Google and RSS, Part II
I posted back on 6/20/05, about "Google and RSS." At the time I was commenting on an essay by Kevin Hale of Particle Tree who offered, then, quite an insightful theory as to why Google would possibly want to explore RSS as an advertising canvas, http://particletree.com/features/the-importance-of-rss , The Importance of RSS.
Today, Search Engine Watch is mentioning a forum thread on ThreadWatch concerning a brand spanking new Google patent aimed at doing just this, automating a system of serving ads to syndicated content, ie, RSS. The whole shebang can be followed through the ThreadWatch link, http://www.threadwatch.org/node/3315
I actually read through a significant chunk of the patent application. A marriage of dry and boring with a smattering of computer-science-interesting that appeals to my completely dorky side. The proposal makes a particularly hard sell for assuring ads are served fresh at the time syndicated content is requested by a user, versus when it is initially generated or posted. The inventors argue that this keeps any targeted ads current when content will invariably become old and outdated.
Couple of deep questions for a Friday:
What happens when Google finally controls the entire world wide web?
What would happen if something disastrous happened to Google tomorrow? How many "fortunes" would be lost, deals undone, businesses fold?
Critically Thinking, I Mean... Searching
Article at
Search Engine Watch, by Mary Ellen Bates,
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3523241Thinking Outside the Search BoxIt's all about critical thinking, using the ol' noggin and generally cutting your own pathway, road less traveled, you get the idea.
Actually, Bates offers renewed support and suggestions to those who have become pigeon-holed into believing the only methods to exact research on the web is via the search engines.
I feel renewed.
The Meaning of DNS
For a somewhat anti-establishment take on the misuse and mismanagment of the domain name system,
http://www.rewired.com/98/0930.htmlRewired:
"DNS: Built for stable hierarchies.
And swamped by mayflies."
A Higher Level of Abstraction, Part Three, by Ted Byfield
Domain Dumps
Really, the whole concept of online advertisers and marketers figuring out how to fool the search engines and the domain name hosts with short-term, return-it-for-a-full-refund, marketing schemes is somehow brilliant, or mischievous (I'm not sure which is more appropriate), with an equal dose of smarmy.
I begin this in response to a post in
Search Engine Watch that links to a titillating article,
Pay-Per-Click Speculation Market Growing, by Kevin Murphy of
Computer Business Review Online. According to Murphy, in the newest search marketing "trend" online marketers take advantage of buying up hoards of domain names for purposes of "testing" which of them best drives the most marketable traffic. Guess what? They dump them in just enough time to get a full refund.
Wow, there must be some quality content there.
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=6E7467B1-E770-4F6A-B0A7-5B7118146E39
Value of the Neighborhood
I'm a few days behind, and while catching up on my reading I noticed a really interesting post from the
Link Building Blog,
martinibuster on Neighborhoods,
http://www.linkbuildingblog.com/2005/07/martinibuster_o.html from a few days ago. A post, he says, appeared in SEW by Martinibuster-- yes, dirty with lots of olives, please-- that really emphasizes the whole concept of links as neighborhoods. While the overall concept is you are who you associate with, this leads to the notion of neighborhood mapping, or link mapping. In turn this leads logically to some fairly certain speculations about what sort of classifications Google gives those websites backlinked especially to loads of SEO and media/marketing sites.
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showpost.php?p=54060&postcount=13.
"look out, they're bringin' down the neighborhood."
AdWords Keywords-- The Money Game
On an AdWords campaign page yesterday I noticed that Google has made a note to their advertisers that in the next "week or two" their method of handling AdWords Keywords will change to better serve the interests of their advertisers. Their current, and often misunderstood, methodology involves categorizing advertisers' keywords as Active, In Trial, On Hold and Disabled. Most AdWords experts have claimed that once Keywords were moved to On Hold and, ultimately, Disabled that it was nigh impossible to ever get them Active again, bringing many campaigns to schreeching halts with a lot of head scratching about it.
In the next week or two, Google will classify Keywords as either Active or Inactive. This revision might reflect a more reasonable, perhaps, margin of error allocated to AdWords advertisers who are just searching for a piece of the search results pie.
Google Experiments Keep Everyone Guessing
Search Engine Watch posted on a suspicious search result sighting that was thought to be a new Google experiment.... I am linking to the SEW Forum,
More Results Experiments On Google,
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=6751 because this is the original posting and I'm fascinated with how many are in turn fascinated with ANY little burp from Google. But, then again, it affects business, search, relevance, marketing, a slew of things on the ol' apple cart of Google search. How 'bout "Six Degrees of Separation From Google"?
Link-Building vs that @$%#& PageRank
I really dig the idea of link building, so here is another point to a posting on
Search Engine Watch today that downplays the almighty PageRank and presses the important how-to's for effective link building,
Revisiting PageRank Lunacy,
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050712-105100What is link building, anyway and why should we care?
Most SEO's charge that the trumped up Google PageRank is just that, trumped up and really indicates nothing of the import that it suggests. Instead, a number of well respected SEOs have pushed link building and the TrustRank concept as the real "meat" of site sensibility and relevance.
Basically, when you want someone to take your website seriously, you need to think about who might link to you, even who YOU choose to link to. I think intellect and good taste are a two-way street, frankly. How do you find a site worth its salt and willing to link to you? How do you ask? Where do you go?
Google For Good Writing?
A posting on Search Engine Journal today from a writer who took a little survey of some top ranking pages with Google and seemed to notice a common thread among them all:
good writing, above average, better than the usual stuff available online.
Hmmmm. One of my bugaboos is good written content. I am learning scads about Google AdWords for work and it's fascinating stuff, but I am consistently for the good written word, versus the typical webpage fare.
So, getting back to SEJ's article,
Google's 'Good Writing' Content Filter, posted today,
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=1874The article claims that the selected websites seemed to defy typical SEO givens: a few had frames, a couple of others were littered with images, a couple went way over the SEO limit on links, etc. So this particular writer was able to posit the theory of Google's possible attention to quality content....? Another day, another theory.
What Meets the Eye, of Searchers That Is
From Search Engine Watch, a commentary on a white paper that analyzes the way search results-- namely Google's-- are scanned by the human eye, "Keeping An Eye on Google," http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3517551
Eye tracking is not a new phenom just because someone is examining it in light of a Google search results page. In fact there is scads of information on the subject, (like this from Grok.com, "The Eyes Have It!" http://www.grokdotcom.com/eyetracking.htm) which makes me wonder why it took so long to apply the science to Google. Clearly the idea behind the information lies in the possibility of using the behavior of eye tracking to produce better search results or position search engine advertisements more strategically.
Internet "Management" Changes Afoot
The BBC reports that while the US means to retain much of its "control" over the internet-- basically its domain name servers, the major root servers-- that there are other parts of the international community vying for a piece of the managerial pie. Could changes in how the internet is controlled drastically affect the way business is done on the web? And how?
hmmmmm....let me get a beer and ponder this.....
BBC story, US Holds Onto Key Internet Role,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4640441.stm
