This is especially silly, since any experienced pay-per-click (PPC) advertising manager knows that using the keyword that someone searches on in your ad helps increase CTR. I’ve never understood the fact that a company will allow someone to sell their product, but not allow them to use the product’s name to advertise it, but it happens all the time.

Under the existing Google Trademark Policy, you can contact the BrandX company and get written approval to use the trademark in your ad. But a lot of times it’s a time-consuming process – Google requires very specific language sent in an email to their trademark policy department, you can’t just use a blanket letter from the company or verbal permission. With some companies it was ridiculous in how long it took to get the required email. The bigger the company, the longer it seemed to take. I had one client that it took a month-and-a-half to get approved by legal – a four-line sentence took three lawyers and a month-and-a-half of time.

So I’m very glad to see Google has revisited their trademark policy, and the new policy seems pretty reasonable. There’s some pretty specific guidelines for the trademark use because we wouldn’t want anyone to be able to use any trademark as they saw fit. Here’s the new Google Trademark Policy, in a nut shell:

1. You can use a trademarked term at Google AdWords if you use it in a generic or descriptive way and not in reference to that specific trademark. I’m thinking Kleenex instead of tissue.

2. You can use the trademarked term at Google AdWords if you are a reseller of the trademarked product and your landing page and website clearly demonstrate that you can purchase that trademarked product. Since you are a reseller of BrandX cameras, you could now say that in your ad.

3. You can use the trademarked term at Google AdWords if you are a seller of replacement parts, components or compatible products and your landing page and website clearly demonstrate that you can purchase the trademarked product. If you sold camera bags and lens that were compatible with BrandX cameras, you could say so.

4. You can use the trademarked term at Google AdWords if your site is for “non-competitive and informative details”. The “advertiser may not sell or facilitate the sale” of a competing product of the trademarked term. Basically, you can’t advertise on BrandX, take them to an “informational” site that sings the praises of BrandY versus BrandX and then try to sell them on BrandY.

Some other things to keep in mind. This new trademark policy is for US ads served on Google.com, and US users for Search and Content networks. Google started accepting new ads with trademarked terms on Friday, May 15th, but will not begin running them until June 15th. If you currently have ads with trademarked terms that are disapproved, you’ll need to resubmit them.

I’m really pleased with this new change to the Google AdWords Trademark Policy. I think Google did a fine job of improving the results a search user gets, while still respecting the rights of the trademark owners. We’ll see how it plays out, but I think it will benefit everyone involved.

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After evaluating each entrant on customer satisfaction, depth of knowledge, reporting methods, internal principles and competitive advantages, a winner is chosen. According to TopSEOs’ spokesperson Jeev Trika, “These firms have been scrutinized over an entire year. Winning firms understand and excel within their field, have great unique advantages and practice what they preach.”

JumpFly’s only focus isPPC Management. They believe the fast paced, constantly changing PPC marketplace is too important to each client’s bottom line to try and provide a “One Stop Shop” for Internet marketing services. After starting many years ago as PPC pioneers, JumpFly’s dedication to managing the Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter platforms earns their team unmatched experience and industry relationships. Mike Tatge, JumpFly Managing Partner, said “This recognition is special. We won based on a thorough evaluation of our clients’ satisfaction and results. We are very proud of this. It’s why we do what we do.”

The JumpFly team has a great reputation earned to date, and looks forward to many more years of providing the best PPC management available. JumpFly is a Google Qualified Company, Yahoo Search Marketing Ambassador and Microsoft adExcellence Member. JumpFly was also invited to participate on Yahoo’s Traffic Quality Council, receives office visits from Google and has never received any complaints according to the Better Business Bureau. Furthermore, JumpFly works month to month and offers a money back guarantee, again demonstrating their commitment to value and relentless drive to provide clients the best results possible.

View TopSEOs’ Press Release

Just last month, Ask.com finalized a deal with NASCAR to sponsor #96 Bobby Labonte and make Ask.com the “Official Search Engine of NASCAR” for this season. That is an interesting approach that just may help Ask.com reach a new and significant audience, with an estimated 75 million NASCAR racing fans. This could provide a badly needed boost for Ask.com’s struggling search engine.

