The Good Life At Google

It seems that the employees of Google have been living the good life. I have seen the pictures of the Googleplex work environment it looks like one of the best places on Earth to work. As it turns out, Google has been spending $72 MILLION dollars per year feeding it's employees. That's $7350 per employee to give them 3 chef created meals per day. Wow, that is one hefty benefit.

Your asking yourself, how can they afford that? Well, they make $4.2 billion dollars. When you take that into consideration it doesn't seem that bad. But wait a minute, what about the share holders. Since the big G is a publicly traded company, do the shareholders have anything to say about that?

According to Valleywag, the free dinner program is going bye bye for some. "Google's food cutbacks are more targeted than we'd first heard. Dinner will still be served in buildings which house engineers...Google's only eliminating the evening meal in cafes frequented by nontechnical employees."

The dinner cutback as well as eliminating the tea trolley and the afternoon "snack attack" may not be good for morale but it will definitely add significant dollars to the bottom line. Don't cry for the Googlers just yet. They still receive (free of charge) breakfast AND lunch in quality and quantity fit for a king.

Long live the G.

 

How Much Is 1 Trillion. A LOT

According to Google's reporting, in their index, there are over 1 trillion URL's with unique content on the Internet right now. Are you kidding me? A Trillion?

I don't think that most of us can comprehend 1 trillion. That is such an enormous number I think some quick facts are in order for you to understand the scope.

• The USA has not existed for one trillion seconds yet
• One trillion looks like this - 1,000,000,000,000
• Western civilization has not been around for 1 trillion seconds yet
• 1 Trillion seconds ago Neanderthals walked the Earth
• If you had a trillion dollars and you spent 1 dollar a second, it would take you 31,600 years to spend it all.

Got your head around it yet?

According to the gurus over at the big G, "Google downloads the web continuously, collecting updated page information and re-processing the entire web-link graph several times per day." Yes you read it right, GOOGLE DOWNLOADS THE WEB. Over one trillion URLs worth of downloading.

Let me ask this. If everyday Google maps out the internet, how many petabytes or exabytes (both bigger than a terabyte) of data does that download represent? What about the future? Since the Internet is growing by billions of pages per day, can one company be big enough to handle it all? Do we want one company to handle it all?

But more importantly, what happens when Skynet takes over after becoming self aware and the machines start to round us all up?

 

Beat Down by Google

I think I was slapped by Google. I have read about it, I have been warned and I have seen it happen to others. I figured I'm not out there creating any waves so they will be nice to me unless I had a big traffic site. Well it turns out I did. I was getting a ton of traffic on a little site that I threw together some time ago and I didn't even know it.

You see, I have a simple fan site for an under-publicized, under-rated and under-appreciated ESPN sport reporter named Colleen Dominguez. As it turned out, when I set up the site, there wasn't anything about her on the internet. I didn't put a whole lot of time into it and frankly I forgot about it. Several months later I was getting some serious traffic and even Colleen popped in to check it out. A few people have even sent pictures that can only be found on my site like the one below. I even had a discussion board that was getting a ton of traffic until the spammers killed it. Well, I killed it... but they started it. Stupid spammers.



Anyway, I used to rank #1 in Google for the search terms "Colleen Dominguez" and "Colleen Dominguez Pictures." I still am #1 in Yahoo and MSN and rank respectably with Ask. Not the case with the big G. The images are still showing up in Google image search the normal search listings waved bye bye.

I realized that I had NOT put "no follow" attribute on the links. In my haste of quickly slapping together a links page with links going to sports related websites, I neglected to specify the "no follow." That is the only thing that I can think of that caused me to fall off the charts. I think I went about 20 pages deep and didn't see the site.

The moral of the story boys and girls is: Play nice with Google and follow their rules or get kicked out of their club.

For you experts out there, what is a guy to do now? I can go in and fix the links but is there a way that I can get reinstated into the G club? This could be a fun experiment. Let me know.

 

Google is Expanding in Iowa

Even though my article on Google coming to Iowa didn't get "dugg" I was one of the first to write about it. Everything was confirmed later when I did the follow up post.

Now, some several months later, Google is in the Iowa news again. It turns out that Google was really impressed with the local talent pool that turned out for the interviews and may encourage an immediate expansion.

The Omaha World Herald reports that "Google has purchased almost 1,000 acres of rural land south of the city for a possible second site for its Council Bluffs operations, said Mark Norman of the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce.

