Google Instant on Adwords Clicks, Impressions, Analytics Visits

Google Instant applies to both organic search results and Adwords ads on Google.com. Google Instant targets users in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia who either:

Do searches on the Google.com domain.
Search while signed in to a Google Account.

How Google Instant Works

With or without Google Instant, an impression is counted when your site is displayed in Google’s search results due to a user’s “completed” query.

Google Instant automatically predicts users’ query as they type and instantly show updated results – organic search results and Adwords ads. Google Instant redefines the way search impressions are measured. With Google Instant, an impression is counted when:

A user types a search term on Google.com and clicks on a search result or an Adwords ad.
A user stops typing for 3 or more seconds and search results are displayed.

Google Instant’s Impact on Search

As your websites may appear in Google’s search results and/or Adwords ads to users as they type, Google Instant may increase search impressions to your sites.

Review organic search impressions through Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries in your Google Webmaster Tools account.
Review Adwords impressions through Google Adwords Keyword Report of Adwords reports in your Adwords account.

If your track your site’s web traffic in Google Analytics, review your visitors report and traffic source report to understand the impact Google Instant may have on your website’s visits.

Compatible Browsers to Google Instant

Internet browsers that can support Google Instant including:

Internet Explorer Version 8
Firefox Version 3
Chrome Version 5 or 6
Safari Version 5 for Mac

Google Instant’s News on Official Google Blogs

Official Google blog posts that mentioned Google Instant’s launch and how Google Instant may affect users, organic search and Adwords ads:

Posted on September 14, 2010
Category: Google SEO | Leave a Comment

Kaixin001.com, Xiaonei.com, Renren.com, 51.com, China SNS

In China, over 124 million users have been registered on China’s social network site (SNS) including www.kaixin001.com, www.renren.com (formerly www.xiaonei.com), www.kaixin.com, and www.51.com, before the end of 2009.

China’s Top 3 Social Network Sites (SNS)

Read Write Web believes Renren.com (formerly Xiaonei.com), Kaixin001.com and 51.com are the 3 most popular Chinese social network sites (SNS).

What is Kaixin001.com?

Kaixin001.com is a Chinese social networking site that was launched in 2008 and provides a blogging and microblogging platform, with music sharing, photo uploading, and online hard drives.

Kaixin001′s target audience is the Chinese “white-collar” population.

Kaixin001 Social Games and Applications

Kaixin001.com offers addictive games to Chinese SNS users. The games are applications/add-ons can be installed and played instantly on Kaixin001.

Poke: Notify another user by poking him/her.
Gifts: Give your friends surprise gifts.
Try to Guess: Match yourself to another user for friendship, relationship or hatred with his/her name and your name.
Music Locker: Play music and recommend music to your friends.
Friends for Sale: Players buy/sell their friends like slaves, and make money out of each trade.
Happy Farm: Players manage their lands by growing vegetables and stealing other players’ vegetables.
Parking Wars: Players buy/sell cars, raise money, and compete for packing slots.

Some of the games on Kaixin001, such as Parking Wars, has embedded ads running on the side.

From Xiaonei.com to Renren.com

Xiaonei.com launched with a Facebook-cloned interface and became China’s largest SNS in 2008. “Xiaonei” means “in-school” which implies Xiaonei was initially targeting university students. Xiaonei.com tried to remove this “in-school” impression by rebranding to Renren.com in August 2009.

Kaixin.com vs Kaxin001.com

Renren purchased Kaixin.com, an extremely similar domain name to Chinese SNS competitor Kaixin001, and launched Kaixin.com as another Chinese social network site which has raised “brand confusion” to many Chinese SNS users. This caused Kaxin001.com to put up a lawsuit against Kaixin and Renren.

Global Social Networking Sites

Wikipedia shows one of the biggest lists of social network websites with each site’s launch date, audience types, and number of registered users.

eBizMBA selected August 2010′s top 20 global SNS by using the average of each site’s global traffic rank from Alexa, and each site’s US traffic rank from Compete and Quantcast:

Facebook
MySpace
Twitter
LinkedIn
Ning
Tagged
Classmates.com
Hi5
MyYearBook
MeetUp
Bebo
MyLife
Friendster
MyHeritage
Multiply
Orkut
Badoo
GaiaOnline
BlackPlanet
SkyRock

Facebook Not Popular in China

Facebook, the SNS with the largest user base in the world, has the most registered users from US, UK, Indonesia, Turkey, France, Italy, Canada, Philippines, Mexico, Spain, and India, but does not have many registered users in China.

Due to language, culture, marketing effort, local competition and probably most of all – government suppression of access to the site.

