How Google gains from MS-Yahoo war

SEATTLE: Neither Microsoft Corp nor Yahoo Inc wants to blink first in the software giant's proposed $41.7 billion takeover of the Web pioneer but as the gamesmanship drags on, arch rival Google Inc, the merger's raison d'etre, is the biggest beneficiary.

Not much has progressed since Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo on February 1, a proposal that was rebuffed by Yahoo's board as under-valuing the company. Microsoft has countered by saying its offer was fair and urged the board to take a second look.

The union of its two biggest Web rivals could eventually loosen Google's grip on online search and advertising, but a messy takeover battle followed by a complicated integration could give Google ample time to build on its advantage.

"Google benefits if Yahoo is in a state of limbo," said RBC Capital analyst Jordan Rohan. "The longer the uncertainty persists, the greater lead Google has in online advertising."

The impasse between Microsoft and Yahoo has lasted almost a full month and while analysts think that the two companies will eventually strike a deal, the stand-off shows no signs of a quick resolution.

Microsoft has not ruled out a proxy fight to win Yahoo and Yahoo continues to probe for other options. A proxy fight could stretch until July, the latest it could hold its annual meeting this year, followed by a strict regulatory review process in the United States and Europe.

After clearing those hurdles, Microsoft and Yahoo will have to merge two different advertising systems and consolidate completely separate back-end computer systems. Already, Microsoft is seeking to absorb its $6 billion purchase of advertising services company aQuantive from mid-2007.

All the while, Microsoft has to figure out how to head off a feared mass exodus of Yahoo employees while paring back redundant brands.

Microsoft expects the Yahoo transaction to close in the second-half of 2008, but analyst Marianne Wolk at Susquehanna Financial Group said a deal may not be finalized until early 2009, meaning Google may not face a stronger number two in Web search and advertising until 2010.

Google dominance
Google has proven what it can do when given an opportunity to build on a lead. Over the last year, Google's US Web search market share has jumped 11 percentage points, while Yahoo and Microsoft have both posted steady declines, according to research firm comScore. Factor in Web searches done overseas and Google's lead is daunting -- with three-quarters of the world market.

Its profitable search engine allows Google to devote more money toward research and development for growth areas like Web video advertising and search on mobile phones.

Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, due for completion later this year, should also shore up its position in display advertising, banner ads placed on Web sites, where it has only begun to make inroads against Yahoo.

Without a clear number two to challenge Google, advertisers and Web site publishers may opt to stick with the status quo. "In the short term, Google is likely to continue to see renewals and traffic wins as various players realize that because of the merger and the time that could take that neither Microsoft or Yahoo could catch up for some time," said Susquehanna's
Wolk.

Microsoft and Yahoo, however, will become a "substantial force" in the online market over time, according to Wolk. At the same time, Google faces its own challenges. Two Wall Street analysts, UBS and BMO Capital, cut stock price targets on Google on Tuesday, citing a comScore report that showed a decline in advertisements delivered by the site in January, even though searches increased in the same period.

Google has raised concerns about a Yahoo-Microsoft deal, saying that coupling the two most often-visited Web portals with Microsoft's desktop software monopoly could undermine competition.

Mountain View, California-based Google could also see its R&D advantage shrink with a combined Yahoo-Microsoft. According to Wolk, Google spends about the same amount of money on Web R&D as Microsoft and Yahoo combined, but as separate entities, there is a lot of overlap in that investment.

"There is a lot of redundant development going on..., and at the end of the day, you don't need both," Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie said at the Goldman Sachs Tech Investment Symposium.

Little Known 'Boring' Websites That Make Incredible Money With AdSense

LOS ANGELES — Jerry Alonzy figured he'd be working into his 70s at least.

As an independent handyman at the mercy of weather patterns near Hartford, Conn., he'd always made a decent income that rarely grew.

Then he found Google and his life changed. Alonzy, 57, now makes $120,000 a year from the ads Google places on his Natural Handyman website, and he couldn't be more thrilled.

"I put in two, maybe three hours a day on the site, and the checks pour in," he says. "What's not to like?"

In return for placing its ads on websites and blogs, Google pays Web publishers every time one of its ads are clicked. Those clicks help keep Alonzy and his wife living comfortably and talking about moving to Hawaii. "All I need is a laptop and a high-speed Internet connection, and I can live anywhere."

The Internet may be a young person's medium, but the retired and those nearing retirement such as Alonzy have found that they can work the Web just as well. Sometimes, such "Gray Googlers" can live a richer, more financially rewarding life than when they were supposedly working.

"Google isn't just for kids anymore," says Google executive Kim Scott, who runs the company's AdSense program, the ad platform that provides the income for Web publishers such as Alonzy and others.

