For years it has been hotly debated as to whether or not Google would give brownie points to those who participate in their AdWords campaigns, which is a form of Pay Per Click (PPC). There are many ‘experts’ in the field who will tell you this is not the case and that there has never been an example of PPC adding to the validity or popularity of your organic rankings as the two are not one and the same. Still there has been growing speculation for some time now that Google does indeed give ‘special treatment’ to those who show them advertising dollar love and a recent study conducted by two NYU professors may have just proved the conspiracy theorists point.

According to professors in Anindya Ghose and Sha Yang in a recent study, the presence of organic listings on a search engine such as Google definitely impacts the click-through rates of PPC advertisements and the same is true for the inverse. This was the first experimental study that evaluated the impact of advertising on search engines examining all three levels of participants, which are the consumers, advertisers, and the search engines themselves, in relation to both organic listings and PPC.

If this is indeed true that Google organic listings are without a doubt being influence by PPC then why do you think that is? Google revenue perhaps? When you think about it Goggle is would be very motivated to have websites that advertise with them be at a higher ranking on their search engine. If more visitors find these websites then more visitors will have a chance to see the advertising making them more effective and thus making the website owners more likely to continue to advertise with Google. Once again it looks as though the all mighty dollar may have spoken.

Of course Google cannot come right out and admit this, nor would they if they wanted to. Organic listings are supposed to only be about SEO and relevance where as anyone can utilize PPC regardless of how SEO-illiterate you are. But just because you spend more money on the advertising side of Google’s AdWords than somebody else, does that meant that you should get top billing in the SERPs? No it does not and for those who spend many months or even years trying to accomplish top rankings the old fashion way it represents an absolute nightmare.

While the evidence is thin at this point in time there are bound to be more than just one set of professors who are curious enough to dig deeper into the on goings of Google and if and when this story is broken, it will be a bombshell. Ghose and Yang plan on releasing a paper titled, ‘Analyzing the Relationship between Organic and Sponsored Search Advertising: Positive, Negative or Zero Interdependence,’ but they have yet to say if they will charge for it or not. So in Google’s defense, these professors could just be looking to get rich quick. Then again, they may be on to something big. Even if their story is bogus it is sure to draw a multitude of interest from outside parties looking to find some dirt on the search engine powerhouse.

However, messing with Google is like messing with the Mafia and requires nerves of steel. Because Google is pretty much its own entity they have no one looking over their shoulder and are self-governed so there really are no set of rules that they have to follow that are not their own. To add to that, Google is constantly changing its own ‘rules’ on ranking and SEO requirements and if you decide that you want to cross them then you may not have to sleep with the fishes, but your website’s rankings certainly will.

Only time will tell what the truth is when it comes down to Google and the mystery of the great organic listing influenced by PPC. Just keep in mind though, it is Google, so if they do end up being in the wrong, they simply have to change the rules once again and then they will be in the right. For Google, it is good to be king.

2009 is all but in the books and the New Year is upon us. With the New Year a new decade and comes new sweeping changes for all those that are involved in Internet marketers all across the country. As what seems to be an ongoing theme, the big topic for 2010 will center around search engine giant Google and their latest on goings.The world of SEO and online predictions for the year 2010 are plentiful and there are many articles and blogs abuzz with the ramblings of what is sure to come in this next decade.

Some of the more notable sites that are posting such predictions include SEOmoz.com, BigOakinc.com, and Webmarketinggoup.co.uk just to name a few. While many have their own unique perspective on what can be expected to happen in 2010 they all agree that Google’s new real time search will shake the foundations of Internet marketing.

With that, here are some predictions for the 2010 Internet marketing trends that are likely to come to fruition:

Stay or Go: This whole thing with Goggle now giving the most relevance to real time postings and other such nonsense as opposed to good quality content is sort of laughable. Basically in a nutshell, if you are the latest person to Tweet about a subject you will begin to see your rankings shoot up. This sure has all the makings of abuse doesn’t it? The biggest problem is that Google has not really said what is or isn’t going to be acceptable by the way of abuse. This opens up Pandora’s Box for all sorts of shady characters to come out of the woodworks. With all that some sleazy Internet marketers already do in order to try to gain a leg up on the competition with Google, this seems like a no-brainier that ranking by way of real time posts and the like will lead to SPAM galore. So the real question is will real time ranking stay or goes in 2010? More than likely, unless heavily regulated, it will fade faster than it appeared. Even more likely, Google will reform the current system a few times in 2010 and beyond until it only makes sense for them, but makes even less sense to the rest of the online world.

