Don't come up with it - copy it!

Many of you would have seen TV adverts for catalogue company Argos over the last few months. They end with the phrase - 'Don't shop for it, Argos it'. They have long running advertising campaign pushing the fact that when it comes to buying things, it is easier to use the Argos services, rather than spend your time touring your local shopping centre. Nothing unique in the message that Argos are trying to portray, they have been offering an alternative to the Saturday afternoon high street scrum for decades, but it is the way that they have done it which interests me.

For those who may remember, a few years ago Google caused a bit of fuss in the blogging world by saying that they didn't like it when people said 'Google it' instead of 'search for it' as it infringed on their trademark. Google went to the press twice about this issue, once in 2003, and then again in 2006. They claimed that the use of the Google brand name in this way was a trademark violation and that people who referred to 'Googling' shouldn't do so; they even sent out letters to people to ask them to stop/change references to using Google as a verb.

For many marketers, having a brand name or company name synonymous with an activity or industry would be the holy grail. Some companies have already achieved this, here are just some examples I can think of;

'I didn't watch it last night, I sky plus'd it' or

'Do you want a copy? I'll xerox one off now'.

I'm still pretty sure that when Google came out saying that they didn't want people to use Google with reference to search it was a massive double bluff. Why wouldn't they want their name to become so strongly tied to one of the fastest growing industries on the Internet, especially when competing against one of the biggest companies in the world?

Regardless if Google did or didn't want people to use their name with reference to searching, it certainly hasn't done them any harm. Google is now the most powerful brand name in the UK. They have even overtaken Microsoft in the world of brands as well as search.

It's not surprising then that other companies have tried to borrow ideas from the best brand in the UK to try and build their market share and brand profile. It always pays to 'borrow' from the best doesn't it!?

In this case, Argos, in my opinion, have tried to 'do a Google' and make their brand synonymous with brochure shopping. A smart move given that other companies exist, and are entering into, their market space.

Maybe it's me putting two and two together and getting five (Google started complaining about their infringements in 2003 and Argos started their campaign in 2005) but it seems that this is just another example of where the online world and online brands have had impact in the offline world and established companies.

BEWARE - Google Adwords Phishing Emails

GOOGLE ADWORDS PHISHING SCAM - BE AWARE!

I have just been made aware of some dodgy 'phishing' emails which are sent out which look like they have come from Google Adwords. The email looks exactly the same as the normal Google Adwords emails, but the link goes to a very bad website which will try and take your Google Adwords login details.

Here is the email text;

-------------------------
Dear Google AdWords Customer,

We were unable to process your payment.
Your ads will be suspended soon unless we can process your payment.
To prevent your ads from being suspended, please update your payment information.

Please sign in
to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login,
and update your payment information.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. We look forward to
providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team
-------------------------

If you receive this email and are taken to this website;

http://www.adwords.google.com.startopl.cn/select/Login/

Which looks the same as a normal Google Adwords login screen but it isn't. Whatever you do...

DO NOT ENTER YOUR ADWORDS ACCOUNT INFORMATION!

The website is set up to take your details and then exploit your account and credit card information. This practise is known as 'phishing' and unfortunately happens all the time with online banking and eBay accounts, but now it looks like they have gone after Google Adwords customers.

If you have any more information/details about this phishing scam or any others which are 'doing the rounds', please let us know.

The new G - should we be bothered?

Sometimes in the world of web design blogs and the internet blogsphere, many things are discussed and talked about. Most of the time these things are really worthy of discussion and provide great insights into the industry. Sometimes however, they are not.

I noticed today that Google had changed its 'favicon'. For those of you who don't know, the favicon is the icon which is shown in the tab/address bar when you are using Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox. Here is an example;


When I noticed this, I thought it was strange and didn't look that good. That was about as far as it went. However, this has been picked up by the blogsphere and has been discussed in many places. Here, here and here. There is also an official statement from Google!

"We recognized there was a need for a Google icon that would better work across multiple applications including web, mobile and client applications. We felt the small 'g' had many of the characteristics that best represent our brand: it's simple, playful, and unique. We will be looking to improve and enhance this icon as we move forward."

Personally, I think there are more important things to write about. Is this really newsworthy? And yes, I am fully aware of writing this post is very, very contradictory to the point I am trying to make :)

Yahoo for Ladies

Though Microsoft may find sufficient reasons not to raise it's bid to overtake internet pioneer, Yahoo is continuously expanding its content network.