Facebook has not put up a Chinese language interface before 2008.
Access to Facebook was blocked from China in 2009.

Posted on September 12, 2010
Category: China SNS | Leave a Comment

Baidu Box Computing

Through Baidu Search Open Platform, webmasters can submit applications as data feeds to Baidu that may appear above Baidu’s organic search results. Baidu’s box computing is about enabling Baidu’s users to create user-generated content (UGC) that will show up within Baidu’s SERP.

Baidu Box Computing

Baidu’s box computing will:

Change Baidu to a user-generated content site, besides a Chinese search engine.
Increase Chinese Internet users’ time spending on Baidu’s search results pages by contributing and consuming user-generated content.
Eliminate/reduce search arbitraged websites’ opportunities through Baidu SEO and Baidu PPC.
Increase the number of Chinese web sites being audited through Baidu search open platform.

Baidu Box Computing Examples

New examples to Baidu Search Open Platform include:

Battle Tank Games – Select one of the battle tank game applications and play on Baidu’s search results page.

http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%CC%B9%BF%CB%B4%F3%D5%BD

The 3 Kingdoms – Watch one of the 3 Kingdoms video clips on Baidu’s search results page.

http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%C8%FD%B9%FA

Douban Radio Station – Listen to Douban music on Baidu’s search results page.

http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=%B6%B9%B0%EA%B5%E7%CC%A8&n=2

Baidu SEO

Box computing is only one way to get visibility on Baidu, conventional search engine optimization of your website for Baidu is still important.

To include your site in Baidu’s search engine index, submit site to Baidu.
To prevent some of your website’s content showing up on Baidu’s organic search results, block URLs with Baidu’s Robots.txt.

Advertising on Baidu

To advertise on Baidu and show up above both Baidu’s organic search results and Baidu Search Open Platform results:

Market your site through Baidu PPC Phoenix Nest.
Monitor your Baidu PPC’s performance through Baidu PPC conversion tracking.

Posted on September 6, 2010
Category: Baidu SEO | Leave a Comment

Baidu Brand Link Ad CTR

Advertising on Baidu through Baidu’s brand link ad ensures your trademark keywords rank above Baidu’s organic search results. Baidu’s brand link ad covers the brand or trademark keywords that can also be covered through Baidu PPC Phoenix Nest.

A typical Baidu brand link ad consists of several parts with 6 click-able Areas:

Which area of Baidu’s brand link ad will return the highest click-through-rate (CTR)? Take a guess!

Area A: Ad’s Title (text link)
Area B: 90×90-pixel banner (image link)
Area C: Embedded links (text link)
Area D: Promotional text links (text link)
Area E: Search snippet links (text link)
Area F: 175×300-pixel banner (image link)

Take a look at your trademark or brand keywords’ search traffic volume through Baidu keyword research tool.

Posted on September 4, 2010
Category: Baidu PPC | 1 Comment

Adwords Enhanced CPC

Google launched Adwords Enhanced CPC, a new bidding option to get more conversions and higher ROI with your maximum CPC bids.

How Adwords Enhanced CPC Works

Each time your ad shows up, Adwords Enhanced CPC automatically increases and/or reduces your maximum CPC bid to acquire more conversions at or below your current CPA.

To use Adwords Enhanced CPC, Adwords conversion tracking is required. Adwords analyzes your campaign’s historical conversion tracking data and determines your new maximum CPC bids.
A click may cost more than your pre-set maximum CPC bid, as Adwords Enhanced CPC can raise your Max CPC bids by up to 30%.
Adwords Enhanced CPC works on search targeting campaigns (Google’s domains and Google’s search network) and Adwords content targeting campaigns (Google’s content network).

Adwords Help provides official explanation on Enhanced CPC.

How Adwords Enhanced CPC Works with Other Adwords Tools

When Google Adwords Enhanced CPC is enabled, other Adwords tools will be incompatible for use:

Adwords Editor: Changes to your campaigns cannot be posted through AdWords Editor
Adwords Conversion Optimizer with Max CPA bidding
Adwords Conversion Optimizer Target CPA bidding

When Google Adwords Enhanced CPC is enabled, other Adwords tools can be used concurrently:

Adwords Content Network Demographic Bidding: The demographic bid multipliers you set will be applied in each auction
Advanced Ad Scheduling
Adwords Automatic Bidding: The CPC bid limit you set will be treated as a limit on the Enhanced CPC bid

Posted on August 23, 2010
Category: Adwords Tools | 1 Comment

Google Search Algorithm Update, One Domain, 3 or More Results

Google made a search algorithm update and can show 3 or more search results from the same domain within the top 10 search engine results page (SERP). Before this update, Google would only show up to 2 search results from the same domain on a single search result page.