Part of the land is being graded and evaluated for construction, Norman said.

Google is developing other data centers across the country. But none of the announced sites is larger than the Bluffs site. The next largest site appears to be Pryor, Okla., where Google owns 800 acres. The company has 400 to 500 acres in Lenoir, N.C."

Just to give you an idea how big 1000 acres is - A square mile is only 640 acres. City officials say that " It's too soon to know how extensive Google's development will be..." but if Google is has bought up 1000 acres, I am sure they aren't doing it just to have the land. We will have to see. Regardless of the outcome, this is a good thing for Iowa. After all, this is in addition to the press we just got on American Chopper! Anyone see the ethanol powered chopper episodes?

 

Google: The Little Troublemaker

Back in June I did a post on how Google helped some bank robbers Crack a safe.

Now it turns out that Google can expose a deadbeat husband when he's trying to keep his lottery winnings from his wife.

The Miami Herald reports that "A woman whose husband has kept about $600,000 in lottery winnings from her says she has a number for him: half."

When Donna Campbell's husband stopped watching TV and disconnected their phone, she figured something was amiss. She finally took action when she received a post card congratulating them on their new house that she knew nothing about. Guess where she turned. Well I guess the headline gives it away. Yep Google. She searched for her husbands name and low and behold, he was in a group of lottery winners and his portion amounted to $600,000. Thanks to her sleuthing on Google, she is now filing suit against her husband to get half, or $300.000.

When confronted with, "Do you have any news you want to share with me" the husband acted ignorant and denied everything. Once the suit is won, Donna plans to file for a divorce.

Ahhhhh the power of Google!

 

FIrefox Is Getting Big

Not long ago I wrote an article about Firefox reaching the 400 million download mark. This was an impressive feat and an even more impressive story. Even though it is an open source browser the frisky little fox is making some serious bank. According to an article in The New York Times, Firefox reported $66 million in revenue, 85% of which came from Google.

From Google? Yep, they have a royalty contract with Firefox that has allowed this huge influx of cash. The New York Times is asking if the money and the success could spoil the principles that Mozilla was founded on. Currently the Mozilla corporation has in excess of $74 million in assets and they don't seem to be giving too much away in the form of grants. Other than paying their CEO $500,000 + annually, what are they, a non-profit organization, going to do with all that cash? "When the connection with Google was revealed more than a year ago, the question on popular tech Web sites like Slashdot.org was whether Mozilla was acting as a proxy in Google’s larger war with Microsoft and others." So is Mozilla hording a war chest to launch some kind of big initiative? At the point where Firefox overtakes IE as the preferred browser maybe we will know what is actually in store.

Tim Wu, a law professor from Columbia University says, "“We’re living in a cold war between open and closed systems, and Google is happy to lend support to entities that it sees as allies...”

With Google gaining ground every day in terms of search numbers, stock price and revenue, it will be interesting to see what develops in the Firefox camp over the next 5 years.

Your thoughts?

 

The Google PC For Only $200.00?

Well here's something new. According to PCWorld, the new, low price pointed gPC goes on sale at WalMart today. The budget model desktop is running off a mix of Open Source software like OpenOffice, Ubuntu Linux , and certain Google Applications. Use of these software applications is the reason that PC maker, Everex, was able to keep the price so low.

But what about the hardware you ask? It doesn't seem to shabby. The package consists of a "1.5GHz Via C7-D processor, Via UniChrome Pro IGP graphics core, and comes equipped with 512MB of memory, an 80GB hard drive, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, and has built-in Ethernet." Now I am sure that most of the components are integrated and I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't able to upgrade it, but it is a great entry level computer for a baby booming first timer or even children.

Ramon McLeod from PCWorld goes on to say - "...the real secret sauce is a software suite that begins with what the company calls its "gOS," which turns out to be a customized Ubuntu Linux kernel. The software bundle includes open source desktop applications highlighted by OpenOffice, GIMP photo software, the Xing DVD and video player, and Rhythmbox music management software.

Additionally, the PC's user interface includes icons pointing to popular Google applications such as Documents and Spreadsheets, Calendar, News, and Maps. Also pre-installed is the Firefox web browser, Meebo IM, and Skype."

