Jonathan Jeter

Delete Your Google Search History Before It Becomes a Permanent Record

Jonathan — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 05:16:51 +0000

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released clear instructions and a compelling argument for deleting your Google search history before the new, comprehensive Google Privacy Policy goes into effect on March 1, 2012. The concern with the new, unified privacy policy is that your web search history will be combined with your data on YouTube, Google Plus, Gmail, Google Docs and all other Google properties, as well as saving it as a permanent history. Removing your search history won’t stop Google from using your data for internal purposes, but it will keep different Google properties from using your search history for marketing and customization purposes.

The instructions are simple. When logged in to your Google account, go to http://www.google.com/history and click the “remove all history” button, confirming it on the next page. That’s it. That will remove your search history and keep your history from being recorded in the future. It is also important that you do this for all of your Google accounts and for some of us, that might quite a task.

For a more detailed description of the implications of keeping or removing your Google search history, as well as good articles on privacy, check out the related article links below from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

How to Remove Your Google Search History Before Google’s New Privacy Policy Takes Effect (eff.org)
Six Tips to Protect Your Search Privacy (eff.org)
What Actually Changed in Google’s Privacy Policy (eff.org)

Here's what I think about good articles, Search Privacy, Google properties, related article links, privacy policy, Google account, web search history

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Google Plus Badge Gets Some Tweaks

Jonathan — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:36:11 +0000

In the Google+ Developers preview group, it was announced today that the Google+ badge is getting a couple of really good tweaks.

First, the “Add to Circles” button is going to become a follow button and when clicked, it will automatically add the account to your “following” circle. At that point, you can change circles or select a different circle, but it’s an easy one-click way to add a Google+ page to your circles.

Secondly, the sharing functionality is going to get a little easier. Currently, when you +1 something, you have to click twice to get the sharing dialogue to appear. This will now be the default functionality, which will make it much easier to share content on Google Plus. If you are a member of the Google developers preview group, you can already see this functionality in action.

It’s good to see that the Google Plus team is continuing to innovate and respond to feedback from Google+ users. These two items, while seeming to be relatively simple, should greatly increase user interaction with the +1 button and the Google+ badge.

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Pinterest IS Making Money… …Off of YOU!

Jonathan — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:25:16 +0000

I’ve been watching Pinterest with fascination because of the massive appeal it has for certain demographics. It’s really clever because it is a graphical bookmarking site billed a social online pinboard that allows you to “organize and share the things you love.” Everyone expects that a popular site like Pinterest should be making money, but noticeably absent from the interface are any advertising blocks or any other promotional spaces.

It makes sense, though considering the findings posted on Digital Trends that Pinterest is converting shared links on the site to affiliate links. This is not surprising, as it seems one of the most logical ways to convert the user-generated content on the site into monetizable traffic. However, the interesting thing is that they don’t disclose anywhere on their site or their blog that they are modifying the links that members are “pinning” to their “boards”. Looking through their terms, copyright notice and privacy policy, the standard items are in place, but nothing about modifying the content uploaded to the site to generate income via affiliate relationships. What I’m curious about is how this fits into the FTC guidelines for disclosing affiliate relationships. Maybe it only applies to bloggers and only applies to those who blog about items provided via affiliate relationships.

Another interesting take on the subject comes from subprint, where the author concludes that Pinterest could monetize their greatest asset much better, which is the data they are acquiring on the likes, dislikes and interests of a very specific demographic. They have the opportunity to provide this data to advertisers and other interested parties, much like the profit model of PatientsLikeMe.

What do you think? Is Pinterest being sneaky or do they have the right to monetize user-submitted content in any way of their choosing without informing the members supplying the content? Sound off!

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What people are looking for when they find this page: Jonathan Jeter, profit model

Facebook Parenting – Father Shoots His Daughter’s Laptop

Jonathan — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:04:12 +0000

Parenting is hard work and it’s hard to get through to your kids sometimes in a way that’s meaningful that will help them to realize what they’re doing is wrong and to learn and grow from the experience. I am not going to expound on parenting methodology here, other than to say that I think it is a good thing when parents care enough to stay involved with their children’s lives and try to teach them respect and responsibility.

The father in this video had dealt with respect issues and problems with his daughter’s activities on Facebook and when it happened again, he decided to provide a lesson that she wouldn’t soon forget. It seems like the entire world won’t forget it either.

What do you think? Do you think that the father went to far or do you applaud him for his dramatic parenting style?

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Exploring Standard Ad Unit Sizes: Google AdSense 200×200 – Small Square

Jonathan — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:45:49 +0000

Jumping right into the next square offering from Google Adsense, we have the 200×200 – Small Square. If you’re sidebar or content area is to small to accommodate the 250×250 – Square or the 300×250 – Medium Rectangle, your next option is the 200 x 200 – Small Square. The 200 x 200 – Square is multifaceted and can be placed in many areas of your page. Additionally, with some testing as to placement and design, this ad unit can produce a respectable amount of clicks. However, just like the 250×250 Ad Unit, the 200 x 200 has been relegated to the disapproved list by Microsoft Advertising, as well as the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), in favor of the 300×250 rectangle.