Take Jerrold Foutz. The former Boeing engineer, 75, started a website a few years ago devoted to one of his passions — switching mode power supplies, which help drive, for instance, the inside of video cameras.

He put Google ads on his smpstech.com site four years ago. After just one month, the first Google check was for $800. The second check totaled $2,000.

"I thought, 'Wow,' " he said. "This was the most amazing thing that ever happened to me. Something I thought would make $50 a year now equals my Boeing retirement check."

That comes out to around $25,000 yearly.

Foutz's experience is not an anomaly.

After Hope Pryor's four kids left home, she grew intrigued with the Internet and learned how to design a Web page. She didn't want it to focus on just her, so she posted some of her favorite recipes on the site.

Now, her Cooks Recipes site is bringing in nearly $90,000 yearly, mostly from Google ads. The holidays are the biggest-producing months of the year.

"Last December alone, I netted $30,000 from Google," she says. "There's not too many people I know who can walk into a car dealership and buy two vehicles at one time. I did just that recently."

While the upside of working with AdSense sounds exhilarating, it's not that way for everybody.

Scott says she posted an unsold novel on Google and earns about $5 a month from the AdSense ads on the site. Al Needham, 74, who runs a site about the care of bees (bees-online.com) from his home near Boston, reaps about $250 a month.

"Forget about getting rich overnight," says Alonzy. "It takes time to learn."

Jennifer Slegg, a consultant whose JenSense blog is devoted to tips for using so-called contextual advertising, says the easy part is getting AdSense up and running. Google provides computer code that must be copied and pasted onto a website. Figuring out how to do that "is very easy for new publishers."

Foutz says even if you've never cut and pasted code before (hint: On Windows PCs, highlight the text, press Control C to copy, then Control V to paste it), "Just follow what Google says. They have very easy-to-understand instructions."

Hard work, big reward

Introduced in 2003, AdSense was an outgrowth of Google's AdWords program, which put sponsored ads at the top of search results at Google's own site. Google created AdSense as a way to expand beyond search listings and onto hundreds of thousands of websites and blogs.

Google rivals Yahoo and MSN have similar programs, but they have found limited acceptance on the Web, where Google dominates both search, with more than 50% market share, and search advertising, with 90%.

Now everyone from big sites such as the New York Times and CNN.com to mom and pop operations such as Cooks Recipes and Natural Handyman have the familiar "Ads by Google" text-box somewhere on their site.

"With AdSense, we fund creativity on any topic," says Google's Scott. "If you have a subject you know something about, write about it, find a like-minded audience on the Internet and we'll take care of monetizing the content."

Or, as Joel Comm, author of the AdSense guidebook The AdSense Code, puts it: "People are amazed. They say, 'Really, all I have to do is write, Google will put ads on my site and pay me?' Yes, it's that simple."

There is a little more to it. The folks who reap the biggest rewards put in long hours setting up their site and feeding it lots of content.

"Write about what you know, write like mad and often," says Alonzy. "The more you write, the more opportunities you have to make money. If you post 500 pages on a topic, you'll have 500 pages with ads, and many more potential clicks."

Google's computers scan the content on Web pages to match it with appropriate advertisers. Articles on Alonzy's website about how to keep mice away might result in ads for pest control services, while a recipe for turkey casserole at Cooks Recipes might generate ads for diet tips and beauty makeovers.

"The beauty of our system is that we have so many advertisers," says Scott. "The content may not change, but our ads change every day. So you'll always see something different there."

Slegg says the biggest mistake new AdSense publishers make is clicking on AdSense ads — their own or others. That's a big no-no in Googleland, and can get you dumped from the program.

The computer won't break

Alonzy and other Gray Googlers say they haven't experienced any problems working in a young person's world.

"Many people my age are scared of computers; they think they're going to break them," says Needham. "The computers aren't going to break. But you won't find out unless you get in there and try."

At $250 a month, Needham's site generates revenue in line with its niche audience of folks who want to learn about bees.

"I bring in enough to fund a free vacation to Key West every year for the family," says Needham, a retired Department of Defense employee.

One stumbling block for many people is translating a great idea into a nice-looking Web page.

In the past, creating a Web page required knowledge of complicated HTML computer code, or learning off-the-shelf Web design software such as Microsoft's FrontPage or Adobe's Dreamweaver.

Now, Google and Yahoo have free tools to create Web pages or blogs. And many Internet website-hosting companies (such as GoDaddy and Brinkster) have online site creators that come as part of their monthly fees. Apple's iWeb is another such tool. With these, AdSense can be automatically added to your pages with the click of a mouse.

"When you retire, you have to have some interests," says Needham. "This is my indoor activity. I did a search online for how to create a website and found lots of good help out there for nothing."

The Internet, he says, opened up a new world for him.

"I started searching for other sites about bees and met some people from Australia with similar interests. We've since become friends, and I went to Australia last year to visit."

