Posted February 10, 2010 by admin under under
Pay-Per-ClickAfter a seven-week-long hiatus, Google is now hosting content from the Associated Press again. The two have had a deal in place in the past, but AP content quietly went missing from Google, and that very fact became a topic of wide discussion last week. Now the deal appears to be renewed to some uncertain extent.
The statement Google has given on the matter says, "We have a licensing agreement with the Associated Press that permits us to host its content on Google properties such as Google News. The licensing agreement is the subject of ongoing discussion so we won’t be commenting further at this time."
An AP spokesman is quoted as saying, "We have nothing to add to Google’s statement."
If you’ve followed the online news industry much, we probably don’t have to tell you that Google and the AP have had a somewhat complicated, if not rocky relationship.
Last week, Yahoo reached its own deal with the AP. Financial terms of that agreement were not disclosed.
This week, the AP promoted editor and correspondent Ted Anthony to Assistant Managing Editor. He is said to have been involved in the development of the news organization’s social media practices.
Have You Read This?
> Mark Cuban Takes Murdoch-esque Stance on Google
> News Corp. Blocks Content from News Aggregation Site
> Do You Have the "Right" to Link?
> Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"
> Murdoch’s War with the Aggregators
> Is it Really Crazy to Block Google?
Tags: Aggregation, AP, Associated Press, content, Correspondent, deal, Extent, Google, Google News, Gt News, Hiatus, Licensing Agreement, Managing Editor, Mark Cuban, Murdoch, Murdoch-esque Stance, Nbsp, News, News Corp, News Organization, Online News, Publishers, Read, Related Articles, Review and Story, Rocky Relationship, Search, Search Engines, Spokesman, Ted Anthony, week
Posted February 8, 2010 by admin under under
Pay-Per-ClickUpdate 2: Google has now reportedly lowered the $350 fee to $150, and launched a support line for the phone at 888-48-NEXUS.
Update: The FCC has sent letters regarding early termination fees to Google, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. In its letter to Google, it says:
…where new options may subject consumers to substantial ETFs, potentially from more than one entity, the Commission has a special interest in ensuring that consumers have a clear and complete understanding of the rates, terms, and conditions on which the communications services are being offered and the rationale for those rates, terms, and conditions. The combination of ETFs from Google and T-Mobile for the Nexus One is also unique among the four major national carriers. Consumers have been surprised by this policy and by its financial impact. Please let us know your rationale(s) for these combined fees, and whether you have coordinated or will coordinate on these fees and on the disclosure of their combined effect.
Original Article: Google made big waves in the mobile industry early in the year, and the effects of those waves are being felt quite hard by some users. The Nexus One’s release has gotten off to kind of a rocky start.
The issues plaguing customers of the much-anticipated Google phone have been widely publicized. Most of the gripes have dealt with Google’s customer service (or lack thereof) for the device, and trouble with 3G connections. More recently, however, complaints of outrageous early termination fees have popped up.
The trouble for users is that if they got the Nexus One with a two-year contract from T-Mobile, they end up having to pay about $550 to terminate early. The thing is, they have to pay T-Mobile’s regular fee, but they also have to pay Google a fee. Needless to say, that has caught some people off guard.
Google’s fee is a $350 "Equipment Recovery Fee". It applies to customers who cancel their contracts within the first 120 days.
According to Niraj Sheth with the Wall Street Journal’s Digits Blog, "A Google spokeswoman said in a statement that the fee is "a way for the company to recoup the subsidy it gives to contract customers."
"’This is standard practice for third-party resellers of T-Mobile and other operators,’ she said. A T-Mobile spokesman said that the carrier’s early termination fee is standard for its customers on contract."
While the combination of the aforementioned problems may not bode well for Google’s reputation in the mobile industry at the moment, the good news for the company is that they are projected to come out on top in the smartphone race eventually. Crunchgear says Google and Android will "own the smartphone market" eventually. Time will tell if that is an accurate depiction of things to come, but for now, people just seem upset.
Have You Read This?
