Breadcrumb Navigation

Breadcrumb navigation should be considered in Google SEO, though will not increase Google PageRank of your site. Google displays breadcrumbs as websites’ hierarchies in search results, if you use breadcrumbs on your web pages.

To make Google recognize your website’s breadcrumb navigation, place the breadcrumb trails closer to the top of your web page’s source code.

What is Breadcrumb Navigation?

Breadcrumb navigation consists of a one-line navigational text links that indicates the site visitor’s current page location within the website’s hierarchy. Breadcrumbs usually appear close to the top of a web page and serves the purpose to optimize site usability.

Breadcrumb navigation is sometimes called breadcrumb trails.

When to Use Breadcrumb Navigation

Site Usability Expert Jakob Nielsen defines site navigation into 2 categories:

Primary navigation: primary site navigation menus and site search box
Secondary navigation: breadcrumbs and html sitemaps

Breadcrumbs use a single line of text to show a page’s location in the site hierarchy. While secondary, this navigation technique is increasingly beneficial to users.

Good breadcrumb navigation should:

Display a visitor’s current location relative to the higher-level web pages of the site.
Allow one-click access to the higher-level web pages to prevent visitors from getting lost after running site searches. This reduces your site’s bounce rate.
Take up as little space as possible on the web page.

How to Design Breadcrumb Navigation

Jakob Nielsen explains the design of breadcrumbs must:

Be a horizontal line.
Progress from the highest level to the lowest, one step at a time.
Start with the homepage and end with the current web page.
Have a short text link for each level except for the current page.
Breadcrumbs should show the site hierarchy, not the visitor’s history.
Have a one-character separator between the levels. The optimal breadcrumb separator to use between levels is > (the “forward arrow” or “greater-than symbol”).

Other Tips on Breadcrumb Navigation

Consider the use of breadcrumb navigation for usability and SEO:

Breadcrumbs In Web Design: Examples and Best Practices – Smashing Magazine explains the definition of breadcrumbs, the types of breadcrumbs (location-based, attribute-based, and path-based), the benefits of using breadcrumbs, mistakes in breadcrumb trail implementation, and breadcrumb navigation design considerations, followed by a breadcrumb navigation showcase.
Breadcrumb Navigation Examined: Best Practices and Examples – Hongkiat offers the breadcrumb best practices, followed by a breadcrumb navigation showcase.
Breadcrumb Navigation: Further Investigation of Usage – Wichita.edu’s research paper shows breadcrumb trails are used only 6% of the time during visitors’ site navigation.
Breadcrumb Navigation Research Studies – Usability.gov’s research proved that frequently returning visitors get the most advantage of breadcrumb navigation and the use of breadcrumbs allow visitors to complete the necessary navigation faster.
How Breadcrumb Works – Kelikuru believes breadcrumbs work best when hierarchical structure is in good categorization, but can be an issue to keep track of the trail after visitors run keyword searches on the site.

Posted on August 3, 2010
Category: B2C Websites | Leave a Comment

Bing Keyword Tools

Microsoft’s Bing search engine optimization requires:

keyword research based on Bing’s traffic and Bing’s user intent
Understanding of Bing search algorithm
Identifying your website’s SEO issues through Bing Webmaster Tools and resolving the SEO issues.

Microsoft Adcenter Labs

For Bing SEO, Microsoft Adcenter Labs offers keyword research tools including Keyword Forecast, Keyword Group Detection, Keyword Mutation Detection, Search Funnels, and Entity Association Graph.

Keyword Forecast

The Keyword Forecast tool enables you to review historical search volume (or impression count) trends and demographic distributions of keywords.

Keyword Group Detection

The Keyword Group Detection tool returns groups of keywords that are related to your search queries.

Keyword Mutation Detection

The Keyword Mutation Detection tool shows common misspellings and/or alternative spellings to frequent search queries.

Search Funnels

The Search Funnels tool shows search queries in the sequences on how Bing’s searchers do searches and presents the search sequences visually.

For example, the Search Funnels tool shows how many people search for Walmart and then search for Target, Kmart, Bestbuy, Sears and eBay.

Entity Association Graph

The Entity Association Graph is a graphic view of related keywords around the core keyword (at the center of the graph). This tool is similar to Google’s Wonder Wheel tool.

Adcenter Keyword Suggestion Tool

Microsoft Adcenter offers a built-in keyword suggestion tool through Adcenter’s account interface.