This is a pretty exciting development in the PC world. To think, that I paid over $2200.00 for my first Cybermax 233 computer with a 1G hard drive. AND I had to buy a printer seperately.

This really opens the doors for individuals who were previously unable to afford a computer. There are 2 things I will be watching. Total sales of the gPC and reliability of the new box. It will be interesting for sure.

Coupled with speculation about the new Google Phone, I wonder if this has anything to do with with the $700 Google stock price?

 

Page Rank - Can We Stop Relying On It Already?

Page rank, page rank, page rank. It is getting tiresome to keep hearing about it. Unfortunately we live under the umbrella of Google and we have to follow their rules. Andy Beard just wrote about an article called Digg Favorites Slapped By Google. It lists several websites that, evidently, got penalized by Google for some reason or another. Paid links missing the "no follow" attribute? Who know what's behind the "best" algo in the world. Most of the sites that Andy lists are very good sites with reliable content. I guess it's a big mystery.

After all the websites penalties have been dished out for whatever reason, the average decrease in page rank was 3 points. That is a pretty big jump for someone with a PR of 6. The least shocking was John Chow getting hit again. He has been on the outs will Google for some time now. I happen to love his blog and I know he has some serious links coming in. I don't think that his traffic will suffer due to his decrease in page rank. Want to know how I know? Uhh, 16,000 RSS subscriber and growing is a good indication.

Obviously, Google still has a page rank of 10 and I have seen a bunch of PR 8 sites and a few with a PR of 9. But I ask you, have you ever seen a PR 10 website other than Google? I don't ever remember seeing one.

Is this an unobtainable number? Are they reconfiguring the web? Is a revolt on the horizon? Conspiracy theorists unite?

Just kidding. Seriously though, has anyone ever seen a PR 10 site. If you have let me know.

 

Google AdSense is Gone

Since I use Firefox, sometimes I don't see what others are seeing in IE. Yesterday it was brought to my attention that an IE user was seeing a "page can not be found" in some of the AdSense locations. So I dusted off my IE and went in and looked. Yep, sure enough, there it was.

I know that Google will only allow 3 ads per page to display. I have 10 posts showing on the home page and since I had the AdSense code in the header above each post, only the first 3 ads would show. Up until now there has been no effect on the other 7 posts that show up on my home page. Evidently something has changed. The second three posts were showing up with the "page can not be found" error in the header.

So I decided to venture out and take a look at some of my other favorite blogs. I went on over to JohnCow's site and it was doing the same thing in IE. Obviously I am not getting a fraction of the traffic that the Cow is but nonetheless, it looks bad. And that, boys and girls, is why I decided to take the AdSense off. If they get it fixed I will put it back up. It's not like I was making any money from having them anyway. With over 36,000 page views in the last three and a half months, I had only made $5.63. I can't even think of anything clever to say that I would buy with that.

 

The Top Secret GPhone

Most of you have heard that Googe's stock has bulldozed it's way past the $600 mark. Obviously this is an effect of the widely anticipated and top secret GPhone that is building momentum.

Adding legitimacy to the whole upward trend of Google's stock, the search giant announced its acquisition of an obscure Finnish start-up, Jaiku, holder of key Short Message Service patents. SMS is text messaging, the technology that enables the exchange of short messages between billions of ordinary cellphones.

Obviously Google is not discussing anything about the GPhone, but USA Today reports; "Trip Chowdhry, analyst at Global Equities Research, says Google also has already begun designing an advanced GPhone model, equipped with a Google browser optimized to display Google services such as Gmail and YouTube.

Aimed at young users, a browser GPhone would probably sell at a fraction of the price of an iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm Treo or Microsoft Windows Mobile smart phone, Chowdhry says. One major hitch: Cellphone carriers are insisting on a cut of ad revenue. "The carriers want money any time the phones are turned on, especially if the call is to Google," Doherty says."

The hardware has already been developed. The only thing Google needs to do now is sign an agreement with a carrier. Once this is done, the phones could hit the market in a matter of weeks. When it happens, it going to happen fast.

It also sounds like it is going to be faster, cheaper and more powerful than the iPhone.

 

The Shoemoney Show.

Here's a video from Shoemoney's website asking a big question. "Does Yahoo Even Matter Anymore?"



What's your thoughts?

 

Google Is Reading Your Gmail?!

I was perusing Webpronews website this morning and read a article by Doug Caverly called, "Microsoft CEO Says Google Reads Your Mail."