> Google Unveils Nexus One "Super Phone"
> Nexus One Sales Of 5-6 Million Units Forecast
> Google Tries to Carve Out its Place in Mobile
Tags: 3g, Big Waves, Communications Services, Digits, Disclosure, Etfs, Fcc, fee, Financial Impact, Google, Google Phone, Gripes, Mobile Industry, National Carriers, Nexus, nexus one, Original Article, Quot, Rationale, Read, Review and Story, Rocky Start, Sheth, Special Interest, Spokeswoman, Sprint, Statemen, T Mobile, termination, Termination Fees, Wall Street, Wall Street Journal
Posted February 7, 2010 by admin under under
Pay-Per-Click
Google is offering suggestions for "nearby places you might like" on Google Maps when you look up a place that you do like. So if you like a particular bakery, you might be presented with other places within the same vicinity that Google thinks you might also be interested in trying.
"When you live in New York City, everyone has an opinion on where to eat," says Tammy Stern of the Google Maps team. "And usually, telling someone a place you love will lead to a long conversation of a string of other places you should try. For example, one of the more interesting restaurants I’ve eaten at in NYC was recommended to me by someone who knew I loved a different restaurant by the same owner. And, when I told a friend I was heading to the Lower East Side to get some yummy knishes for lunch, he told me to make sure I checked out the famous Guss’ Pickles right around the corner and that I might consider picking up some smoked fish at Russ & Daughters down the street."
"You’ll notice that we do not limit these suggestions to places sharing any specific characteristic; instead, we use a broad set of signals to come up with what are hopefully the most interesting suggestions," says Stern. "We’re still working on refining these signals, so bear with us if your serendipitous discovery of a new place is even more unexpected than you’d anticipated."
This feature could have both positive and negative effects on local businesses. On the one hand, it could give established customers ideas to go to your competitors. On the other hand, you could be the competitor and benefit from that.
The suggestions are just the latest feature in a recent slew of local business-related features from Google. The company is clearly focusing a great deal on this aspect of search.
Have You Read This?
> Businesses Benefit as Customers Share Current Locations
> Google Makes it Harder to Hide from a Bad Reputation
> Google Tailors Mobile Search Suggestions to Location
Tags: Amp, Bakery, businesses benefit, Competitor, Different Restaurant, East Side, feature, Google, Google Maps, Guss Pickles, Hide, Knishes, Local, Local Businesses, Local Search, Lower East Side, Lunch, Maps, Nearby Places, New York City, place, Read, Related Articles, Review and Story, Russ, Serendipitous Discovery, Signals, Slew, Smoked Fish, someone, Tammy Stern, Vicinity
Posted February 6, 2010 by admin under under
Pay-Per-ClickYou may have gotten some good links in the past, but don’t count on them helping you forever. Old links go stale in the eyes of Google.
Do you still get links to old content? Talk to ArisYulianta and Friends… why you think that is.
Google’s Matt Cutts responded to a user-submitted question asking if Google removes PageRank coming from links on pages that no longer exist (for example, GeoCities pages that have been shut down). The answer to this question is unsurprisingly yes, but Cutts makes a statement within his response that may not be so obvious to everybody.
"In order to prevent things from becoming stale, we tend to use the current link graph, rather than a link graph of all of time," he says. (Emphasis added)
Now, this isn’t exactly news, and to the seasoned search professional, probably not much of a revelation. However, to the average business owner looking to improve search engine performance (and not necessarily adapting to the ever-changing ways of SEO), it could be something that really hasn’t resonated. Businesses have always been told about the power of links, but even if you got a lot of significant links a year or two ago, that doesn’t mean your content will continue to perform well based on that. WebProNews has discussed the value of "link velocity" and Google’s need for freshness in the past:
Link velocity refers to the speed at which new links to a webpage are formed, and by this term we may gain some new and vital insight. Historically, great bursts of new links to a specific page has been considered a red flag, the quickest way to identify a spammer trying to manipulate the results by creating the appearance of user trust. This led to Google’s famous assaults on link farms and paid link directories.
