Once upon a time people wrote articles about high value keywords and tried to rank for them.

This occurred because Adsense displayed ads that were based on the content of a website. As a result of this there are many articles about high paying keywords like “laywers” or “asbestos” and not so many articles about lower paying subjects.

Chasing high dollar keywords had a large scale influence on what the web looks like today (spammy).

This has now changed.

What I am referring to is the use of browser history to display ads. Just because you have a “cat” website does not mean you will be showing ads about “cats” anymore. If a visitor to your website was recently looking at furniture, a furniture ad will show up on your website about “cats”.

While we haven’t seen it change entirely over, it is moving in a new direction which should be welcome news to people who have spent their time creating valuable content that did not chase keywords. It is also good news for Adsense advertisers as well. The biggest winner however, in my opinion, will be a less spammy internet.

Ads based on user history is a big change.

Much bigger than you might at first think. Another way to say “Google is using user history to display ads” is to say…

“Google is no longer using what your website is about to display ads.”

This can be a scary thought for many people who have based their web ventures around high paying keywords. They may have some thinking to do.

Ads based on user history changes many things and some good points to ponder are…

• The perception of Adsense not being the best option for monetization needs a second look.
• For content authors, this is welcome and fabulous news that will make them more money.
• As these changes become more widely adopted and known, the internet will see less and less made for adsense spam in general.

If you talk to an “old timer” about how to monetize your website, they will often say Adsense is not the best option, this is based on their experience. It is important to point out that their experience is… well, old. If they have been on the web awhile and don’t like Adsense, then they probably aren’t using it much and are not as familiar with what the landscape is now.

I have seen these changes take place and they have significantly improved the monetization of some of my websites. I think some old timers will soon be going back to Adsense too.

As Google places more and more value on user history and less value on website content, you will see…

• Made for Adsense spam sites & high dollar keyword targeted sites make less and less money.
• General websites which have traffic and quality content make more and more money.

I believe this is great news for most of the people out there who are using Adsense.

• Example: Someone has a website about calico cats, that used to have almost no value as a keyword in Adsense. In the past they were getting 1 or 2 cents a click. Now they are noticing something different, they are receiving clicks that are worth a dollar or more sometimes here and there. These improved numbers will grow in the future and it is not about the content of their site.

In the past if a webmaster saw such clicks, they would go out and maybe change their content to try to get more similar clicks (instead of keeping their content the way they originally thought was appropriate). This soon won’t work anymore, and as a result quality content will stay that way instead of being changed into keyword farms.

The reason for those intermittent high dollar clicks is the visitors user behavior, not the subject or wording of the website.

I have seen convincing evidence that the trend to show ads based on user history is growing. If it continues to grow, the made for Adsense sites and website that are chasing high paying keywords will start making significantly less money.

Those who just sit around getting drunk and only wake up randomly to check their Adsense accounts to see how much money they made may need to change their ways.

If you want to do well at Adsense, have traffic.

That may sound overly simplistic, but it is true. Websites that used to have high traffic but low click values will start making more money. (psst – I am talking about good websites to buy here)

If you are a person who buys websites based on keyword subject on a large scale for their Adsense value, you may want to wake up, do some testing and examine this trend.

In a nut shell, they are link building now. It is through a third party, but they are doing it.

I received an email a couple of days ago that asked me if I was interested in doing a story about the new Google search stories tool.

Upon initially reading this email I was very suspicious to be completely truthful. Suspicious enough that I did some investigating. Here is what I learned…

This appears to actually be someone acting on the behalf of  Google.

After speaking with several people (all of whom were notably professional and nice) I wanted to share what occurred because it is a great example of communication. Social media is people, and these are some professionals who know how to interact with people.

Even though I have some critiques about the initial email I received, they impressed me very much with their open communication as I was investigating this.

I am going to describe this in three parts.

1. I will share the email I received and note the things I liked and didn’t like about it.
2. I will explain why I was suspicious of the email
3. I will describe how the communication went when I contacted them, and why I was left with such a great overall impression.