Adcenter’s keyword suggestion tool provides new keyword suggestions based on “core keywords” or “website URLs”.

Other Keyword Research Tools

Alternative keyword research tools that are offered by other search engines:

Search engine optimization for Chinese websites should consider Chinese keyword research tools:

Posted on July 31, 2010
Category: Bing SEO | 1 Comment

Adcenter Conversion Tracking

The new Bing-Yahoo Search Alliance will require Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers to move to Bing’s PPC platform, Adcenter, manage PPC campaigns through Adcenter Desktop Tool, and track Bing PPC’s performance through Adcenter Conversion Tracking tool.

Measure with Adcenter Conversion Tracking Tool

Measure your Bing PPC’s marketing spend through Adcenter conversion tracking tool, which can identify:

The ad copy that works best to achieve your campaign goals.
The keywords that acquire most new customers to your website.

Set Up Adcenter Conversion Tracking

Turn on Adcenter conversion tracking feature. Pick up the conversion tracking code snippet (http://, if you are to track conversions on a non-secure page; https://, if you are to track conversions on a secure page).

Adcenter Conversion Tracking Code Snippet Example

Select one of the Adcenter conversion tracking options:

Count one conversion per click: This conversion tracking option prevents double counting of your website’s conversions, but may under-count.
Count one conversion per unique URL: This conversion tracking option requires more than inserting Adcenter’s conversion tracking code snippet onto your purchase confirmation page / thank you page and allows you to track each conversion through a unique URL.
Count all conversions: This conversion tracking option may include duplicate conversions when visitors refresh your site’s purchase confirmation / thank you page.

Define your “conversion confirmation page”. Your conversion confirmation page (or thank you page) will be:

The lead confirmation page, if your website offers a form for visitors to fill in information.
The purchase confirmation page, if your website sells products to visitors with a payment mechanism.

Insert Adcenter’s conversion tracking code snippet onto your site’s conversion confirmation page.

Review Adcenter Conversion Reports

Turn on conversion tracking in the “Reports tab” in Adcenter’s user interface, and view conversions and conversion rates (conversions / click) through Adcenter reports:

Account performance report
Campaign performance report
Ad group performance report
Keyword performance report

To optimize your Bing PPC’s marketing budget, identify the keywords that convert the most and performance the best (i.e. cost-per-acquisition) through keyword performance report, and raise or reduce keyword bids accordingly.

Disable Adcenter Conversion Tracking

Adcenter conversion tracking is enabled or disabled per campaign. If you no longer need Adcenter conversion tracking for a campaign, turn off Adcenter conversion tracking for only that campaign in “campaign settings”.

If you want to stop conversion tracking for your entire Adcenter account, remove the conversion tracking code snippet from all your conversion confirmation pages, and turn off Adcenter conversion tracking for for each campaign in “campaign settings”.

Conversion Discrepancies to Google Analytics

If you are using both Google Analytics PPC conversion tracking and Adcenter conversion tracking tool simultaneously, the number of conversions in Adcenter reports may not match those in Google Analytics reports.

If someone clicks your ad on Bing but your site is unavailable, AdCenter reports the click but Google Analytics does not record the visit.
Adcenter counts the click when someone clicks your ad on Bing and then stops his/her Internet browser before your web page’s Google Analytics tracking code snippet is loaded.
Google Analytics does not recognize the visit from Bing PPC ad as a keyword’s URL tagging is missing, but Adcenter counts the click.
Adcenter automatically filters invalid clicks (due to click fraud), but Google Analytics reports all visits to your site.

Review Google Analytics metrics.

Best Practices to Adcenter Conversion Tracking

Microsoft Adcenter’s learning center offers:

The best practices for using Adcenter conversion tracking.
The How-to-guide (.pdf) for setting up different Adcenter conversion tracking options.

Posted on July 27, 2010
Category: Adcenter | 1 Comment

Increase Google Pagerank

PageRank is Google’s SEO ranking algorithm that reflects Google’s view of the importance of web pages.

Google’s PageRank

Important web pages in Google’s index are:

Assigned higher PageRank
More likely to rank higher in Google’s search engine results pages (SERP)

Google’s PageRank considers the importance of each web page (in Google’s index) that passes link juice (or casts a vote).

