The Search For Conversions

Why Yahoo Should just agree to be acquired by Microsoft

The shenigans going on between Yahoo, Microsoft and Aol are descending into total farce.

In the meantime, Google moves ever closer to having a global monopoly on search and search advertising and is beginning to make inroads into other forms of digital marketing.

The only companies that look to have any realistic hope of providing any level of competition in this market are Yahoo and Microsoft.  So in my opinion, Yahoo should just get on with it and accept the offer.   Then let Microsoft decide what pieces of the business it wants and what it wants to dispose of. 

Agreeing to test Google's ad serving on Yahoo is a kick in the teeth to their own people and is basically throwing in the towel.

A Google monopoly is not a good thing.  Even if they believe they are not evil.

Yahoo Buys a Web Analytics Company

Digital Ads and Analytics go hand in hand.

Google Ads has Google Analytics
Microsoft AdCenter is rolling out Gatineau

and now Yahoo has just annonced it's acquiring Index Tools.

Denis R Mortensen the COO of IndexTools blogs at VisualRevenue.
Eric Peterson has a detailed post on "How Yahoo! buying IndexTools changes web analytics."

For more detail on IndexTools features, read StoneTemple Consulting's "10 cool things you can do with IndexTools"

Trademark holders. Google Adwords policy change impacts you.

Big Adwords policy change in the UK and Irish markets.  If you are a trademark holder, don't be surprised to find others bidding on your trademarks.   What does this mean?  Quite possibly more revenue for Google, emptier pockets for you.

Update.  I see that Hitwise has done some research into this and says..

navigational search was on the increase; in 2007, 76.0% of search volume for the top 2,000 terms was navigational in nature, up from 63.6% in 2006 and 58.2% in 2005..

..In other words, there has been a significant increase in navigational search. And because most of these terms are trademarked, that means that there has also been an increase in searches for trademarked terms. Consequently, this change from Google in the UK will have a significant impact on brand owners and affiliates.

So there you have it.

Domainer Invasion

On a very small test campaign on Yahoo, I inadvertently allowed ads to run on the content network for a while.  Looking at the referrers on Analytics later, the first phrase that popped into my mind was "The Invasion of the Domainers" 

Won't do that again.

Google & Affiliate Marketing

As expected, now that the Google acquisition of Doubleclick is done, it's no surprise that the company announced yesterday that they are selling off the Search Engine Marketing side of that business.

On the other hand, they are integrating the affiliate marketing operation into Google.

We plan to integrate the affiliate marketing business into existing Google operations, providing enhanced value and reach for our affiliate advertisers, and additional tools and monetization opportunities for our publishers.

Here's an overview of what was Performics Affiliate Marketing business.  Interesting to see Google dive deeper into affiliate marketing.

Your Google Docs now available offline

When I moved to the Mac about 18 months ago, I left Microsoft Office behind.  I moved to Open Office, but have since become a big fan of Google Docs and I find myself using Open Office less and less.  So its good news today that Google is rolling out the ability to view and edit your Google Docs while offline.

I notice that Hitwise say that visits to Google Docs are up 27% in the past three months, with Gmail the top source of visits.

Landing Page Load time to be included in Google Adwords Quality Score

I've been thinking recently about the impact of slow servers on PPC campaigns. When launching a new affiliate project, some may decide to go for a relatively cheap hosting package, thinking that if the project proves successful, they can always upgrade.

The problem sometimes is that the cheaper hosting packages may equal slower servers may equal a higher percentage of of your paid for clicks being wasted.

And now Google is saying that Landing Page Load Time will soon be incorporated into it's quality score.

So if you're running PPC campaigns, you now have even more reason to make sure your hosting package is up to scratch.

It's the little details that count

In the past 24 hours, I've had ads disallowed by both Google and Yahoo for different reasons. But in their respective emails informing me of this, Google seems somehow more personal/friendly. Compare and contrast the subject line in the email from each.

Google says hello and thanks me for advertising. Yahoo just tells me "Adgroup is not displaying ads" which is much less personal.

It's just a little thing. But the little things count.

O2 Ireland and the IPhone "Paddytax"

Well done Pat Phelan of Cubic Telecom for getting the word out about O2 Ireland's outrageous tarrifs for the iPhone in Ireland.

Thanksfully, RTE have picked up on the story (High Irish iPhone charges highlighted) unlike some of the puff pieces we saw in the newspapers last week.

“There is no excuse for paying such high prices and getting so little in return. The minutes, the text bundles and the data package are completely inappropriate for Irish people and the massive difference in what Irish and UK and Northern people get for the same price suggests that they’ll throw any old scraps at the stupid Paddys. ”

Phelan’s company Cubic Telecom is also releasing a guide on how to buy iphone’s in the UK or America and unlock them so they’ll work on any network and not just O2 and Phelan says that if O2 won’t budge on their pricing then he’ll organise a bus to bring people to Northern Ireland to buy their phones in the North and unlock them to work on any Irish Network.

I might just join you on the bus, Pat.

If you are interested in beating crazy roaming charges while you travel, check out Cubic Telecom's MaxRoam.

Apple & O2 Ireland, Explain the difference between iPhone pricing in Belfast and Dublin

We're not known as the Rip off Republic for nothing. Compare and contrast the pricing of O2 in Northern Ireland (Sterling) for the iPhone and that just announced today by O2 for the Republic of Ireland. Notice the difference in minutes and most of all the fact that if you live in Belfast you get unlimited data, but if you live in Dublin you are limited to 1G a month.