The Email

I have highlighted what I think was good about it and what I thought was bad about it. Here is the entire email with my critiques in red and my compliments in green…

Hey Patrick (<–They got my name right, good way to start),
How’s everything? My name is [name], I’m a digital Marketing consultant that works with Horizon Media. (they identified themselves)(but they did not identify that they were working with Google)
I love the site. (compliments will get you everywhere)
I really liked your articles “Facebook fan requests make me want to projectile vomit” and “Google translate for animals”. I thought the Google translate for Animals video was pretty hilarious. (they mentioned by name my posts and commented specifically about them)(they probably shouldn’t just reference the last two posts I did, would be more real if they mentioned a new post and an older post)

I’m reaching out to you today about Google’s new Search Story campaign. (they explain why they are contacting me)
You may remember Google¹s Parisian Love ad that aired during the 2010 Super Bowl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU .This was Google’s first Super Bowl ad, and the response was so positive, that Google decided to share this opportunity with all of its users. (they used a great reference that most people would know about)

Google’s brand new Search Stories tool has gone live yesterday. You can check the below blog posting to read more about it
(http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/make-your-own-search-story-video-in.html). This tool allows you to create and publish your own personalized Search Story that you can share with your readers, fans and friends. To view the Search Stories Creator template, and build your own story, please visit the YouTube channel @ http://www.youtube.com/searchstories I have also attached a PDF on how to create your own search story.You can also reference the below link on youtube if you would prefer. (a good solid but brief description of product)

If you could check out the tool, create your own story and post on your site that would be greatly appreciated. (very specific and real request, no confusion here) If you could encourage your readers to do the same and share with their friends and family that would also be a huge help. Lastly, if you could let me know when you do create your own search story that would be great because I would love to see and read all about it. (these are very specific requests as well, which I think is good, they are contacting me, might as well not beat around the bush about what you want. The request for further communication is a good thing. It also is a pretty good idea for a blog post.)

One last thing I wanted to mention was that many videos that stand out as creative and fun will be posted on the official YouTube Search Stories Channel. In order to meet those requirements, you must publish a story that meets Google’s terms and conditions, which you can find on the Terms and Conditions page of the You Tube Search Stories Channel (http://www.gstatic.com/sst0/static/terms.html). Thanks a lot and I look forward to seeing what you create and publish on your site.

Thank you! (politeness rocks.)

~[name]

(the following FTC rule warning was a big red flag because it says to disclose I was directly contacted by Google, but I was not informed in the email that it was Google making the request. This did not add up to me.)
IMPORTANT NOTE

In keeping with recent FTC rule changes, we request that you provide full disclosure to your audience in regards to your relationship with our brand.
Please make clear that you were contacted directly by Google, who asked for your participation in the ways outlined above. In addition, please disclose fully any materials and/or products we have shared with you as part of this initiative. Your honest and transparent participation is truly valued by Google. We look forward to working with you again on future initiatives.”

That was the email I received and now I want to describe what made me suspicious of it.

Smells Fishy

As I noted I was a bit suspicious of this email when I first looked at it. I am a pretty big fan of Google and I am somewhat familiar with how important their brand is to them. When I first read the email I was never told that it was from Google (or someone directly acting on the behalf of Google) so when I got to the end of it and read that FTC warning stating “I was directly contacted by Google” it didn’t add up for me.

Worse still, I went to the domain name that the email was sent from and…

There was nothing there.

This convinced me at that moment that this could not be a Google contact as I felt that they would not send emails from a domain that didn’t have anything on it.

The Communication

Since I am a bit protective of Google because I am sorta a fanboy, I replied to the email with this…

“explain more of who you are to me please and what your relationship with Google is. If you do not, the only story I am writing is about your misrepresentation.”

Nice aren’t I?

I received a prompt reply. It was professional, it explained what was up, and it offered me solutions. (wow)
Here it the reply I got….

“Patrick,

Google is one of the advertising accounts that Horizon Media represents. The current campaign we are working on in generating awareness and encouraging people to try out this new Search Story software Google has created.