One Domain, 3 or More Search Results

Google Operating System found that when your search query includes the brand name of a company/website, Google can return up to 7 web pages from that site within the first 10 search results.

Take UK’s BBC News site as an example.

Google search results on www.bbc.co.uk site

Four search results from www.bbc.co.uk appear within Google’s first 10 search results:

www.bbc.co.uk/
www.bbc.co.uk/news/
news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/default.stm
www.bbc.co.uk/sport
news.bbc.co.uk/weather/
www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

Google Search Engine Optimization Tips

To adapt to the new search algorithm update, review Google’s SEO tips:

Google SEO Reputation Management

Search Engine Land believes Google’s search algorithm change will make it easier for big brands to resolve SEO reputation management issues.

Posted on August 22, 2010
Category: Google SEO | Leave a Comment

Bing SEO, Bing Webmaster Tools, Yahoo SEO Update

Bing-Yahoo Search Alliance is set to happen between 2010 and 2012, in which Yahoo’s organic search results will be powered by Bing’s organic search results and Yahoo PPC ads will be replaced by Bing Adcenter PPC ads.

Bing Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer

Yahoo suggests webmasters focusing SEO in the US and Canada markets to start using Bing Webmaster Tools. Webmasters focusing in other regions should still use Yahoo Site Explorer for SEO.

To maximize your benefits to Bing search engine optimization:

Submit site to Bing, if your website isn’t already in Bing’s SEO results.
Figure out Bing’s search algorithm.

Yahoo SEO Update

Yahoo’s official words on Bing-Yahoo Search Alliance for Bing/Yahoo SEO:

Organic search listings on Yahoo! Search will start to be powered by Bing in the US and Canada (English) markets. In many parts of the world search results will continue to be powered by Yahoo!’s systems until the full transition is complete for all markets by early 2012.

SEO Book shows that Bing search engine has started to power Yahoo with SEO results.

Posted on August 22, 2010
Category: Bing SEO | Leave a Comment

Track Bing Adcenter PPC Keyword Conversions in Google Analytics

Microsoft Bing Adcenter PPC traffic (visits) and keyword conversions can be tracked through Google Analytics.

Set Up Adcenter Keywords’ Visit and Conversion Tracking

Google Analytics can track 5 campaign variables: source, medium, campaign, term and content. To set up Adcenter keyword visit and conversion tracking, append all 5 campaign variables with assigned values to each keyword destination URL:

Source (utm_source): e.g. bing
Medium (utm_medium): e.g. cpc
Campaign (utm_campaign): e.g. google analytics campaign
Term (utm_term): e.g. google analytics tips
Content (utm_content): e.g. version1

Generate your full tracking URLs through Google’s URL Builder Tool:

The URL Builder Tool automatically appends all the tracking variables to your Adcenter keyword URL:

http://www.gordonchoi.com/cat/google-analytics/?utm_source=bing
&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google%20analytics%20campaign
&utm_term=google%20analytics%20tips&utm_content=version1

Update Adcenter PPC Keyword Tracking

Append Google Analytics keyword tracking variables to each of your keyword’s destination URL (or the param1 parameter) through Microsoft Adcenter Desktop Tool, or Adcenter’s interface.

When adding multiple new keywords to Adcenter, use the “Add Keywords” box and ensure param1 consists of your destination URL with Google Analytics keyword tracking variables.

Review Bing PPC Traffic in Google Analytics Reports

In Google Analytics “All Traffic Sources” report, Bing Adcenter traffic will be reported as Bing / cpc under “Source/Medium”.

Adcenter Conversion Tracking

To keep Adcenter’s keyword conversion, click and cost data reports all in one place (Adcenter), track Bing PPC’s keyword conversions through Adcenter conversion tracking.

Posted on August 18, 2010
Category: Google Analytics | 2 Comments

Baidu Phoenix Nest PPC vs Google Adwords

China PPC 2010 categories China’s search engines into 1st tier, 2nd tier and 3rd tier search engines. In the Chinese Internet market, focus your marketing budgets and time on the 2 big Chinese PPC search engines:

Baidu Phoenix Nest and Google Adwords both employ an account structure that consists of 3 major levels:

Campaigns
Ad groups
Ads and keywords

Let’s compare Baidu Phoenix Nest PPC and Google Adwords on items that include:

Quality Score, Keyword Quality
Keyword Matching, Click Reports
Ad Text Optimization
Editing Tools
Conversion Optimization Tools, Auto-bidding Tools
Conversion Tracking
Web Analytics
Keyword Tools, Keyword Trends
Content Network Optimization
Ad Re-targeting

