Google seems destined to dominate the web (aka Shades of
Big Brother) for years to come… keeping a close eye
on all our Internet activity with large databases
tracking our every (abiet aggregate) move. Since privacy
has become an antiqued and obsolete word in our ever
increasing public world, this can be very disconcerting.
And it is not just the web, Google is branching out in
so many directions, it will play a major role in our
daily lives off-line as well as online.

Regardless of whether you love or hate Google, you must
not ignore the importance it will play in the success of
your website or sites. As a webmaster you must take full
advantage of what Google offers or face an uphill battle.
As an online marketer it would be just as unwise not to
explore all avenues of this gentle giant.

Years ago, I joined the Google Adsense program where
webmasters place the targeted Adsense advertising code
on their webpages in order to receive a small share of the
advertising revenue. It changed forever how I viewed Google.

As a struggling webmaster and marketer, I have to admit,
receiving those Monthly commission checks from Google
was a Godsend. They still are. Acquiring a high PageRank
and receiving all that free targeted Google traffic is an
even greater Godsend. It has put my sites in the black and
keeps them producing revenue, month after month.

Google presents a legitimate way of monetising your site
or sites. It gives you a monthly cash flow that covers your
hosting fees and provides you with a monthly income from
your sites. It can be a great starting point for anyone wishing
to earn an online income. Google must be explored and utilized
to give you this monthly income.

Regular readers will know I like to keep things simple, as
simple as possible.

So lets put to one side the very complicated and risky
endeavor of using Google Adwords advertising to bring
targeted traffic to your site for this usually takes some
training and skill to get right. In other words, you have
to know exactly what you’re doing or you may lose a lot
of money. However, if you want to learn more about this
advanced Google profit system, the best resource is still
Chris Carpenter’s Google Cash.

But for now, lets keep things real simple. I always take the
simplest route where possible.

Google Cash File

I keep a very popular page on my site called Google Cash File
– it explains my simple methods of working Google to bring
in a monthly income. Just simple steps you can take to earn
money from Google. You can find the link to this Google page
in the Resource Box below. Granted, you can spend money
on info products and software but you don’t have to, I started
with all free information and worked my way up. As I earned more
income, I invested some of it in good software like Brad Callen’s
Keyword Elite… but again, you can use all free programs
and resources to earn money from Google.

Here are four revenue sources from Google that I use:

Google Adsense I use Google Adsense code on all my webpages…
visitors click on these targeted Adsense ads and I earn a small
percentage of the ad revenue.

I also earn by marketing three Google Referral Products through
the Adsense program:

Adsense Referral I get $100 for each referral I make to Google,
as long as that referral joins Adsense and earns at least $100.

Google Firefox Bar I earn $1 for each referral that downloads
the Firefox Browser and then uses the Google Search Bar. Might not
sound like much, but this quickly adds up.

Adwords Referral Google will pay me $20 for each Adwords
referral that spends $100 on Adwords advertising within 90 days.
Another good revenue stream.

If you have a popular site and promote these three Google
referral products along with the Adsense code, you will be
surprised at how much extra income you can earn each month.
Granted, Google is no way as generous as most of my other affiliate
programs I promote with my sites but Google is an Easy Sell!
People trust Google, people respect Google, but more importantly
– people like using anything Google. This factor simply means
more money for you if you take full advantage of Google’s referral
products.

In the resource box below you will find a link to a page
where I have listed all the techniques and methods I use to put
Google products on my pages to earn that monthly income.
Again, these are very simple steps you can take to make Google
pay you each month… so what’s keeping you from turning that
Big Brother into a wealthy Uncle (aka Cash Cow) who sends you a
generous allowance each month. It doesn’t get any easier than this.

Everyone is profiting for Google, find out how you can too! Click here: Google Cash File Copyright © 2006 Titus Hoskins. Get a Free Desktop Calendar & Planner. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Titus_Hoskins

Jagger

First, let’s discuss Jagger… Just like hurricanes, Google updates have names. (A Google update is a change to the way Google determines its rankings. Google makes these changes periodically, and they’re universally feared because they can impact dramatically on a website’s ranking.) The latest update is called Jagger, and it has search engine optimizers (SEOs) all around the world in a state of panic.

Why was Jagger such a fearful update? Simple… With Jagger, Google once again outsmarted huge numbers of SEOs. You see, many/most SEOs spend their time (and their clients’ money) trying to trick Google into thinking that their websites are more relevant and important than they really are. They do this mostly by swapping links, buying cheap links, and placing links on free directories. While there’s nothing wrong with these sorts of links (i.e. they’re not considered ‘black-hat’), they don’t really show that the site is relevant or important. All they really show is that the site owner has made a deal with another site owner. In these deals, the incentive for the linking site owner is a reciprocal link, money, or increased link volume. Google much prefers it when the linking site adds the link simply to enhance the value of their content or to increase their own credibility and authority.

In other words, Google wants its search results to contain relevant, important sites, not sites that merely appear to be relevant and important. To this end, Google invests millions of dollars and employs the world’s smartest mathematicians to create algorithms which identify sites that are trying to trick them. And that’s exactly what Jagger did; and when it found those sites, it simply adjusted their ranking to more accurately reflect their true importance. (Unfortunately, it also demoted some sites which actually deserve a high ranking. It is hoped that these mistakes will be ironed out with future minor updates, but that’s a topic for another article…)

From a technical standpoint, Jagger was well described by Ken Webster in his article, http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/Jagger. To summarize, Jagger:

1. Increased importance placed on IBL (Inbound Links) Relevancy?
2. Increased importance placed on OBL (Outbound Links) Relevancy?
3. Promotion of relevant Niche Directories (related to #1 & #2)?
4. More weight thrown back to PR @ top domain?
5. Increased importance on AdSense placement relevancy?
6. Possible introduction of CSS Spam filtering?
7. Overall Blog demotions?
8. New and unresolved “canonical” issues?

Some more interesting effects were reported by WG Moore in his Jagger article – http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2005/nov/9.html. Mr Moore runs a number of test sites for SEO purposes. By monitoring the links to his test sites as reported by Google, he established that:

“all reciprocal links had vanished. We think that this is because Google is down-grading or eliminating reciprocal links as a measure of popularity. This does make sense, actually. Reciprocal links are a method of falsifying popularity. Sort of a cheap method of buying a link, if you want to think of it that way… During the second week of the Jagger Update, a few of our reciprocal links did come back up. However, we also noticed that these were from places where we had highly relevant content. They came from articles where we discussed our area of expertise: Web Analytics, or from forums where we had relevant threads. So we feel that these links came back because of content, not linking.

The other group that came back up was one-way inbound text links, regardless of the originating web site. These links also had strong relevance to our web analytics business. In other words, they contained keywords and/or phrases related to our site and its business.”

In short, Jagger undid the hard work of thousands – if not millions – of people! As a result, hard-won high rankings and revenues plummeted.

Interestingly, article PR (article submission) came through Jagger seemingly unscathed. My SEO copywriting website, for example, went from no.4 to no.1 worldwide for “copywriter”, and I’ve employed article PR almost exclusively. Whether it was promoted or the sites around it were demoted, one thing is clear: article PR is one of the best ways to obtain a high ranking.

Google Analytics

The second monumental event to occur recently was Google Analytics – http://www.google.com/analytics/index.html. Google Analytics is a free web-stats solution which not only reports all the regular site stats, but also integrates directly with Google AdWords giving webmasters and insight into the ROI of their pay-per-click ads. According to Google, ” Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site.”

Why is this such a landmark move? Because for the first time ever, Google will have access to your real web stats. And these stats will be far more accurate than those provided by Alexa – http://www.alexa.com . Furthermore, Google’s privacy statement (http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy.html) says: ” We may also use personal information for auditing, research and analysis to operate and improve Google technologies and services.” Now let’s put two and two together:

1. Google is ‘giving’ every webmaster in the world free access to quality web-stats.
2. Millions of webmasters will accept this ‘gift’, if only because it integrates directly with their Google AdWords campaigns.
3. Google will then have full access to the actual web stats of millions of commercial websites.
4. Google will have the right to use these stats to develop new technologies.
5. What’s the next logical step? Google will use these statistics to help determine its rankings, of course!