The same thing happened with Gail Bjork, 63, who runs the Digicamhelp site from her home base near Tampa. She designed her site but made a friend online in Ireland who has since redesigned it for a more professional sheen.

"My background was art," says Bjork. "I was an art teacher. I didn't know about code. My friend does. So now she handles the design, and I operate the site."

Bjork is a former local school board member who ran a print shop with her husband. A camera buff, she started the site because her friends were always asking for photo tips.

"This started as something to help my friends, and I've gone from a 14-page site to one with over 700 pages," she says. "I'm legally retired now — but not mentally."

Her site brings in around $1,500 a month. Bjork's advice to others: "For anyone, no matter what age they are, if they find something they truly love, write about it. You have nothing to lose but time. And it could really pay off."

How to chose the right Anchor Text ?

Anchor text is clickable text associated with a link. Google looks at the anchor text, freshness of anchor text and changes to anchor text over time.

• If there is any gap between the anchor text and document linking it which may be possibly due to changes in domain ownership, Google can look at time this occurred and can even ignore all valuable links to document prior to event.
• People linking to document should use appropriate anchor text for linking. Google analyses the unique words, bigrams (pair of letters, words or syllables) and phrases in anchor text for a document.
• Google analyzes graphs or unique words, bigrams and phrases in anchor text and checks if information is correct or not. Results created artificially show spiky graphs while natural data shows organic graphs.
• One should not SPAM or try to SPAM he search engine with help of unscrupulous link trading or search companies as it can lead to website being black listed, lowered ranking or even worse site can also get banned.

Effective Keyword Choice Strategy and Useful Tools

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Getting Started with Search Engine Optimization
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There are several ways to describe the enigma that is keyword marketing. The use of carefully selected words to optimize a site’s content for search engines presents one explanation. Keywords will be relevant words and parts of phrases that relate to the site content. This article will give you plenty of tips for choosing those all-important keywords.

So what kinds of keywords should you use? Well, to coin a few simple examples, if you have a site that focuses on mobile phones, some keywords might be "mobile, mobile phone, phone tariffs, cellular," etc. If it is a movie information site, keywords could be "movie, movies, film, films, horror, sci-fi, action, cinema"......and so forth.

One correctly targeted keyword will produce a better overall search engine ranking than keywords just generally placed. That does mean that both targeted and general keyword types will help the site maintain a high ranking. With the mobile phone and movie site examples above, the search engines will know the site theme while "crawling" the site pages. This is where the keyword power needs to be utilized. If the user wants to find mobile phone sites that host budget phones, he or she may type the keywords mentioned above.

The presence of that keyword placed strategically across the site is a factor in determining whether or not the site is ranked high in a search on sites like Yahoo. Many users will type broader search criteria into the search engines if they are uncertain of exactly what they seek. They may be wondering what the best mobile deals are at present, but do not know which model, service provider, etc. they should favor. So the keywords above in the first paragraph would fall into this generalized category and can produce very general but also occasionally foggy results. This positioning and choice of keywords is crucial for a site towards SEO optimization.

So, what are the most useful keywords for a site?

Establish what keywords are most used in the context of the site content and theme. The SEO campaign begins at this point and does not need to be an arduous process. There is no set number of keywords that can be put forward here for driving traffic. If keyword density is to be utilized, a ball park figure can be derived by dividing the number of instances of the keyword by the total number of words in the content. Then multiply by a hundred to see the keyword density percentage. Safe figures fall between 10 - 15% and up to 25% but this is just a guideline and not a rigid rule. The point is that your keywords depend on your target audience's needs, and what keywords they will use to locate sites that will provide the information sought through a search on Yahoo or Google.

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How to choose the Best Keywords
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First, think about the theme of the site and write down the most popular words that come to mind. Ensure they are words that are likely to be used in finding the site's content. Remember what was mentioned previously about targeted and generalized keywords. Make a list of both types; go over the site content, read it carefully.

Using whatever web design software is necessary, bold the words found or underline them and work out the keyword density for each for the top four or five keywords. This assumes that the content has been written and SEO optimization is now required. If the content is yet to be written, just be conscious from the start of the placement of the keywords chosen.

When compiling the list of keywords, bear in mind what will be sought on search engines by the target audience. The focus of the site should revolve around the keywords, not the other way round. Knowing the target audience will enable some instant keyword choices. Try some searches on Yahoo using the keywords and also other key phrases. See what is found and make notes of the top keywords leading to similar sites.

Don't worry about absolute accuracy at this point. Reviews of some great SEO tools will follow to help the process of developing an effective SEO plan. The initial main factors to consider are:

* Popular keywords related to the site theme.
* Keywords should reflect the focus of the site's target audience.

Do the research first, and then move onto developing that killer SEO plan.