Ask.com currently ranks a distant 4th in Search Engine Market Share, receiving 2.4% of all searches in December, 2008. This equates to 265 million monthly search queries, a decrease of 10% from the year prior (in the same time period, Google grew by 49%, now receiving 7.9 billion monthly search queries). It appears that Ask.com needs to do something. So, maybe NASCAR is the answer, especially since there was no sight of Google, Yahoo or Microsoft anywhere at the event.

Ask.com currently offers PPC advertising via its “ASL network”, consisting of 90+ syndication partners, across a multitude of search properties, portals and meta search sites that include (but is not limited to) Excite.com, iWon.com, CNET.com, Mamma.com and Lycos.com. When I last tried it, I was not particularly impressed with results, but admittedly, that was some time ago.

As far as the Daytona finish, don’t Ask! It was quite disappointing, finishing with an incredibly lack luster rain delay. It will be tough for Daytona to ever come up with a finish like 2 years back, where a last lap crash led to an insane finish with one driver, Clint Boyer, actually crossing the finish line upside down (view video).

However, that is not to say the race did not have its moments. Fan favorite, Dale Earnhardt Jr. caused an accident that took out 9 of the leaders (some say intentionally). Too bad for Ask.com that they can’t just as easily eliminate their competitors; they only need to take out 3.

JumpFly previously had the pleasure of working with NASCAR via relationships with McGlynn Racing in the Cup Series (view pictures) and Key Motorsports in the Truck Series in past seasons. Maybe one year JumpFly will win the Daytona 500. On that note, the driver for McGlynn Racing when JumpFly sponsored them was Derrike Cope, who actually did win the Daytona 500 in 1990.

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1) A company YouTube “Channel”
2) Video ad/ads production
3) YouTube campaign development, implementation & management

The newness of this platform provides early adopters an exciting opportunity to capitalize on YouTube’s massive user population as well as the current lack of advertisers and resulting very low cost-per-clicks (CPCs).

Founded in February 2005, YouTube was purchased by Google in November 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock roughly 1-½ years later. Today, YouTube is the #2 search engine and the #3 most visited website in the world. YouTube serves close to 1 billion videos every day and its users upload 13 hours of video every minute. According to HitWise, YouTube’s market share in the U.S. video sector is 73.18%.

Right now, advertisers can get started with really low CPCs before the advertising at YouTube gets competitive. I created a simple campaign for JumpFly as a test and was able to attain impressive first page results for as little as $0.15 per click. As YouTube’s growth continues and video becomes more mainstream, YouTube will likely represent a valuable advertising avenue for many advertisers who properly go after this new marketplace. Learn more about YouTube Sponsored Videos or consider having a professional PPC Management firm assist you in developing your YouTube Sponsored Video campaign.

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JumpFly YouTube Channel

Failed Microsoft Buyout

Things became particularly interesting for Yang about six months back, when Microsoft attempted an unsolicited buyout for roughly $33 per share, which was a generous premium to Yahoo’s $19 stock price at that time.  Unfortunately for Yahoo shareholders, at least in the short term, Yang vocally resisted this opportunity and took measures to ensure that it would not come to be. Today, Yahoo’s stock price sits under $9 per share just six months later, the lowest level since 2003.

Microsoft might come back to the table, but just yesterday Steve Ballmer said, “We’ve moved on,” during a shareholder meeting in Bellevue, Washington. He reiterated that a partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo in the Internet-search market is “an interesting possibility.” However, Ballmer added that there are no talks about such a partnership at this time.

Google Backs Out of Partnership

Some are speculating that the final blow to Yang recently came from Google, who backed out of a proposed ad partnership to avoid a potential anti-trust battle with the Justice Department.

YouTube Surpasses Yahoo

Earlier this week, Comscore data revealed that YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the second most popular search service, receiving 2.6 billion search queries in August, 2008 compared to Yahoo’s 2.4 billion queries. The rapidly growing online video marketplace represents yet another area that Google dominates.

In a memo emailed to Yahoo employees Monday announcing his resignation, Yang wrote, “All of you know that I have always, and will always bleed purple. I will always do what I think is right for this great company. While this step will be an adjustment for all of us, I know it’s the right one.”

Yahoo needs to do something in order to prevent their one time search engine dominance from deteriorating into obscurity. Yahoo still boasts 500 million users worldwide, but increasingly every month, more and more are turning to Google for their search needs.

