Blacklisted By Google: Is Your Company Next?

A new released book on Search Engine Advertising explains how companies that outsource their optimization campaigns are at risk of hiring firms that engage in search engine spam. "The problem isn't that the SEO firms get banned. It's their clients who pay the consequences" says author Catherine Seda.

Being banned by a search engine could arise from actions such as:
- Doorway pages loaded with keywords, often containing hidden links then placed within advertisers sites.
- Posting thousand of links to client web sites inside guestbooks or classified ads.

"There is a right way to boost your site's link popularity," says Seda. "Secure links from content-relevant site that have already achieved high rankings. Think quality, not quantity. And if you want to hire an SEO firm, ask how they get rankings for their clients."

Advertising UK

Net ads grow at high speed

The Internet has finally emerged as a major advertising platform, with the latest audited results revealing the market grew to $300 million in advertising revenue last year.

The Audit Bureau of Verification Services said the greatest percentage growth came from general online advertising, which lifted revenue 70 per cent to $104.7 million.

That was followed by search and directories advertising (up 61 per cent to $92.6 million), then classified advertising (up 45 per cent to $102.6 million.)

Total revenue in the 2004 financial year grew 58 per cent beyond the previous year to $300 million.

The Mercury

More on Affiliate and SEM...

Another interesting article by Fredrick Marckini, deals with the very interesting issues on if to let Publishers bid on trademarked terms and if Advertisers should share bidding intelligence with them. The conclusion in both cases was "yes", even though it includes a high degree of risk.

It's Good to Compete With Your Affiliates in PPC Search

"Madness! Why on earth would you allow your affiliates to compete with you in pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising programs? It drives up bid prices! Made no sense to me." Fredrick Marckini

Me neither to be honest. Until I read the an interesting article on ClickZ saying that:
- Affiliates extend your paid search advertising budget.
- Competing with affiliates on the same keywords is valuable because they help you dominate the page.
- If your affiliates are restricted from paid search advertising, they'll simply switch teams and bid for the same keywords on behalf of your competition.

Forrester report: U.S. online retail sales to top $300B by 2010

Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge has put a value on the fast-growing online retail market in the United States, saying American firms will sell $316 billion in goods and services via the Web by 2010. According to Forrester, e-commerce will amount to some 12 percent of all retail sales in 2010, up from about 7 percent today.

"Significant behavioral changes by consumers and retailers will fuel online retail growth over the next six years," Forrester Senior Analyst Carrie Johnson said in a prepared statement".

Among the reports other finding:
- Most online retail categories will grow between 10 percent and 20 percent compound annual growth rate over the next six years.

- Such categories as hardware and garden supplies will experience above-average growth, as consumers become increasingly comfortable buying products that historically have seen slow growth online. Flowers will also experience an above-average spike as consumers continue to shift spending away from telephone orders.

- As more retailers increase and improve their multichannel efforts, like in-store pickup, such categories as home decor will see an increase in sales.

- Although the number of new households that begin shopping online will slow significantly between 2004 and 2007, momentum will build again between 2007 and 2009 when half of U.S. households will have broadband at home.

- Retailers will invest in one-to-one marketing efforts to help find new customers. By targeting blogs, chatrooms, and message boards, retailers will run appropriate ads while consumers are discussing a specific product, or content related to that product.

Gmail causes problems for email marketers

Many people start using GMail as their primary mail service. This will have a huge impact on the future of email marketing as email marketers have got this invisible competition in GMail. As GMail has content sensitive advertisement system meaning that the mail service show ads which are relevant to the content of the mail. This might result in a totally new problem to email marketers as when they send mails to GMail users, and along with the promotional mails, there is this very high chance of appearance of a competitors advertisement. This does not reflect well on the clients... Search Engine Journal

If you can't beat them- join them!

Nate Krenkel and Conor Oberst, founder of the indie band Bright Eyes, are music industry veterans who are taking a novel approach to selling CDs. Their new label, Team Love, posts all the songs from their young bands' albums online for free. The result, so far, has been a success! Businessweek

Joined UK forces aims to eliminate discrepancies in online advertising

Historically, publisher and rich media ad servers have used different counting methodologies. Typically ad servers used by publishers would count on the request made by a user's browser for an advert to be served, and those used to deliver rich media formats would record the impression only if the advertisement was actually ready to be seen or played - causing a discrepancy in the figures reported to the advertiser.

24/7 Real Media and Tangozebra have joined forces in an industry-leading initiative to eliminate discrepancies in advertising campaigns. Advertising UK