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Outstanding Meme Obligations

May 25, 2007

Ah, right. Despite my little blurb on Search Engine Roundtable about the overrated nature of memes, I still got tagged. That leaves three memes that I haven’t answered, and I feel that I have to do my duty. Don’t get upset if these answers don’t impress you; I don’t think they’re that insightful. :)

I’m going to go in chronological order, from the first meme that I got tagged in and didn’t answer.

What magazines do I read offline?

Barry tagged me in the over-a-monthlong-old meme asking me what magazines I read offline. I somewhat answered that one on Twitter, but it’s fairly obvious from recent blog posts that I read PEOPLE magazine on a weekly basis. Given that I still have a ton of book-reading to catch up on (yes, still), I don’t read much else on a regular basis, but depending on where you find me, I might be reading Popular Photography, Newsweek, Time, Money, or any other magazine I have in my magazine stand from several months or years ago. I really have lost track of my to-do reading pile, but there’s a lot I have to catch up on. Without even volunteering names of my magazines, earlier, I was ready to give Vanessa’s answer, where she so eloquently said what I wanted to say:

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Google Needs to Screen Ad Purchasers More Closely

April 26, 2007

Earlier this morning, I reported on Search Engine Roundtable that Google users are becoming infected with malware after clicking on Sponsored Listings. The problem was discovered on April 10th. Another victim of a similar Google AdWords hack reported the issue on April 23rd.

Yesterday, I also addressed a consistent concern about irrelevant Google AdSense ads. This problem is a lot more prevalent. The URLs don’t necessarily take users to the desired location. I suppose the paid search experience, even with a Quality Score, is just not as good as the organic search experience for some terms.

It’s April 26th and there’s a definite need for a very involved human element to be introduced into assessing the reliability of sponsored listings. Minutes ago, I noticed via TheGoogleCache that there’s a definite problem with sponsored results displaying totally useless information.

I was able to reproduce the problem too. Take a look and see for yourself:

What's with these Google Sponsored Listings?

As more and more people find the way to monetize, more and more people find ways to exploit monetization. With the billions of dollars Google invests in advertising, it would be a wonderful thing if they got it down pat algorithmically. But until then, there should be a many more pairs of eyes working to ensure that surfer experience is enhanced from a paid perspective.

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Google Personalized Search … Buggy? (Or is that a Feature?)

February 16, 2007

Okay, this is a rant that I’m going to get out while I have a chance. I’m logged onto my Google account and I’m looking for some images. One image caught my eye. When I moused over the image, I realized it was related to an article I wanted to follow up on. I accidentally closed out of the page with the results so I had to do the search (for the same criteria) once again. The results were different; the image I was looking for was gone.

I noticed this earlier this week as well. It was the same game — Google image results appear to vary. The extremely frustrating thing is that I actually clicked on the images, but in subsequent searches, Google did not opt to provide me with this content. Is Google trying to assume that because I visited that site, it is no longer pertinent to me, so it won’t serve me with the images that I am actually looking for?

So far, Google Personalized Search sucks. I urge you not to use it.

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Internet Marketing Best [Blog] Posts of 2006: The Year in Review

December 25, 2006

Given that I’ve only recently become involved in Internet Marketing, it still is something that I am learning more and more about, and there are a lot of blog posts and books that have helped me along the way. In light of my anti-Digg post, I wanted to take this moment to appreciate the best [blog] posts in the Internet Marketing world of the year — those that have significantly increased my awareness of this exciting field. That said, these are mostly how-to and tips/secrets posts, where some come from a beginner’s level and others are more advanced. I’ve done a lot of digging (this was mostly by hand rather than from existing bookmarks!) and am hoping I have included a huge chunk of them, though I realize that this has been a tremendous undertaking and there are simply too many blog posts out there (thanks, guys!). Since I started reading SEO blogs mid-year (and I can’t possibly read all of them on a regular basis), I know I’m missing more! If anyone has any essential posts to add, please feel free to leave them in the comments. :)

Without further ado, here are some of my favorite posts of 2006.

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Is Dean Hunt for Real? (Can Matt Cutts Confirm?)

December 13, 2006

Is Dean Hunt a liar?I read with interest about Dean Hunt’s bizarre Google request where an online store owner threatened him via email since Dean’s blog ranks better than the store for a particular keyword term. He writes for a partial SEO-themed blog, yet he needed more advice from individuals on a number of forums (with a link to his story, of course, one of which was removed).

I wrote about the story myself (since I think it’s a good lesson regardless), but I can’t help but wonder if this was all a scam. I mean, after all, Dean wrote on October 4th that he will be creating a viral campaign with the intention to promote his site via related sites. And since his site is still really in its infancy (138 blog posts in 6 categories since June), I don’t think that his blog could truthfully rank better than an established online store.

Without providing the search terms in question for verification, nobody is really able to believe that Dean is actually telling the truth.

Well, maybe Matt Cutts can — if Dean really told him.

So — which is it?

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