When a linked web page that receives two links, one from a more important web page and the other from a less important web page, the link juice from the more important page is considered to be a higher value vote to the linked page.
Based on the entire web’s link structures, Google uses over 200 signals/factors including the PageRank algorithm to identify which web pages are most important. Then Google combines web pages’ importance, page-based text matching techniques and search query specific relevance to rank web pages in SERP.

Backlinks (or Inbound Links)

To increase your website’s Google PageRank, create content for your visitors and get quality links to your site.

To create relevant content for your visitors, figure out their issues or problems and offer various solutions on continuous bases. This helps your site to acquire backlinks through natural ways:

Visitors may appreciate your solutions to their issues and link to your content.
The links, in the long run, increase your site’s visibility and credibility/reputation in your niche/industry.
When your site gain more lasting, merit-based links and loyal followers, more direct traffic will come through “word of mouth”.

To acquire relevant inbound links for your site, you can:

Share your site’s content through Google Buzz, Twitter and other social media tools so that other sites can talk about your website’s content, and visitors to those other sites can find and re-share your content.
Submit your site to Dmoz (Open Directory Project) and other reputable web directories.

When acquiring backlinks to your site, avoid:

Participating in excessive link exchanging.
Linking to web spammers or bad web neighborhoods.
Selling or buying links, for example, paid links.

Website’s Link Architecture

To maximize your site’s Google Pagerank, make it easy for Google’s spider (GoogleBot) to crawl all your web pages. You should improve your site’s internal link architecture and allow link juice of all web pages to flow within your entire site. Consider site usability when designing your site’s link architecture:

From your site’s home page, allow visitors to navigate easily to other sub-/child- pages of your site, without using site search.
From any page (non-homepage) on your site, allow visitors to navigate easily to homepage and to other pages of your site, without using site search.
Use text-based links as your site’s navigation links.
Use breadcrumb navigation on your sub-/child- pages.

Anchor Text, PageRank Sculpting, Nofollow Attribute

Optimize your web pages’ Google PageRank by writing descriptive and relevant anchor text in your internal links.

Anchor text, the clickable words in a link, is one of the important signals for Google to determine your web page’s SEO ranking for specific keywords. For site usability, descriptive anchor text helps visitors to better understand your content.
Run anchor text analysis through this Backlink Checker tool.

PageRank sculpting could influence the true value of Google’s PageRank of an individual web page.

Webmasters insert nofollow attribute within internal links of a site to sculpt individual web pages’ Google PageRank.
Google’s search algorithm changes were made for counting outbound links from a web page and have minimized the effectiveness of Page Rank Sculpting.

How to Check Google PageRank?

Check your site’s Google Page Rank through one of the tools:

Other SEO Experts on PageRank

Google PageRank explained by other search engine optimization experts:

What Is Google PageRank? A Guide For Searchers and Webmasters – Search Engine Land
How PageRank Works & Why the Original PR Formula May be Flawed – SEOMoz

PageRank Updates

Matt Cutts reported on Google’s PageRank updates in the past:

What’s an Update? (September 8, 2005)
Fall Weather Forecast (October 11, 2006)
More Info on Updates (October 17, 2005)
More Weather Reporting (October 19, 2005)
Jagger3 Update (November 5, 2005)
Feedback on Bigdaddy Data Center (January 4, 2006)
Bigdaddy progress update (February 1, 2006)
Bigdaddy status update: almost there (March 22, 2006)
Q & A thread (March 27, 2006)
More Info on Pagerank (October 2, 2006)
Explaining algorithm updates and data refreshes (December 23, 2006)
New Toolbar PageRanks coming (July 24, 2008)
Last Toolbar PageRank update of 2008 (December 31, 2008)

Posted on July 24, 2010
Category: Google SEO | 2 Comments

Bing-Yahoo Search Alliance Update

Microsoft and Yahoo have given an update about the Bing-Yahoo search platform merge by putting up a video on the Search Alliance site.

Bing Organic Search Algorithm, Bing Paid Search Algorithm

The Bing search algorithm that Microsoft manages will power both Yahoo and Bing after the search platform merge.

Microsoft will manage the technology platforms that deliver the algorithmic (powered by Bing) and paid (powered by adCenter) search results.

In paid search, Bing/Yahoo search advertisers will manage only one platform, Microsoft Adcenter, where Yahoo Search Marketing will be shut down.

