Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Google Caffeine?


Since its debut in 1996, Google's search engine has experienced countless updates and revisions. But none of those revisions have fundamentally changed the architecture of the Google search algorithm as much as Google's latest update, codenamed Caffeine.While recent reports put Google's market share at around 65 percent, a massive update to its search engine technology makes sense at this point. Microsoft's new Bing search engine showed some resiliency in late 2009, while Web 2.0 services like Facebook and Twitter have done a lot to change the way people search for content on the Internet.




For Google to remain the most popular search service, it will have to counter Bing's claims of technical superiority. It would also have to more effectively incorporate "real-time search," the term used for finding information and content - like tweets from Twitter and breaking news stories - that have just been posted.That means a radically different Google search engine. And it also means that those who care about Website search engine optimization and placement may have a lot of new rules to learn if they want to earn high Website rankings on Google. Because Caffeine is a significant departure from previous versions of Google's search engines, Website owners and marketers could see dramatically different results for their search engine optimization and placement efforts.But the good news is that Google has offered Webmasters and online marketers a taste of Caffeine's unique algorithms. Search engine optimization and placement specialists have been able to test their Websites against an early version of Caffeine. And while it's a nice gesture by Google to provide the chance for Webmasters and marketers to do some preliminary research, it would be wrong to draw any hard and fast conclusions at this point. It's more than likely that Google will continue to tweak and refine Caffeine and its search engine optimization and placement for months after its official release.




So are there any search engine optimization and placement tips and tricks that we can learn from Caffeine? Yes. Google has hinted that several new things will have a major impact on search engine optimization and placement. Here are the most important changes.1. Website speed: Google will now place more importance on how quickly a Website loads. That means Websites that load fast will be given prominence in search engine optimization and placement over Websites that are slow and clunky.2. Broken links: Links that go nowhere aren't just annoying, they'll soon count as a strike against a Website's search engine optimization and placement efforts. It's already an accepted rule that any good website shouldn't have broken links. Now it's even more important for Website owners make sure that every link goes somewhere relevant.3. Penalties for linking to bad neighborhoods: Currently, linking to spammers and obtaining incoming links from known spammers is not a good way to achieve the best search engine optimization and placement results. Look for Caffeine to place even more importance on staying away from link farms and other malicious online practices.4. Overall website quality: Some canny Website owners have gotten good search engine optimization and placement results by ranking high in a single factor that Google assesses, while ignoring other aspects. Under Caffeine, the overall quality will be under closer inspection. Having just one or two key search engine optimization and placement ranking factors won't be enough.




So what will you have to change if you want to achieve great search engine optimization and placement results under Caffeine? If you already have a Website that subscribes to Google and SEO best practices, then there probably isn't a lot you'll have to tweak.Here are some steps you can take to make sure that you're Website is primed to get good results under Caffeine:1. Eliminate all spam elements from your Website: Any part of your Website that could conceivably be considered spám will likely have a negative effect on your search engine optimization and placement efforts. Spam elements include Website text that's the same color as the background, Website cloaking, and automated linking.2. Reevaluate your Website design and structure: Make sure your Website looks great and is user-friendly. Users should be able to easily navigate through the Website and search engines should be able to understand and categorize a Web page just by reading its title and meta tags.3. Get links from social bookmark and other social media sites: Links from social bookmark sites like Digg and Delicious are already important to gaining good search engine optimization and placement. The importance of links from these types of sites is likely to incréase under Caffeine.4. Check your Website links: Make sure that you aren't linking to any Websites that could potentially be labeled as spammers. Having a selection of quality links is far better than gathering as many links as possible.By following the above tips and tricks, your Website should have no problem adjusting to Google's new search engine. And you'll have a crucial advantage when it comes to getting great search engine optimization and placement results.