The article says that Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, accused Google of reading email that is housed in their Gmail system. Why would he make this accusation? Maybe he was playing some dirty pool to promote their Windows Live Hotmail system especially after the fact the that they had just re-done the monetization.

Looking a little deeper the article on Webpronews references a write up on CRN.com by Ed Moltzen. This article says that, "...Google reads customer email as part of a failed bid to drive ad-based revenue. Ballmer isn't the first to fire salvos at Google's Gmail privacy policy. Privacy advocates have been critical over the policy almost since the beginning, but the popularity of the service has skyrocketed nonetheless."

To date, the big G has not come forward to defend themselves against these accusations. Google does publicly admit that they "processes personal information" on their servers but they never come out and explicitly say that they are reading your email. They haven't said that they aren't reading your email either.

So what do you do? Just like any other email system, whether its a free service or a hosted email service, don't send anything that would need to be kept private or secure. I am not real convinced that if you are exchanging recipes via email with a buddy, Google will step up and start spamming you with Pampered Chef and recipe oriented direct emails.

This whole thing is interesting nonetheless.

What say you?

 

Google Makes The Rules And You Better "NoFollow"

If you own a site or blog with a high page rank and you have links or paid advertisements going to another site, be careful. You might wake up one day and Google will no longer include your site in their index.

Here's the very abridged version of it so pay attention. By no means is this information new, but for quite some time now Google has been cracking down on links (especially paid links) that don't follow their rules. You can have paid links, sponsors or advertisers on your site but you need to have the, Google mandated, "rel=nofollow" tag in the link. The Reason? This prevents the passage of page rank to the receiving site.

Why does the big G pitch such a fit about this? Simple, they want to try and keep the searches as pure as possible(remember this statemement for later). Google is even encouraging people to turn in offending paid links. The coveted Pagerank is calculated by a number of factors, including the amount of incoming links. Google's problem is not with making money by selling links on your site, their problem is with people gaming the algorithm and selling non-relevant links on a big PR site.

To over simplify it, if you have a high ranking website in Google's index and you sell links on your site, you will pass along a certain amount of your page rank to the recipient's site even if it is not relevant to your site. This is the primary reason for the "NoFollow" tag. It tells the search engines NOT to follow that link and will require physical clicks for the link to get visited.

There have been many people that have been beat down by Google for not following the rules. The infamous John Chow is a prime example. Even if you search for his name, "John Chow" he doesn't come up in the top 50 results.

There is much more information out on the net that will answer the questions you may have. This brings a whole new dimension to paid link advertising. Even though it shouldn't, this forces site owners to rethink the relevance of links. After all, if you have gaming site, you want to send people to gaming related sites and not pharmaceuticals, right? If you have a website or a blog, you should want people to go to a site that would interest them. Google thinks this type of linking is better for the Internet as a whole. Proper or "white hat" SEO is a longer process but in the end will achieve better results. Keep on Google's good side, provide relevant useful links. You'll be much better off.

But wait - What about keeping the results pure from above? I have a question. Is banning someone from the SERPs because you violated their policy really a pure thing to do? If someone searching for John Chow and can't find John Chow, is that a pure result? John Chow has 100's of thousands of visitors to his site per month, and he writes about making money online and do you think that you can find him for those keywords? Nope. So if you mess with Google who currently has about 63% of the searches in the US, you can get kicked from their pure listings. Someone once said that if you "do a Google on Google" you don't get any of disparaging comments. Kind of reminds me of moderating comments on a blog. :) This leads me to the question; How much power can one entity have?

The other side of the coin is that Google is a business. A very large and profitable business. If you want to play in their yard, you should have to follow their rules, right? I read somewhere that some people think Google is just some free software that comes with the computer. I don't know what side I am on yet. The "anti-Google, ALT Search engine" crowd or the "let them do what they want" group.

All that being said, I think that it may get worse before it gets better. As shown historically, Absolute power, corrupts absolutely. Your thoughts?

 

Taxing The Internet?