Yahoo and Microsoft will each provide customer support to different advertiser segments: Yahoo’s sales team will exclusively support high volume advertisers, SEO and SEM agencies, and resellers and their clients. Microsoft will support self-service advertisers. In addition, Microsoft adCenter will be the platform for all search campaigns.

Microsoft AdExcellence

Bing Adcenter provides a learning center program, Microsoft AdExcellence, and Microsoft Adcenter Desktop tool for paid search advertisers.

Yahoo’s US, Canada, International Advertisers

The Bing-Yahoo merge is expected to complete in late 2010 or early 2011 for advertisers in the US and Canada. Yahoo will complete all global advertisers’ transitions by 2012.

US Search Market Share

The Bing-Yahoo search alliance increases Bing’s and Yahoo’s US search market share to 31.6% (Bing 12.7% + Yahoo 18.9%) which becomes closer to Google’s 62.6%, according to ComScore’s US search market share report of June 2010.

Yahoo to Exit Search

In 2008, Yahoo showed signs of quitting search by closing the Yahoo Search Ambassador program.

Yahoo tried to sign a search deal with Google, but subsequently failed.

Posted on July 20, 2010
Category: Adcenter | 2 Comments

2010 FIFA World Cup Matches in Photos

The progress of 2010 FIFA has been recorded by:

Match photos of 30 were selected from the official FIFA website’s match gallery to pay tribute to 2010 FIFA World Cup held in South Africa. For the first time the World Cup was held on Africa soil and Spain, the favorite of the tournament, became the first European team to win the FIFA World Cup outside of Europe.

The Final: Spain 1-0 Netherlands

The World Cup Final match between Spain and Netherlands was played at the Soccer City Stadium of Johannesburg.

World Cup Final Between Spain and Netherlands

The two national teams went for the biggest glory of football – the World Cup Trophy.

Netherlands’ Talisman Arjen Robben was on an one-on-one with Spain’s goalkeeper Iker Casillas in the World Cup Final watch, but Robben’s shot was saved.

Robben's One-on-one Shot Saved by Casillas

Robben reacted with his disappointment after failing to put the Dutch in front.

Spain’s Fabregas who provided the assisting pass to Iniesta’s winning goal, previously had a shot at goal but was saved by Netherland’s goalkeeper Stekelenburg.

The Spanish goalscorer Iniesta expressed his joy after the victory.

Iker Casillas reacted after the final whistle.

Spain lifted 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Spain's Celebration for Lifting the World Cup

Semi-final: Netherlands 3-2 Uruguay

Dutch captain Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s reaction with the Netherlands team after he scored a long range goal.

van Bronckhorst Celebrated Goal with Team

Uruguay’s Forlan equalised with a long range shot against Netherlands.

Sneijder scored Netherlands’ second goal when his shot was deflected off Uruguay’s Pereira and hit the back of the net.

Robben scored against Uruguay with his header and made the scoreline 3-1.

Robben’s shot was saved by Uruguay’s goalkeeper Muslera.

Quarter-final: Germany 4-0 Argentina

Bastian Schweinsteiger and Carlos Tevez battled for the ball in a quarter final match between Germany and Argentina.

Schweinsteiger and Tevez Battle for Ball

Germany’s young player Thomas Mueller ran with the ball.

Thomas Mueller tried to chase down Argentina’s Lionel Messi.

Miroslav Klose scored Germany’s second goal against Argentina when he tapped the ball into the empty net.

Quarter-final: Netherlands 2-1 Brazil

Robinho scored the opening goal of the match between Brazil and Netherlands, after receiving a pass from Felipe Melo.

Dutch captain Giovanni van Bronckhorst tackled Brazil’s Fabiano.

Brazil’s Robinho tried to hold off Nigel De Jong’s challenge.

Dutch goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg made a diving save from a Kaka shot.

Brazil’s Dani Alves took a free-kick against Netherlands.

Netherlands’ Wesley Sneijder scored the match winning header against Brazil.

Sneijder celebrated after scoring his header.

Sneijder Celebrated Match Winning Header

Quarter-final: Uruguay 1-1 Ghana (Uruguay won on penalty shoot-out)

Forlan evaded challenges from Ghana’s Sulley Muntari.

Uruguayan talisman Diego Forlan made the scoreline 1-1 with his free-kick.

Forlan and his teammates reacted when Uruguay beat Ghana on penalty shoot-out and advanced to the semi-finals.