Google AdSense offers the 200×200 – Square ad unit for both text only and image/rich media ads. As with other ad types that allow both types, AdSense also offers a combination ad unit that will fill the space with either text ads or image and rich media ads. If you don’t really care what shows up in the ad space, you can opt for the combination option and the space will be filled with whatever Google thinks will convert better. However, if you are testing and planning your placement, you will probably have a specific preference and reason for placing one or the other in a specific area on your page. If this is the case, you shouldn’t use the combination offering, but use a specific type. Examples of both the text version, as well as the image/rich media version of the 200 x 200 ad unit can be seen below.

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Posting From WordPress to Google+

Jonathan — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:39:14 +0000

I’ve been working for the last few weeks to try and figure out an easy way to automatically add posts from my WordPress blog to my Google+ page. Hoping that someone else had already created a plugin, I searched in vain both in the WordPress plugins directory, as well as other WordPress sites and forums. I thought I had finally found a way, however, convoluted to be able to semi-automatically add a blog post to my Google plus page. However, it seems like every time I almost figure it out, there’s still one piece missing.

A cool thing, though, is that if you use the Google+ badge on your site, you can +1 your post (which you should do anyway for all of your posts, right?) which then allows you to share the post on your wall. It’s an extra step, but it makes it easy for you to easily share your latest post on your Google+ page.

An important point, though, is that this doesn’t work for business pages. In my testing, you can only share a post on your main page, not on business pages. If anyone else, has insight, though, on how this works, I would love to hear from you.

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Here's what I think about Google+ page, Best WordPress Plugins, main page, latest post

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Exploring Standard Ad Unit Sizes: Google AdSense 250×250 – Square

Jonathan — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:45:21 +0000

The Google AdSense 250×250 – Square is one of my favorite ad units and it’s one you’ll see commonly around the Web now, both in side bars and in content with wrap around text. The 250 x 250 – Square is versatile and can be placed in many locations, added to the fact that used correctly it can convert very well. However, the 250×250 Ad Unit has fallen out of favor byMicrosoft Advertising, as well as the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), in favor of the 300×250 rectangle.

The 250×250 Square ad unit is still very useful, though, and can be used both with text-only and image/rich media versions, as seen below:

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StumbleUpon Stops Direct Links

Jonathan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:23:26 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s another Internet marketing play I’ve been following recently. A lot of people have started playing in the StumbleUpon playground because of the valuable traffic that can be obtained via the StumbleUpon network. StumbleUpon is changing the game again because instead of direct links to websites, the website links will be contained in the StumbleUpon iframe link.

The SEO implications are obvious. Links from StumbleUpon to target sites that were previously direct, followed (until recently) links from a PR8 site will now disappear, replaced by internal StumbleUpon links that load the target page in an iframe.

Once again, diversification in all online marketing efforts is the recommendation, as all efforts, no matter how successful, can and will change over time. Also, it highlights the fact that online marketing is a never-ending moving target, which means you cannot stop testing and learning to see how all the moving pieces affect your marketing efforts.

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Exploring Standard Ad Unit Sizes: Google AdSense 120×240 Vertical Banner

Jonathan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:45:29 +0000

The Google AdSense 120×240 – Vertical Banner is a shorter version of the 120 x 600 – Skyscraper. The AdSense version of this ad unit is only available for text ads, due to the small area. Once again, the 120 x 240 – Vertical Banner ad unit size is also used by Microsoft Advertising, while it has been delisted by the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau).

This small, vertical banner is ideal when you have a small area under a thin column or you have a small area available in a large header or footer. While the 120 x 240 – Vertical Banner shouldn’t be relied upon as your main income generator for a page, as it doesn’t attract a lot of attention, it can be very effective if placed correctly. If you’re trying to place a skyscraper under a menu or in a sidebar and it is just too long, the 120×240 vertical banner is a good alternative.

Here is an example of the text version of the ad unit, which is the only version available for use in your AdSense advertising.

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Exploring Standard Ad Unit Sizes: Google AdSense 120×600 Skyscraper

Jonathan — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:45:42 +0000

Next up in the series of posts on Google AdSense ad sizes are the ads in the Google Adsense “Other – Vertical” banner category, starting with the 120×600 skyscraper. The reason the ad unit is called a skyscraper is because it is tall and thin and can dominate the space, like an actual, physical skyscraper. This ad unit is not in the AdSense top 4 recommended sizes and is listed in the Delisted Standard Ad Units category of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Ad Unit Guidelines. Microsoft Advertising, however, continues to list the 120 x 600 – Skyscraper as part of its standard ad unit sizes, both for marketers and agencies, as well for small and medium businesses.

The original skyscraper was thinner than the current commonly used version of the skyscraper, to accommodate the small side rails in the layouts of many web sites. As site design has changed and elements, including sidebars, of site layouts have gotten larger, the Google AdSense 160×600 Wide Skyscraper has become the more prominently used ad unit.

The 120×600 skyscraper can contain either text ads or banner ads and an example of each can be found below:

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