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How did this happen and how can you prevent it from happening to you?

While we’re not 100% positive how exactly the perpetrators got a hold of the client’s Google AdWords login and password in this particular case, here’s how you can protect yourself:

1. Don’t Get Caught by Phishing Emails (three examples of Phishing emails are at the bottom of this Blog): if you get an email that looks like it’s from Google, and requests that you click a link within the email to login, DO NOT click the link. Phishing emails are emails that are web forgery designed to trick you into sharing logins, passwords, personal or financial information. They look official, but are devious. As a general rule, you should never click a link within an email and login to your account. Always open a browser window and type in the desired URL or use bookmarks.

2. Change your password: if you’ve never changed your password before, now is a great time. I know it’s difficult to remember all those passwords, but it’s a better alternative to getting scammed. We’ve started changing our passwords here at JumpFly on a monthly basis.

3. Hire an Experienced PPC Management Company: then you can forward any emails that look like they are from Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or Microsoft adCenter to your account manager and not have to deal with it at all.

Three Google Phishing Emails that are making the rounds:

~~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #1 – Start ~~~~~~
From: adwords-noreply@google.com
Subject: Your AdWords Google Account is stopped

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.

Dear Google AdWords Customer,

Please sign in to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login , and update your billing information.

Your account will be reactivated as soon as you update your payment information.

Your ads will show immediately if you decide to pay for clicks via credit or debit card. If you decide to pay by direct debit, we may need to receive your signed debit authorization before your ads start running, depending on your location.

If you choose bank transfer, your ads will show as soon as we receive your first payment.

We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team
~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #1 – End ~~~~~

~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #2 – Start ~~~~~

From: reactivation@google.com
Subject: The Google AdWords Team request you to update your
billing information

Dear Google AdWords Customer,

Your ads have stopped running because we were unable to process your billing information. We will reactivate you account after you update your billing information. In order to reactivate your account, please sign it to your account at http://adwordsgoogle.com/select/login, and update your billing information. Once your account is reactivated and your billing information has been processed, any your ads and campaigns can begin running immediately on Google.

You will not be asked to submit your billing information every time you create a new ad or campaign. If your payment has been declined and you’d like to resubmit the same credit card information, you may also do so by clicking the Retry card button on your Billing Preferences page. After updating your credit card information (regardless of whether or not you use a different card), it can take up to 24 hours before your ads start running again. You also have the option of providing a backup credit card to help ensure that your ads run continuously in the case that your primary payment method fails.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team
~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #2 – End ~~~~~

~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #3 – Start ~~~~~
From: reactivation@google.com
Subject: Our programme terms have changed.

Dear AdWords Customer,

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the Google AdWords programme for advertisers and users, we have updated our Terms and Conditions.

Please review the new Terms and Conditions below, then indicate your acceptance.

Yes, I accept the Terms and Conditions. [LINK]