Round of 16: Ghana 2-1 USA

Landon Donovan scored from the penalty spot to equalise for the USA.

Asamoah Gyan held off challenges from USA’s defenders to score the match winning goal for Ghana.

Gyan shot and scored to win the round of 16 match.

Posted on July 18, 2010
Category: FIFA World Cup | Leave a Comment

2010 FIFA World Cup Final, Scores, FIFA Golden Ball, Golden Boot

South Africa’s 2010 FIFA World Cup started with Google’s, Baidu’s and Bing’s logo changes. Google presented the logo for the World Cup Final Match between Spain and Netherlands.

A tournament with a total of 145 goals scored that averages 2.27 goals per match, you could Google all the live scores of 2010 FIFA World Cup’s matches. Scores from final, semi-finals, quarter-finals, round of 16, to group stage matches, individual awards and All-Star team were all announced.

Final, Third-Place and Quarter Final Match Scores

Final: Spain 1-0 Netherlands – A match that was decided by a 106th-minute goal from Iniesta in which Spain was crowned the world champion.
Third-place: Germany 3-2 Uruguay – Uruguay’s Forlan and Germany’s Mueller both went on to win individual FIFA awards after a “demo” 3rd-place match.
Semi Finals 1: Netherlands 3-2 Uruguay – van Bronckhorst, Sneijder and Robben all scored to send Holland through to the final and end Uruguay’s surprising run in the tournament.
Semi Finals 2: Spain 1-0 Germany – Spain’s possession football proved to be too strong for the young German team. Captain Puyol’s header sent Spain through to the final.

Quarter Final Scores, Round of 16 Scores and Group Stage Scores

2010 FIFA’s Golden Ball and Golden Boot

2010 FIFA World Cup’s individual awards include Golden Ball (best performed footballer) and Golden Boot (top scorer).

The Golden Ball winner was Uruguay’s Diego Forlan. Forlan’s overall performance was influential to Uruguay’s surprise advancement to the last four and on the way he scored 5 goals.

The Golden Boot was rewarded to Germany’s Thomas Mueller in which he scored 5 goals and assisted his German teammates for 3 other goals. Thomas Mueller, Diego Forlan, Wesley Sneijder and David Villa were all level on goal scored (5 each).

2010 FIFA’s All-Star Team

2010 FIFA World Cup’s All-Star team of 11 football players were elected and consists of 6 Spanish, 2 German, 1 Brazilian, 1 Dutch, 1 Uruguayan and 1 Spanish coach:

Goalkeeper: Spain’s Iker Casillas
Defenders: Germany’s Philipp Lahm, Brazil’s Maicon, Spain’s Carles Puyol and Sergio Ramos
Midfielders: Netherlands’ Wesley Sneijder, Germany’s Bastian Schweinsteiger, Spain’s Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez
Strikers: Spain’s David Villa, Uruguay’s Diego Forlan
Coach: Spain’s Vicente Del Bosque

2010 FIFA’s 32 Teams

The goals scored and goals against statistics of the 32 national football teams:

Algeria: 0 goals scored, 2 goals conceded
Argentina: 10 goals scored, 6 goals conceded
Australia: 3 goals scored, 6 goals conceded
Brazil: 9 goals scored, 4 goals conceded
Cameroon: 2 goals scored, 5 goals conceded
Chile: 3 goals scored, 5 goals conceded
Cote d’Ivoire: 4 goals scored, 3 goals conceded
Denmark: 3 goals scored, 6 goals conceded
England: 3 goals scored, 5 goals conceded
France: 1 goals scored, 4 goals conceded
Germany: 16 goals scored, 5 goals conceded
Ghana: 5 goals scored, 4 goals conceded
Greece: 2 goals scored, 5 goals conceded
Honduras: 0 goals scored, 3 goals conceded
Italy: 4 goals scored, 5 goals conceded
Japan: 4 goals scored, 2 goals conceded
Mexico: 4 goals scored, 5 goals conceded
Netherlands: 12 goals scored, 6 goals conceded
New Zealand: 2 goals scored, 2 goals conceded
Nigeria: 3 goals scored, 5 goals conceded
North Korea: 1 goals scored, 12 goals conceded
Paraguay: 3 goals scored, 2 goals conceded
Portugual: 7 goals scored, 1 goals conceded
Serbia: 2 goals scored, 3 goals conceded
Slovakia: 5 goals scored, 7 goals conceded
Slovenia: 3 goals scored, 3 goals conceded
South Africa: 3 goals scored, 5 goals conceded
South Korea: 6 goals scored, 8 goals conceded
Spain: 8 goals scored, 2 goals conceded
Switzerland: 1 goals scored, 1 goals conceded
Uruguay: 11 goals scored, 8 goals conceded
USA: 5 goals scored, 5 goals conceded

FIFA has summarized the stories of the 32 teams.