It should come as no surprise. It’s been on the cards – and frequently discussed – for a long time. For example, Jayde Online CEO, Mel Strocen, recently published an article on this very topic http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Search-Engines/The-Future-of-WebSite-Ranking.html. She quite rightly asserts that:

“Google’s “democratic” vision of the Web will never be achieved by manipulating algorithm criteria based on content. It will only be achieved by factoring in what is important to people, and people will always remain the best judge of what that is. The true challenge for search engines in the future is how to incorporate web searcher input and preferences into their ranking algorithms.”

In fact, the Jayde Online network already owns and operates a search engine, http://www.ExactSeek.com, which incorporates user popularity statistics in its rankings.

The Future of Search & SEO

To date, ExactSeek is the only search engine which uses visitor stats as criteria for its rankings. But Google isn’t far behind. We all know that Google specializes in taking a good idea and implementing and adapting it brilliantly. This is exactly what we’ll see in this case. By combining link popularity and user popularity statistics, Google will be the only major search engine to consider both what other sites think of your website and what your visitors think of your website. And because they have the most advanced algorithms for assessing link popularity, and will soon have access to the farthest reaching, most accurate web stats to assess user popularity, its competitors will be a long time catching up.

So if that’s the future of search, what’s the future of SEO? The future of SEO is undoubtedly one where:

* one-way text links from relevant pages continue to be the most valuable links
* reciprocal linking continue to decline
* the ’shotgun’ approach to link buying declines
* mass email link requests decline
* free directory submission declines
* niche directory submission increases
* article PR (article submission) increases
* article submission sites (e.g. http://www.ezinearticles.com , http://www.goarticles.com , and http://www.articleblast.com ) play a much bigger and more important role in helping online publishers locate quality articles (due to the increasing article volume)
* user popularity is just as important as link popularity, which means:
o the quality of article PR improves in order to increase site traffic, credibility, and loyalty
o the quality of website content improves in order to convert traffic and encourage repeat visits

Clearly, the choices for SEOs will be pretty much limited to paying for links at niche sites and/or engaging in article PR. Being an SEO copywriter, I may be a little biased, but for mine, article PR is the hands-down winner in this comparison:

* It satisfies Google’s criteria for relevance and importance. Linking site owners include your article and link because, in doing so, their site becomes more useful to visitors, and their business gains credibility and authority.
* It generates hundreds of free links quickly enough to make it worth your while, but not so quickly as to raise red flags at Google (in the form of link dampening).
* Links are permanent and you don’t have to pay to keep them there.
* You get a lot of qualified referred traffic who already trust you and your expertise. This satisfies Google’s visitor popularity criteria, while at the same time bringing you a lot of extra customers.

For more information on article PR, read ‘How to Top Google with Article PR’ (articlepr.com/SEO_Article_Submission.shtml).

Conclusion

The lesson from Jagger is, don’t try and trick Google! They’ve got more money and more brains than virtually any company in the world. It’ll only end in tears! Don’t spend time and money trying to make your site look important and relevant. Instead, spend that time and money actually making it important and relevant! Content – the real content behind the optimization – is the answer. After all, whether it’s an article or a web page, it’s the content that keeps ‘eyes on paper’, and that’s what it’s all about.

Happy optimizing!

Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission and article PR specialist. He is a director of article PR company, Article PR, and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit DivineWrite.com or ArticlePR.com for further details, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Glenn_Murray

Google News Feeds

Previously, the term “feeds” was synonymous to Google News, another big service provided by Google. Since Google didn’t give any support to RSS or Atom feeds, programmers started to scrap headlines off Google News. And these headlines were then displayed on another Web site.

However, now you see Google supports both RSS and Atom feeds. Reportedly Google News team had been receiving a lot of feature requests for RSS feed support. And that’s why the company decided to give a dose of news through both the syndication flavors, Atom and RSS. This shows that even Google couldn’t ignore the growing popularity of RSS.

It still took Google a long time before they actually started on with the Google News feeds. But even now Google’s support has only been added to Google News content and has not been extended to it’s standard web search. Even though Yahoo! has started to provide News feeds just for that one specific keyword. For example, if you would like to follow news that mentions “George Bush”, you can do that perfectly. This hasn’t been implemented by Google as of yet, but might be soon.

Re-use of Google RSS feed content is officially limited to non-commercial uses and requires complete credentials of all the individual sources included, Google itself and the publication of the search terms and criteria used to create the feed. Will these restrictions really help Google to harness the true power of RSS? Well, now that’s another question!

Google’s RSS Ad Patent

“Google Files for RSS Ad Patent” – That seems to be the hottest topic been going around the Internet for some time now. Another classic example of the web getting “Googlized”, as the world’s biggest search engine revs up to dominate the RSS ad market.

If you still didn’t get what exactly I’m talking about here, Google has filed for a patent with the US Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) for embedding advertisements into syndicated RSS and Atom feeds.

According to the abstract, the patent is all about a method for “incorporating targeted ads into information in a syndicated presentation format in an automated manner.” This goes beyond RSS or Atom feeds, as it pertains to syndicated formats on the whole.

However, Google wasn’t the first to jump in the RSS ad bandwagon. Companies like Pheedo and Kanoodle had already started trying their hand at it long back. If we see the positive side of this, Google taking it’s own protection measures in the RSS ad bracket, is itself a big proof about the potential of this growing technology. The filing is not astonishing though, for a firm of it’s size can delve much deeper.

Quoting from Pheedo’s official blog “Google is not going to own RSS advertising. At best, Google may gain some protection for its specific techniques and methods of inserting and tracking ads in syndicated content.” All I can say is, Google is surely making huge strides in the RSS sector but everything does have a limit.

Google RSS Reader

After heavily betting upon RSS by filing a patent for the ads, Google wasn’t surely gonna stay behind when it came to RSS readers. It was very predictable for the company to launch it’s own aggregator, another step towards bettering the syndication lifestyle.

What’s common between Google’s reader and its other services is the simplicity of use. The way Google designs it’s services, (doesn’t matter if it’s Gmail or Adsense) is what wins over everything else. That’s exactly what one gets to see in Google’s reader. The ease of use and how simple it is.

The web-based reader, which is in its beta stage, requires a login similar to Gmail. Once logged in, feeds can be added and organized very effortlessly. The feeds can be organized by various names or the user can also import subscriptions from other RSS aggregators or online services and easily subscribe to feeds just by entering the RSS feed’s URL. They have also started to distribute the trendy “Add to Google” button, an addition to a collection of many others provided by different readers.

Google’s entry into the RSS reader market will definitely shake well-established companies like Newsgator and Pluck. Since Google has complete power over the sponsor ad listings in the search results, advertising this new service wouldn’t be a big deal. Just type in “RSS Reader” in Google and you’ll know for yourself.

On a last note, Google is surely taking in on RSS and is trying to take the technology to new level. This clearly shows that RSS is here to stay. Something for all of us to sit up and take notice!

Mustafa Khundmiri is the co-founder of http://www.rapidfeeds.com – A Free online service which helps anyone create, edit, publish and track RSS feeds and podcasts. Sign Up for your FREE account on http://www.rapidfeeds.com and also get a free subscription to “RSS Chronicle” – A Newsletter exclusively based on RSS and syndication.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mustafa_K

It has became a virtual cash-cow for those who have
mastered Google with their marketing techniques.
They know a number one spot for a competitive keyword
or keyword phrase in Google will usually prove very
lucrative, bringing in a steady automatic income.

Regardless of what the other search engines will attest,
seasoned webmasters also know getting a top placement in
Google will usually bring more traffic than a top placement
in MSN or Yahoo combined! Getting a number one spot in
Google for a popular keyword can prove very lucrative,
earning a webmaster revenue 24/7/365.

Therefore, webmasters have to optimize their sites and
keywords for Google if they want to turn a healthy profit.
Optimizing your webpages for Google is a complete industry
in itself, what you really have to keep in mind, besides
on-page optimization like keyword density, mega tags, etc.
is that Google places a great amount of weight on off-page
links and anchor text.

Google ranks all webpages on the Internet by a scale
of PR0 to PR10, higher is better. One-way links from
high PR sites related to your keyword or website theme
is highly valued and will usually move your site up on
the SERPs (Search Engine Return Pages). This is the major
factor why ‘article marketing’ is all the rage and why
articles are great building blocks for getting top
keywords and consequently extremely important for
earning you revenue, directly or indirectly from Google.