Tweeting will be Paramount: If you do not have a Twitter account yet, you better go out and get one. If Google’s new approach to ranking stays in full force then you better believe that every Internet marketer out there is going to take full advantage of such services of Twitter. If you do not have a Twitter account and stay active in the Tweeting game then it is an easy prediction that your rankings will fall faster than a lead balloon. You can additionally expect to have other social media websites such as FaceBook and MySpace begin to take a front seat in the world of the search engines. As content that is fresh becomes the stuff of champions (at least in the minds of the SERPs) then it only makes sense that these types of social media sites will see an increase in popularity and by contrast an increase in use. This also makes you wonder what will be the next big marketing social networking website to be formed. 2010 is sure to brining plenty of new social media sites that will try to ride the success of the new real time searching of Google and more than likely one or more will actually make it.

R.I.P. Yahoo: Okay so Yahoo isn’t going to totally die, but they are going to be absorbed for the lack of a better word by Bing. This will lead to a two search engine world. What will probably be seen once the meshing of Yahoo and Bing takes place is a 75 percent market share by King Google and the other 25 percent going to the newly formed entity of Yahoo and Bing. This should be good news for the new entity as Google has clearly established it dominance in the search engine game and subsequently left the two little guys to fight and scrap for whatever searches were left over. Now that the two lowly guys are forming one less lowly guy they can begin the arduous task of trying to wrestle away some of Google’s market share. Because they no longer have to bicker with each other for the scraps of Google they can focus on new and innovative ideas that will hopefully for them lead to more searches.

As the Waters Grow, so too do the Piranhas: With all the changes going on the world of SEO and Internet marketing as a whole you can bet that businesses online marketing budgets will go up exponentially. But as the number of dollars being spent goes up so too will the number of shysters and rip off artist internet marketing companies. 2010 will bring with it the most amounts of swindlers that have ever been seen and in order to protect yourself you need to be sure that you are going to go with an Internet marketing company that can be trusted and that has been around the block a time or two. But more than that you will have to be sure to go with an Internet marketer that has both an open and innovative mind. If you go with an Internet marketer who is stuck in his ways you will simply be throwing your hard earned dollar out the window. Find someone who is not afraid to conform and even experiment when it comes to getting your website known.

Searches will Become Sticky: Bing and Yahoo have really been stepping up this approach and Google is hotly in pursuit. As people conduct searches all of the big boys will aim to answer their queries within the search engine itself instead of sending the visitor off to a random site. This means that even though the search amount may in fact go up on the search engines, the amount of visitors to specific websites may go down. Why does a web surfer need to go to a third party site when Goggle answers all their questions as soon as the search results come back? This represents great news for the search engines but not so great news for the rest of the online community. To that effect it will be more important than ever to perform a PPC campaign that will see your advertisement in the top pages of the SERPs. If the web surfer is getting all the info needed from the search engine result itself you will still have an opportunity to catch their attention and perhaps inspire and impulse click.

Conversion Rate Optimization gets its Due: Conversion Rate Optimization, or CRO, is drastically underestimated when it comes to your return on investment, or ROI. However, using software that utilizes CRO will ultimately help you to determine through testing what will eventually build you a better ROI. This type of information is proving itself invaluable and as the New Year approaches, so too will the notoriety of this technology.

Building Brand Imaging is Vital: With the advent of personalized searches it will now be even harder for new companies to unseat the kings of the SERPs. Because people will now have website suggested for them by the search engines in accordance to their surfing habits, 2010 will represent the year of brand imaging. If your brand image is not clearly spelled out then you may miss out on many or all of the suggested search opportunities that the search engines will be dolling out. While this will not directly affect SEO it sure will affect the way that people need to approach building and branding their good names. It has always been true that if nobody knows who you are then nobody will find you and that statement now carries with it a lot more weight. Now in order to be found you have to have your image clearly spelled out otherwise even the best looking website with all the SEO bells and whistles will be rendered obsolete.

Non-Conformists will Parish: The bottom line is Google is a demi-god and does what it wants. Internet marketing is s tricky game, no doubt, but it is one where you can ill afford to stay stagnant. If you decide that you will not do what Google wants then you can rest assured that your placement on the SERPs will suffer greatly. However, if you are one of the few who can not only conform, but also reform your way of thinking then you will be in for a pleasant 2010 and beyond.Nobody has a crystal ball but there are some predictions that are just easier to make then others. Probably the easiest prediction to make with regards to 2010 is that the world of SEO and Internet marketing will change forever and will never again be what it was in the past. That said, another no-brainer prediction is that those who follow the pied piper that is Google will be lead to the SERPs promise land and those that do not will be lead astray.Like it or not, Google is the dominant factor when it comes to being found online and if you can’t play by their rules, then you probably can’t play in the wonderful world of online recognition. Ultimately the search engine monster is going to do what is best for its bottom line as that is what capitalism is all about, but that doesn’t mean that your website can’t continue to prosper in 2010. You simply need to be sure that you convert your old way of thinking to Google’s new way of thinking or you need to have someone to help to do so. One thing is for sure; 2010 will certainly be an interesting year online.

For about a year now the buzz all around the Internet was, what else, Google related. But this buzz had to do with the actual way that Google would track and thus rank your website. Now it is finally here and while some may not be ready for the changes that come with this historical decision made by the search engine giant, the new rules are here to stay; at least for now.

The new way that Google will track and rank has to do with real time, meaning that fresh content is now more important than ever. Content has always been king with Google but now you will have to really be ultra fresh with what you are putting out or risk seeing your rankings fall by the wayside.

This brings up many questions. Number one is how will Google go about tracking and ranking websites now?

You will still have to use keywords obviously but more than that you will have to go above and beyond simply SEO techniques done on your web pages. Now you will have to constantly change or update those pages and keep proper SEO techniques in the process. No longer will you be able to create, or have anyone else create, your webpages, make them live and then leave them alone. This type of content production will simply result in your pages eventually being overlooked for fresh content being made available from your competition.

According to most, Google will now lend heavy favor to the places where the freshest information is available, namely the social media sites. Do you have a Twitter, FaceBook, and MySpace page? If not, you better get them in a hurry. These social networking sites can no longer be ignored or avoided. If you want to show up on the SERPs now you will have to learn to love these types of fresh content producing outlets.

Another question is how much abuse will occur with this new system? This is a tough one to answer because the system implementation has just taken effect. But just as with anything else that Google roles out, you can bet there will be plenty of people doing their best to SPAM away and break the rules until Google determines what is and isn’t acceptable. Even after Google comes out with it ‘guidelines’ as to abuse there will still be those who will continue to bend the rules as much as they can.

A further concern raised with this new type of real time tracking is the fact that what will be considered fresh and thus worthy of being ranked tops in the SERPs will be whatever it is that people are currently talking about. The problem with this type of ranking is that what is popular today may not be popular next week, maybe not even tomorrow. So how will companies deal with this problem?

Basically there are only two options with this new scenario. The first is to continue to do what you have been doing all along and hope for the best. However, this will more than likely see your website rankings plummet like a lead balloon. The other, more plausible option is to be sure that you or someone else is constantly putting out fresh content for you website. This can be easier said than done and who has the time to sit on the computer all day posting to social networks and updating web pages?

The short answer is probably nobody. But you know that your competition will be hitting it hard so what can you do? Find and hire an Internet marketing professional that can not only handle your updating on web pages but one who is also an expert in social networking. You need to be wary in this department, now more than ever. Any Internet marketer you now consider must be state of the art and on the cutting edge of all aspects of Internet marketing and you can ill afford anything less.

Again, the new way of Google tracking and ranking is here and active and you have no choice but to deal with it. It is only a matter of time before Yahoo and Ping start to institute similar changes to their ranking systems and you know that it will probably be sooner rather than later. Don’t wait to get going on social media and updating because as the old saying goes, ‘If you snooze, you lose,’ and in this case it is your online presence that will suffer the most.

Using Google Alerts to Your Advantage

Google has come out with some time saving and useful tools over the past few years and one of the most useful and powerful free tools that they offer is Google Alerts. With Google Alerts you can be notified via e-mail when there are blogs, websites, or news snippets that contain certain keywords that you choose. This not only allows you a handy way to keep track of topics you are interested in but it opens up a whole world of online leverage that you can use to your advantage.

There are a number of different ways in which Google Alerts can help you to thrive online, here are just a few:

Your Website: Create an alert for your domain name leaving off the www. This will allow you to track how often your website is talked about online.

Your Personal Name: If you are looking to become an authority in your market place then it is imperative that you are mentioned frequently. By creating an alert using your personal name you will be able to see how often you are mentioned and thus better gauge what is and isn’t working for you as far as spreading your name online goes.

Your Business Name: Creating an alert for your company name will allow you to see what other websites may be mentioning your business’ name. This is common practice with the big boys as it allows companies to send thanks when positive remarks are posted and allows them to address issues that may arise due to a negative posting.
Your Blog: Using the same methods as you did for your domain name create an alert for the blog that you host. This will allow you to see who like and dislikes you blog.

Your Articles: When you employ article marketing as part of your online marketing strategy you can create alerts using the title of the articles. This allows you to see where your articles are being posted and re-used.

Your Industry: Stay in the forefront of the industry in which you are in by creating alerts using keywords and key phrases which will provide you with the most up to date news about your industry possible.

Your competition: By using your competitor’s domain names you can created alerts about them and conduct your own personal online espionage. See who is talking about your competition and what is being said about them.

Your Leads: Create alerts using your leads names and what you will receive in return is a whole host of information that you can then use to close the deal.

Your Best Clients: Set up alerts for all your top clients so that you can stay abreast of any major happenings that go on with them. If something big happens, such as a merger or an acquisition, you can quickly send over a note of congratulations.

Of course to maximize your efforts it is important to know how to streamline your alerts. To do this you have to choose quality words for your alerts. This can be accomplished in one of the following ways utilizing Google’s search method:

Exact Keyword Search: If you conduct a search for the word plumb, Google will also return everything that is related such as plumber, and plumbing. However, you can get result for just one word if you use a “+” at the beginning of the word. In this case you would search, +plumb.

Exact Key Phrase Search: If you search plumbers in Atlanta, you will get everything back containing those words; even if they are not next to each other. Capture what you are after by using quotes to get only those words used in a phrase. In this example you would type, “Plumbers in Atlanta.

Alternate Keyword: If you want to get results for one word or another you simply type in OR between the words. Be sure or is capitalized and remember to enclose in quotes to streamline your returns.

Like Keywords: If you are looking for synonyms use the “~” symbol in front of the word.

Once you have found the words and or phrases you want to keep track of, go ahead and set up your alerts. There really is no better way to keep track of everything related to your online presence. Utilizing your imagination and Google Alerts can help you to stay light years ahead of your competition.

Written by Mb

Real Time Indexing is Changing all the Rules

For years now Google has said that it loves good fresh relevant content. However, the way that Google has historically indexed was on a periodic basis meaning from time to time. Now Google is aggressively pushing Google Caffeine and has recently said that it will now begin to index sites by way of real time. So why is this important?

With the old way of indexing it allowed for business owners to actually have the time to formulate a game plan by which they could plan and execute over a bit of a period of time. Now it seems that Google will give the biggest amount of favor to those who have the time and the resources to be constantly updating their website and those who are putting the freshest new content out to the web. While this is wonderful news for web surfers it is disastrous news for those who do not the time to constantly be online Tweeting and blogging their lives away.

This presents a problem for any business that is dependent on search for their notoriety. No matter whether they rely on organic clicks or paid clicks, Google’s new way of indexing will forcibly change their approach.