But the Web has changed, become more of a live Web than a static document Web. We have the advent of social bookmarking, embedded videos, links, buttons, and badges, social networks, real-time networks like Twitter and Friendfeed. Certainly the age of a website is still an indication of success and trustworthiness, but in an environment of live, real time updating, the age of a link as well as the slowing velocity of incoming links may be indicators of stale content in a world that values freshness.
Do you think link freshness should play a role in search engine rankings? Talk to ArisYulianta and Friends….
So how do you keep getting "fresh" links?
If you want fresh links, there are a number of things you can do. For one, keep putting out content. Write content that has staying power. You can link to your old content when appropriate. Always promote the sharing of your content. Include buttons to make it easy for people to share your content on their social network of choice. You may want to make sure your old content is presented in the same template as your new content so it has the same sharing features. People still may find their way to that old content, and they may want to share it if encouraged.
Go back over old content, and look for stuff that is still relevant. You can update stories with new posts adding a fresher take, linking to the original. Encourage readers to follow the link and read the original article, which they may then link to themselves.
Leave commenting on for ongoing discussion. This can keep an old post relevant. Just because you wrote an article a year ago, does not mean that people will still not add to it, and sometimes people will link to articles based on comments that are left.
Share old posts through social networks if they are still about relevant topics. You don’t want to just start flooding your Twitter account with tweets to all of your old content, but if you have an older article that is relevant to a current discussion, you may share it, as your take on the subject. A follower who has not seen it before, or perhaps has forgotten about it, may find it worth linking to themselves. Can you think of other ways to get more link value out of old content?
Do you get fresh links for old content? Why do you think that is? Share your thoughts.
Have You Read This?
> How Google Rates Links from Facebook and Twitter
> How Press Releases Can Be Great For Search
> Link Building for Bing Rankings: Dos and Don’ts
Tags: Advent, Bing Rankings, Business Owner, Buttons And Badges, content, Document Web, Don, Freshness, Google, link, Link Directories, linking, links, Live Web, Matt Cutts, Pagerank, Quot, Read, Red Flag, Revelation, Review and Story, Search, Search Engine Performance, Search Rankings, SEO, Social Networks, Spammer, Static Document, Velocity, Vital Insight, Webpronews
Posted February 5, 2010 by admin under under
Pay-Per-Click,
Press Release DistributionGoogle has launched an AdSense feature that lets AdSense publishers donate their earnings to Haiti earthquake relief efforts.
"We’re currently accepting donations from AdSense publishers with an unpaid account balance through January 31, 2010," says Google’s Elizabeth Ferdon. "To see what your unpaid account balance is, please visit the ‘Payment History’ page within your account. Your January earnings will post in the next few days, so feel free to refer to your ‘Advanced Reports’ page for an earnings estimate until those are finalized."
Publishers can donate either a portion or all of their unpaid balances as of the end of January. "As you may expect, there are certain restrictions to donating, and all our normal policies still apply — so even if you’re donating, please don’t ask others to click on your ads in order to increase your earnings," says Ferdon.
Google will not process donation requests from publishers whose request to donate more than their unpaid balance through January 31, or if they are subject to tax-withholding, their account has been disabled for invalid activity or other violations of terms and conditions, or if their accounts display the messages: "please submit your tax information", "please enter your PIN", or "please verify your phone number".
Partners in Health is the organization that will receive the donations. They will go to proivde medical aid.
Have You Read This?
> Google Launches Relief Site To Help Haiti
> Twitter Helping Haiti Earthquake Victims
> BusinessWire Offers Free Haiti-Related Press Release Distribution
Tags: Accepting Donations, account, Account Balance, Adsense, balance, Businesswire, Charity, Donation Requests, Donations, Earnings, Earthquake Relief Efforts, Earthquake Victims, Elizabeth Ferdon, Google, Haiti, History Page, January, Medical Aid, Partners in Health, Payment History, Press Release Distribution, Publishers, Read, Related Articles, Related Press, Review and Story, Tax Information, Twitter, Unpaid Account, Unpaid Balance, Unpaid Balances