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.

~~~~~ Phishing Scam Email #3 – End ~~~~~

More about Nikki

More from Google about avoiding phishing

The blog states, “… after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it’s clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners. That wouldn’t have been in the long-term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement.”

In response, Yahoo! said it was disappointed by Google’s decision and maintained that the abandoned partnership would have been beneficial for everyone. Yahoo! just lost out on hundreds of millions of dollars in additional annual revenue that would have resulted from the deal. Yahoo!’s statement also said that they are, “disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court.”

Several analysts speculate that losing the Google deal will make Yahoo! more likely to revisit a possible deal with, or outright buyout from Microsoft. Details of the Google-Yahoo! partnership put up significant barriers to a Microsoft buyout – barriers that no longer remain. Yahoo!’s stock price finished up today despite the DOW plunging 486 points, likely due to investor speculation and hopes for renewed buyout potential. We’ll see how this plays out, but I’m confident that Microsoft execs are talking about this situation as I type. Tic toc. Tic toc. Time will tell if Microsoft will come back to the table. In the meantime, Google continues to expand their search dominance.

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What is Click Fraud & Why Does it Exist?

Click fraud is a scheme that takes advantage of PPC advertising programs like Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. One of the more common scams involves a company developing a fraudulent website and then participating in programs like Google’s AdSense. Criminals often use software “hitbots” or employ boiler-rooms of low-wage employees from other countries to generate clicks on their own ads, and then collect commission from PPC advertising providers.

Click Forensics Research Indicates Ongoing Click Fraud

• The overall industry average click fraud rate was 16% for Q3 2008. However, the click fraud rate among top-tier search-sites like Google and Yahoo was lower.

• The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 27%.

• The greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside North America came from Russia (5%), France (5%) and the U.K. (4%).

What is Google Doing about Click Fraud?

I frequently focus on Google AdWords, as they are the PPC leader and the main concern of most PPC advertisers. Google already has powerful prevention techniques in place to detect invalid clicks and they will not charge advertisers for these clicks. Click here to learn how Google detects invalid clicks.

In fact, Google AdWords advertisers can run a Campaign Performance or Account Performance report to see the number and percentage of clicks that have been classified as invalid and automatically filtered from their accounts. This information is fairly interesting. When viewing this data for our JumpFly Google AdWords Account, I can see that Google identified 13% of our overall traffic from last month as fraudulent. The majority of invalid clicks were detected from our exposure to image ads on the content network, where Google identified 46% of the traffic as invalid.

Click fraud represents a reasonable concern for PPC advertisers, but Google and Yahoo are already doing a great deal to prevent fraudulent activity and refund advertisers when applicable. Additionally, using free tools provided by Google AdWords or 3rd party software can greatly assist advertisers in further identifying and eliminating potentially invalid clicks, a topic that I will further explore next time.

View common click fraud related concerns addressed by Google.

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Yes, MSN does indeed have a search engine.  I’ll be the first to admit that the volume isn’t huge and the management interface for their PPC platform can be quite tedious to work with, but it can deliver some incremental traffic for your business. 

One valuable change they just made in the Microsft Avertising adCenter is that they now allow you to pause keywords or ad copy (learn how here).  Prior to this change, you had to actually delete keywords or ads to stop them from running.  This made it difficult to keep track of which keywords or ads you had tried that were not working as well as you had hoped they would.  Before this change, you had to go in and delete the keyword itself instead of just pausing it.  This would also remove any history that the keyword might have had in the account from the keyword tab screen.

The biggest advantage of all this is just the increased flexibility you now have in how you can manage your keywords and ads in adCenter.  To me, that’s the best part about this.  Sure, you will always be deleting keywords and ads that you don’t want, but it’s nice to have the flexibility to pause keywords or ads that are seasonal or might see the light of day in the future.  You might run a new sale perhaps, or revise a landing page to make it a stronger converter.  Again, it’s just nice to have more flexibility in your PPC advertising strategies than to always have to use the final axe chop.

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You may have noticed some new choices you now have on the Google AdWords Campaign Summary screen.  On the right side of the summary screen, there are numerous new options you have in the Statistics drop down box.  You can now view your pay-per-click (PPC) traffic data in several different ways.  You can isolate Google search traffic from the rest of the Google search partner network, giving you an immediate insight into where you are getting the best/most converting traffic.  Some of these search partners include AOL, Earthlink, Shopping.com, AT&T Worldnet and Ask.com

I’m happy to report that the Google search partner network is indeed delivering some very solid converting traffic.  Some of our clients here at JumpFly have expressed skepticism about the value of the traffic from those non-Google sites and have chosen to run on Google only, but throughout all the accounts I have looked at recently I am definitely seeing tremendous value in the search partner network.  Some of the search partner data is revealing that they can sometimes outperform Google itself.  If you have not tried running on the search partner network due to concerns about its value, now is the time for you to include those partners and give them a chance. 

