Is There a Virus Hunting Google?

I was using the ad preview tool when I got this (see above). The error is presented with a CAPTCHA that allows you to continue normally. I have heard from my co-workers that its appearing in the regular searches as well. Anyone know anything yet?

UPDATE: Google Ad Words is not showing any data for today.

UPDATE (10:49 AM): Google account manager say that Google is looking into the error. It started this morning.

UPDATE (11:04 AM): Ad Words data is starting to trickle in.

UPDATE (11:41 AM): Showing impression and conversion but no clicks. Also looks like the data is catching up as traffic look like what it should have been six hours ago.

UPDATE (12:48 PM): Looks like everything is back to normal in Ad Words.

UPDATE (1:30 PM): The System Engineers were noticing the problem. They say the error is not occurring outside our IP block (but across our entire IP block). So, going back to thinking its us, I contacted Google again. And again I was told that we are not the only ones seeing this error.

UPDATE (May 7 12:00 PM): Looks like the error is gone. Still talking to Google. So far they have given no explanation. This error was entirely unrelated to the Ad Words issue, which is now resolved. Just bad timing.

How will a GooHoo deal effect PPC?

For those who have not heard, there are new bites and rumors about a potential deal between Google and Yahoo. This deal could be worth $1 billion in revenue to Yahoo. Under the agreement Google would serve ads in Yahoo's search results. It seems to me that there are pros and cons to Google serving its ads in Yahoo’s search results. These are five items that came to mind when reading about a potential Google/Yahoo deal.

Pros of Google Yahoo Advertising Deal:

• More search advertising through the same Ad Words interface: I am a fan of the Ad Words interface. I think its leaps and bounds ahead of anything thing else out there. Being able to conduct both Yahoo and Google advertising in the same interface would save me a bunch of time and frustration.


• Ward off the Evil Empire: while I would agree with the notion that Google is attempting to take over the world, I would rather have Google running things that Microsoft. The Microsoft hegemon is always looking after itself. The Google hegemon on the other hand realized a long time ago that its interests were tied to its customer’s satisfaction.

Cons of Google Yahoo Advertising Deal:

• Quality Issues: I have always felt that the leads I received from Google were much better than the leads received from Yahoo. I suspect this has to do with the demographic differences in users, but neither of the search engines has been willing to share their market research with me. I suspect in Yahoo’s case they either don’t know or my account manager does not know who knows (if that makes sense).


• Pricing Instability: Those who conduct a lot of competitive SEM will know that the PPC market can be lively. Adding an additional, and large, channel to Google’s network would force prices to find a new equilibrium. Also, Google’s clicks are generally more expensive that Yahoo’s. Will Yahoo’s clicks (served via Google) become more expensive or stay the same? Will Google clicks get devalued? In the final analysis is would probably be different for everyone, depending on how you set up your campaign and your industry. Maybe the Ad Words interface would give you the choice of networks.


• Possible Algorithm conflicts: My first question is who’s algorithm chooses the ads? The obvious answer would be Google’s but will there be any interaction between Yahoo’s search algorithm and Google ad serving algorithm? Example: Yahoo tries to guess what you really want, then Google takes those results and further tries to guess what you really want. I guess this is a minor problem as both Yahoo and Google employ smart people who will be able to work it out.

Please share your thoughts.

Review of Searchme.com

Quick review. I have been playing with Seachme.com. They have a great idea and I hope they can do it justice. My concerns are as follows:

- If you are going to create a search engine, your number one priority must be your algorithm. If people are not happy with your search results, they will quit searching, no matter how cool the interface it. Having said that, I am not sure they are making the right decision by reinventing the wheel on this. This might have been better off to use Google's search results.

- What is Searchme's business model. I think we are at the point where, if you are a search engine, you need to be doing PPC. I hope that Searchme, comes up with a cool way of serving PPC ads, while not compromising their user experience.

- There is still glitches here and there. For example, Safari hesitates as a query is typed. I think it has something to do with the search category functionality. But this is a beta, and I fully expect them to work these glitches out.

- Finally, I would hope Searchme decides no show live shots of the search results. There is nothing worse than landing in a place you were not expecting.

Hopefully, this does not come off sounding like a lot of grumbling. I am exited to see where they goes.

Review of Hulu.com

To be honest I was/am holding a grudge against NBC for removing their content from iTunes. But I have an open mind, and I don't mind watching ads if I am getting content for free. Furthermore, having the ability to watch content whenever I feel like it is a big perk.