If you would like I could send you my supervisors email so you can discuss further with him.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,
name of person”

I was impressed by the prompt reply, but I wanted to put on my reporter hat and dig deeper, so I replied that I wanted the email. I also said in part…

“The email seems sneaky to me, it is not sent from horizon media, and the domain the email is from is non existent.
Thank you”

I was again given a prompt reply within minutes..

“Patrick,

Not a problem at all. My supervisors information is below. I apologize if the email came off as sneaky, that was not my intentions.

[name of supervisor, email of supervisor, and phone number of supervisor was provided here]

I hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks,
Name of person”

Wow. A nice, apologetic reply with actual contact info. I was again impressed, but I wanted to get to the bottom of this so I called the contact.

I had a conversation with the supervisor on the phone, and he explained to that there was a relationship between Horizon Media and Google.

I then spoke to the director of social media & relationship marketing of Horizon Media and we had quite a friendly chat. I have had my share of overseeing outreach efforts, and he was a very nice open person who actually wanted to hear my critiques.

The bottom line of this is that Google has hired someone to do social media outreach and are actively engaging in reaching out to publishers.

I appreciated the transparency of the conversation I had, and my impression went from suspicion to support. Nice job.

They found me, and I am one of the right guys to find if you are Google and are wanting to reach out to publishers.

I think there are two main things a social media outreach plan needs to do in order to be successful.

1. Find the right people
2. Communicate with them well

They seem to have done that. If your communications were published by a rogue blogger, would your outreach fare as well?
(notes: I am not a rogue blogger, and do not normally publish email communications on my blog without discussing it first with those I have communicated with. I told them I would do this story, and that it would include critiques on their initial email.)

It wasn’t easy for most people to figure out if they supported it or not.

I wanted a tool for my webmaster tools page that simply answered the question…

“Does my website support If Modified Since?”

Here it is… If Modified Since HTTP header tool

A screen shot of the tool:

Does your web page support if modified since as recommended by the Google webmaster guidelines? Find out here.

This happened often, and made the google gadget directory look strange as shown in the screen shot.
There were over 100 “clones” of my gadgets in the directory alone. This is where someone has copy and pasted your code in it’s entirety and then submitted to the Google gadget directory.

When several people do this it causes many repetitive (spam) gadgets to be returned when someone is searching for a gadget in the directory.

How to remove clones of your Google gadget

iGoogle has a feature called Google gadget dashboard where you can claim your gadgets. This feature allows you to claim any gadget that is associated with emails that are yours. Once you claim all the gadgets associated with your email, you will have the ability to remove gadgets from the Google gadget directory. If there are clones of your gadget (someone pretending to be you) then you can now remove them.

1. To access your dashboard and claim your gadgets go here.

2. Follow the steps (this is basically an email verification process).

3. Claim one of your gadgets. When you do this, it will actually show you all the other gadgets associated with that email address and ask you if you want to claim those too. Claim them all.

Now you have a dashboard and all of it’s neat tools like stats of users worldwide and page views and graphs and such…

5. Now that your dashboard is set up, you will notice that some of the gadgets listed are clones. This can be seen rather easily as shown by this screenshot of part of my dash board….

I remember making that gadget once, but here are like ten different versions of it! These are clones, but now they are my clones and I have the power to remove them!

6. For each gadget clone go to right hand side and click “remove from directory” link.

7. You will now be prompted to go through another email verification process.

8. Once you verify, you will receive a message in your dashboard stating that the gadget will be removed from the directory within 48 hours.

This is a bit of a process, but understandable.

After you are through, you have just made the Google gadget directory a little bit less of a spam cess pool, and your name and email are not associated with spam gadgets anymore.

Google has a good name. People probably expect that they would have a good experience with them. You can almost hear them say “it’s Google, they will have all the details figured out”.

Well, no such luck for Nexus One purchasers. There is no phone support for the Nexus One.

This is America, and in America we like to talk to people on the phone when we are complaining. It is how we get our aggressions out.

Google may be grumpy about the disappointing sales of this phone (reportedly only around 20,000 the first week) but they should consider themselves lucky. If they can not handle 20,000 customers, how would they have dealt with 1,000,000?