Expiring in November, the Internet Tax moratorium is receiving a lot of industry attention. "The current Internet tax moratorium is one policy that Congress has enacted to help make the internet a universally accessible, free, and open platform capable of delivering a rich variety of services to consumers." - From Google's Public Policy Blog

Amazon.com, Yahoo, eBay and Google are joining forces with the crew at Don't Tax Our Web
a group that is dedicated to 3 main principles:

"1. Keeping Internet access services free of all federal, state and local transaction taxes;

2. Preventing the imposition of duplicative and discriminatory taxes on e-commerce; and

3. Avoiding the imposition of hidden taxes on consumers of Internet access."

The moratorium currently in place "...prohibits three things: state and local taxation of Internet access, multiple taxes on a single e-commerce transaction, and taxes that discriminate against online transactions."

Google's public policy blog states: "Keeping Internet access tax-free is also another way that government can help further the growth of the web to all corners of the U.S. At a time when American policymakers are working to increase broadband penetration rates and improve the quality of broadband services to consumers, we believe that increasing barriers to access -- whether they are created by the government or by the private sector -- will only frustrate our common goal of greater access to better broadband for all consumers."

OK, here's my 2 cents worth. Google and all the other major players in the Internet game are all for the surface issues that stir up instant emotions with the general public. Buzzwords like an "internet tax" will sure get the natives restless, especially when they are paying $60.00 a month for broadband service from the only provider they have to choose from.

But wait! Isn't the cost of Internet the big issue here. What about the slow broadband speed America has to endure compared to the rest of the world? Aren't we really talking about Net Neutrality. You can't pick and choose what element of Net Neutrality you're willing to participate in. You have to support the entire package or not at all. If you are going to promote the non-taxation of the Internet, then you need to be out there lobbying for the expansion of broadband access to US consumers.

Remember the $200 million dollars in tax breaks the telecom industry received for the purposes of developing the infrastructure in the US? Ohhh yeah, they pocketed that money as profits. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you only have 2 poor choices of Internet access in most locations. This is why your broadband connection only operates at 3.5 down. One could argue, "...that extending the moratorium should come with conditions to motivate investments in technology that will reach more people, including the rural population, with real broadband service.

To Google, AT&T and all the other big players, I say don't cherry pick what you want to support. Be a part of the solution.

What do you think?

 

Does Google Control The Internet?

"Google is the 800 pound gorilla and is pretty much going to get what it wants until there are legitimate competitors. Being the biggest and baddest has its advantages and allows Google to set its own parameters." - Referring to the current trend in paid link advertising this is a quote from the comments section in Andy Beard's blog post about the FTC and Google.

Scenario:

• Google's share of Internet searches goes from 55% to 90% thus controlling vast amounts of information and how it is viewed.
• Company A does something that Google doesn't like or refuses to pay to be listed in some new directory.
• Company A gets shunned from Google and access to their company information is virtually non-existent on the Internet.

Do you think that it's possible for a company like Google get too big and control too much of the information flow. How would that impact the economy? Some say that this is already happening and are advocating the use of alternate search engines.

Google appears to be on the forefront of Net Neutrality support. However other Net Neutrality proponents are claiming that most proposed legislation for true net neutrality focus around telcos and ISPs and would allow for loopholes with which a search engine could exploit it's position on the web. Someone once told me, "Try googling Google and see what comes up." There isn't a lot of negative karma out there for the big G, even if you go hundreds of pages deep. Is this because Google is that awesome and everyone likes it? Or is it because they control the information?

It's no secret that Google engages in acts of censorship, such as wiping Vice President Dick Cheney’s residence from satellite maps, and bowing to political pressure to eliminate content from sites in different countries. Neutrality?

Claims have been made for years that the media controls information, letting you see only what they want you to. Now, as Google continues to take over market share, will the available information on the net be what Google wants you to see?

Don't get me wrong, I am not an anti-Google person. I've just been reading a lot about this. I am curious as to what you think.

google

 

John Chow and the Great Google Debacle

I have been reading John Chow's blog for several weeks now as a matter of interest in the posts. I love his blog and read it every day. After a while, I realize that John is a pretty big noise in the world of blogging. Admittedly, when I first started reading the blog, I had no idea who he was. After a couple of weeks of reading deeper into his blog and looking elsewhere online, I realized that he is kind of a rogue in the blog community and some of his actions may have gotten him in trouble with someone you don't want to be in trouble with; Google.

John is making thousands and thousands of dollars per month by monetizing his blog with the support of "advertisers" and other revenue generating avenues like Google Ads and selling links. Matt Cutts, Google's Search Engineer, had warned people about subscribing to paid link advertising in his 2005 blog post. Apparently this is where pro blogger got into a bit of trouble when he began to push the threshold of what Google saw as acceptable conduct.