There are countless strategies for getting those top
keyword listings in Google. But in my opinion, one of
the best experts on the net for website SEO is Brad
Callen. His ‘SEO Elite’ is top quality SEO software and
his soon to be released ‘Keyword Elite’ will greatly
impact how keywords are used by webmasters and
marketers.

Once you have gained significant traffic, you can use
Google AdSense to earn revenue from your site or blog.
Google AdSense lets webmasters and bloggers earn
advertising revenue by placing the AdSense code on
their sites. These can be text links, images, or banners.
These AdSense ads will be directly related to your
page’s keywords. Top or highest paying keywords will
naturally return more revenue. AdSense ads are
extremely targeted and is an effective way of
earning money from your site. Learn more:
https://www.google.com/adsense

One of the undisputed top experts on using Google
AdSense is Joel Comm. A seasoned marketer who has
created some well informed products on Adsense — mainly
his Google AdSense Secrets ebook and courses.

Of course, Google gives marketers another option, you
can buy your way onto Google’s first page results by
using Google AdWords. This is the popular Pay-Per-Click
advertising system offered by Google. Perfecting the
AdWord system is an art form in itself; do it right and
you can create very lucrative cash streams. Do it wrong,
and you can create your very own personal money pits!
https://adwords.google.com/select

Therefore, it is strongly advised that you learn more
about AdWords before you risk your hard earned cash.
One of the best sources for Google AdWords is still
Perry Marshall’s excellent ebook ‘The Definitive Guide
to Google AdWords’. It will give you all the basics on
Google AdWords.

Just about everyone knows about Google’s two popular
programs AdWords and AdSense, but there are other ways
marketers can earn money promoting Google products or
services. Google has started to list products that an
affiliate can promote through the AdSense program. You
can earn money by promoting the Firefox browser with
the Google search box and you can also promote Google’s
AdSense program to other webmasters and earn money by
referring new users.

The next logical step for Google is to offer more
products through its AdSense affiliate program. Many
seasoned marketers are promoting Google’s AdSense, it
would be counterproductive for Google not to take
advantage and offer other products/services through
this marketing system. Its own products or other
closely related third party products. Many marketers
would gladly promote products under the Google banner
mainly because any Google branded product would be an
easy sale for most affiliate marketers.

Google pays monthly but you do have to earn $100 before
they send you a check. Getting a check from Google is
somewhat special, no matter what the amount, show your
family and friends a check from Google and their eyes
will pop open! If you’re an online marketer you may get
quite a few larger checks from different online companies
but nothing will get you the respect a Google check does.
Just goes to show how much Google has permeated into our
everyday lives.

Not that you need it, but it’s just another reason to
start earning money for Google. Try some of the programs
listed above and you will be smiling all the way to… now,
where the heck is that Google Bank?

……
Everyone is profiting from Google, find out how you can too! Click here: Google Cash File

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Titus_Hoskins

Google has recently implemented a program where any webmaster
can create a Sitemap of their Site and submit it for indexing
by Google. It is a quick and easy way for you to keep your
site constantly indexed and updated in Google.

The program is appropriately called Google Sitemaps.

In order for you to best use Sitemaps, you must have an XML generated
file on your site that will transmit or send any updates, changes, and
data to Google. XML (Extensible Markup Language)is everywhere these days,
you have probably seen the orange XML logo on many web sites and its
often associated with Blogging because Blogs use XML/RSS feeds to
syndicate their content.

Today RSS is known mostly as ‘Really Simple Syndication’ but its original
acronym stood for ‘Rich Site Summary’. XML is only simple code like HTML
and it is used to syndicate your content to all interested parties.

And the interested party in this case is Google. By creating
Sitemaps Google is really asking webmasters to take charge of
the indexing and updating of their sites. Basically, doing
the Googlebot’s job!

This is a ‘Good’ thing! With the steady influx of new web sites
growing rapidly, indexing all this material will become a challenge,
even with the resources of Google. With Sitemaps, websmasters can
now take charge and make sure their site is crawled and indexed.

Please note, indexing your site with Sitemaps WON’T improve
your rankings in Google. You will still be competing with the other
sites in Google for top positions. But with Sitemaps you can make
sure all your pages are crawled and indexed quickly by Google.

There are some other big advantages of using Google’s Sitemaps
– mainly you have control over a few key variables, attributes or tags.
To explain this as simply as possible, your XML powered sitemap
file will have this simple code for each page of your site:

http://www.yoursite.com/

1.0

2005-07-03T16:18:09+00:00

daily

Along with ‘urlset’ tags at the beginning and end of your code,
and an XML version indication – that’s basically your XML file!
File size will depend on the number of webpages you have.

Taking a closer look at this XML file:

location http://www.yoursite.com — name of your webpage

priority you set the priority you want Google to place on that page
in your site. You can prioritize your pages: 0.0 being the least,
1.0 being the highest, 0.5 is in the middle. This is ONLY relative to
your site. It will not affect your rankings. Why is this important?
You have certain pages on your site that are more important than
others, (home page, high profit page, opt-in page, etc.) by placing high
priority on these pages, you will increase their importance in Google.

last modified when you last modified that page, this timestamp allows
crawlers to avoid recrawling pages that haven’t changed.

change frequency you can tell Google how often you change that
particular page. Never, weekly, daily, hourly, and so on — if you
frequently update your page this could be extremely important.

Why do I need a XML Generator?

In order for this XML sitemap file on your site to be constantly
updated, you need a Generator that will spider your site, list
all the urls and automatically feed them to Google. Thus constantly
updating your site in Google’s massive index or database.
Keep in mind, Google also gives you the option of submitting
a simple text file with all your URLs.

Now there is already a flood of these generators popping up! Different
ways of generating your XML powered sitemap file. More are probably appearing
as you read this. But lets look at Three ways to generate your XML file.

Difficult Google’s Python Generator

That’s a relative term, if you know your server like the back of your
hand and installing scripts doesn’t scare the bejesus out of you,
you’re probably smiling at the word difficult. Google supplies a link to a
generator which you can download and set up on your server. It will cough
up your sitemap XML file and automatically feed it to Google.
Google XML Generator [https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html]

In order for this Generator to work, Python version 2.2 must be installed
on your web server, many servers don’t have this. If you know what you’re
doing, this will probably be a good choice.

You don’t need a Google Account to use Sitemaps but it’s encouraged
because you can track your sitemap’s progress and view diagnostic
information. If you already have another Google Account gmail,
Google Alerts, etc. just use that one to sign in and follow directions
from there.

To submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request, issue your request
to the following URL:

[http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url]

Hard A PHP Code Generator

This is a php generator that you can place on your server. This
generator will spider your site, and produce your XML sitemap file. Download
the phpSitemapNG and upload it your server. Run the generator to get
your XML sitemap file and send it to Google.
PHP Generator

Again, this is only hard to do if you don’t know your way around PHP
files or scripts.

Easy Free Online Generator

These Generators are popping up everywhere, and Google now keeps a list of
these ‘third party suppliers’ of generators on their site. Find them here:
Google’s List of Third Party Generators

One of the easiest to use is www.xml-sitemaps.com, and you can
index up to 500 pages with this online Generator very quickly and it will
give you the sitemap XML file Google needs to index your site.

It will go into your site, spider it and index all your pages into an
XML sitemap of your site. You can download this file, Compressed or Non-
compressed and make minor changes such as setting the priority,
changing frequency, etc.

Then upload this file to your site as sitemap.xml to the root directory
of your server i.e. where you have your homepage. Then notify Google
Sitemaps of your XML file and you’re in business.

Of course, the only drawback, if you constantly add pages to your site
you will need to also add these pages to your XML sitemap file.
This won’t be much of a problem unless you’re daily adding pages
to your site — then you will need something like the PHP or Python
generator to do all this for you automatically.

Google is still the major search engine on the web so getting your
pages indexed and updated quickly is the major reason to use Google
Sitemaps. If you want your site to remain competitive it’s probably
the wisest route to take.

To learn more about the different Services and Programs offered

by Google click here: Google Adsense & Google Adwords

This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Titus_Hoskins

All knowing, all seeing, ever present!

Google has permeated into almost every aspect of life on this planet and beyond.
It has become a mainstream fixture for computer and Internet users around the
globe. All the while, cementing its position as the only real facilitator of the
world’s collective intelligence.

Can you remember a day when you have not Googled?