There has been complaints of “spotty 3G”, which Google says is limited to a few users, but there are almost 1000 comments on the support thread complaining about it…

Google risks losing their good name with real customers, they should have things in place before they sell something to non search geeks.

Have a problem with your Nexus One? “No worries”, says Google, “just fill out this long form and then we will get back to you within 48 hours.”

This is not how phones work Google. If you going to sell phones you need to answer phones too.

Nexus One Support options are very limited but they do exist. Here are some options.

Google Nexus One Support Page

Nexus One Support Forum

How to reach normal business owners with real advice about local SEO?

Google representatives Ryan Hayward and Ari Bezman as well as industry leaders like Mike Blumenthal, Matt McGee, David Mihm, Mary Bowling, and Ed Reese are coming together to do just that.

We are pleased to announce to have Google as a sponsor for our first event!  Getlisted Local University

When David Mihm and I created Getlisted.org our main concern was about everyday business owners who were sometimes getting ripped off or at least confused about what to do and how much to spend on their web presence.
We knew that that really didn’t need to spend much.
But how to get the message out?
Well funded, big players were selling them snake oil, and we were just lil’ ole us.
One of the things we envisioned was a city by city workshop.

We also wanted to see chambers of commerce, local papers, and non-profit business mentors like SCORE come together and get the word out.

Getlisted.org Local University is an event that will cater to cities that don’t always get the attention they deserve. It begins with Spokane, Washington on Feb 4th 2010.

We aren’t doing this to make a profit. In fact, 10% of all ticket sales for this event will be donated to a local business charity for that city.

To learn more about our first event in Spokane and how you can attend or be involved, please visit our event page.

How to Float Adsense

To the right is an Adsense ad.
Notice it is not all smooshed up to the text.
The ad is a 300 x 250 large rectangle which is pretty big for my skinny little blog, but I figured I would show an example that even a large ad in a blogpost does not have to look hideous.
To make it further blend in (or at least be less ugly) I suggest you choose “image ads only” when creating your ad.
Here is the code to position those ads (it is just adding a “div”).
Add your Adsense code and then insert into your page or post.

<div style="margin: 5px; float: right;">
Put ad code here
</div>

The above code will work on WordPress blogs, websites, just about anywhere. It also works with just about any type of ad too, not just Adsense.
You can also use padding to control the space between the ad and your text. The above code uses a margin. If you want more space between your ad and your text try changing the “5″ to “10″.
To make the ad go to the left, just replace “right” with “left”.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

This webpage used to contain a wealth of information that was useful to new and/or struggling webmasters. It explained and linked to several resources that helped the webmaster community.

Rather unbelievably, the page now is almost worthless to new webmasters, and I would argue downright confusing.

To show you what I am talking about here…

Google Webmaster Central History

Let’s look at the Google webmaster central page year by year shall we?

2004

See this page? It answers common webmaster questions prominently like “Why isn’t my page listed?” and “How do I get my site listed on Google?”
Nice page Google – Kudos. I wonder if you can make it better…

2005

Wow, you made it better! More concise, and answering more common questions. Where you can’t answer the question fully you link to resources that do. Boy oh wow you guys are swell to new webmasters! Thanks! Wonder if you could make it better…

2006

Holy helpful Batman!
This page is even better now and has a nice simple layout with oh so friendly icons, awwww. You really do like us webmasters. Shucks.
Could it get better?

2008

Wow oh Wow!!!!
Look at all that stuff you have that helps ‘lil ole me the webmaster! Such a great array of things, and it is all laid out in friendly terms, and I know what to do because you have it all broken down in chunks like “Improve traffic with Webmaster tools” and “find answers to webmaster questions” and “learn more about your site” and “submit your content to Google”.
So informative! So useful!
I can’t wait to see what you do next…

2009 (current)

What the f**k?
This page is useless. Crappy crap it is.

A wealth of vastly improved tools and resources are now provided by the Google webmaster team, and they have made such great progress in the last couple of years, but most of their improvements are now invisible to the new webmaster because of the limited nature of the new “Google webmaster central” page.

