Team Mindshare

For all those leveraging Google Analytics to measure their results and who use advanced segments to differentiate their paid, non-paid, direct and referral traffic — you may have experienced a minor heart attack when it appeared that you had a significantly lower amount of traffic then expected. You probably noticed a message in a small yellow horizontal box that reads “This report is generated in fast-access mode. Learn more”. But clicking the “learn more” link leads to a page that tells you that you are looking at sampling data since the site you are managing had in excess of 500,000 visits. But what if you know the site did not have that number of visits?

Yes they did.  This time it was Overstock.com getting snagged gaming Google search results!

A colleague sent me a great article this morning on the subject.  It brought me back to the story of Google v. BMW Germany, 2006.  Google caught on to “black hat” techniques being employed on behalf of the defendant, and sentenced them to the “death penalty”.  That is, they were completely removed from the Google search indexes.

In this case,  JC Penney, a leading worldwide retailer — has been exposed.  It does not appear that the consequences will be as severe on this one…with Google’s renown spam “Chief of Police” Matt Cutts stating that Google is simply taking “corrective action”.  What ensued was a methodical series of demotions across a number of terms critical to the online marketing success of the company.

These days, no internet marketing strategy is complete without a strong YouTube presence.  According to Hitwise on November 13, 2010 – YouTube is now the #2 Social Networking website in the world with a market share of 19%, second only to Facebook.  Also, YouTube continues to increase their share of the search engine market – especially among users 18 years old and under.  If you have not created a YouTube channel for your company, it must be on the top of your to-do list.

YouTube has revolutionized the way that you can demonstrate what you do through inexpensive video productions.  That this medium is increasingly preferred to standard text and static image ads has been statistically proven.  Add to this the fact that you can quickly create compelling AdWords campaigns with high quality score tied directly to your YouTube videos, and the opportunity becomes even that much more appealing.

As we continue to monitor the effect of the Bing-Yahoo integration in our rank tracking results (not only for our customers but for ourselves), one thing is clear:  the fluctuation and inconsistency in those results continues.  This leads us to believe that the dust has not yet settled.

For those who might not have been aware as yet, on August 24th the Bing search engine indexes officially began powering Yahoo search results.  If you are skeptical, just do a search via Yahoo and note that it says “Powered by Bing™” in the bottom center of the results page.

As of the last week in August 2010, the search engine battlefield transitioned to Google vs. Bing (which now powers Yahoo results).  There are many implications here.

And it should be getting more attention.  As Bing and Yahoo continue forward on their transition, a milestone has been reached.  Bing results are now powering Yahoo results in the US and Canada!  Depending upon how you rank on either, this could be good news – or terrible news.

Core and More Technologies is giving away an iPod touch!  To enter to win, simply become a fan on Facebook and you will be automatically entered! A $199 value – shipped right to your front door on us.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Google has pulled back another curtain and revealed the size of its lucrative Internet ad network in the U.S. It spans more than 1.5 million advertisers and Web sites.

The Associated Press calculated the figure from a state-by-state breakdown of Google Inc.’s operations that the company released Tuesday.

It marks the second time in two days that Google has shared previously unknown details about the marketing channel that generates most of its revenue. The Internet search leader spelled out the commissions that it pays its ad partners for the first time Monday.