Yahoo has rolled out a new content rich site, Shine targeting the female Internet community between ages 25 and 54. The new site is a combination of original content, female bloggers as well as content from popular female publications. Yahoo explains the Shine, in there About Shine page:

When we started talking about creating a new website for women, we wanted to avoid all of the common categories that advertisers or marketers tend to put us in. We didn’t want to be a site just for moms or just for single women or working women, or any specific demo- or psychographic. We wanted to create a smart, dynamic place for women to gather, get info and to connect with each other and the world around them.

Yahoo is confident in it's latest move to compete with arch rival Google AdSense, as they believe women pay attention to ads.

Google turns the lights out

Earlier today Google changed their home page as part of 'Earth Hour'. To mark this occasion they made the background colour of the Google search page black instead of white. The idea being that screens which output white require more electricity, so changing to black saves energy, as well obviously signifying that we should all switch off more.

Exciting stuff eh?

How to remove yourself from Google

Being a web design company full of 'web gurus' (hey, these aren't my words, they're our clients!) we often get asked weird and wonderful questions about web design, online promotion, Google and anything else which people are unsure about when it comes to the Interweb. Most of the time these questions are asked to help companies get a better understanding of the Internet and how to make the most from their investments.

However, there are occasions when there are more serious issues which need to be resolved. Something which I've been asked several times is 'How do I remove myself from the Google listings?'. Unfortunately when I've been asked this question in the past, the reasons haven't been particularly favourable and often there is a very good & legitimate reason for someone to have their information removed from the listings.

Regrettably getting information taken out of the Google listing or Google search results pages, isn't very easy and the tools available to remove yourself are limited.

One of the easiest ways to try to remove yourself, is by using the Google Webpage Removal Request Tool (bit of a mouthful!). This tool allows you to submit a request to remove a webpage or yourself from the Google Index and to submit a reason why.


One important thing to remember though, you can only submit a request to Google to remove a page. It is up to them to review your request and so they may so Yes but may also say No. There are no guarantees that the web page will be removed. So it is up to you to make your description & reason compelling enough.

However, if you have a Google Account, then your submission can be logged and you can check to see it's status at any point to monitor its progress.



Provide you have a good, legitimate reason, then you should be able to page the page removed from Google. I have used this tool successfully in the past so know that it works (eventually).

If you've any other experiences or questions about removing yourself from Google, we'd like to hear it! Leave a comment below!

Tut tut, Google forgot!

It would seem that Google are so busy nowadays building their new products and trying to take down Microsoft, that they are forgetting to keep on top of things. Yesterday evening some users of Google Adwords may have noticed that there was an issue with their secure certificate expiring (see below).



It would appear that this has now been fixed but still, it is a little worrying to see that a company of this size making this oversight / mistake.

It looks that it is now fixed so someone has looked at it, albeit a little too late!

Google analytics seminar follow up

Last Thursday saw the resumption of the Adido online marketing and web design seminar talks in Bournemouth, to give advice to our attendees on how to get the most from Google analytics. The talk covered the main areas of Google analytics that businesses struggle to get to grips with. During the talk several questions were asked that I'll answer in a bit more detail here.

What is the difference between 'absolute new visits' and 'new visitors'?
The answer I gave on this isn't 100% correct. Personally I think the labels used here are a bit misleading. An 'absolute new visit' refers to someone who has never, ever been onto the website before in the past (or at least isn't known to have come on the website before, a subtle but important difference). A 'new visitor' is someone who has been on the website before but is counted in the date range selected. So, for example, someone could have been on the website in the previous month, but if you date range is the current month and the visitor has been on the site three times in this month, they will be a 'new visitor' only once, but will not be 'absolute new visit'.

Clear? Hopefully, but if you still don't understand what I'm on about, then why not read the official Google line absolute new Vs New visitors.

Although Google analytics shows me the keywords people type in,what about the words that they don't type in?

A common problem facing companies who want to market their website more effectively is knowing which phrases to select for their SEO campaigns. This is often best left to experienced web design companies (like us :) to carry out proper keyword research but for those just starting out, then this can be achieved using a variety of free keyword tools, like Wordtracker.

These tools are really great at helping you identify new phrases to target which you may not have thought about or considered. However, don't underestimate your web analytics or stats packages as they will tell you which words people have already typed in. This can't be underestimated, as people have already taken the effort to type in something into that search box and visit your website. Of course, it's hugely important to track this against conversions, but if you can see that people visit your website on these phrases, they may be easy 'wins' to get them pushed a bit more up the rankings to increase visability for little effort.


Other questions were asked which I am unable to recall, but with other online marketing and website talks in the pipeline in the coming weeks, I'll endeavour to take note and answer more here...

Taking a look at Google tools - #1: Google Trends

This is going to be a regular feature on this blog. Google as we all know, is the best biggest search engine in the world (up to 77% search market share in 2006). But what alot of people don't know, is that Google also produce a wide (and growing) range of product and services which fulfil a wide range of needs for it's users. These products aren't all very well known, so we're going to look at each of them one by one, to raise awareness of what they do and how they can be used by 'normal' website users.

Where to begin? Ok, let's start with Google Trends. Why? Well, I can't think of anything else at the moment :) But also Google trends is very, very useful tool to help users identify how popular given search phrases and words are, as well as when they are popular.

Google trends allows users to compare up to five key phrases against each other to see which one is more popular. It does this by drawing nice looking graphs so you can see instantly which one is the best.

Let's have an example. Below shows an example of 'web design' vs 'online marketing'


What does the screen show? First, it shows the nice graph. What you can see is that 'web design' alot more popular than 'online marketing'. However, web design has been on the decline over the last few years, while online marketing is very gradually improving. Underneath the main graph si the graph which show the trends of news items. This is a rough figure of how many times the phrase entered has been used in Google News items. You'll see that the most important or 'relevant' (this is Google remember - relevancy!) news items are shown on the main Google trend graph along the time line and listed to the right of the graph, which can then be clicked on to to go the story.

Underneath the graph are the countries and towns which are have done the most searches on Google, for the phrases you entered. So, in this example, the Google users in Indonesia have made the most searches for web design. It is important to note, that Google 'normalizes' the search data from the towns and countries. What is normalization? It basically means that a calculation is made to reduce the amount of searches overall and shows which places have a higher propotion of searches. For example, London would nearly always have the most searches, as it has the most amount of people. But proportionally, for some phrases, other parts of the country might have comparatively more.

Why is Google trends important then? Well, prior to this tool, we had know way of knowing which phrases were more popular on Google. We had no idea of when the phrases we popular. We had no idea which places made the most searches. Google trends allows us to peak into the head of searchers across the world to help us better understand their habits. Using this information, we can now put together better and more efficient online marketing strategies and gain better results for our clients. And all this for free!

Even, if you are not bothered about search marketing, it's just fun to play with. Who's more popular? He-man or She-ra? Star Wars or Star Trek? Man Utd or Liverpool? Beatles or Rolling Stones? The list is endless.

Have fun!

Do you see what I see?

While trying to put together some screenshots for a potential client, proving our SEO capabillities, we stumbled upon a (very) rare occurance in Google. There has been much made about the great Google Datacentres in the sky, and in the old days, they used to be watched like hawks to see if any new pagerank updates were on their way. However, since the Jagger (or Big Daddy) update a year or so ago, I thought that most Google Datacenters showed the same results. I was wrong...

It still seems that the results you get from Google depend on where you are in the country. While I was sat in my Southampton office and seeing the great SEO positions we've got, in Surrey something strange was afoot. Not only were we not on top of the listings, sometimes we weren't even on the ten pages! It was like Google was being geographically biased!

After some research on datacentre issues, it turned out that our problem was indeed down to Google being different. How did we know? Are you ready to get techy?

If you go to Start > Control Panel > Accessories > Command Prompt (or for the dextrous of you Windows Key & R) you'll see the Command Prompt (surprise, surprise). If you type in;

ping www.google.co.uk

you'll get a number which looks like this;

216.239.59.99

This is the IP address of the Google.co.uk domain. If you try this somewhere else in the country, or perhaps at a different time of the day, the number could be very different. If the numbers are different, it means that you're going to a different data centre, and so could get a completely different set of results. In theory, they should all have the same results. But a word of warning, they may not, so if you're SEO rankings appear to have vanished, then this could be one of the reasons why...

Update: Hmmm, the plot thickens. I've just watched the whole video by Matt Cutts (top Google Geek blogger) and he said that even if the IP addresses are different, they can still show different results! Arrrghhhhhh!!!