have evolved and dismisses the idea that link exchanges no longer work. He says that link pages no longer work and reveals a more sophisticated model where sites producing news or blog content agree to reference each other in content posts.

When it comes to social signals Patrick has seen examples where they clearly seem to work but also cases when these signals appear to have had no impact. He suggests that the biggest impact in social may be from blogs which syndicate tweets that they’ve shared or which mention them.

Patrick explains that Branded3’s view on paid links is that they are only risky if they look like a paid link. A free link in among what’s clearly a paid-for blogroll is dangerous, he argues, but a paid for link hidden in the content of another otherwise well behaved blog is safe. The rule of thumb is whether you could show the link to Matt Cutts of Google and confidently lie about it.

The easiest links to get are often from the people you already know so create a prospect list and work through it.

Linkbait is hard, Patrick claims, and you can’t control it.

To wrap up, Patrick reminds the audience that bad links can hurt sites more than not having any links. He suggests that the two biggest “link building agencies” in the UK have their link networks rumbled by Google and that if you hire them, and end up on their exposed network then a penalty may be likely.

Key Linkbuilding Strategies Patrick Altoft 2012

View more PowerPoint from Patrick Altoft

Lisa Myers of Verve Search

Lisa begins by pointing you that you need brains for link building. Tools are helpful because they enable you to work more efficiently – but you still need brains.

Lisa’s tried most tools but her slides mention Linkdex, Raven, SEOmoz and Majestic SEO.

A strong tip from Lisa is to know your audience. Go beyond knowing their age, gender and location and put yourself in their shoes.

Identify the social influencers in your subject area. Be prepared to reach out to them and engage.

There’s (professional) disagreement between the two presentations when Lisa starts to highlight how linkbait can be useful. She’s been able to get highly rated links from the likes of Apple.com. Verve Search discovered a connection between their client and Apple and following that up by reaching out to Apple.

Lisa’s zooms through over 50 slides in about 20 minutes (the presentation may become available later) and concludes by agreeing with Patrick in that bad links are worse than no links.

Key Link Building Strategies Questions & Answers

Question: Can having the same anchor text too frequently be harmful?

Answers: Patrick says that it can be. Lisa agrees but suggests you need a lot of this before it’s a problem.

Question: Can social signals impact rankings?

Answer: Lisa says they can and cites SEOMoz’s research in their area that seems to provide some statistical evidence that (some types of) social signals do influence rankings. Patrick points out that these tests are very hard to run cleanly.

Question: How has Panda impacted link building and link profiling?

Answer: Patrick suggests there’s been no impact – except that some sites might now need to work harder in order to maintain the same listings. Lisa disagrees and suggests that Panda could devalue the worth of some sites and therefore it could, in theory, could have had an impact on the link building landscape.

Disclaimer

These are not my views. These are the summarised points of two basic SEO presentation given under the spotlight to a mixed audience. By the time you read this post it may no longer accurately reflect the views of today’s presentations. As a reminder; undisclosed reviews or undisclosed ‘advertorials’ are a breach of the Unfair Trading act in the UK.

Landing Page Optimisation: Search Engine Strategies 2012

2012-02-21T14:14:00.000Z

Landing Page Optimisation is a PPC centric session, first thing in the morning of day one and right after the keynote speech. It was moderated by Jon Myers and presented by Dr Karl Blanks of Conversion Rate Experts and Nathan Richter of Monetate

Nathan Richter of Monetate

It’ll be easy to write up Nathan’s presentation as it’s already online. I think it’s the same presentation as he used for SES San Francisco but I’ll embed the SES London upload below just to be safe.

Landing Page Optimization Tips (SES London 2012)

I don’t think it’s appropriate to embed every presentation. That’s unfair to the for-profit conference but where speakers have made the slides available outside the SES infrastructure then I’ll use those.

Check out the Q&A section below for more of Nathan’s insight.

Dr Karl Blanks of Conversion Rate Experts

Okay, okay – I admit it – Dr Blanks may have lingered for a few minutes too long on his own company at the start of the presentation, triggered by pathological hatred of any sales pitch that dares to appear in a skills conference and may have triggered a few grumpy tweets.

I was won around by the end – perhaps not by the presentation but from Karl’s clear abundance of knowledge in the area. For example, as a throw away comment he recommended Voices.com as a good place to go to get hassle free voice overs.