2010 FIFA’s Quotes

Spain’s and Barcelona’s creative midfielder Andres Iniesta who scored the extra-time goal for Spain in 2010 FIFA World Cup Final match against Holland expressed his joy after scoring the goal:

“Every situation has its feelings. The joy I felt that day against Chelsea was the maximum, the same as the other day (World Cup Final), maximum joy. But there are only a few teams lucky enough to win the World Cup and it’s the biggest tournament there is.”

Xavi Hernandez, Spain’s and Barcelona’s playmaker explained after winning the World Cup:

“Now we have the trophy it’s difficult to put into words, it’s such an amazing feeling to have the trophy in my arms.”

Vicente del Bosque, Spain coach said after winning the World Cup:

“This is an unforgettable moment. We have to congratulate our rivals because they made it very difficult for us. The Final was all about attacking football and both sides tried to play the game the way it should be played. There’s a great sense of happiness in the dressing room right now. It’s hard to put it all into words and the way the players feel goes way beyond words.”

Arjen Robben, Dutch talisman and winger who had an one-on-one with Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas but saw his shot saved explained the “miss” has been haunting him:

“On a day like today, I think about it a lot. It hurts to miss such a chance.”

Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Netherlands captain expressed his disappointment for not winning the World Cup:

“We’ve come so close, and that’s the biggest disappointment. If we’d taken one of our chances, we might well have gone on to win. But I’m still proud of this team.”

Bert van Marwijk, Netherlands coach said after losing the final to Spain:

“Obviously, we’re devastated by the result. We were down to ten men but almost made it to penalties. You have to say the better team won, but losing the World Cup Final is hard to take. Spain created far more chances, but Arjen Robben twice came within inches of scoring for us. If he had, I think we’d have been world champions.”

Uruguayan talisman Diego Forlan who was the fourth South Americans to be awarded 2010 FIFA’s Golden Ball after Diego Maradona in 1986, Romario in 1994 and Ronaldo in 1998, said:

“It’s as great as it is unexpected. I never even imagined something like this, nor did I have my sights set on it.”

Thomas Mueller, Germany’s and Bayern Munich’s striker who made his international debut in March 2010 and scored 5 goals to win the Golden Boot in South Africa said:

“This is just incredible for a newcomer to the World Cup. If anyone had told me I’d end on eight scorer points, I’d have said they were kidding me. It’s an honour of course, but at the end of the day, I’d rather have had the World Cup itself.”

Bora Milutinovic, Serbian football strategist who previously coached five different national teams at the World Cup Finals – Mexico on home soil in 1986, Costa Rica at Italy 1990, USA on home soil in 1994, Nigeria at France 1998 and China at Korea/Japan 2002, praised Ghana’s performance in 2010 FIFA:

“Id like to point out that they had a Serbian coach in Milovan Rajevac. He was able to adapt quickly and incorporate the talented youngsters that won the U-20 World Cup (in 2009). They did a great job, keeping one eye on the future, and only went out on penalties. It’s very good news for African football.”

Shakira, Colombian pop singer who performed at the opening and closing ceremonies of 2010 FIFA in South Africa commented about South Africans’ attitude to the World Cup:

“They’re amazing, they’re so joyful, expressive and affectionate.”

2010 FIFA’s Match Photos

Gathered 30 photos for 2010 FIFA World Cup matches.