But Google’s reach doesn’t stop with the mouse or the cursor. It has moved beyond
the computer screen, snapping up resources, sites, and people at a frighteningly
steady pace. Perhaps, the first indication Google wasn’t just satisfied with staying
within the wired confines of the world wide web was when it partnered with universities
such as Harvard, Oxford, Stanford and others, to scan and index the contents
of their libraries — then making this material accessible through Google Print.

Then it casted its aspirations heavenward with the introduction of Google Maps and
Google Earth. Mapping services that bring the world’s geographic information into view,
it is as if Google had literally ascended, watching us from far and near, tracking our
every move as well as our every keystroke. Even using satellite imagery to provide
it with eyes in the sky; leading one to wonder, from those lofty heights can divinity
be far behind?

All kidding aside, Google, whether it wants to or not, is developing a god-like
reverence in the eyes of many. But is this such a leap of faith? Is the idea of
Google as a god-like force in our lives so preposterous? so ludicrous? so sacrilegious?

In prehistoric times, pagans used to worship the sun gods. Ancient Egypt, Greece
and Rome all had their gods who satisfied the basic human need we have to believe in a
superior being or force. They even raised ordinary humans who displayed unusual
courage or bravery up to a god-like status. Are we now entering into a new
post-modern pagan era — will we be worshipping at the feet of Google?

Not really, we treat all our knowledge givers with respect, some even reach
a god-like status. We raise them up above the crowd, give them special meaning
or reverence in our lives. Humans have been doing this since we stood upright
and walked on the plains of Africa. The shaman or high priest of ancient times
– holders of the secret rites, holders of a group’s history or knowledge; we show
these people respect and we elevate them to a higher status.

Google falls into this category.

And Google does deserve some respect, as far as the search engine market goes,
whether it’s wearing a halo or a cursor — Google is still the only game in town.
According to Alexa, a company that tracks web traffic, the top three sites on
the Web are 1. Yahoo, 2. MSN, and 3. Google. However, when you compare where
people go on these sites — search.yahoo.com accounts for only 9% of Yahoo’s
traffic and search.msn.com only 7% of MSN’s total traffic; whereas most of
Google’s traffic is search traffic. This is a big distinction.

And what about the purchasing power of these search engines; latest data presented
by Score Networks, Inc. shows MSN searchers at 48%, Google searchers at 42% and
Yahoo at 31%. That is Google searchers were 42% more likely to purchase online
than the regular Internet user.

Another aspect of Google’s commercial might is its online advertising system. Through
its Adsense and Adword programs, Google has commercialize and monetized most of the
web’s free content. Depending on your opinions or stand, this may be good or bad.
Regardless of viewpoints, Google has been more than generous with sharing this ad

revenue with all concerned parties — content providers, web writers and journalists,
professional bloggers, ordinary webmasters and marketers — all have reaped the
benefits of these programs.

If you feed it with fresh high quality content — Google will take good care of you! In many
cases, it can be argued that Google is subsidizing or facilitating the creation of quality
content on the Net through its Adsense program.

Google’s dominance of all aspects of the Internet is also taking on a god-like force.
It is acquiring and building at an almost god-like speed. Google Acquisitions include:
Outride, Blogger, Neotonic Software, Applied Semantics, Ignite Logic, Genius Labs,
Picasa, Keyhole, Urchin software… how did all this madness start?

Initially called BackRub, referring to the way it back linked to web sites, Google was
founded by Stanford graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google, the name
itself is a play on the word googol, and refers to the number represented by 1 followed
by 100 zeros… opened its doors on Sept. 7, 1998, in Menlo Park, California. It had
a corporate staff of three. In 2004 Google offered its IPO with a price per share at
$85. By June 7, 2005, Google was worth $80 billion, making it one of the world’s biggest
media companies.

Perhaps, one of Google’s most brilliant (some believe absurd) moves, happened just recently.
It has applied (via Nelson Minar, a Google Engineer), for patent rights to transmit ads through
RSS feeds. Few people know, even more won’t believe, but the Internet has undergone
a fundamental shift in how information is exchanged on the web. RSS stands for ‘Really Simple
Syndication’ and was first popularized by blogs because blogs use XML and RSS feeds
to syndicate their content.

Don’t come to us, we will deliver. People can view a site’s contents through RSS readers
or an RSS equipped browser without actually going to the sites.

RSS will revolutionize the Internet. Microsoft in its Longhorn Statement has announced
the next version of Windows will have RSS integrated into its Operating System. RSS
applications, under the Creative Commons license, will change the way we use our
computers and the Internet.

Google, if it is successful with this patent application will build on its already god-like
status. The stakes are enormous and Google knows it. This patent could put Google
directly into the mix, but the rewards are beyond belief! And that’s not all, there are
rumors Google may be developing its own RSS powered operating system and browser.
Why not, it has the resources and financial clout to easily carry out such an undertaking.
Google is already the owner of the domain name “gbrowser.com”!

One can only wonder, is Google positioning itself to not only be the brains of the
Internet but also placing itself into the very core of the nasty beast? Does it desire
not only to be a mega hub, but also to be an innate part of the whole structure?
Positioning itself, in essence, to becoming the web’s nervous system.

Any movement of data, information, or commerce on the Internet will have to pass
through and be affected by the Google Factor. More or less, cementing Google’s
influence on the whole scheme of things. And in the process, further weaving
Google into the very fabric of our lives.

Now if that’s not God-like, nothing is.

Everyone is profiting for Google, find out how you can too! Click here: Google Cash File. Get a Free Desktop Calendar & Planner compliments of the Author and DATEwise.

Copyright © 2005 Titus Hoskins
This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Titus_Hoskins

Sign up for the Google Adwords program is free but they require a $5 USD deposit before they will start to display your ad copy. Google provides an excellent interface to work with. A pleasant modular design groups all of your work into nice “containers” that can be manipulated and viewed in a variety of ways.

The system reporting is by no means real time but the delay on their results display is palatable when comparing them to the other major PPC provider, Yahoo-Overture.

A nice feature that sets Adwords apart from other PPC providers is that your ads display almost instantly after you place them in their system. They have built a lot of their editorial guidelines into the ad entry system.

Their system will flag your ad before you can enter it if it doesn’t meet their terms of service . That is a lot better than waiting 2-5 business days to find out if your ad had a problem or not. Time is money.

Also provided with your Adwords account are a number of free tools to help you with your campaign management.

While several of these tools are great starting points I have found the need to augment what Google provides through my own online research, tools and software as well as e-book purchases.

The lesson learned, everybody that uses Google Adwords has access to the same tools that you do, including your competitors. It goes without saying that if you want to get an advantage here you will need other resources to supplement your knowledge other than what Google provides.

Having said that the Google Adwords system is still extremely powerful . Providing you with keyword suggestions, automated bid management, campaign optimization (by Google staff), geo-targeting, roi tracking, and all the reporting you can handle, their system allows you a b level of control over your spending and the ability to truly identify who your customer really is.

What I really like about the Adwords system is the fact that the guys with the most advertising dollars are not guaranteed to win any particular market.

Google tracks the Click Through Ratio (the percentage of people who see your ad and click on it) for each of your ads and keywords. Their system gives you a better position in their display listings if more people are clicking on your ads.

Why do they do this?

To reward people who take the time to write relevant ad copy and marry that to a tightly relevant keyword list.

You see, Google will reward you for doing your homework . The time you invest studying and learning their system will save you money , which can be just as rewarding as making money.

Hey, if I could afford 5 dollars a click I would pay it, but I can’t. I need to lower my advertising costs while at the same time generating as much targeted traffic to my site as possible.

Unfortunately, my experience with their support system does not paint as rosy a picture of the mighty Google . In general, their online information is pretty good. It will solve your routine questions such as “when exactly does my credit card get billed? ) ” quite well.

Google’s support system seems geared towards keeping you off the phone with them. They like to refer to their repository of online documentation and use template driven email communication.

In instances where I needed specific information (i.e. why is this keyword disabled even though I created a brand new campaign to put it in?) I received “canned” emails with my support persons name “pasted” into the email.

Often times I was required to send them another email asking if they had even read my first one and to get the answer I was REALLY looking for.

At the end of the day I was left feeling that eventually my problem was going to be solved I just wasn’t sure when that was going to be and how many times I would have to contact them in order to get the answer I really wanted.

Typical Costs associated with Running an Adwords Campaign

There’s two ways to approach this:

Are you going to manage your own campaigns?

or

Do you want to leverage someone else’s experience and invest money in a company that can manage your Adwords campaigns?

Let me suggest that you manage your own accounts at least in the beginning . Start small and start collecting reference materials while you learn how the system works.

Search for other products and resources that can help you but keep in mind some of them won’t work out . Don’t let that stop your research, there is material out there that can truly help you and save you a lot of money.

Investing in a $40 e-book is a lot cheaper than blowing $500 or more with Google while you are learning the ropes .

Having said that if you want to get a successful campaign started now you can enlist an SEO company to manage your Adwords campaigns.

The question is: How will you know who to trust?

You can burn several thousand dollars for overpriced, untargeted traffic if you let the wrong companies manage your campaigns. How can anyone honestly know what to look for in an Adwords Management company if you haven’t even tried the system out for yourself? Food for thought. If you manage your own campaigns at first you will get a feel for the system.

Campaign Costs

Ok, let’s talk about the typical costs you can expect running a Google Adwords campaign. The good news is Google Adwords gives you the potential to reach millions of surfers in a matter of minutes for pretty much as little money as you want to spend.

The bad news is after the novelty of having an Adwords account and setting up your first few campaigns wears off it can begin to feel like a ball and chain. There are a lot of monotonous tasks that have to be managed daily and it can be a tough thing to manage unless you are a disciplined person.

Before you spend money on campaigns and resources acquire this mental discipline. Realize before you begin that it isn’t going to be fun after a while. Google Adwords is a business tool, one of many, and as such it has it’s advantages and flaws . It can make you a lot of money or it can cost you a lot of money and create a lot of stress for you depending on your ability to consistently manage your campaigns.

Ok, your minimum initial deposit is $5 to get started as we learned above. Start here, and I suggest resisting the urge to JUMP in and start spending like crazy… stay at or near this $5-$50 level of investment until you use it up .

You’re not going to see any returns on this investment financially but you will gain valuable knowledge of how best to use the Google Adwords System to generate income without learning the hard way.

You have a lot of learning to do before you want to start pouring money into your account. Google is in the business of making money and their system makes it “REALLY” easy to spend as much as you want.

Minimum bids start at a reasonable $0.05 USD. After developing your keyword list and dumping it into Google’s system you have to start making financial decisions.

If you take Google’s suggested bid prices for your keyword list you can pay a lot of money for your web traffic depending on how large your keyword list is and how much traffic these keywords generate.

Rest assured Google’s system will provide you a lot of traffic quickly if you want to pay for it. It’s not uncommon for Google’s big management system to suggest max bids in the $20 – $30 range.

You don’t have to accept these outrageous suggestions of course so your first big money saver is to lower the max bid to something you find acceptable and enter it for all of your keywords.

Please note Google’s system will not charge you this full amount unless someone else is willing to pay that much for the keyword. Leave this number set higher if you want to produce a lot of clicks quickly.

Bidding into position’s 1-3 will deliver the most traffic, but will be less targeted than position’s 4-6.

Position 1 will get the most clicks but many of these clicks will be untargeted “impulse” clicks. Taking the time to scan all the way to position 6 in the listing and click on the advertisement at that position suggests that the searcher is extremely interested in the subject being advertised.

Over time you will learn which keywords are making you money and which one’s are simply too competitive for your budget. Google’s campaign tracking abilities in conjunction with other 3rd party ad tracking software can help you identify these profitable keywords and track your website visitors.

Unfortunately every system can only provide so much traffic and you will find the larger companies can afford to bid pretty high for more general, high traffic keywords because they can afford it.

Large companies will pay $5 for general keywords like “credit cards” because they know over the lifetime of using a credit card they will recover their investment.

The big boys can squeeze you out of the Google Adwords World just as easily as in the “real world”. Of course it’s not all “doom and gloom”. You still have a powerful and relatively inexpensive tool in your hands if you can exploit niches and find the “bargain” keywords.

Google’s system of tools leaves you high and dry in this respect unless you have a lot of money to blow on “throwing out a wide net” by trying a large keyword list and then refining your campaigns as you start to get clicks and track your conversions.

You can get a lot of garbage clicks by bidding your way to the top for general keywords . This is expensive, less targeted, and lower converting than if you bid to position 3-5 or spend time finding the less expensive niche keywords (using your third party software or e-book techniques).

Chances are when bidding on more general high traffic keywords you will be competing with large companies and competitors using SEO company services to manage their campaigns.

These companies can afford to pay a lot more than you or I for their clicks. In order to counteract this you need to tightly target your campaigns and find niche keyphrases to be profitable with Google. I can’t stress this enough.

To make proper decisions you will need to gather as much data as you can on how the Adwords system works. Obviously, you won’t have this data until you run a campaign or two which is why I suggest running your own Adwords Campaigns for a while to get familiar with their system.

Study the stats provided by Google which are really quite good in conjunction with one or more 3rd party stats tracking packages.

You will start to notice trends in the numbers which will allow you to make more effective use of your time and money by bidding only on the keywords that are generating sales.

Analysis may also prompt you to tweak your site content if you notice a niche you want to start competing for (better yet start up another site or tier two web page on your site targeting that niche and remove these keywords from the original campaign moving them into a new campaign pointing to your new content).

Minor tweaks can save you BIG money using Adwords

Some Notes on Scalability:

Google allows you to bid on 3 types of keyword matching options which immediately gives you three times the keywords to bid on without any more brainstorming on your part.

Each matching option provides different results and should be managed on a keyword by keyword basis.

Google also provides two methods of displaying your ad on their network: Content Match Listings and Search Network Listings .

Effectively this allows you the potential to be noticed by:

1) anyone searching on Google’s portal

2) anyone searching portal sites that get their search results from Google

3) anyone viewing a site displaying Google’s ads that has content related to the keywords you bid on.

4) anyone reading an email with content related to your keyword at Google’s free email service Gmail.

That’s a lot of options and a lot of potential exposure. Tweaking to find the right combination for your particular situation and spending requirements is something you simply have to do on an ongoing basis. I think the benefits are obvious to you by now.

A final word on costs. You may have noticed that I didn’t use a lot of numbers in my discussion of campaign costs with Google. What I think I have illustrated is a Google campaign truly can cost as little or as much as you want it to.

It can get you as much or as little traffic as you want it to. What kind of traffic it brings and how much it costs is up to you.

Where will your ads be displayed? More places than you might think:

At the time of publication AOL, Netscape, Ask Jeeves, AT&T Worldnet, EarthLink and Excite all get some or all of their search results from Google.

Content Match Listings vs. Search Network Listings

When user’s do a search on one of the Google family of portal sites your paid listings appear either along the top of the search results highlighted as sponsored listings or to the right of the actual search results in text boxes.

Your position on these search pages is determined by your keyword list and your bid for that keyword.

Your results with the Search Network Listings can be quite successful as long as you manage your account using some of the techniques suggested in this article.

Use the included Geo-targeting capabilities built into the Adwords system to ensure your ads display only in areas that are potential customers for you.

Content match listings appear as inserts on web pages not in search engine results pages. My experiences with the content Match Listings haven’t been as successful as with the Search Network Listings although I still use this option for some of my campaigns.

Google’s system analyses the content of web page and serves up ads to those pages based on the what it feels the page is about . A web page on motorcycles may feature ads about buying motorcycles, motorcycle catalogues, parts distributors … I think you get the idea.

And this idea is a good one since the ads it displays are usually pretty close to what you would think they should be. When you display ads on your website using Google’s Adsense program for example, you are effectively joining their content network.

A drawback to the content matching system is you can’t really know who is clicking on your ad. It could even be a competitor clicking on your ad from their own site! Google gives you the option of disabling either of these display methods if they aren’t working out for you with the click of a button.

You can do this on a campaign by campaign basis only enabling/disabling what is working for you. If you want to minimize your risk but still utilize the Content Matching system you do have an option.

You can set up a separate campaign with lower bid prices for your keywords and only enable content matching for this campaign. Remove the content matching option from your original campaign and voila! you’ve minimized your risk.

A few more notes on Google Campaign Optimization

I can’t stress enough the importance of getting a good Click Through Ratio (CTR) for your best target keywords. Google has really offered you a chance to save some big time money if you know how to get a good CTR for your ads and keywords.

Getting a good CTR allows Google to sell more ad space which makes them more money. Google transfers some of this money to you the advertiser by increasing your ranking within their search results it displays for your keywords, at no additional cost.