Google has mentioned and referenced the Google webmaster central page as a “one-stop shop for webmaster resources” and a place for new webmasters to go.

That advice is not sound anymore.

Why would a new webmaster need a rich snippet testing tool? (note: The rich snippet tool is ultra cool and a great resource, but is it really of any use whatsoever to webmasters in general?)

Google Base? Google base is promoted heavily as well. Again, a great product but not so great to the general webmaster having problems.

The most prominent chunk of real estate goes to signing in to “Webmaster Tools”. If I were a new webmaster and saw this, I would probably think…

Hmmm, “Webmaster Tools”, sounds like a page where there are a whole bunch of tools for webmasters. Sounds great, I guess I will create an account or log in”

The problem here is that when they do sign in they are redirected to the Webmaster Tools page – which is utterly and completely worthless to someone until they take a whole bunch of additional steps and time goes by.

The page does not even say what Webmaster Tools is.

This simply does not pass my bullshit detector. If I see a link that says “cat” I expect to go to a “cat” page.
For Google not to define what “Webmaster Tools” is, and to redirect users to a page that has no tools available to be used at that moment, and in addition require people to login or create a new account simply to not get what they are expecting is pretty much plain and simple wrong.

I think new webmasters deserve a page on Google where they can go to get general information about what to do next or how to solve and identify their problems.

Google webmaster central utterly fails to do this now.

My specific complaints…

This page does not answer any questions.

This page does not explain or even attempt to define any tools, resources, or processes for the new or struggling webmaster. (except for Google Base? WTF?)

This page does not offer any advice for a webmaster with questions.

This page does not follow the guidelines and recommendations of Google itself .

Food for thought Google… Your “guide to making a Google friendly site” states right at the beginning “Give visitors the information they’re looking for” – it also states “In creating a helpful, information-rich site, write pages that clearly and accurately describe your topic.” (pssst – your topic is helping webmasters and you have literally NO TEXT on this subject whatsoever.)

Arrgh.

Hey, but just like anything else I see on the web, if something isn’t up to par, it just means an opportunity for anyone with the gumption to make a better resource.
I have the gumption… Here is my version of Google webmaster tools.

These product ads (Google gadgets ads that display products from a live database) have been around for about a year for larger Google advertisers, they showed different products from a database based upon what was searched for, but this Overstock ad is the first I have seen use history to populate the products within the ad.

I just got a place on Venice beach and I was looking at furniture over the last couple of days at various places. This Overstock ad was displayed on a third party website that had nothing to do with furniture. The products shown were the last three items I had viewed (over a couple of days) at overstock.com…

This ad combines history, database, and personalization.

If your company has a big ad spend, talk to your Google rep about exploring Google gadget ads. Ads that are Google gadgets are usually thought of as flashy, videoesque things, but the most successful Google gadget ads have been the more practical ones that look like other ads, but that display products which are instantly selected based on the person seeing the ad.

This is a well done ad and it works.

I am buying a bed from them now, and I had forgotten that I had even looked at Overstock.

This is the way iGoogle tabs are distributed. A page like this is shown to the user who can then decide which of the gadgets will be in the tab.

If a user presses the blue “Add to iGoogle” button, then they are taken to their iGoogle home page and there will now be a new tab of gadgets there…

By using tabs, you can spread more than one gadget at a time. The above example puts a virtual pets tab with six gadgets on a users iGoogle page with one click. This post will tell you how to do this, but first let’s see why we should use an iGoogle tab at all…

Reasons to use iGoogle tabs

• Ranking – If enough people are using your gadgets under a certain tab, there are ranking benefits. If your virtual pet gadget is included in a tab titled “virtual pets” then that is a great indication that your gadget is useful and has something to do with “virtual pets”.
• Distribution – Let’s say you have popular gadgets already in the gadget directory, but also have some new ones as well. You can mix and match your gadgets to help distribute the new ones off the popularity of your old gadgets. For this example I am doing exactly that. There are six gadgets in this virtual pets iGoogle tab. Three of them are very popular (the monkey, panda and the puppy), and three are new (the lion cub, fox, and turtle).
• Promotion – If you have a service you are promoting you can make a couple of themed gadgets around your subject, put them in a tab, and presto, you have something to promote.