One thing you cannot do, however, is bid separately for Google and the search partner network.  Keywords and Ad Groups still retain the same bid regardless of this new insight into how each is performing.  So, you may see that the search partner network is delivering conversions at twice the cost of Google but you will not be able to adjust bids for just the search partner network.  Conversely, you might see that the search partner network is delivering conversions at half the cost but you cannot get more aggressive on just the search partners because your bid is still tied to both Google and the search partners.  I’m pretty certain this will change in the future, but for now you can just look at the data and hope that change comes sooner rather than later.

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In the Campaign Summary and AdGroup view you will see a new drop down menu labeled “Statistics.”  There are several combinations of views including the summary view, split views, and individual views. For example, if you were to choose “Split: Google search/search partners/content network,” you will now see three rows of data representing the different performance metrics from all 3 sources of traffic.

When it comes to PPC management, I love data, and this new data from the search partners is a welcome addition to the AdWords interface.

Comparing this data among the different accounts that I manage has shown a wide variation of results; with some accounts generating substantially lower cost per conversions from the search partner network and others doing just the opposite. None of my accounts have shown horrible results from the search partners; certainly I haven’t seen any red flags.

The biggest problem here is that there really isn’t much you can do with this data other than to use it to help decide to turn on or off the search partners. At this time, it is still impossible to realistically separate the budgets and bids between Google and the search partners. Just like your first high school party, if you want to go, big brother has to tag along.

While this new data is a definite step forward, I would still love to be able to separate my budgets and bids between Google and the search partners. There are a lot of good reasons to do so, and this new data supports this rationality even further. Let’s face it, you don’t always want big brother to tag along to the party.

Yesterday, Yahoo, Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO) reported that revenues were $1.7 billion for the third quarter of 2008, a 1% increase compared to the same period of 2007 (view press release). As the stock price hovers near $12 today, investors can only fantasize about revisiting the recently missed opportunity Yahoo rejected to sell to Microsoft for $47.5 billion, or just about $33 per share. One might think that Microsoft could yet be interested. If they liked Yahoo at $47.5 billion, then the current market capitalization of $17.5 billion must look like a steal! There are plenty of articles out there examining the overall earnings numbers, but I want to focus specifically on what these numbers mean to the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising industry.

Deeper Investigation Reveals Strength in PPC Search Engine Advertising

Search generated revenues from Yahoo’s owned and operated websites (O & O) were $438 million for the third quarter of 2008, a 16% increase compared to $375 million for the same period of 2007 (view report provided by Yahoo). This number is significant because it verifies ongoing strength in the PPC advertising industry. Yahoo was able to pull off this revenue increase despite a decreased year-over-year search query volume. This seems to indicate an increase in what PPC advertisers are spending per click, an increase in the number of advertisers, or both. Though Yahoo showed little or even negative growth in many areas, the demand for PPC advertising at strong brand names like Yahoo and Google clearly remains quite strong and increasing.

Just last week, Google announced a 26% year-over-year increase in earnings. In regards to their paid click revenue, Google said that the number of paid clicks rose 18% compared with the same period a year earlier.

Other Interesting Yahoo Earnings Notes

Yahoo announced a cost-reduction strategy that includes eliminating at least 10% of its roughly 15,000-member workforce. Refer to the Alley Insider for a copy of the actual memo sent to Yahoo staff members. 

Display advertising revenues increased 3% compared to same time period a year earlier but decreased compared to the prior quarter.

Revenue generated from Yahoo’s distribution network decreased from the previous quarter and compared to the same quarter at this time last year.

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The widely followed Dow Jones Industrials slid another 508 points yesterday, closing at 9,447. Yikes, 19 more days like that and the stock market will be gone! For the sake of our economy and everyone in this country, things will improve, and the sooner the better. I fear the potential fall-out from what has already happened in the stock market is just beginning to be realized and further far-reaching consequences are likely to develop. Already, the financial crisis here at home has spread overseas as international banks and markets are now in a state of crisis as well. In fact, global markets lost $8.1 trillion in value over the past 3 months. Based on these unsettling facts, the question for today is, how will this financial crisis impact Internet marketing, and more specifically pay-per-click (PPC) advertising? For the sake of this article, I’m going to assume the stock market does not remain on its current path to zero. If it does, we’ll all have much more serious things to worry about than Internet advertising.