That’s right, if you can write relevant ads for your target keywords you don’t necessarily have to pay the higher bid prices for those keywords that your competitors are paying. More money saved!

Advantages of the Google Adwords System

- Highly configurable system with an intuitive web-based interface.

- Reporting system is near real-time so you can tweak campaigns on the fly

- Since their system is web based you can access your account at any time.

- Good list of Free tools and guides (although third party tools may still be required)

- Rewards advertisers that pay attention to providing relevant content to their search clients not necessarily the highest bidder. Get a better CTR and your ads are cheaper.

- Geo-targeting capabilities. Target by City, Country or display your ads Globally.

- Multiple ad delivery systems. Content and Search listings, Partner Network listings, Email.

- Multiple keyword matching options including the ability to ‘filter’ keywords.

- Reasonable minimum startup cost of $5 with no monthly minimum spend requirements

- They have licensed their search results to several other large search engines improving your web site’s exposure to people that don’t use Google as their main search portal.

- Free ROI tracking tools.

- Minimum bid is a reasonable $0.05 USD.

Disadvantages of the Google Adwords System

- Learning curve can cost you a lot of money.

- Not the most expensive PPC search engine but certainly more expensive than all other PPCs except Yahoo-Overture

- Click fraud is an unavoidable risk.

- Content matching system does not always deliver the same ROI as their search listings. If both ad delivery systems are enable for a particular campaign the content match results can lower your overall campaign CTR and get keywords disabled.

- Support system is email template driven. It can take you a few tries to get the information you REALLY need from Google’s support.

- Interface does not indicate what your competitors are bidding, only the maximum bid for any particular keyword, making the implementation of bidding strategies much more difficult.

Google Adwords Resources: Google Adwords Homepage

About the Author

Michael Lawrence is the webmaster for the Cobrasurf Directory of search engine optimization resources. He also publishes an SEO Blog, SEO Web Guide featuring SEO articles, news, tools and services.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Lawrence

A little history

Microsoft, the world’s largest software vendor, has been around for quite a long time. Its target market is mainly selling operating systems and office applications for the desktop computers. Microsoft products are sold to computer manufacturers, i.e. Dell Computers, who in turn install and ship Microsoft software package to the consumers. So in a sense, consumers end up writing Bill Gates a $100+ check without ever knowing it. This is how Microsoft became to dominate the computer desktop industry and turned Bill Gates into modern day Henry Ford.

Google, on the other hand, is a relatively new company. It blossomed during the dot com boom, and eventually came to dominate the online search engine business. Today, Google attracts more than 200 million unique queries on its search engine every day; statistically speaking, each query generates 12 cents for the company…that is 8 zeros multiplied by 12! Google, for the most part, profits through its search based advertisement technology known as Adwords. Adwords makes online advertisement approachable in terms of easiness and affordability. Adwords, combined with a similar technology called Adsense, made Google endless amounts of cash. Google, today, is the undisputed champion of the online world.

How they became enemies

“When you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna” – Napoleon

Until recently, both Google and Microsoft were living in harmony. The masses used Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to surf Google’s search engine. However, internet’s seemingly unstoppable growth since the early 2000 began to attract the attention of many industries. Microsoft executives clearly saw Internet as the next big thing; possibly a market worth pursuing. Meanwhile, Google continued to make unprecedented strides within its search engine market. Having generated enough cash, however, Google took a different direction; founded by technology enthusiasts, Google began to enter various markets unrelated to its search business. Rumors began to spread that Google is building an online “free” Operating System and various other tools such as an alternative version to the dominating Internet Explorer. This, as you might have guessed, ticked off Microsoft, and it took the bait and decided to roll its war drums against Google. Microsoft, by the way, is not the only company that feels threatened by its presence. Other internet giants, such as AOL, Yahoo! and eBay, are also feeling the heat ever since Google embarked on its journey towards dominating any market of technological interest. Google innovated in markets that already existed and, surprisingly, came about to dominating them. For Microsoft, it was a threat worth neutralizing. Today, Google has its hands in web search, email, online videos, calendars, news, blogs, desktop search, photo sharing, online payments, social networking, instant messaging, WiFi, word processors, web hosting, web browser, search tool bars, spreadsheets, discussion groups, maps and more.

Before long, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo! and eBay maneuvered to encapsulate Google’s ever-growing strength. Over two hundred years ago, Emperor Napoleon, the Google of his day, found himself in a similar situation. Russia, Prussia, Austria and Britain had decided to go to war.

The drums of war

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” – Napoleon

Microsoft’s take on this war is quite different from that of Google. Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, has repeatedly alleged that the online market is not a zero-sum game; in other words, it is possible for two or more players to dominate a large share of this market. Microsoft is not used to this. In the past it has decisively eliminated any competition, and taken the throne for itself. Consequently, Microsoft has publicly declared an all out war on Google.

Ironically, Google is the company that is on the attack; it has been aggressively pursuing Microsoft’s market. However, using clever tactics, it has intimidated Microsoft to appear as the aggressor, while Google quietly carries on with its business. In other words, Google has lured Microsoft into a rash attack; when it ends up in disaster, Microsoft will have only themselves to blame, and everyone around them will blame them, too. Google will win both the battle of appearances and the battle on the field. Very few strategies offer such flexibility and power.

It takes more energy to take land than to hold it. Throughout history, defensive tactics have won more battles than the aggressors. After the first wave of siege, the aggressor loses the advantage of surprise attack and leaves himself exposed to a counter attack. The defender can clearly see his strategy and take protective action. Napoleon’s most celebrated victory, the battle of Austerlitz was a counter attack, defeating a larger army with a kill ratio of 15 to 1. A defensive position has become the perfect way to disguise an offensive maneuver, a counter attack. Google has repeatedly asserted that it is not interested in competing with other businesses; it is a web search business only. They have used this facade to make Microsoft’s concerns with the company seem paranoid; a clever move that worked. The fact remains that Google is a powerful secretive company, driven by smart people, and for a cause.

Do No Evil

“In war the moral is to the physical is as three to one”- Napoleon

In his day, most emperors preferred to hire mercenary armies simply because maintaining a healthy army of their own came at too much of an expense. Napoleon reversed this setback by recruiting young French loyalists more eager to fight for a greater France than for the money. As a result, during battle, French soldiers swiftly defeated much larger mercenary armies. My point? Bring people together around a cause and you create a motivated force.

With a 60% stake in the U.S. web search market, one might expect Google to have mottos of the kind “Let Google do the searching” or perhaps “Search fast, search Google”. On the contrary, Google’s motto is a simple “Do No Evil”. Recently, web search companies were asked by U.S. intelligence agencies to transfer private data on user searches over to them; while other web search companies concurred with them, Google saw it as evil and denied. This decision alone drove Google’s shares dwindling down several points on the NASDAQ, but Google remained true to its “Do No Evil” maxim. Google has come to be seen as a company driven not by the incentive of making money, but rather by the pursuit of knowledge through technological innovation; as a result, the company has used this justification to convince its competitors that it is not interested in defeating competition, but rather providing easier access to information for everyone, and hence making the world a better place. Google keeps its business silent and only attracts attention to the technological goodies it has brought to the masses. In fact, Google’s Machiavellian tactics have worked so well that most of its users do not even know how or if Google makes money.

Google’s army of 7000+ employees are loyal to the company. Over at Microsoft, the employees, especially senior executives, feel caged within the company; leaving Microsoft for Google might bring a lawsuit from the company, as it did for Kai-Fu Lee. To Microsoft’s credit, Google is simply reaping fruit from the hype that Microsoft once enjoyed. Sooner or later, the quality and quantity of potential employees will inevitably decrease in size as the excitement around Google is neutralized.

Mobility through decentralized command

“Separate to live, unite to fight” – Napoleon

Genghis Khan, like Napoleon, was a master of mobility in war. In a very short period of time, his empire stretched from Korea all the way to Europe. Neither two conquerors could have expanded like they did if it weren’t for mobility. Mobility was the key to decisive maneuvering during battle. Varying in size, from 15, 000 to 30, 000 men, each corps was a miniature army headed by a miniature Napoleon. Fluid, Fast, and Nonlinear. At the battle of Ulm, Napoleon completely surrounded the Austrian army within a few hours; cutting off any channels of escape or reinforcements. The Austrian emperor was forced to surrender an army of 30, 000 soldiers.

For a large company like Google, the hierarchy within the company is quite small. Google organizes employees in teams of three to five people. Each team is self directed, while the middle managers provide the required resources to support development within the teams. As a result, Google has fashioned a powerful self-directed decentralized approach towards product development. The consequence of such an arrangement is that there is no keystone employee or manager within the company. It is almost as if the company could run on its own even if it were divided into several smaller pieces. Forbes magazine described the phenomena this way: “Innovation will flourish for as long as the masses are running Google. When management forcefully steps in, the pace of change will slow.” Microsoft, on the other hand, has a well known bureaucratic problem. There are over 12 layers of middle managers between executives and the developers. As a result, the company takes the course that its top managers set for it. Instead of allowing innovation to originate from developers, it flows from top level managers to code-monkeys at the lowest base. This is quite common in other companies as well. The natural tendency of a top manager in any company is to want to control the group, to coordinate its every movement, but that ends up tying the company to the past and to the slow moving armies in history. It takes strength of character to allow for a margin of chaos and uncertainty-to let go a little-but by decentralizing army and segmenting it into teams; company managers gain in mobility what they lose in complete control. A critical step in creating an efficient chain of command is assembling a skilled team that shares the same goals and values; once this is achieved, the top managers at Microsoft can contentedly allow the teams to think and direct on their own. As Joel Spolsky puts it, “The goal of any business owner should be to break his/her job into functional pieces that can be replicated over and over.”

“The goal of any business owner should be to break his/her job into functional pieces that can be replicated over and over.” – Joel Spolsky

Google Achilles:

“Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets” – Napoleon

Napoleon demanded unprecedented loyalty from his men. When in 1815, Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to the mainland, King Louis XVIII sent the Fifth Regiment, led by Marshal Michel Ney who had formerly served under Napoleon in Russia, to fight him at Grenoble. Napoleon approached the regiment alone, dismounted his horse and, when he was within earshot of Ney’s forces, shouted “Soldiers of the Fifth, you recognize me. If any man would shoot his emperor, he may do so now”. Following a brief silence, the soldiers shouted “Vive L’Empereur!” and marched with Napoleon to Paris. The strength of his image echoed in the hearts and minds of, both, his allies and enemies. He described this himself as “I have destroyed the enemy merely by marches”
Whatever a company’s strength might be, it is actually a potential weakness, simply because the company relies on it: neutralize it and the company is vulnerable. A company’s task is to put its competitor in a situation in which it cannot use its advantage. Google’s advantage is its brand.

”Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult” – Napoleon

The Wall Street judges Google’s worth in terms of its shares value in the stock market. As of July 29, Google is trading at $388.12 per share, the highest bid/share I have ever heard. However, Google’s out of the charts performance in the stock market is a weakness in disguise. Wall Street isn’t thrilled with Google’s secretive style of management, so the investor loyalty could be swayed quite easily. Google will lose its extraordinary command of the NASDAQ as soon as conditions stop favoring them. Google might have a strong user base, but its investor loyalty is at dismay. Without Wall Street’s backing, Google will lose its share not only in the stock market, but in the public relations department as well. Google feeds off its brand, so any successful attack on its image will cripple the company even when it continues to generate cash.

Google depends on its hype. But hype does not stick around forever.

What Can Microsoft Do

”To extraordinary circumstances we must apply extraordinary remedies” – Napoleon

Google is successful not just for its technological innovation, but also for the command structure that makes this innovation possible and. Hence, to solely attack Google’s technology is a mistake since Google will always manage to innovate with quick decisiveness, as it has in the past. Google’s Achilles heel is its Adwords system; its money machine. Without it, Google can neither grow nor innovate.

The general rule for defeating any large army is to launch the attack on as narrow a front as possible. Whereas a defender must defend all their borders, an attacker has the advantage of being able to concentrate their forces at one place. By releasing, what seems to be a product every week, Google has stretched too thin. Aside from search and email, Google products are essentially at the mercy of another competitor, say Microsoft. Microsoft, with its MSN Search, cannot possibly defeat Google in search business, it is Google’s core business and the company will protect it however possible. Sun Tzu stated this in the Art of War as “Put your enemies in a spot where they have no place to go, and they will die before fleeting. If they are to die then, what can they not do? Warriors exert their full strength. When warriors are in great danger, then they have no fear. When there is nowhere to go, they are firm, when they are deeply involved, they stick to it. If they have no choice, they will fight to death.”

“Put your enemies in a spot where they have no place to go, and they will die before fleeting. If they are to die then, what can they not do? Warriors exert their full strength. When warriors are in great danger, then they have no fear. When there is nowhere to go, they are firm, when they are deeply involved, they stick to it. If they have no choice, they will fight to death“ – The Art of War

Microsoft should adopt a partial non-competitive strategy. Instead of publicly and pragmatically target Google’s main business, it should, with surgical precision, covertly attack products Google doesn’t pay much attention to. Google’s policy to let beta products become widely accepted organically is a weakness waiting to be exploited.

There are many non-conferential strategies Microsoft can adhere to:

1. The giant can enter markets that Google would never tackle; Microsoft’s success in the gaming and music industry strengthens this point. Furthermore, Microsoft can let its allies (i.e. Yahoo!, AOL, eBay etc) confront Google in markets Microsoft wouldn’t want to.

2. Google, with its recent release of Open Source project hosting, has subtly brought on its side a smart culture of developers who already dislike Microsoft. This form of passive strategy is what Google is best at. CEO Eric Schmidt once stated that a company’s success lies in its programmers. Microsoft can hire more talented engineers. If there are two equally intelligent students competing for the top position, all they have to do is study 5 minutes more than the other would. Taking that one extra step in hiring employees will have a significant impact on the company’s business.

3. Be more reserved. An attack kept silent has a better chance at succeeding than one that is clearly perceived and understood by the enemy. As Niccolo Machiavelli puts it “No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.”

“No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.” – Machiavelli

4. Decentralize product releases. Instead of passing product decisions through a layer of eleven managers, let the product innovation come from the engineers responsible for designing them. A much more effective road that Microsoft can take is to provide seed capital for other startups releasing products competitive to Google. This has several advantages. Startups are more focused and motivated. Microsoft wouldn’t have to expend excess resources into startups since they can also rely on other VC’s. Since startups can think and manage themselves, this will decentralize innovation and also rid Microsoft off its 11 layers of management.

5. As mentioned previously, Google’s vital organ is its ad delivery mechanism. If Microsoft successfully releases a better system for delivering advertisements, it will decisively capture Google’s hold on ad publishers. Due to Microsoft’s huge hotmail user base, the company has an excellent opportunity at delivering more targeted advertisements.

6. Lastly, Google focuses a very small team, usually 3 to 5 engineers, on its beta products. Microsoft can take advantage of this by focusing more resources on similar products. Even though, smaller teams innovate faster, larger, more resourceful teams, have a better chance at success. A successful product requires the collective effort of more than just the engineering department.

”Between a battle lost and a battle won, the distance is immense and there stand empires” – Napoleon

Conclusion

Napoleon’s tomb In the end, despite his genius, it was Napoleon who became overwhelmed by counter forces and lost. Unprecedented success often causes blindness. My advice for Google is to continue its rapid innovation but also put a tap on its uncontrolled product releases. As for Microsoft, despite the company’s several ill conceived tactics, it has a lot of potential for improvement and much to learn from its rival, Google.

Notes:

(1) Some excerpts were taken from “33 Strategies of War”.

(2) Despite the critical tone of this article, I can’t help but think how dull the tech world would be without either of these companies. I will gladly take down any part of this article if anyone at, either company, is disturbed by it.

(3) I didn’t write this solely for the purpose of comparing Napoleon’s strategies with that of Google or Microsoft. I wanted to write a piece that gave a strategic analysis for both companies. I wish I could’ve written some more on this subject, but thought most readers would fall asleep. I can’t write, I am an engineer.

(4) Any research on this article was done through Google. The article itself was written on Microsoft Word.

I am a jobless undergraduate studying Electrical Engineering at Ryerson University, Canada. My interests include military and corporate strategies, business, economics, history, religion/philosophy, politics, logic, technology, programming, electronics, mathematics, neurology, quantum physics, and cosmology. If you wish to contact me, I can be reached at biohazard@gmail.com, or python_kiss@hotmail.com and my website address is http://www.shuzak.com

To see this article with photos, go straight to http://shuzak.com/Personal/Napoleonic-Lessons-for-Google-and-Microsoft.php

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jawad_Shuaib

It is intended to give average people and internet newbie’s the ability to create a website via a free and easy to use tool. Blogs became main stream over a year ago and proved to be so easy to use, that virtually anybody was able to start one and publish content without the need to take some internet 101 or Web Development classes.

