Since this is a pretty sensitive market to cater with all the [...]]]>

Google originally rolled out its Google Plus service only to those with ages 18 and above. Recently the search giant has announced that it is now opening the service to the thirteen years old and up market.

Since this is a pretty sensitive market to cater with all the understandable apprehensions by parents in trying to protect their teenagers from potential dangers lurking in the internet, Google has simultaneously rolled out new privacy and security features which should somewhat assuage the parents into letting their kids try out the service.

Apparently, this new development is part of Google’s overall rollout plan for their Google Plus; this being the third or fourth installment in a series and with each rollout followed by some announcement of their membership figures.

The Lucrative Teen Market

As far as membership is concerned, experts anticipate millions of teenagers to be signing up for the service in the very near future. This should be a salivating prospect for brands and marketers who are targeting this particular demographic and are looking for a specific channel to get their message through.

Youth-oriented brands that will be able to utilize digital tools which appeals to teenagers such as music videos, movie trailers, games, mobile applications, or social networking sites can certainly tap into this captured market. Teenagers make up the most dynamic and fanatic base but are especially susceptible to social activities having been weaned on daily diets of mobile devices, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

New Security Enhancements for Google Plus

In relation to this expanded rollout, Google has also simultaneously implemented these new security enhancements aimed at protecting the teenagers:

• Teenagers can only interact with those who are listed in their circles. This means that it’s not possible for them to receive any notification or greetings from practical strangers. The only way for a person outside of their circle to interact with them is if an existing member will add those people into their circle.
• By default, if a stranger happens to stumble into a Google Plus Hangout which has a teenager already in the conversation, the teenager will be automatically removed from the video chat – with an option to rejoin the group once it’s been established that there’s no imminent danger. This way, the Hangouts can’t be used as tools for immoral purposes by some shady characters.
• Google Plus will issue warnings to teen users every time they are about to post something to the general public, meaning those that are outside their circle, before they can share.
• There’s also the Google Plus Safety Center which carries all sorts of information and instructions as to how you can set up your Google Plus for security and privacy purposes.

Takeaway

The teenager market is one of the most desirable markets to penetrate for advertisers and marketers. Google is obviously doing a very smart thing in this recent attempt to corner a big chunk of this powerful and influential demographic with the introduction of their Google Plus to those with ages thirteen and above. The enhancements in privacy and security settings are also especially helpful in order to convince parents to let their children try out this new service.

George Peterson currently works for one of the leading search marketing agencies in Denmark – Outrider. He currently works as aSEO manager. 

The new launch of Google’s “Search Plus Your World” is the latest evolution in the Internet giant’s ever-expanding wave of algorithm restructuring in an effort to refine users’ search results, and unlike other frequent tweaks this change will be hard to miss.

This most [...]]]>

Get ready, because Google is getting personal.

The new launch of Google’s “Search Plus Your World” is the latest evolution in the Internet giant’s ever-expanding wave of algorithm restructuring in an effort to refine users’ search results, and unlike other frequent tweaks this change will be hard to miss.

This most recent revision essentially combines search results that contain personal information stored by users that they share with other members in the Google+ network (e.g., photos and posts) with Internet results on the same search engine results page (SERP). It is important to note, however, that although the private information appears in the results it is not publicly displayed.

The new changes help shed some light on Google’s ongoing business and algorithmic engineering decisions, particularly the launch of the Google+ social network and the secure search capabilities within it. The integrated nature of search when signed in to Google will allow users to streamline their personal and Internet searches, and make new connections between friends, trending topics, product searches and shared information.

Some experts wonder whether the broadened search capability will raise privacy concerns among users. Google+ users will notice it is the new default system, and results may feel a little too personal even though on-screen indicators are available to help sift through the different results and otherwise control the level of exposure.

Google’s motivations for this integration are clear in that they want to capture more of the search market share by increasing relevance of searches, but it will also obviously make the Google+ social network more relevant – and attractive to users. Twitter reps spoke out about the change, arguing that the new SERPs will be heavy on Google content that will eclipse other results, like tweets.

The Twitter statement is an indirect note that Search Plus Your World will not contain data users have shared through Facebook and Twitter, because there is no agreement between the companies to share information. Many will likely feel this is a good thing, considering the very serious privacy implications it raises, although there are no guarantees these wards of personal information will remain unaffiliated.