Hulu gives you the ability to watch a large selection of Fox and NBC content. This means Battle Star Galactica, Hells Kitchen, The Office, American Dad and The Simpsons. The also have a selection of old movies. The best part is (at least with Battle Star) the episodes appear to get posted as the episode airs, so you don't have to wait.



As will all things there has to be a down side, and Hulu is far from perfect. As I watch their content there is a big difference in user experience between animated shows and live action. I am guessing this has to do with the amount of data required for a good picture. Even so, watching a live action show can be agonizing. It seems that on the good days I can only watch about three min before I have to stop and let Hulu re-buffer. I wish the Hulu designers would just give it time to buffer in the first place so I don't have to keep hitting pause. Hulu, if your listening, create an application that measures the users bandwidth and adjusts the buffer time and quality accordingly. I would rather take a hit in quality than suffer though choppy dialogged.




To be fair, I did attempt to watch Battle Star on Scifi's website and encountered the same problem.



From a marketing point of view, Hulu is really cool. It appears they can place any advertisement in the program breaks (see the dots along the progress bar). This might be the first wave of the new mass media. And its CPM. Just think if you could place you video ads in Hells Kitchen or The Office, using your Ad Words account...

New Edge Rolls Out Class of Service over DSL

New Edge announced today they are the first company to offer Class of Service (CoS) over DSL. For those who don't know, this means applications can be prioritized to maximize performance. Example: your VoIP always takes priority so their is never any latency. This also means that if you are chatting on the VoIP line and a co-worker fires up You Tube, your experience will be unchanged, your co-worker on the other hand might have to give You Tube more buffering time depending on the bandwidth.

This is a big deal. This will give small companies, or companies with many small locations the ability to hook their locations up to a powerful and comprehensive network. In the past companies that wanted to use MPLS (or Class of Service) required a $400 T1 line. Sites connected through DSL to an MPLS network will only need one, relatively inexpensive, data line and they will be able to service all their voice, video and data needs.

New Edge already had the nations largest DSL footprint. Implementing CoS over DSL was made possible by deploying Red Backs throughout their network. The Red Back aggregation points are really cool pieces of hardware, if you ever get to see one.

If you are interested, you can find the press release here.

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Spying On Your Visitors

Warning this is another Google Analytics loving post.

As some of you may know, one of my motivations for this blog is to try out cool new things before implementing them on a site where changing the source is a process. The things that are really cool I apply to the sites I maintain for my employer. This is one of those things.

Recently, I was looking for way to further spy on my users and I found it, again in Google Analytics. This is not a new feature but cool none-the-less.

Problem:
Say you have a page with a bunch of external pointing links, and you want to see where your users are going. Normally GA would not track those users because the landing page does not have your GA tag. Or here is another scenario, you have a page with multiple links pointing to the same page. GA would normally tell you, these are the same link.

Solution:
Add a this code to your link:

onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/posts/post_title/example.com');"

After adding the code, you link will look like this:

<a href="http://www.example.com" onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/posts/post_title/example.com');">

This will appear in your content reports as page views. The content will be labeled, in this case as "/outgoing/posts/post_title/example.com". I have created a syntax that I stick to, allowing me to easily understand where the link is and where its going. You could just put "example.com" but if you had that link in a few location it would be hard to tell which one was actually creating the traffic (outside of the navigation summary report).

You will also need to move you GA tag. Instead of the tag being right before the close body tag, it needs to be right after the open body tag.

Results:

Your results are reports that clearly tell you where your users are going and what they are clicking on.

I would say, this does involve touching every link you would like to track in this manor. So it can be very labor intensive. In my opinion, this should only be implemented selectively.

Back to the sandbox thing, if you look at the source of this blog (beyond this post) you will see that I have successfully implemented this technique here.

View Google Analytics Graphs By Months & Weeks

The guys over at Google Analytics are working hard. This morning when I logged in I was pleasantly surprised. Google has given us the ability to view graphs in analytics by month and by week, in addition to day. Why is this important, you ask? Easy, often looking at the data on a day to day basis can be very misleading. Only when zooming out the a longer time period can you see trends developing. While looking at longer time periods you are also less likely to make recency bias related errors (This guy does a great job or explaining recency bias).

Weekly View:


Monthly View: