Archive for July, 2008
Is Cuil Trying too Hard to be Cool?
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008The new search engine in town cuil.com thinks it can be a player alongside Google. But that name is gonna be a problem, I think.
From their press release;
“Cuil (pronounced COOL) provides organized and relevant results based on Web page content analysis. The search engine goes beyond today’s search techniques of link analysis and traffic ranking to analyze the context of each page and the concepts behind each query. It then organizes similar search results into groups and sorts them by category.”
When i first saw the name, before anyone told me it was supposed to be pronounced “cool”, the thought that came to my mind was “quil”. And now that they tell me it’s supposed to be “cool”, I’m thinking “lame”. Everybody knows that trying too hard to be cool is just not, erm…., you know, cool.
Lack of Flexibility in Ad Titles in Google Adwords Map Ads
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008I love working with Pay Per Click ads through Google AdSense. It’s like instant gratification. And the local targeting opportunities are amazing when working with a local business. But there is one thing that really bugs me, Map Ads.
When creating an ad to be displayed on Google Maps you’re stuck with using the business name as it is within the Google Local Business Center (LBC). Your business name then becomes the default blue linked headline of your ad copy. You can’t readily rename it to specifically target your keywords like you can in the regular ads, unless you change it in the LBC.
For this reason I see click through rates for Map Ads at mere fractions of what I can get out of normal ads. Being that we are paying Google to create ads which appear within Google Maps they should allow us the flexibility to give whatever title we feel would better speak to searchers. Again, like we can in the normal ads.
Here’s an example;
Google’s Keyword Tool Now Shows Search Volume
Thursday, July 10th, 2008Google’s Adwords system has always had it keyword suggestion tool that would help to suggest related keywords but they’ve gone one better. Now they show search volumes for keywords. And the data does a decent job of going down to local level searches. YAY!!!!!
The tool has 3 versions. The external keyword tool can be used if you don’t have an Adwords account or don’t want to log into your account to do some keyword research. It also makes related keyword suggestions while showing volumes for those terms too. Love it
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