For a period of time, John Chow's blog was ranked #1 for the search terms "make money online." Right now if you Google John Chow, his actual site shows up at #54 in the results where it used to be at #1. Even though he has broken into the top 50 on Technorati, he is still being punished by the biggest boy on the block. John explains how his fallout with Google all went down in this June 2007 post. The best quote is from the last line of the post, "Let’s see, I’ve been banned from Digg, banned from Technorati and now bitch slapped by Google. I’m doing pretty good!"

Understand that this #54 ranking is an improvement over where he ranked a couple of months ago but he still has quite a ways to go before he will gain back what he lost this year. Granted, if you search John Chow, you can get to his site from the vast amount of posts on other blogs, but it is always nice to be #1.

Now this is pretty old news to most of you and I am coming on the tail end of it all. I just thought that is was a pretty interesting story about the power of Google and how they can shut you off if they are so inclined. As I was putting this post together, I started wondering what happens when a search engine gains too much power. Is there a potential for information to be controlled? Can a corrupt individual eliminate someone from the rankings with enough money? I don't know, I just thought that I would throw that out there.


So what's the moral of the story? Build your site on organic search results with quality links from relevant sites. Don't get banned by Google by buying links, simply buy AdWords. Don't sell links, display AdSense on your site. Don't try and take short cuts, write quality content, provide substance to your site's visitors, and understand that it takes time to build a successful site that's valuable to your visitors.

 

Google's Adsense Crawler Gets Permission

The Google AdSense blog just announced that there is a new function that will provide you with the option to allow the AdSense Crawler to access your username/password protected directories.

The new AdSense feature called Site Authentication will provide better quality and more targeted ad in your login protected directories. Basically all you would have to do is set up a special U/P for the Googlebot. Now, this is assuming that you want ads in your secure areas.

The upside of this new add-on is that you will have a very specific and captive audience that are seeing the ads. "For example, let's say your news site has a premium content area, with articles that only paying members can access. To get ads on those pages, you can use Site Authentication to provide (the) crawler with a test username and password."

The down side is that you will need to do some house cleaning. If you have any sensitive or proprietary information behind door #1, you'll want to make sure you don't have the AdSense ads on those pages.

Google just keeps throwing useful little things into the mix. I just read that Google is now a certified domain name registrar and they may be releasing a new Google Phone called the Switch. The new phone is a collaberation between Google and Samsung. Some are eveb labeling it the "iPhone Killer"

You know; sometimes I sit back and reflect on simpler times. Times when there was no Google. Then I realize it wasn't as simple as I though back then.

 

Google Helps With Safe Cracking

A great article was published in the Colorado Springs Gazette. 2 burglars were fumbling around at Bigg City, trying open a safe. It turns out that they had door keys, pass codes and even the safe combinations, they just didn't know how to open a safe. The incompetent robbers repeatedly sprayed the security camera with WD-40 in an attempt to disable it. Not only did the spray lubricant fail at bringing down the camera, it actually cleaned the lens for a cleaner picture of the heist.

After an hour and 15 minutes of trying to get the safes open, the bumbling bandits resorted to searching Google on "how to open a safe" and "how to crack a safe."

The Google query apparently worked. The burglars got away with $12,000.00 in cash, a laptop computer, a PlayStation and have yet to be caught.

"Google - The Safe Cracker's Pal"

 

Google Vs. Ebay

Just in case you haven't been following the Google/eBay tussle, here is a little background. eBay pulled all of their ads off Google when they tried to hold a private party competing with eBay's annual celebration. Dirty pool for sure and when the cry of foul was heard they cancelled the party. Most think it was due to the ad pulling frenzy that preceded. Most of the bad blood started when eBay disallowed the use of Google Checkout in favor of PayPal; which by the way eBay owns.

eBay execs are now insisting that the their pulling of the ads was a planned event to experiment and evaluate traffic without the help of Google. YEAH RIGHT. They kept their ads on Ask, MSN and Yahoo. This was an obvious retaliatory action in an attempt to give the sultan of search a bloody nose (something few companies are capable of).

Based on their "experiment", eBay says that a disproportionate amount of traffic in relation to spending was discovered and they plan on a "significant" scale back of spending in the US.