More About Faith Monkey Located in Denver, CO Faith Monkey is a leading solutoin provider of SEO, web marketing and hosting services. To Learn more about Faith Monkey, visit our website at http://www.faithmonkey.com/


Friday, July 2, 2010

All You Need to Know About YouTube's Promoted Videos

Way back in 2006, Google purchased YouTube.com for an alleged reported figure of 1.65 billíon dollars. And, like with everything Google does, they've added their own special "Google Touches" over the last several years, turning it into one of the most popular video destination websites online today.Need proof? According to Comscore.com's December 2009 "Videos Viewed Report", YouTube was ranked as the top U.S. video site serving up 13.2 billion of the total 33.2 billion videos that were viewed online in the U.S. for that month alone. That's a lot of people watching mega videos. For more stats see tinyurl.com/y8jbnqh.



Furthermore, according to Google, YouTube has twenty hours of new video uploaded every minute and 420 million unique visitors per month. Watching online videos and sharing them with others has become an Internet obsession. People really love watching videos. Remember the old song "Video Killed the Radio Star"? In today's marketplace, it should be called "Video Killed the Television Set".What if I told you there's a way to harness that huge audience in your onlíne marketing campaign? Now you can with YouTube's new advertising program called "Promoted Videos". YouTube and its other site, Google Adwords, have partnered together in this latest ad serving project. When promoting your videos on YouTube, they'll also be shown across Google's Content Network, aka sites running Google Adsense on them.The purpose of "Promoted Videos" is to help your videos stand out from the millions of others on the site. At the time of this writing, they're available in the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

The first step is to sign up at ads.youtube.com, or if you're already a user of Google Adwords you can access "Promoted Videos" from your control panel. You must have a YouTube and an Adwords account which will be linked together as the video ads are served up by Adwords. To find them in Adwords, log into your account, select the "Ads Tab", then the "Display Ad Builder", and finally select "Video" from the category menu and you'll see "promoted videos". Once your accounts are linked, you can manage your Promoted Videos campaign from the Adwords Console, or YouTube directly.So where do Promoted Videos appear? By default, they run on YouTube's site and those sites that run Google Adsense ads. On YouTube, the video ads are shown below and to the right of search results pages and on some of YouTube's Watch pages in the "related video section", if related to the content of the page. Watch pages are like the home page of a video that displays all of its public information. Advertisers can option in or out of the "Content Network", which gives some control over where the video ads may be shown. The videos are clearly marked as "promoted videos", but it seems Youtube has moved back and forth between labeling them "promoted or sponsored videos".Like other forms of pay-per-click advertising, it's an auction like setting where advertisers bid on selected keywords, set a maximum cost per clíck, and a daily budget to spend. The Promoted Videos program uses the "Adwords Discounter" to help keep costs down. No matter your maximum cost per click, advertisers only pay one cent more than the other video ads shown on the same page. When selecting keywords make sure to choose the ones you would want to appear when a search is done on a particular subject. YouTube's Insight is helpful when choosing keywords. For more on this, see searchenginewatch.com/3640113.

The videos created can include a clickable link to any site you choose. On sites running Adsense ads that haven't elected to block YouTube's Promoted Videos from within their competitive ad filter, the videos appear as a thumbnail with three lines of text. Adsense content partners must also be running ad formats in one of these sizes for video ads to appear. They are: 300X230, 336X280, 728X90, 250X250, 200X200. They must also be opted in to show text and image ads on their sites.The Promoted Videos are different from Adsense video ads. Promoted Videos will always take the viewer to YouTube's site to be played, whereas Adsense video ads are played right on the website it's being viewed on.When creating videos make sure they're fun and entertaining; something people will really enjoy to watch and will want to pass on to their friends and family. The sharing of popular videos on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, will help it to go viral. Generally speaking, funny always translates well. The less it looks like a commercial, the better the odds of people liking and sharing it.If you've been wanting to try your hand at video marketing and reach millions of potential customers, Google's Promoted Videos may be for you. For further information see:

Promoted Videos Help Center

Promoted Videos Optimization Guide

YouTube Ad Keyword Tool

Show & Tell with YouTube - Showcases the best examples of marketing on YouTube






More About Faith Monkey
Located in Denver, CO Faith Monkey is a leading solutoin provider of SEO, web marketing and hosting services. To Learn more about Faith Monkey, visit our website at http://www.faithmonkey.com/