April 9, 2007 Archives

Kathy Sierra's horrific blog comments experience and subsequent refusal to speak in public out of safety fears has prompted a Blogging Code of Conduct. Draft one, authored by Tim O'Reilly, comes with a badge and time for feedback for revisions.

The outcry against it is nearly as outraged as the response to Kathy's situation. Should blog owners follow a code of conduct or continue to blog as they have been?

Cre8asiteforums discussion: Call For Some Sort Of Blogging Code, Now That Was Inevitabl(y stupid)

A DigitalPoint Forums shows his data from Google Analytics versus Google AdSense and sees that the page impressions are inconsistent. He then asks why he had so many page views but no impressions.

A member responds to say that this may be because the AdSense bot was determining which ads are suitable for the site:

It is obvious that adsense bot was taking time to determine what ads are suitable for your site. That's why it did not show ads for every page view in the beginning. But now, google knows what ads your site can show.

But I'm in agreement with another member, who thinks that this may be related to ad-blocking software:

many internet users use software to block ads. Now, with firefox, is very easy to install adblocker, just go to plugins, select adblocker, install and then restart browser.

Are you in agreement with me? Why or why not? Discuss at DigitalPoint Forums.

This article was written this past Friday and scheduled for publication on Monday, April 9th.

A Search Engine Watch Forums member asks if there is any effect of two similar campaigns placed in a single Google AdWords account. The user asks:

I have heard that if I place two similar campaigns, for example, Spa Company A and Spa Company B in the same account, when I search on Google using a shared keyword such as "spa", I will only find either Spa A or Spa B. Both ads will not display concurrently.

Is this true and what is your take on this?

Another user says that it is true and shares his workaround:

We've seen this behavior with some campaigns on Google. We moved the second campaign to another account and they started showing up as they should.

Google's AdWordsRep confirms this as well but urges users to consult with AdWords support before applying the workaround, as it may inadvertently violate Google's Terms of Service:

Yes, this is true - and very much by design. The intent is to level the playing field so that one advertiser does not dominate the results.

Just a quick word of caution. It depends on the exact details of course, but opening two accounts in order to show two ads for the same keyword may well be counter to the Terms and Conditions - to which each advertiser agrees when they begin advertising with AdWords.

So, my advice to anyone contemplating this (and who wants to remain in line with the Terms of advertising on AdWords) would be to consult first with AdWords support - letting them know the exact details of the situation that you feel requires running more than one ad at a time on the same keyword.

Another user reiterates the AdWordsRep's statements and explains the sentiment behind this rule:

The issue that comes into play is double serving. In order to adhere to AdWords guidelines, you need to make sure that the companies are different, and employ a different domain. If not, AdWords will choose to run one over another each day, depending on the performance of one effort versus the other. Affiliate marketers have known this for years.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch.

This article was written this past Friday and scheduled for publication on Monday, April 9th.

Last week the Google Blog announced as did the Google Mac Blog, the release of Google Desktop for Mac. Since I am a Mac user, I thought I give it a bit of a review. Of course, there are dozens of blog posts on this already, much of that can be spotted at Techmeme.com.

Here are the steps I took to install Google Desktop for Mac:
(1) Click install
(2) Agree to terms of service
(3) Open DMG file
(4) Double click on installer package
(5) Respond to all the messages that require confirmation that you want to install it
(6) Wait for the program to index my complete hard drive (I am nervous!) I am watching it index, its spiking up the CPU between 5% and 96%, but probably on average 25%.

In the mean time, here are screen captures of Google Desktop in my System Preferences.

I think I am ready to uninstall this. The Spotlight feature on Apple to search my files tends to work just fine for me.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

This article was written this past Friday and scheduled for publication for Monday.