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Google Launches SearchWiki – Vote The Search Results Up and Down

Staale — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 12:28:58 +0000

So, then it has been released. Google SearchWiki. The new system that allows you to vote on the sites that get listed in the search results. Here are some features:

You can vote any search result to the top of the search.

You can delete any search result, and it will disaper from the search result.

You can write comments in each search result.

You can add a new site to the search results and it will be added to the top.

One thing though, the changes you make only affect your own searches. So, the search result for other users will stay the same. But, there is one way to see how the other users have used the SearchWiki. On the footer on each page there is a link called “See all notes for this SearchWiki” clicking on this link will bring you to a page, where the sites with the most “ups” will be displaying on the top page. Kinda like a “digg” version of the search result.

Only For Google Account Users

The “SearchWiki” links, and voting system is only available to signed-in Google users. This means, if your site is used by people that most probably don’t got Google accounts, this wont affect your site at all. Since your visitors won’t see the “SearchWiki” links.

Video Explaining The Deal

Below is a video from Google explaining the the SearchWiki system.

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

Will This Affect The Regular Search Results?

Well, as I wrote some sentences ago, Google says your voting only will affect your own search results. But, I think, if this system gets good, and not that easy cheatable the voting might get included as a part of the algorithm. But until that, your voting can still make more visitors coming to your or somebody else’s site, because Google got a page where you can see all notes about one search term. That means, on that pages, the sites that got most votes, will be displayed on the top.

Ex. All notes for the term “Games” in Google.

As you can see in the screnshot above the top ranking site now is addictinggames.com and miniclip.com on second place. If you do this search without adding the SearchWiki values miniclip.com will rank above addictinggames.com. Most probably this will not mean that big of a different since, both these sites is so big brands, sp they get the traffic they should anyway. But, whats interesting to see is the number 3 result. “Scolex Games“. That sites grabs the 3. place only by having 3 votes. Scolex Games is no where to be found in the origianl search result, but with only 3 votes, it ranks good in the SearchWiki result. That means, if you get 4 votes, you will be ranking in the third spot for this really high volume search term.

The question is, how many people will be scrolling down on the search page, and click the “All Notes” link, when they can get good result on the first page? In the start it will probably be quite a few, but many of them would be webmasters like you and be. Will this be something for the future?

What do you think about this?

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Google Launches SearchWiki – Vote The Search Results Up and Down

Adsense For Games Are Looking For Beta Publisher

Staale — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 08:35:54 +0000

25% of all internett users, or 200 million people are playing online games. For a long time it has been hard to monetize games. Sure, you could put ads on the site where the game are, but the game could still be ripped of the site, and then displayed on another site.

The last couple of years there have been growing up a couple good in-game advertising companies such as “Mochiads” and “GameJacket”. These companies are only focusing on in-game ads, and have been a hit in the industry.

Say hello to Google In-Game Advertising

So, Google wants to be a part of about everything on the Internet, and finally they have started to look at the online game industry. Now they are searching after beta publishers for their new Adsense for Games program. This program makes it easy to display ads in placements you define, such as before a game, after a level, or when the game is over. The Adwords sales persons will sell the in-game ads directly to brand advertisers such as McDonalds and Sony, and there will also be contextually targeted text and image ads based on content and demographic information.

Only for the big guys

As usual only the big boys are eligible to join the beta program. Publishers must have a minimum of 500,000 game plays and have 80% of their traffic from the U.S. or the U.K. Thats a really high percent of US and UK traffic on an arcade site!

A couple of highlighted publishers are Armorgames, ArcadeTown and HeavyGames. All of these sites got an alexa below 5.000 and probably well over 100.000 uniques each day.

Couple videos

Google have made a couple videos to better understand how in-game ads work. Take a look below:

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

Are you in the online games industry?

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Adsense For Games Are Looking For Beta Publisher

Want To Be On TV? – Google Launches Adwords TV Ads

Staale — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:45:14 +0000

So, then it’s official. Google launched today their brand new advertising option. Google TV Ads. Long story short this will allows smaller budget advertisers to put their ads on TV.

How does it work?

Ok, the thing is, first, you’ll need a TV commercial. If you don’t have one yet, you do have the Ad Creation Marketplace, where you can connect with professionals who provide script writing, editing, production, and voice-over. This is a fairly costy thing, since it’s not cheap to make an commercial. AS I can see from the intro video the prices ranges from $800-$25.000. The rule “you get what you pay for” does of course count here. The good thing is thought, to celebrate their launch, for a limited time Google will cover the cost of creating your TV ad through our Ad Creation Marketplace, up to $2,000.

What does it cost?

You pay based on a CPM price. Basically it will work the same way as you used to, where you have to get the highest bid for your ad to show. So if there are some popular spots the CPM bid will be higher then on less popular spots. In the video the ads have a CPM of $2-$4. Which means you pay $2 or $4 per 1000 people viewing your ad. Not bad if it’s possible to get TV spots for that price. I contacted a TV station here in Norway and they charged around $40 CPM. Of course it’s probably possible to get that price down, but still.

Watch a video domenstration the system.

So – let me know if any of you are running an TV ad!

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Want To Be On TV? – Google Launches Adwords TV Ads

AdSense for Video beta Starting up

Staale — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:00:10 +0000

The time is almost here, where we can add videos to our site, with inline ads. Inside AdSense announced yesterday that they are now open for betatesters. Thing is though, there are some requirements that you have to meet. First of you need to live in the US. (I don’t) Then you need a site that at a minimum, serves one million video plays each month and are based in the us with English language sites. (I wish!)

The good thing about all this is that they are finally in beta, and hopefully they will open up for people outside us soon.

They have also made a site with a couple example videos, you can find them here.

What do you think?

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AdSense for Video beta Starting up

To sell text links or not to sell text links

Staale — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:53:45 +0000

One of the questions i got in my head at the moment is the following:

“Should i sell text links on my blog or not?”

If I do sell text links i will earn some nice cash but i also might ruin my relationship with Google. Since they declared war against paid links people have been really afraid of selling and buying links. Why should we be? Why should we jump when Google says jump?

One of the companies that Google have tried to bitchslap is TLA better know as Text-Link-Ads. TLA is a company that sells linkspots on your page and takes a little cut for it. I’m not sure – but i think i got affected by this. I got another site which has been a PR5 site over the last year. Suddenly after the PR update right after the so called war it went to a PR 3. I guess that was just a warning since now, when I’m checking the status it is a PR0. I did only earn about $5 a month selling the links – but i still didn’t want to jump when Google said so. And I tell you what my serps didn’t change at all! And i guess thats what its all about. Traffic. Why do you care about your PR if you get a good amount of traffic?

If you got a popular blog you could really do quite well with selling textlinks. JohnChow wich has one of the most famouse webmaster/food blogs around are selling his links for $240 a pop. When you ad that up with 10 links your up to $2400 per month only with 10 lines of links on your side bar. Thats just insane. I really do understand why he doesn’t jump.

So what I’m trying to say here is – should i sell text links or not? I think i have answered the question already though:P

Are you selling text links on your blog?

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To sell text links or not to sell text links