Google Pages is geared toward the same audience. The difference between Blogs and Google Pages is, that Blogs are meant to be a “Journal” to publish recent News and Events and not permanent content such as a Family History or “About Me” pages. Google Pages tries to fulfill this need.

The high demand for the new Service forced Google to disable the creation of new Google Pages accounts only a short time after they announced it. New Accounts are only available by invitation only.

I got an invitation last week and started playing around with the new Service to find out how far it developed, what you can do with it and what not. This article is a brief review of the current features and shortcomings of the service. You can visit my Google Pages Test Pages at http://carsten.cumbrowski.googlepages.com to get an Idea how Pages created by this new Service can look like.

The Basic Layout

The first choice the user has to make is which of the 4 pre-defined Layouts and 41 pre-defined Designs he wants to use for his pages. There is no option to change a design or layout to custom needs which really limit the possibilities to create unique looking pages severely.

The Google Pages Team did obviously not study how Blogger is solving this problem in an elegant way by providing the selection of templates with the ability to tweak it afterwards by more experienced users. Blogger is also owned by Google. I recommend that the Google Pages Team meets with the Blogger Team to discuss synergies and learn from the years of experiences the Blogger Team already has with this problem.

The WYSIWYG Editor

The intuitive WYSIWYG Editor is overall very easy to use, but rather limited in options. Only 6 Fonts are available: Arial, Verdana,Times New Roman, Courier New, Georgia and Trebuchet; 4 Font Sizes: small, normal, large and huge; 70 fix Colors; H1, H2 and H3 Head Lines; Unsorted List (ul); Bold or Italic font formatting (no underline, superscript or strike through); Link to other Page, File, Email or External Link; Alignment of Content: left, right and center; Image (must be uploaded) with 4 fix size options: small, medium, large and original size.

There is the option to edit the HTML Code which you need to fall back to when it comes to creating “Tables” or using additional HTML Syntax not provided by the Editor like “hr”, sorted list, the mentioned font formatting or specific colors not available in the list of the 70 predefined ones.

What I also miss is a simple build-in spell checker. The Google Toolbar has one build-in and there are various free solutions out there as well, such as the Lingucomponent Project from Open Office (http://lingucomponent.openoffice.org).

The Page and Image Management

The Management of the individual Pages is easy. Google Pages refers to Pages by what you use in the predefined “Title” area of a page. So far so good, but there is an issue when it comes to the Page Name used for the URL. The Initial Title specified for a new Page is used for the Page “File name” and can not be changed afterwards.

The Google Pages URL Syntax is http://username.googlepages.com/pagename. Make sure that you give a new Page a title that reflects the wanted “File Name” and change the Title of the Page to its real Title afterwards. The Inability to rename a Page renders the “copy page” feature more or less obsolete. The copy of the original page is simply named “originalpagefilenameX” with X being a number starting with 2 for the first copy.

Accessing the uploaded Images and deleting them is simple. The user must be careful though, because there is no indicator if an Image is used in a “published” = live page or not. Deleting a used image creates a broken Image on the public site.

“Static” Content is not an option

If you would like to have the same content for certain areas on all your pages, such as a Footer or Main Navigation you have a problem which can only be solved by cumbersome manual labor.

You can not incorporate anything to your Site Template. This means that you have to recreate the static content for every page manually. If something changes, you have no choice but must update every single page of your site manually one by one.

This is a major shortcoming that practically causes users to be inconsistent with the overall look and usability of their site.

No JavaScript or iFrames

JavaScript and iFrames are forbidden to be used in your Pages. If you add the Code manually, it’s getting removed by the Page Creator automatically. This includes inline and external JavaScript

This means, that you can not add most of the common types of Advertisement to your pages to monetize the site including Google AdSense Ads, Amazon Product Ads, Linkshare DRMs or Chitika Ads.

You can also not use any JavaScript to improve site usability.

General Tools are simply absent

Google Pages does not offer any type of tools to extend the features of the site beyond a small collection of static HTML Pages with a little bit of content.

The ability to place AdSense Ads on those Pages should be of high interest by Google since it allows them to increase their Advertising Revenue. Any build in function to place AdSense Ads somewhere into Google Pages is not in sight anywhere. I assume that this will be coming at one point because Google Pages is simply perfect for Google AdSense.

The ability to create any type of Forms or in general ANY interactive content does not exist, which severely limits the use of Google Pages. This is something the Google Pages team should work on.

Providing features like a contact form that integrates with Google GMail, the publishing of Feeds from Google Reader or the Integration of Google Maps and Google News would be perfect for Google Pages. Google Analytics can’t be added to the Pages as well.

Indexing of Google Pages by Google Search

What I haven’t found out yet, is if Google automatically adds Google Pages to the content to be crawled by its Web Crawler or not. A Search in the Google (http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agooglepages.com) Index reveals that over 46,000 Google pages were already indexed and added to Google’s Search Index as of today. This tends me to believe that the pages are in fact automatically crawled by Google.

Conclusion

Google Pages is surely for a good reason still in Beta Status and will probably remain in that Status for quite a while. The existing features have a lot of flaws and also a lot of very important features are missing all together.

Google Pages does also not interface with any other existing Google Service although Google Pages is a perfect candidate to exploit and showcase a wide variety of existing Google Services (live and beta ones). Google has still a long way to go with this service to provide a useful tool for the general public.

I see its use today as a place where you can create some static pages with content to link to from your blog at Blogger or other Blogging Services. It is certainly not enough for most people to create their complete Homepage/Presence on the Internet via Google Pages.

It might also be an alternative for some Geocities Users since Google Pages does not show any 3rd Part advertisement anywhere on the pages.

About the Author Carsten Cumbrowski is a professional Web Developer with years of experiences in creating enterprise Web Solutions. He has also over 5 years of experience in Internet Marketing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carsten_Cumbrowski

The way this works is pretty simple. A business pays for advertising on Google, then places ads to be shown in Google’s search results and on other websites. In turn, Google then places these ads according to their relevancy, into their search results and on websites that have partnered with Google through AdSense. Since most of Google advertising is done on a Pay-Per-Click(PPC) basis, Google gets paid each time someone clicks on an add. Websites owners that have partnered with Google through AdSense also receive a portion of Google’s profit each time someone clicks an ad displayed on their website. These transactions can range anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars depending upon how much a company is paying for advertising.

There are several “packages” or “systems” out there that promise to show you how to make thousands of dollars a month or per week even, just by using Google AdSense. I’m going to go ahead and break this down for you…even if you did make thousands of dollars a week (highly unlikely) using only Google AdSense, Google only sends out checks or direct deposits once per month. Thousands per month? This is actually a possibility if you have an extremely popular website. To give a reality check to these “packages” and “systems,” seriously take a moment and do the math. Just say that you have a blog that attracts 100 visitors per day, and your average profit per click is $0.20. If 100 percent of those 100 visitors each click an ad, your profits would average around $20 per day. This averages out to be around $600 per month. Still not too bad, but a far cry from thousands per week.

You don’t need some 20 to 50 dollar package to tell you how to do this…its really simple, and you wont get much more than this out of any of the packages for sale out there. Go to https://www.google.com/adsense/login/en_US/ and click on “Sign Up Now.” Follow the instructions, sign up for the account, wait for approval from Google. Once your AdSense account is approved, follow the instructions after logging in to get started. Answer a few questions from Google, tell them how you want ads to be displayed on your page, submit, and copy your HTML code provided by Google AdSense. Paste the code into your website. Ads will appear on your site, people click on the ads, you get paid. Its as simple as that.

Keep in mind that this is just a very brief overview of the “how-to,” but if you have questions or need to find information about performance and optimization of the ads, refer to Google’s AdSense help forums and the training material provided by Google. DO NOT waste your time and hard-earned money with any of the so-called proven “systems” as you will find that all the information, training, and advice is free and available to the public.

If you have any questions on this topic or any other topic that I have discussed, please don’t hesitate to ask!

William a.k.a. greendaddy428

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=William_E_Fountain