Search engine optimization (SEO) specialists are also interested in how the new Google will change Internet marketing. A major driver for the creation of “social search” is that consumers are more influenced by their peers’ buying habits, which Search Plus Your World will bring to the forefront as SERPs display friends’ opinions about searches for products, restaurants, vacation spots, etc.

This may mean a need for SEO experts to consider new strategies that better address these changes as Google pushes “social search” into the mainstream, and users grow accustomed to a new era in Web search

James Madeiros is a staff writer at Sparkplug Digital, a Seattle SEO company providing online marketing strategy and execution for tech companies and non-profits.

Google HQ is constantly looking for ways to improve the quality of searches. While arriving late to the social media party, the search giant is finally showing signs of introducing user-generated into the search algorithms. There are several issues with ranking user-generated content through social media because it depends who [...]]]>

Google HQ is constantly looking for ways to improve the quality of searches. While arriving late to the social media party, the search giant is finally showing signs of introducing user-generated into the search algorithms. There are several issues with ranking user-generated content through social media because it depends who is the original author, to what communities the author belongs to, and whether the author is an authority on the subject of the content.

The introduction of Google+ is an interesting attempt in bringing user-generated content through social media closer to the Google search engine.

Here is a discussion of how Google+ could affect SEO.

Circles

Through circles, Google+ could measure the reputation of users. For example, you could determine the influence of a user in technology consulting by the number of circles related to the topic of technology consulting. One curious aspect of this ranking methodology would be whether you consider an expert in one field but most users include you in circles related to a completely different topic.  This could happen as people in Twitter often have bios along the lines of “foodie, fashion lover, humanitarian, social ninja”.

At the same time, some circles could have a higher ranking if they include users with high ranking themselves.

By measuring the reputation or ranking of Google+ users, user-generated content could be evaluated more properly by the Google search engine.

Quality of Posts

Another way to pick top quality user-generated content would be through the +1 button.

Google could not only count the amount of +1′s that a post receives but also consider how many of those +1′s come from influential users. So following the technology consultant example from above, a post generated by an user that receives a lot of +1′s from people  that are involved with an IT outsourcing company, website or organization, could be ranked as more relevant than others.

Comments within Google+

In the past one would think that a post with 2,000 comments would be better than one with just 200, however social media has proven that it is important to consider who is making the comment and how close the comment was created in relation to the time of the original post. A thank you comment is not as relevant as a insightful review, unless it comes from an expert in the subject matter being discussed. The +1′s counts on the comment should help to shed some light for search engines.

Integration with Other Social Networks

Facebook is with Bing. Google+ will certainly be with Google.

Wouldn’t it be helpful to connect all this data? While the Klout and Peer Index approach may not be the favorite one, it is the only one trying to combine all social data into one measure. Through a similar approach, Google could introduce factors into the search algorithm.

Conclusion

Organizations ranging from Dallas SEO organizations to major tech blogs such as Mashable are watching as Google implements Google+. Through the use of circles, the measurement of the quality of posts and comments, and the potential integration of other social networks, Google+ aims to introduce user-generated content into its search engine algorithm in a smoother fashion.

It’s not that Google’s intentions are necessarily evil, but the [...]]]>

The giant search engine has been skating on thin ice lately.  With anti-trust probes and most people thinking the company knows too much about us already, it seems that Google’s motto of “Do no evil” is a bit hypocritical.

It’s not that Google’s intentions are necessarily evil, but the perception is that they are.  After all, when you are the biggest search engine in the world, you pretty much own the internet, and you know more about your users than they even know, it’s pretty easy to see why people are paranoid about what Google knows.

So what does Google know about you?

Well first you have to know why Google wants to get to know you so intimately.  It’s all about the almighty dollar and how much money they can get from targeted ads.  The more their advertisers see results with ads that are specific for each user, the more money Google can make through selling those ads.  So they want to know about your habits and hobbies and they do this by tracking everything you do online.

Google looks at the content of your emails, the Youtube videos you watch, what websites you visit, the IP addresses of these websites and more all to find out what ads they should show you.  The problem is that most people have no idea they are tracking this kind of information.  And they are unapologetic about it with their CEO saying, “If you don’t want people knowing what you are doing maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.”  But imagine how that would look in the real world where the police can barge right into your house without a warrant saying, “If you don’t have anything to hide then you shouldn’t be worried about this.”