Posted on July 17, 2010
Category: FIFA World Cup | 1 Comment

Baidu PPC Conversion Tracking

Advertising on Baidu requires you to track the performance (ROI) of your marketing budgets. Baidu PPC Phoenix Nest now offers conversion tracking tool through the “Tools” option:

Add Baidu PPC Conversion Tracking Goals

To set up Baidu PPC conversion tracking, add a new goal through the conversion tracking tool. Enter:

Your site’s URL
The goal’s name
The goal’s URL (for example, purchase confirmation page)
The URL matching (exact match or regular expression)

Add a New Baidu PPC Conversion Tracking Goal

Baidu PPC’s Conversion Tracking Tool’s Tracking Methods

Baidu PPC’s conversion tracking can track your website’s conversions through one of the two methods of your choice:

Auto-tagging: Baidu automatically appends the parameter “bdclkid =XXXXXX” to all your Baidu Phoenix Nest PPC URLs. For auto-tagging to work, your site must allow parameters in URLs.
Cookie Tracking: Baidu drops cookies to all the visitors to your website from your Baidu Phoenix Nest PPC URLs. For cookie tracking to correctly report conversions, visitors’ browsers must accept cookies, and visitors must not delete cookies from their browsers before conversions are made.

Baidu Conversion Tracking Code Snippet

Get the conversion tracking code snippet from your Baidu Phoenix Nest account and insert the code snippet within the open and close body tags of your purchase confirmation page / thank you page. An example of the conversion code snippet:

Baidu PPC Conversion Tracking Code Snippet

If you optimize your Baidu PPC campaigns for driving visitors to make “purchase” through your site, this code snippet’s purpose is to track the number of successful purchase on your site.

Stop Baidu PPC Conversion Tracking

Baidu PPC’s conversion tracking can be disabled in one of the two ways:

Stop tracking all types of conversions that you have created by completely disabling the conversion tracking tool.
Disable each conversion tracking goal that you have defined/created.

Alternatives to Baidu PPC’s Conversion Tracking

Consider Baidu Analytics and/or Google Analytics:

Baidu Analytics: If you aren’t using Google Analytics but need to monitor your Baidu SEO traffic and Baidu PPC traffic, set up and use Baidu Analytics in conjunction with Baidu PPC’s conversion tracking tool.
Google Analytics: If you are already monitoring web traffic of your site through Google Analytics and don’t want to insert additional codes (for example, Baidu PPC’s conversion tracking codes) into your purchase confirmation pages, Google Analytics PPC conversion tracking is an alternative option for tracking your website’s PPC conversions.

Trends to Conversion Tracking

Baidu’s launch of conversion tracking tool is no surprise as the PPC trends are becoming more performance-based. Several years ago, the big 3 search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing all have made conversion tracking available to their PPC platforms Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft Adcenter respectively:

Posted on July 7, 2010
Category: Baidu PPC | 1 Comment

Google.cn Links to Music Search, Translation Tool, Product Search

Google China’s Home Page www.Google.cn now offers direct links to Google Music Search, Google Translate and Google Product Search, which are Chinese versions of Google’s localized tools and services for Chinese users.

Google.cn New Homepage, Links to Music Search, Product Search, Translate

Most part of the landing page of Google.cn remains an image, except the three links to Google Music Search, Google Translate and Google Product Search.

Links to Music Search, Product Search, Translate

Less than a week ago, Google has stopped redirecting Google’s China web search home page Google.cn to Google.com.hk and has started returning users who visited www.Google.cn to Google China’s new home page, which did not offer any links to other Google services/tools:

For Google China users who prefer entering URLs directly through the address bars of Internet browsers, try G.cn and you will be redirected to www.Google.cn.

Posted on July 6, 2010
Category: Google China | Leave a Comment

FIFA 2010 World Cup Round of 16 Scores, Quarter Finals Scores, Semi Finals Preview

Find FIFA World Cup’s search trends on Google Insights for Search, which is a free tool similar to Google Trends. A search on “fifa” shows the search trends in the past in which “fifa” peaked at May/June 2006 and May/June 2010:

FIFA Search Trends on Google Insights for Search

Google Insights for Search also shows you:

Top searches to FIFA-related keywords
Rising searches to FIFA-related keywords
Regions that contributed the most FIFA-related keyword searches

FIFA Search Trends on Regional Distribution

Use SEM keyword research tools to discover more FIFA related keywords.