Quality Score, Keyword Quality

Adwords:

Google Adwords Quality Score: Quality Score is re-calculated every time your keyword is eligible to trigger an ad. Adwords Quality Score algorithm differs when it is affecting ads on Google and the Search Network or ads on the Content Network.
Google Includes Ad Position in Adwords Quality Score Calculation: As click through rate (CTR) is one of the most important factors in ranking ads, and normally the higher the ad ranks, the more clicks the ad gets, Google would normalize the positions and CTR of ads to give your ad a more precise Quality Score.
Landing Page Load Time to Affect Adwords Quality Score: Optimize your landing pages will improve the Quality Score of your Google Adwords campaigns’ performance.

Baidu Phoenix Nest:

Baidu PPC Keyword Quality: Ad ranking in Baidu’s new PPC system, Phoenix Nest, is very much based on keywords’ maximum cost-per-click (CPC) and keyword quality, after Baidu’s retires the old PPC system. Factors in keyword quality includes click through rate (CTR).

Keyword Matching, Click Reports

Adwords:

Adwords Search Query Report: Shows search queries that have led visitors to your website through your Adwords ads, and connects the clicks to conversions in most Adwords reports for all further keyword analysis.
Adwords Broad Match Keywords: A keyword match type that is used in conjunction with negative match keywords to maximize the number of clicks, discover new keywords, and reduce cost.
Adwords Negative Keywords: A keyword match type to reduce cost by excluding irrelevant clicks. You can use negative keywords as negative broad, negative phrase or negative exact in your campaigns or ad groups.
Adwords Separates Statistics for Google and Search Partners: Google reveals the origins of clicks you have received by separately reporting clicks of Google search and clicks of Search Network (Google’s search partners)

Baidu Phoenix Nest:

Baidu PPC Search Queries: Shows search queries that have led visitors to your website through your Baidu PPC ads, but does not connect the clicks to conversions for any further keyword analysis.
A basic negative keyword matching can be applied to Baidu Phoenix Nest campaigns.

Ad Text Optimization

Adwords:

Adwords Dynamic Keyword Insertion: DKI helps you automate ad text creation, allows you to minimize the time you spend manually creating and managing your ad groups, ensures your ads are relevant and improves your ads’ click through rates (CTR).
Adwords Trademark Keywords: Google’s trademark policies are applied on ads and keywords, and differ from country to country. If your competitors have infringed your company’s trademarked “terms” on Adwords, file complaints through Google’s online trademark complaint procedure.

Baidu Phoenix Nest:

Dynamic keyword insertion can be applied to any ad text.
Contact Baidu’s account management team to file protection for your trademarked “terms”.

PPC Editing Tools

Adwords:

Adwords Editor: When you have a large number of Adwords campaigns, ad groups, ads and/or keywords, use Google Adwords Editor to download your account, update your campaigns, ad groups, ads and/or keywords offline, and then upload your changes to your Adwords account. Adwords Editor shows Quality Score of your keywords and is available in almost 40 languages. The tools includes keyword opportunities tool and keyword grouper.

Baidu Phoenix Nest:

Baidu PPC Editor: A basic editor that allows you to create/edit campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords offline and then post changes to Baidu Phoenix Nest.

Conversion Optimization Tools, Auto-bidding Tools

Adwords:

Adwords Conversion Optimizer Tips and Adwords Conversion Optimizer Review: An optimization algorithm that manages your keywords’ cost-per-click (CPC) bids by keeping the cost of each conversion below the maximum cost-per-acquisition (CPA) you specify, based on your Adwords campaigns’ historical conversion data.
Adwords Conversion Optimizer Target CPA Bidding: Specify the average amount (or actual cost) you will pay for a conversion and Targeting CPA bidding will automate your keywords’ cost-per-click (CPC) bids.
Google Adwords Bid Simulator: Get estimation of cost, clicks and impressions before setting your keyword’s maximum cost-per-click (CPC). Adwords Bid Simulator’s prediction is based on your keywords’ bids and Quality Score, the keyword bids and keyword Quality Score of your competitors, historical search volume of Google.com and Google’s Search Network of your keywords, and historical click volume of your keywords.

Baidu Phoenix Nest:

Baidu offers no tool for your campaigns’ conversion optimization or keywords’ cost-per-click (CPC) auto-bidding.