Google also knows where you are

If you use Google maps or their app for finding your location with your phone or mobile device, Google uses this information to show local ads that may be more relevant.  And if you ask the company about these issues they make it sound like you should be happy with this tracking because you get to see ads you are more likely to be interested in.  But do any of us like to see ads at all?  Isn’t it the commercials that we are trying to skip (unless it’s the Super Bowl of course).   Personally, I don’t want ads to be catered to my surfing habits because I search a broad range of topics, and I don’t care to see ads for hemorrhoids when I was searching for my Uncle for a way to deal with the problem.

You might think it’s cool for a search engine company to know so much about you and be able to show you advertising that you are actually interested in, but remember that this is a private company that knows all of this about you.  And we all need to consider how safe this information really is and what happens when someone feels like using this information against us, either to steal our identities or just make life miserable.  And with today’s technology it’s easier than ever to have your hard earned reputation washed down the drain because at one time that technology was “cool”.

SafeIdentityProtection.com is a website dedicated to helping consumers keep their privacy and identities protected.  This is a guest post written by Greg Reiner who writes articles on how to find the best identity theft protection and he writes reviews like Lifelock reviews to help consumers know which ID theft company will protect them the best.

The move ensures the [...]]]>

In a move “to encourage a healthy web ecosystem,” Google recently announced a major change to its search algorithm – a move to devalue so-called “content farms” that primarily copy content from other websites, and sites that offer little or no value-added content for users.

The move ensures the continuance of the Internet adage, “Content is King!” According to Google, its algorithm tweak “noticeably” impacted 11.8% of its search queries, dropping the search engine results page (SERP) rankings of sites that “copy content from other sites or sites that are just not very useful,” while providing better SERP rankings for “sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

This major algorithm change has, of course, generated great interest and some controversy in the search engine optimization (SEO) community, although the change was widely anticipated by most analysts.

“No one can this one came out of left field, writes SearchEngineWatch’s Brent Ragen. “Google,” he notes, “launched an algorithm tweak in January to combat spam and scraper sites.” These so-called “scraper sites” automatically pull content from a wide range of other sites, and compile the unattributed, duplicate information on their own site, a move that many  (including many at Google, it seems) who view “scraping” as a major impediment that discourages original work, have seen as a “black-hat” SEO tactic.

Many questions remain open about how this algorithm will affect various sites. One of the most pressing questions, as Ragen notes, is whether the algorithm changes factor in results from Google Chrome’s newly introduced “Personal Blocklist” extension which allows user’s to report and block no-content or low-content sites as well as content farms.

Google has specifically said that data from its “Personal blocklist” app is not factored into the algorithm changes. However, they do say that when they compared the most-blocked sites, 84% of the top sites users had blocked were affected by the algorithm tweak.

While “grey-hat” and ”black-hat” SEO artists who are scraping content from other sites, and/or operating or utilizing content farms, will be hit hard by the algorithm change, creative web masters who realize that original, relevant and informing site content is what both users and search engine indexing programs are looking for should benefit from the algorithm tweak.

James Barry covers Internet marketing and related topics for Wolf21.com – a full service, Toronto-based search engine optimization firm.

Here’s a simple example: say, I want to buy a computer and I want Facebook to [...]]]>

So we spend plenty of time on Facebook nowadays: talking, exchanging photos and just browsing. Is there any way to make use of all this mess? Can social media talking really turn useful?

Here’s a simple example: say, I want to buy a computer and I want Facebook to help.

My first obvious step is to SEARCH. So I use that handy search field right on top of the screen. I go ahead and type my very first search phrase that comes to mind: [dell coupons]. What can I say, I am using Google most of the time and I am that straightforward.

Obviously, this simple approach won’t work with Facebook: the first tab I see there is pretty much useless. It’s the collection of the related (spammy) groups and applications that won’t give an instant answer to my question: how to quickly find a good rebate (besides, most of these are never updated).

I don’t give up. I keep searching. “What do others have to say”, I think. People do talk about buying a computer on Facebook, do they? So I click through “Posts by everyone” with no huge luck again:

I am starting to think my search terms are wrong but there are more tabs out there, so why not keep experimenting: what do my friends have to say?

OK, they don’t talk about that – quite understandably: neither do I!

I still have a hope. I ignore “Web Results” – we know that they are powered by Bing and the purpose of the experiment is to play with Facebook.

I don’t have much luck with “Events” tab – not surprisingly: I’d like to see a person who would set up an event for “Dell coupons” (possible but vaguely).