The Conversion Rate Experts presentation can be summarised as a “method acting” based approach to creating landing pages. They encourage us to become our clients’ customers in order to design the landing page.

There are two key skill sets;

Be able to sell the product in a face to face situation
Be able to write that pitch down

To start with find someone in the client/company who is very good at selling the product or service. This may be someone fairly junior or someone who speaks to customers every day. Blanks gave the example of a Sony employee in a store who had the best record at selling particular device and had great and reassuring counter-arguments to common customer concerns or questions.

Become a customer – go through the process of buying something from your client and use your own money. Blanks wryly and rightly points out something odd starts to happen to purchase decisions when you’re using company money.

Why use fictional customer personas if you can use real ones. If you’ve really gotten to know the customers and company well enough then this should be possible.

Blanks recommends Kiss Insights as a great web-enabled survey collection solution.

Writing your sales pitch down and turning it into a landing page seems quite a balancing act. Blanks suggests you use as many words in your landing page as you would use verbally when selling the product. However, he also argues to be concise and to edit all the time.

He uses a template to help construct the verbal argument in a landing page. Very roughly it begins with an opening sentence that the reader relates to (the ‘that’s me’ moment), a catchy headline, a joining on paragraph followed by some carefully composed built points. That’s finished off by the appropriate call to action and techniques like urgency creation often work.

Landing Page Optimisation Question & Answers

Question: What’s the most important part of landing page?

Answer: That’s a bit like asking a mechanic what the most important part of a car is, responds Blanks. One way to think about it is to find out why your users aren’t converting at this minute.

Question: What’s a good recommendation for a multi-variant testing tool that can cope with different user agents – ie, mobile

Answer: Nathan Richter from Monetate recommends Monetate.

Heh.

Question: In the keynote session Avinash Kaushik of Google and analytics expert urged the audience to go beyond simply measuring conversions. How does the panel respond to that?

Answers: Blanks argues that you should not just optimise for the sale – optimise for other successes too. Richter encourages developing a list of KPIs and assigning a monetary value to them

Question: In May the UK will fully adopt the EU’s ePrivacy Directive. This means that web visitors cannot be cookied without their consent and without explaining what the cookie is for. Does this not destroy multi-variant question as we know it today?

Disclaimer: This was my question. It was evil.

Answer: Richter responses by agreeing that the industry faces a huge challenge but that it’s not the only one. Hopefully we won’t end up in the situation where effective multi-variant testing becomes illegal. He points out there is possible scope for multi-variant testing the most effective form of permission prompt.

Everything is a Remix part 4: The one for digital marketers

2012-02-20T15:13:00.001Z

I've written about the fantastically good Everything is a Remix series before and I'm days late with pointing out that part 4 is live.

That said; this post is still worth putting together because Everything is a Remix 4 is perhaps the most important chapter in the series for digital marketers.

This video looks at social evolution in the context of IP - and what's gone wrong with the system. If you want to understand why Google is buying companies just to get hold of their patents then this is the video for you.

There's a risk that that sounds dull. Trust me; the video isn't. It'll hold your attention.

How BizMedia celebrated their 500th Facebook fan

2012-02-19T16:20:00.002Z

After watching this video I feel as if we might have underplayed earning Facebook fans for agencies all across the UK.

Thre are quite a few BizMedia's on Facebook. This is the one you should Like if you want to join the 600+ others.

Google prompting searchers to block PPC ads

2012-02-18T22:09:00.001Z

File this under "I've just noticed - is this new?"

Google is asking searchers whether they want to block all ads from a domain. For a while now Google has been offering to block natural search results for a domain and this PPC version is exactly the same.

If a user searchers, clicks and then returns to search again without hanging around on the site then Google prompt for a decision. In my case I wanted to see whether Netflix had Game of Thrones. The site doesn't tell me so I bounced off.

New?

It's certainly interesting. You would have to figure this feature impacts quality score - and perhaps SEO signals too.

PPC bids by Wau

2012-02-10T12:19:00.001Z

It's decided. The next time I find myself enjoying being pitched to by a bid management platform, by an ad-exchange or Facebook API bot I'm going to ask them about Wau. I want to be able to adjust my bids by Wau.

In fact, let's take it further - I suspect I'm going to have to start to record my time in units of Wau in the timesheet at the end of the day.

You too could benefit from Wau.