Conversion Tracking

Adwords:

Adwords Conversion Tracking: Track Adwords keyword / ad group performance/conversion for both search-targeted and content-targeted campaigns by inserting a conversion tracking code snippet onto your website’s confirmation / thank you page. Adwords conversion tracking enables you to track purchases/sales, leads, sign-ups, and/or views of a key page as conversions with or without a value assigned to your conversions. Each Adwords conversion has a cookie period of 30 days and is reflected in most Adwords reports.

Baidu Phoenix Nest:

Baidu PPC Conversion Tracking: A basic tool that offers multiple conversion goal tracking. All you need is to insert a conversion tracking code snippet onto your website’s confirmation / thank you page.

Web Analytics

Adwords:

Google Analytics: The world’s most widely-used, free web analytics tool that gives you reports on your site’s traffic data. Google Analytics can be set up in many customized ways to support your websites’ different tracking requirements.
If you run campaigns on multiple Chinese PPC search engines, track PPC conversions in Google Analytics.
Import Google Analytics goal data into Adwords if you are not using Adwords conversion tracking.

Baidu Phoenix Nest:

Baidu Analytics: A basic, free web analytics tool that offers traffic data reports for your Chinese website. Baidu’s Analytics interface is only available in Chinese language.

Keyword Tools, Keyword Trends

Adwords:

Google Keyword Tool: Offers search volume keyword data of the previous month, average search volume of the past 12 months, and advertiser competitions on the keywords.
Google Search-based Keyword Tool: Get new keyword suggestions based on the actual search queries on Google and matched to specific web pages of your website, that are not currently in your Google Adwords account.
Google Insights for Search: Discover keyword trends of your website’s industry based on geographical regions, and spot your competitors’ brand strength.
Google Trends in Chinese: A simple version of Google’s Insight for Search, in Chinese.

Baidu Phoenix Nest:

Baidu Keyword Research Tools: Generate keywords from a “core keyword” and/or from a URL that you enter. Download the list of suggested keywords and/or add the new keywords to your Baidu campaigns.
Google Trends vs Baidu Index: Discover Chinese search trends that users typed into Baidu.

Content Network Optimization

Adwords:

Adwords Content Targeting Optimization: Google enables you to manage both search network ads and content network ads in one system, Adwords. Optimize your content targeted campaigns using placement report, conversion targeting tool, and site exclusion tool.
Google Adwords’ matching takes your entire ad group of keywords and match semantically and thematically to Google’s content network sites. You can further improve the relevance of your targeting sites by applying Google content network site exclusion. Restructuring will expand the “reach” of your content-targeted campaigns.
Adwords Placement Performance Report for Google Content Network: Reveals the referring sites’ URLs that have sent clicks to your Google content network.
Google Content Network Performance Trends: This Google whitepaper reveals content network makes up of 19.6% conversions of Adwords, CPA is 2.6% lower than the search network, and clicks are 28% less expensive than the search network.
Google Adwords Display Ad Builder: Set up your display ads on Google’s content network with pre-designed display/image ad templates.

Baidu Phoenix Nest:

Baidu Union: Baidu content network’s ad matching technique is still at a pre-mature stage as it can only match keyword by keyword from your campaigns to a site within Baidu’s content network. This often causes your ads appearing on irrelevant content sites and can cause extremely low conversion rates for the budget you have spent through Baidu Union.
To expand your campaigns’ reach in Baidu’s content network, the only option is to increase cost-per-click (CPC) which will directly increase your budget.

Ad Re-targeting

Adwords:

Adwords Remarketing, Retargeting to Google Content Network: Adwords Remarketing enables Google showing ads to visitors who previously visited your site but did not convert, this time through ads on Google’s Content Network.

Baidu Phoenix Nest:

Baidu has not officially launched any retargeting tools for ads.

Posted on August 9, 2010
Category: China PPC | 2 Comments

Baidu PPC Search Queries

If you are advertising on Baidu through Baidu PPC Phoenix Nest, Baidu offers you the search query report.

Baidu’s search query report shows search queries that have led visitors to your website through your Baidu PPC ads. The search query report sorts by date and provides metrics:

Search query
Impression
Account name
Campaign
Ad group
Ad title
Ad description line 1
Ad description line 2
Display URL

Baidu’s search query report is another source to find new keywords besides Baidu keyword research tool.

Take Actions from Baidu Search Queries

Keyword conversion data that you can capture through Baidu PPC conversion tracking is not currently available in Baidu’s search query report. However, by reviewing the meaning of the search queries, you can split all the search queries into 2 categories:

Relevant search queries to your site: Add the relevant search queries as new keywords to your campaigns / ad groups.
Irrelevant search queries to your site: Add the irrelevant search queries as negative keywords to your campaigns / ad groups.

Baidu’s Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are added as either exact match negative keywords or broad match negative keywords.