With “Applications” tab it becomes clear that Facebook wants me to change my search terms (some of the suggestions are weird though. I wonder what are they based on?):

I still don’t give up and click thorough to “Groups” tab: some of the results are almost useful but still require plenty of extra work to find the actual answer:

As you can imagine, I didn’t have much luck with “Pages” and “People” search either: surprisingly enough, there’s no single “real” person that would be named “Dell Coupons”. But why not add to friends one of these spam profiles?

I can’t see Facebook Answers tab in there but I can clearly see a result from there in Facebook Suggestions:

Clicking that link does give me a few decent resources – but none of them actually lands me on the actual page where I can grab my coupon and go buy something.

…Unlike with good old Google results:

So is Facebook search useless? – I am pretty much sure it is not (for some purposes) but for now, for random information search it appears to be pretty much helpless.

Is it going to change? – Social search does have the future. Facebook is predicted to be using its “Like” button to start ranking the web (like Google once did using the link data). I do want to see how these predictions come true.

But for now my experiment failed: no dell coupons on Facebook – even after about 10 minutes of searching and clicking. I know I should have tried other search terms but that would mean even more work…

This is a guest post by Annie Wallace, a viral mom and social media blogger.

Robert Pattinson.

Kristen Stewart.

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart Dating!

-

You may or may not have an opinion about this.

However, if you’re in the online marketing business you should definitely start paying more attention to the celebrity entertainment industry.

Celebrity Style news  are a strong  source of Internet [...]]]>

-

Robert Pattinson.

Kristen Stewart.

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart Dating!

-

You may or may not have an opinion about this.

However, if you’re in the online marketing business you should definitely start paying more attention to the celebrity entertainment industry.

Celebrity Style news  are a strong  source of Internet traffic.

Let’s review the impact of using keywords related to the celebrity entertainment industry.

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart Dating

Using Google Trends, here is the Search Volume Index of the keywords  “robert pattinson” (in blue) and “kristen stewart” (in red):

The numbers you see on the vertical axis of the Search Volume Index (graph above) aren’t absolute search traffic numbers. Instead, Google Trends scales the first term you’ve entered so that its average search traffic in the chosen time period is 1.0; subsequent terms are then scaled relative to the first term.

In plain English:  the graph above is ranked by “kristen stewart”, meaning that “robert pattinson” is searched about twice as much as “kristen stewart” from late 2008 to early 2010. This means that websites in the celebrity entertainment industry should have focused their online articles more on Robert Pattison than on Kristen Stewart because Robert is a more frequently searched term.

However, notice that towards the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010, the gap between the number of searches is closing between the names of the 2 celebrities. This would mean that using Kristen Stewart is becoming as effective as using Robert Pattinson on an online article.

Location, Location, Location

This business maxim applies to the world of  online celebrity entertainment as well.

Here are the top 10 subregions (states) in the United States that generate the most search queries of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart on Google:

To rank the top regions, Google Trends first looks at a sample of all Google searches to determine the areas from which it receives the most searches for your first term.

Robert Pattinson, in blue, generates about double the number of searches as Kristen Stewart, in red, throughout the United States.

Hawaii, Virginia, and Nevada are prime candidates to target a Google Adwords or other type of online advertising campaign.

Conclusion

If you’re in the online entertainment industry, you should take a look at the current trends in keyword searches when deciding what articles to write.

You signed up for Google Buzz.

You had the option to start following the people that you e-mail and chat with on Gmail.

You used Google Buzz for a while.

Then something happened.

People you never heard about, [...]]]>

Google Co-founder, Sergey Brin

You signed up for Google Buzz.

You had the option to start following the people that you e-mail and chat with on Gmail.

You used Google Buzz for a while.

Then something happened.

People you never heard about, started following you.

And following you more.

Why?

Here are some unedited responses from actual Google Buzz users to the question:

Why are you following me on Google Buzz?

• I noticed you were following me, so I looked at your profile, checked out some of your posts/discussions and watched for little while. I found I was interested in what you had to Buzz or were Buzzing about so I followed. I do this for every person that follows me and if I don’t like what I see I don’t follow.
• to have more information..isn’t it the very purpose of all of these? and to give away more info..a communication cycle indeed!
• Ether I saw a comment of yours, liked it and decided to check out your buzz’s saw they were also interesting so decided to follow you. Or you followed me, I checked out your buzz’s and decided you’d be interesting to follow
• I only follow people that seem to post interesting Buzz’s. And, since you started following me, I of course checked you up, and thought I’d like to follow you. Now, why do you follow me?
• because my buzz so lonely
• now im following you..also your blogs..hope you have time to have a glimpse on my blogs too..thank you very much
• maybe it’s the google automatic following settings…
• I thought it was wonderful when you followed me from Hawaii, so I followed you back

Everybody has a reason, but by far the most common answer is:

Well I saw that you were following me, so I thought…let’s follow back

How do you retain your current followers?