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The SEO Strategy
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Once the keyword research has been carried out, there should be a list of relevant and powerful words to add to the site content. The research must be done thoroughly to establish what keywords will drive web surfers to a site. Start with a list of words commonly used by web surfers. The strategy is about becoming known on the web, bringing the site to the web surfers so they become visitors and, in turn, customers.

It is worth checking what sites are found through the most popular words. Why are the keywords bringing up this list and what are the visitors buying from that site or reading? From this, a developing plan of action will emerge showing where potential customers are going. This will generate a plan to drive traffic to a site on a regular basis. Bear in mind that whether or not the site sells services or products or just information, it is the content that people will want to see and the reason why retention will occur by keeping those visitors coming back for more.

Check the results from top engines like Yahoo and Google in selected keywords. Scrutinize competitor sites. What do they possess that attracts their customers? Take a look at the " " tags in the source code of the site as they will show what keywords attracted the traffic generated.

Take a look at the SEO tools right here on SEO Chat on the left hand side. There are various tools of interest here to help with SEO optimization. The Adsense calculator is a great way to estimate potential earnings. Even better, if the page impressions and cost per click is already known, a projected earnings forecast can be calculated. This is a great tool for this task. Read about the Adsense program at http://google.adsense.com. Google pays those enrolled in the program for displaying ads on their site that are relevant to the site's content. This is a strong way to drive potential traffic.

The Google Keywords tool is a good starting point when evaluating the strength of a chosen keyword. Use the tool to provide keywords relevant to the key term entered. The popularity of that keyword will be evident and the choices can be taken forward. Additionally, the Overture Keywords tool should be used in tandem for best results. The Robots.txt generator will help the creation of a file that can be configured to block pages from search engines that you desire to hide. While using the search engines to evaluate what keywords are the most popular, try comparing the results of Yahoo to Google with the Google VS Yahoo tool.

Question the keywords. Are they words that would be used to find the site being promoted? Another little trick is to deliberately misspell words in the keyword list for the tags as there are some pretty horrendous spellers out there e.g. mobile could also be written as mobil.

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SEO & PPC Strategies
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Pay per Click campaigns are regularly used by Internet marketers and web designers to promote their sites. They can also earn you a lot of money; those bucks turn up in thousands for the most effective plans out there. It is, however, a process that requires a large amount of work. Essentially, if a surfer clicks an ad placed by the designer, that designer receives a fee from the advertiser. Where Google Adwords is concerned, bids are placed on keywords that will be used by web surfers while searching for the site's products. Keyword bids start from as little as one cent a word up to many dollars. Thus, skills employed by the marketer to carefully select the words will decide whether money is accumulated or lost.

Another strategy is link sharing. There are bound to be similar sites that may already have heavy traffic on their pages. Sharing links with such sites, and therefore traffic, benefits both parties. The best way to accomplish this is to write articles as part of a blog or for free article submission sites like articlesbase.com. Write articles on the theme of the site on submission sites. Links back to the site being promoted can be placed in these articles. Find blogs and forums that will allow the hosting of articles with links that will allow visitors to click through to the site.

Here is a short list of SEO points to keep in mind:

• Keyword research on site theme.
  
• PPC campaigns such as Google Adwords and Adsense.
  
• Link sharing.
  
• Articles written about the site products and services containing links.
  
• Strong use of keywords on the home page to maximize initial SEO strength.
  
• Placing the most effective keywords and phrases in the description tags.

There are more methods, though these will provide a strong base for any future SEO plan.

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Effective SEO with Web CEO
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Finally, I'd like to share a review of a truly magical tool for carefully formulating an SEO plan complete with keyword and PPC optimized campaigns. It is called Web CEO and can be found at http://www.webceo.com. It is a complete package and is also free.

What can be said here? Well, as an SEO tool, this is a true winner. All the tools required to take your SEO strategy plan forward are rolled into this one complete package.

Here is how Web CEO can help promote a site successfully:

• Generate many keyword choice results as part of its quick keyword research ability.
  
• Know why a site is not ranked highly in the search engines.
  
• Check those rankings in over a hundred search engines.
  
• Establish the site's link popularity.
  
• Find potential link partners to initiate a link sharing campaign.
  
• Real time analysis on a 24 hr basis of slow pages, missing pages, lost transactions, visitor tracking.
  
• Edit web pages with Web CEO's visual editor and upload them to the server.
  
• Receive Traffic Statistic analysis reports.
  
• Gain a certificate as a CIM (Certified Internet Marketer) for free.

This is a wonderfully complete package and is worth checking out if an SEO marketing plan is in the making.

Remember, this article is purely a guide to the salient points of keyword strategies in SEO. It is actually a huge subject. The points covered will help in the deployment of that all-important marketing strategy and provide more exposure to any web site.

Good Luck!