2010 FIFA’s Scores for Round of 16 Matches

Round of 16′s eight matches:

Uruguay 2-1 South Korea: Luis Suarez scored twice to help Uruguary defeating Korea Republic.
Ghana 2-1 USA: Asamoah Gyan scored within 120 minutes of play to take Ghana through to the quarter final.
Germany 4-1 England: The match between two traditional European football powers in which a young German football national team trashed Fabio Capello’s England. Germany’s Thomas Mueller scored twice, Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski each scored one goal.
Argentina 3-1 Mexico: Lionel Messi still hasn’t registered a goal of his own, but helped his country and Maradona’s Argentina to beat Mexico. Carlos Tevez scored twice, Gonzalo Higuain scored his fourth goal of the tournament.
Netherlands 2-1 Slovakia: Arjen Robben scored Holland’s first goal and Wesley Sneijder added a second.
Brazil 3-0 Chile: A battle between the two South American national teams, but Chile found Brazil too strong for them in which Brazil’s Juan, Luis Fabiano and Robinho each scored a goal.
Paraguay 5-3 Japan (Penalty shoot-out, Full-time 0-0): A goal-less draw in which Paraguay advanced by winning in the penalty shoot-out.
Spain 1-0 Portugal: Spain’s David Villa scored his fourth goal of the tournament and sent Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal back home.

2010 FIFA’s Scores for Quarter Final Matches

Quarter-final’s four matches:

Netherlands 2-1 Brazil: Wesley Sneijder scored twice and took the dutch to the last 4. Five-time World Cup champions Brazil were eliminated.
Uruguay 5-3 Ghana (Penalty shoot-out, Full-time 1-1): Sulley Muntari opened the score for Ghana, Diego Forlan equalized for Uruguay. Asamoah Gyan missed an extra-time penalty. The last African team in the tournament were eliminated.
Germany 4-0 Argentina: The battle between the European power and the South American power in which one goal each from Thomas Mueller and Arne Friedrich and two goals from Miroslav Klose helped Germany to trash Argentina.
Spain 1-0 Paraguay: David Villa put Spain through to the semi-final with his goal.

2010 FIFA’s Semi Final Football Matches

The goal and match statistics of South Africa 2010 FIFA World Cup’s teams of semi-finalists:

Netherlands:

Scored 9 goals, Conceded 3 goals
Group Stage: Netherlands 2-0 Denmark, Netherlands 1-0 Japan, Netherlands 2-1 Cameroon
Round of 16: Netherlands 2-1 Slovakia
Quarter Final: Netherlands 2-1 Brazil

Uruguay:

Scored 7 goals, Conceded 2 goals
Group Stage: Uruguay 0-0 France, Uruguay 3-0 South Africa, Uruguay 1-0 Mexico
Round of 16: Uruguay 2-1 South Korea
Quarter Final: Uruguay 5-3 Ghana (Full Time: 1-1, Penalty Shoot-out: 4-2)

Germany:

Scored 13 goals, Conceded 2 goals
Group Stage: Germany 4-0 Australia, Germany 0-1 Serbia, Germany 1-0 Ghana
Round of 16: Germany 4-1 England
Quarter Final: Germany 4-0 Argentina

Spain:

Scored 6 goals, Conceded 2 goals
Group Stage: Spain 0-1 Switzerland, Spain 2-0 Honduras, Spain 2-1 Chile
Round of 16: Spain 1-0 Portugal
Quarter Final: Spain 1-0 Paraguay

Schedules of the semi-finals:

Netherlands vs Uruguay – 6 June
Germany vs Spain – 7 June

Schedules of South Africa World Cup final and third-place play-off:

Third-place Play-off – 10 June
Final – 11 June

2010 FIFA World Cup’s Leading Scorers

The leading scorer chart of 2010 FIFA World Cup:

5 goals:

Spain’s David Villa

4 goals:

Germany’s Thomas Mueller and Miroslav Klose
Netherland’s Wesley Sneijder
Slovakia’s Robert Vittek
Argentina’s Gonzalo Higuain

3 goals:

Uruguay’s Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez
Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan
USA’s Landon Donavan
Brazil’s Luis Fabiano

David Villa, Thomas Mueller, Miroslav Klose, Wesley Sneijder, Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez are the football players who are still in the race of 2010 FIFA’s Golden Boat, as the others’ national football teams have been eliminated from the tournament.

2010 FIFA World Cup Players’ Photos

Brazil’s Luis Fabiano scored 3 times and Robinho scored twice, but unfortunately Brazil were eliminated by Netherlands.

Holland’s Arjen Robben started in only two matches but added significant impact for Netherlands’ attacking force.

Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan scored 3 goals in the tournament and helped Ghana to advance into the quarter finals, which is one of the best achievement of African teams. The other FIFA quarter finalists from Africa were Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal in 2002.