Content is KING.

It’s easy to gain followers on Buzz if you start following people because they will follow you back.

However, here are 2 warning from Google Buzz users:

If your posts don’t take my interest, I’ll probably unfollow you within the next few days. If your posts are interesting, I’ll keep following you.

I follow folks who contribute to conversations, if you don’t contribute, I will unfollow you.

Conclusion

Google Buzz is a great tool to engage in conversations. People will be eager to follow you back, but they are expecting you to participate in the conversation.

Great content doesn’t  happy by accident! Take some cues from current Google Buzz users and improve your Buzz feed today.

Follow me on Google Buzz at http://www.google.com/profiles/damiandavilarojas

The gem from this article [...]]]>

I have chosen this title for today’s post from an article by Tom Foremski at the SiliconValleyWatcher because it touches my experience with Google Adwords both for a real state broker’s website  in Guayaquil, Ecuador and a Mac photo software developer here in Hawaii.

The gem from this article is the quote:

Mr. Thomson (Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal) said, “Google devalues everything it touches. Google is great for Google but it’s terrible for content providers.” He said that Google doesn’t distinguish between the quality of the content around which it serves up ads, it is concerned with quantity rather than quality.

I have to agree with Mr. Thomson on this comment because Google Adwords currently lacks a lot of features that are necessary to truly create ads that are segmented towards specific niches.  I know that this last statement might be challenged very quickly by talented SEO experts.

Let’s take a look at two cases, one positive and one negative.

Positive:

Visits to srbienesraices.com from August 1, 2008 to February 13, 2009

As it becomes quite clear from the graph above, having included a Google Adwords CPC campaign into srbienesraices.com was a great idea because it create up to 20 times more daily visitors.  More than 80% of the site visits were provided by this campaign and the bounce rate from these visits was not that much higher than the bounce rate, about 40%, of direct traffic during the same time period.  Once the CPC campaign was finished, the number of daily visitors drop back to previous levels (this means that extensive A/B Testing is required! However, that is beyond the objective of today’s post).

Google Adwords was able to drive visitors to a small website for a real state broker in Guayaquil, Ecuador because the concept of the website was simple:  1) visitor wants to buy real state in Ecuador, 2) visitor can take a sneak peek at some properties (very few pictures are uploaded ON PURPOSE), and 3) visitor have to contact real state broker to get more information.  The funnel strategy is plain vanilla.

There are no visitor requirements.  Neither technical  (e.g. browser type, operating system) nor demographic (e.g. age, income).

So what happens when technical details and demographic are included?

Negative:

I cannot go into specific details of my Google Adwords campaign at my past position at iLovePhotos but I can tell you that when you add technical and demographic requirements for your visitors from a Google Adwords campaign, things are not that smooth.

For example, if I am targeting a male in the 18-25 year old range that uses Firefox on Windows Vista and that is interested in photography, I am at a serious disadvantage with Google Adwords. Remember the quote from Mr. Thompson above:  Google is good for quantity, not quality.  Google Adwords will allow me to target a lot of people (I had about 3 million ad impressions during a 2 week period) but the number of clicks from the people with the technical and demographic characteristics that I required was about 0.0026%).

A/B Testing of ads? At Google Adwords I did plenty but there is no way I can customize the ads to target users with specific types of browsers or operating systems (if you know how to, then contact me at damiandavilarojas [at] gmail [dot] com right now).  The only way that I see around this is to do extensive research on the demographics and technical background of the users at specific websites and then target these specific websites using Google Adwords.

In conclusion, Google provides useful customization options such as region, ad location and target content but still lacks more ad segmentation features.  If you have a very simple funnel strategy and just require quantity of users with very few (or no) demographic and technical  requirements, then go ahead use Google Adwords!  But if your funnel strategy is more complicated and/or your users have specific technical and demographic requirements, then  you will have a tougher time using Google Adwords.  Google Analytics is doing a great job at advance segmentation, how long is it until Google Adwords catches up?