How to create an iGoogle tab

To create a tab go to any of your existing tabs on your iGoogle homepage (most people only have the two default tabs – “home” and “chat”). Click the down arrow next to the tab name as shown in image.

Once you click that you will see an option to “add a tab”. Click that and a window will pop up that looks like this…

It will ask you to name the tab you are about to make. Do so wisely. Name your tab for what you would like your gadgets to rank for. If your gadgets are about cars, name it “cars”. Our example one is about virtual pets, so I named it “virtual pets”.

Keep the box checked that says “I am feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name.” This will fill your new tab with gadgets that already rank well for the word or phrase you are naming your tab. Seeing what gadgets Google will fill the tab with lets you know a couple of important things.

1. Who your competitors are – The gadgets that show up are doing well, learn from them and use this information to make better and more useful gadgets for your term.

2. If there are competitors – If Google doesn’t find gadgets for your tab then you have found a niche worth trying.

Okay so now we have an iGoogle tab, what next? I would suggest filling it with your own gadgets! Once you have added your gadgets (and perhaps removed your competitors) look at the tab and see if it offers a useful set of gadgets that are a good fit for the term you used to name the tab. Don’t be afraid to include other peoples gadgets as well. A good goal would be to offer a complete, and helpful set of gadgets. If you named your tab “cars” then make sure there are a good group of gadgets that covers what a user would want about cars (car news, car photos, car videos, etc.).

How to distribute an iGoogle tab

How do you let people know about your tab? The first step is finding out what the share link is so that you can link to the “add tab” page.
To do this go back to that little down arrow next to your new tab…

Click it and choose the “share this tab” option.When you do you will see a window like this…

Do not send this to any friends yet, just send the tab to yourself. Enter your email, and hit send (btw if you have a theme, or user preferences that you want the gadgets in the tab to retain check the “save my settings” box).

You will receive an email that links to the page where users can find your tab as in the image to the right. This page lets an user add the several gadgets within your tab with one click. Very nice.

Now that you are armed with the URL of the tab, go visit and make sure everything looks right and that it is working and displaying well. Make sure you have thumbnail images for all the gadgets in your tab so that the “add tab” page looks pleasing and nice (learn about thumbnail images in my moduleprefs tutorial).

Okay we now have an iGoogle tab full of gadgets, and a URL to share it, let’s promote this baby.

How to promote an iGoogle tab

• First thing I want to say about this is that these “add tab” pages actually can rank rather well so do not be afraid to link to this page lavishly. But how do we get people to go to this “add tab” page.
• If you have a website, feature your iGoogle tab somewhere.
• Using our example, I have a virtual pet Google gadgets page and what I did with this new tab was to make it into sorta an ad. It is in the side bar of that page.
• However and where ever you feature it or link to it from your website, make sure that it is somewhat prominent. You want people to go… “What’s an iGoogle tab?, let’s see….. [click]“
• If you have made a useful set of gadgets then your tab can be shared like any other link. I had a Stephen Colbert tab and it hit the front page of Digg.
• If you do submit to a social sharing / voting site then make sure that you enter the “add tab” page as the URL. Do not link to your own site where you are explaining about it. The reason for this is that Google is a trusted domain. If you are simply linking to a Google “add tab” page, then people who lke the subject will actually feel okay voting up, whereas a blog post about how gosh darn nifty your tab is will appear spammy.
• Link to it from within your gadgets. Add a small text link in your gadgets that takes users your “add tab” page.
• Get a little help from your friends. Tell them about it and have them install it.

You basically can use any technique to promote this as you do any other webpage. What makes iGoogle tabs so neat is that they simplify the process a user must go through in order to use your gadgets.

Instead of having six different campaigns for six different gadgets, why not concentrate on just one for all of your gadgets? In many situations this is wise, and associates your gadgets with their search terms.