Kikabink News

Google has introduced the Search-based Keyword Tool (currently in beta). The tool suggests keywords for you to target in your Google Adwords campaign, based on their relevance to your website.

According to Google, you can benefit from the Search-based Keyword Tool in two main ways. Firstly, if you are running a campaign the tool will suggest keywords that are highly relevant to your website, but are not currently part of your AdWords campaign.

Secondly, even if you aren’t currently advertising in Adwords, you can use the tool to discover nuances about your target market. The tool essentially generates keywords often used in association with the keywords you have chosen to target.

Right now, the Search-based Keyword Tool is available to advertisers in the U.S. and U.K., with additional languages and countries to follow in the near future.

Check it out here: http://www.google.com/sktool

Source: Trevor Claiborne, “Announcing the Search-based Keyword Tool”, Inside AdWords, November 18, 2008

MediaWhiz has launched a new ad network called InLinks that aims to sell advertisers text links within the content of bloggers’ posts… without being detected as paid-for links by Google.

InLinks will look and behave exactly like words with embedded links. They will not look like - or carry any indication - of being paid for and, since they will not have nofollow tags, they will pass on Google PageRank (the main objective).

Basically, an advertiser will be able to choose the keywords it wants to target and then buy text links for those keywords. Such links will then appear whenever the given keyword appears in the content of the blogs participating in the program. Bloggers will be paid a flat rate per month per text link sold.

Sound good so far?

Think again. Paid links are against Google’s quality guidelines and the search engine will penalize blogs caught selling such links. Not disclosing paid-for links is also a rather dubious practice for bloggers to engage in. In some jurisdictions, such as here in Australia, it may well be illegal.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger advises bloggers to proceed with caution. He recommends against participating in InLinks if you have a highly ranking blog, or if you are concerned about disclosure and transparency with your readers. He suggests that InLinks it could be something to look into if you don’t care about having your blog indexed by Google or aren’t concerned about being transparent with readers. For his part, he doesn’t sell text ads.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch concurs:

“The reality is that accepting money to link to/promote/market for a product without disclosing that fact is a very high-risk behavior, in my opinion.”

Meanwhile, Google’s Matt Cutts has emailed TechCrunch to reiterate that selling links to pass PageRank violates Google’s quality guidelines and that bloggers who fail to disclose that they have been paid to engage in word-of-mouth marketing also potentially violate laws in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.

It will be interesting to see if and how InLinks works… and who participates. Not that anyone is supposed to know!

FYI, here at Kikabink News, we do not sell text links. We openly promote affiliate products, our own products, and sell advertising.

Source: Darren Rowse, “InLinks - TextLinkAds 2.0 Advertising,” ProBlogger, November 20, 2008, Michael Arrington, “Insidious New SEO Ad Product Will Be Hard For Google To Detect (Updated With Google Response)”, TechCrunch, November 19, 2008

If Google hasn’t focused much on monetizing its video site YouTube to date… it’s now doing so with a vengeance. On Wednesday, the company announced it will start selling ad space on YouTube search-results pages.

The new advertising feature will allow anyone with a video on YouTube to promote it on a search-results page. Advertisers can bid on keywords and their videos will be displayed on the right-hand side of the YouTube search-results page with a small image and some text.

Advertisers will pay whenever a viewer clicks on the ad and can set their maximum price per click. As in Google Adwords, Google will choose the order in which ads are displayed based on how much advertisers are willing to pay, along with the relevance of the video to the keyword.

Here’s some food for thought (and something worth testing!): if you can give your YouTube video ANY title… does that mean that as long as the keyword matches the title… you’ll score highly on relevance?

So, in other words, can you change the title of your video to suit the keyword you wish to target? Or will Google index the text of the video (if applicable)?

Source: Stephanie Clifford, “YouTube to Sell Advertising on Pages of Search Results”, The New York Times, November 12, 2008

Google has opened its research and media measurement tool Google Ad Planner to anyone with a Google account. The tool also sports new features, including support for search queries and geo-targeting (to specific states or metropolitan areas).

Google has expanded the demographic audience data to include France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. Users will also be able to choose between three new ranking methods to display results from the sites they’re considering advertising on. A new ‘bubble chart’ also enables you to visually compare frequency, traffic, and unique visitors.

Source: Robin Wauters, “Google Ad Planner Opens Up To Everyone With Fresh Features”, TechCrunch, November 11, 2008

United States President-elect Barack Obama spent $7.97 million on online advertising before November. The Obama campaign managers spent it on search engine marketing, ad networks, social networks, local TV sites, newspaper sites and even NBA.com.

Think that’s a lot of money? Well, let’s put it into perspective. Obama spent over half that budget, i.e. $4 million, on one 30 minute television commercial in October.

Google got nearly half of Obama’s online budget, with nearly $3.5 million going into Google search. Yahoo search got just $673,000 in October.

Source: Nicholas Carlson, “Obama’s Online Spend: Actually Tiny,” Silicon Alley Insider, November 6, 2008