As with anything else that Google does, website owners either have to conform in order to survive online or risk falling be the wayside and lose Internet exposure. According to some Google Caffeine blogs, Google is going to process over 1 billion web pages in order to institute their real time indexing. This type of indexing is aimed at finding the freshest and thus newest content on the web and Google will look at and favor factors such as:

Google News Content
New Website Pages
Freshly Updated Website Pages
Google Blog Search Content
FriendFeed Update
Twitter Tweets
Indenti.ca Updates
Jaiku Updates
TwitArmy Updates
MySpace (In the future)
FaceBook (In the future)

According to Google it will be resources such as these that will represent the latest and freshest content that the web has to offer and so they will get the greatest amount of consideration when it comes to real time indexing.

Anyone who is into promoting their website, or any other website for that matter, knows that content is king. You have heard this countless times no doubt, but it is now truer than ever before.  Now it is imperative to have organic search results be more fluid in regards to content. Even the rules of paid searches will be altered. Now it will not be enough to simply link your PPC campaign to a specific landing page on your site and just leave it alone. Now you will be forced to be sure that the landing page is not only done with proper SEO techniques in mind, but is also updated on a regular basis to keep the content fresh and therefore appealing to the search engine giant.

Now the big question; what does this mean for you? Well to begin with you will now have to be extra diligent and more active than you ever have been when it comes to your website and its promotions. It is no longer going to be enough to have a great looking website that is full of relevant information that was designed with SEO in mind. Now that website and all things that correspond with it, such as blogs and social media, will have to be continuously updated and kept fresh.

There will no doubt be a number of businesses that struggle with these new rules that Google is laying out and that can be a good or a bad thing for you. Bad if you simply sit idly by and watch your competitors scream past you and good if you take a more proactive role in your website and all the content out on the web that involves your business.

Even if you don’t have the time or the dedication to give to this new method of real time indexing, it is here to stay and you will have to deal with it one way or another. If you cannot deal with it yourself it will be more important than ever to have a trustworthy Internet marketing firm on your side. But remember you have to get with a firm that is up to date with the entire goings on of Google Caffeine and what lies ahead. Google is waiting; how will you respond?

Written by Mark Bove’ ,

In the ultimate in Big Brother mentality, Google announced last week that now everyone who uses their search engine will have their searches tracked and recorded. Google is spinning this in a positive light and claims no ill will with the methods. According to the search engine giant, they are doing this in an attempt to personalize the search results that each person sees as they conduct searches.

What Google does is make a recording of all the searches you conduct on a regular basis and what links you are clicking as result of those searches. If in your searches you continually click on one sites link in a favorable manner then eventually that site will pop up on the first page when it may not have otherwise. So if you are into eBay and your searches end with a lot of eBay click throughs, then eventually when you simply conduct a search for light bulbs, you may see eBay as one of the top results.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, wrote a lengthy article about this very subject on the day it happened and you can access that article here. If you still don’t believe it you can see for yourself by visiting this link which is straight from Google’s own blog. Freaked out yet? Wait there’s more.

While this is not a new tactic from Google or any other search engine for that matter, what is new is that Google will now be doing this regardless of whether or not you have opted in or not and they will also do this even if you are not logged into your Google account. While you can opt out, the very fact that you have to opt out because you are included in this whether you like it or not is going to ruffle many feathers.

Now the good news is that you can easily opt out by reading the instructions on the Google blog listed above and even if you don’t there is supposedly no way that anyone can view what you have searched. Also, the results faze themselves out after 180 days so really you may or may not think that it is a big deal. But the fact remains that Google is now collecting more information on everyone and many people will be participating in an event that they may not want to simply because they don’t know any better.

Google has already been using a reference of past searches in order to decide what advertising a person sees when they are surfing the net and now this. It seems unimaginable that one company has the right to know so much about you. Then again, they do provide a great service and for the most part that service is free. But where do you draw the line on privacy?

Is it really anyone’s business where you spend your free time on the Internet? The sad truth is that whether it is or it isn’t, Google has the right to do what they do and if you want to use their services then you have to pay the piper so to speak.

If this is troubling to you then you have to be sure that you follow through with the disabling of the new personalization searches and be sure that you stay opted out. But as far as staying off the grid goes, forget it. We now live in a world where so much of our information is taken on a daily basis and many times we don’t even know about it. Even if we do know about it, the horrifying fact is, there is nothing we can do about it.