 

Google Still on Top

ComScore recently reported that Google now has an incredible 50.7% of the search market. This is an increase from the last reported number at just over 47%. This means that, of the searches performed in the US, 3.9 billion are being done with Google.

Yahoo dropped to 26.8%, MSN was at 10.3%, Ask came in at 5% and Time Warner (AOL) finished at the bottom of the heap with a paltry 4.6%.

Where is it going to stop? How big can Google get? Let me just throw this out there...What happens when/if Google gets so big that they have end up having 90% or more of the searches? Will the government step in and break them up like they did with AT&T or impose some anti-trust legislation like what happened to Microsoft?

 

ASK Google...Mistaken Identity.

How funny is it when an advertising campaign backfires? Not very funny at all.

A little background first. Ask.com has been getting a lot of flack about their latest advertising campaign. The new campaign, a brainchild of Cripin, Porter & Bogusky, went a little "left of center" with some of the ad concepts. Many claim that the ads are a tad off color, slightly controversial or don't make sense at all. One such example can be seen here. Another billboard states; "The Algorithm Constantly Finds Jesus." Uhhh ok. I guess that means that Ask's algorithm is so good that that it knows where Jesus is.

So here is the funny part. According to the SEO RoundTable site, one of their contributors initiated a survey on Digg. The question was; "Is Ask.com's "The Algorithm" Campaign Really working?" 74% of the respondents actually thought that it was a campaign for Google.

I have to admit, I didn't quite get the campaign at first. The TV commercials were clever but were driven by humor that may escape most. At first glance the campaign appears to be a miserable failure for ASK. However, if the poorly received campaign was attributed to Google, it may not have been a complete disaster after all.

 

It's Official. Google IS Coming to Iowa!

The announcement was just made! On the Des Moines Register's Site they are reporting that it is official. Google is locating their next server farm in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The new data center is already under construction on a 55 acre site.

"The $600 million project will include two facilities spread over 1,185 acres and will include 200 workers with average salaries of between $50,000 and $130,000...creating an annual payroll of about $10 million.

Google Inc. will pay an estimated $65 million in property taxes over the next 15 years, according to a press release from the governor's office. The company made a concentrated effort to use as many local vendors and suppliers as possible..."

This is an exciting prospect for the State of Iowa. Operations are scheduled to begin in the spring of 09.

 

Google Coming to Iowa?

The DesMoines Register reported that Gov. Chet Culver plans to announce a "major economic development project" on Tuesday.

"An economic development official who asked not to be identified, but who is familiar with the project, said Friday that Google has told the state that it will build its next server farm in Council Bluffs."

The proposed data center that would house the big G has an estimated construction cost of $600 million. This is a huge break for the Tall Corn State with an estimated 100 jobs created that would pay between $50k and $130k annually.

We will find out tomorrow for sure. Keep your fingers crossed Council Bluffs.

 

Microsoft's Vista Doesn't Play Well With Others

Apparently there is an issue with Microsoft's new OS. It does not allow you to search with anything other than their own search tool. Google, having a similar tool, began complaining about this feature last year.

According to Google spokesman, Ricardo Reyes as reported on seattlepi.com, "The search boxes built throughout Vista are hard-wired to Microsoft's own desktop search product, with no way for users to choose an alternate provider from these visible search access points. Likewise, Vista makes it impractical to turn off Microsoft's search index."

Some prosecutors believe that this violates the Microsoft anti-trust decision 5 years ago. The crew at Google obviously agrees.

Microsoft spokesman was quoted saying, "Although we don't believe we're obliged to make these changes under the consent decree, we certainly are willing to make an effort to address these issues and make additional changes to Vista."

I may be ignorant and not know the entire story behind Microsoft and the anti-trust settlements, but part of me says, just leave Microsoft alone. If you want to build a business that eventually transforms into a huge empire and have a product that everyone wants, I say fine. But what do I know. Your thoughts?

 

Google News

June 12th, 2007 from the Google Press Center. Google announced the new Content Placement Reports for AdWord advertisers. This new report will give AdWord advertisers the ability to see the exact sites that their ads are appearing on. The available data will consist of, "...domain, URL, impression, click, conversion and cost data – as well as aggregated metrics for traffic generated from AdSense for domain sites." This new feature will now give people the ability to better track their advertising dollars and adjust their spending accordingly.