Per a previous PPC advertising news review I wrote back in July, the PPC Economy still appears stable, at least for now. Recent surveys suggest that U.S. online advertising is still slated to grow 22.7% in 2008, though this is less than the 32.7% growth previously anticipated. I also referenced Henry Blodget, co-founder of Silicon Alley Insider and someone whose opinion I greatly respect. He stated that, “new or developing media–those that still are growing more quickly than advertising expenditures as a whole–exhibit fewer recessionary effects than traditional media. More specifically, advertising spending on “new media” does not decline before, during, or after recessions, it simply grows less quickly than during normal years. This trend was clearly visible in the growth of television advertising during the recessions of the 1950s and 1960s, and in the growth of cable advertising during the 1990s.” In fact, Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, agreed, telling analysts that, “During periods of slow economic growth, the last thing an advertiser wants to cut is spending on search-based advertising.”

However, right now, no companies seem to be safe. Just this week, Internet giant eBay  shed 10% of its workforce, meaning 1,600 more people are now seeking employment. They’re far from alone as job loss continues at an alarming rate. Earlier this month, the U.S. Labor Department reported the economy lost another 159,000 jobs in September, far more than the 100,000 lost jobs economists were expecting. The economy has now lost 760,000 jobs since January. These numbers cast a harsh reality on the tragic state of our economy.

To examine if PPC advertising is suffering, let’s take a closer look at Google’s last quarterly earnings release. Google earns the vast majority of their revenue from their Google AdWords search-marketing program:

Google reported revenues of $5.37 billion for the last quarter, an increase of 39% compared to the same quarter a year earlier. This indicates that advertisers are still willing to shell out money to Google, though at a slower growth rate than the year prior.

Here at JumpFly, where all we do is setup and manage PPC accounts, we have fortunately not yet witnessed any recognizable slow down in new or existing clients as a result of current economic conditions. From our eyes, it appears that the search engine marketing industry remains strong – increasingly competitive, but strong. As I watch the economy crumbling around me, I occasionally ponder the demise of PPC advertising, but I just don’t think it’s going to happen. PPC advertising is an incredibly powerful, proven and cost-effective medium for reaching targeted customers. Advertisers still need to reach their targeted audience and there is likely no more cost effective way to do so. 

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This is not too surprising based on the increasing opposition this deal continues to face on various fronts. I knew the anti-trust investigation was serious back in July when the Department of Justice contacted us here at JumpFly. Some big organizations in opposition include the World Association of Newspapers, which represents over 18,000 newspapers, and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), which represents over 400 companies and 9,000 brands (view previous article and video about this).

Looks to me like this deal is likely not going to ever happen. Google and Yahoo’s combined search market share would be a staggering 83%, a number that more and more parties are not comfortable with. The immediate loser that comes to mind here is Yahoo! as they stood to gain an additional $800 million per year in revenue from this deal. Ouch. However, this was a strange agreement anyway, where two arch- rivals were looking to work together. One winner here is Microsoft, who is hanging on to 8% share of the search market and trying to avoid elimination from the search engine marketing arena. They would love to see this deal permanently tabled. Time will tell, but for now, no deal.

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Recent Google News:
Google News Recap – New G1 Phone, Chrome Browser, Stock Madness and More

New G1 Phone/ Android Operating System News
Early last week, the first cell phone with Google’s Android software was released, called the G1. The new G1 Google phone will be available in stores October 22nd. It comes pre-packed with various Google services, encouraging use of the Internet on phones. Learn More.

Chrome Browser News
So far, Google’s new Chrome Web Browser is slow to be embraced. Various sources indicate that Chrome’s market share is about 1% and not increasing. However, it is just 1 month old. Here at JumpFly, analytics data informs me that 3% of our users access our website via Chrome.

Crazy GOOG Stock Price Swing
Apparently, a huge quantity of erroneous trades sent to the Nasdaq Stock Market, caused Google’s share price to swing wildly Tuesday afternoon, soaring as high as $485 per share and falling as low as $25! The errors were corrected the next day, but for those involved, this must have seemed like total insanity at the time.

Google AdWords News:

New Quality Score Improvements
Per Google, new Quality Score improvements are getting rolled out this week. The three main improvements are:

1. Quality Score calculations will be more accurate
2. Keywords are no longer marked ‘inactive for search’
3. ‘First page bid estimates’ replace ‘minimum bids’ 

View Nikki’s recent article about Google’s quality score update to learn more.

Google Site Statistics Logo News
Attention everyone using Google AdWords conversion tracking - As of this week, conversion tracking users are no longer required to display the “Google Site Stats” logo on the conversion pages of their web sites. Learn more.

Google AdWords Launched Smart Positioning Beta
The goal of Google AdWords Smart Positioning is to place an ad in the most cost-effective position each time it is displayed on Google and the search network, with the end goal of achieving more clicks for the same total cost.

And to cap it off, Google just announced an ambitious $4 trillion plan to “transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy”. Well if anyone can pull it off, it’s these guys. So what’s next? Maybe Google for President? The way things are going right now, they just might get my vote!

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Recent Google News Video