Google's "kicking it up a notch" in their PPC click-fraud efforts and has now decided to reveal some of its key click-fraud stats to its advertisers. As of last Tuesday, Adwords advertisers have been given the option to view the number of invalid clicks (that's right... invalid) that Google finds within their account, as well as the percentage of overall clicks deemed invalid.

For those of you not familiar with Pay Per Click advertising, click-fraud occurs when website publishers click on ads on their site to boost their revenue or when companies click on rivals' ads to eat away at their advertising budgets. Obviously, click-fraud is a very big thorn in the sides of PPC advertisers, and until now they have not had a great deal of data to use in defending their accounts from fraudulent click activity.

Industry reports say fraudulent clicks range from about 14 percent to as high as 20 percent of total clicks. Without relevant click-fraud data from Google and other search engines, advertisers have had to rely on estimates from third-party companies. Under this new system, AdWords customers will now have a better understanding of the amount of invalid clicks that exist within their campaigns, as well as being able to compare Google's information with that of their third-party provider.

Here are 2 small snap shots that highlight the recent Google reporting changes.

This image highlights the newly added click-fraud options in which users can select to see "invalid clicks" and "invalid clicks rate"

This is a sample of how the "invalid clicks" and "invalid clicks rate" sections will appear in a report after one has been generated.

There's no doubt (at least within my mind) that this is a step in the right direction for PPC advertising. As PPC advertising continues to be an effective way of marketing websites, advertisers will continually need more and more click-fraud support from search engines, in terms of reports, tools, and other resources. Hopefully other PPC search engines will realize what Google has - the need for releasing invalid click information - and will follow in their foot steps.

Those of you who are regular readers of my Blog are well aware that my girlfriend's hard-drive had crashed several weeks ago, and that just recently I was given the task of extracting some of her more important documents and files before reformatting the drive. Well, if you were lucky enough to have followed the comments associated with that post than you've already read the conversation I had with Kid Disco regarding GSpace. And if you didn't... shame on you, but thank you lucky socks that I've decided to Blog about it today.

For those of you without out a clue, GSpace is a special FireFox add-on that is set to interact with a designated Google Gmail (email) account. The outcome is a free 2 Gig easy-to-use and easy-to-manage mobile storage solution... more than capable of storing all of your important documents and files.

After chatting with Disco, I went ahead and downloaded the necessary FireFox add-on, opened a new Gmail account, and began playing around with GSpace. To my surprise, the GSpace interface is very similar to an FTP program, where once a user is logged into Gmail they can highlight and move any file from their hard-drive to GSpace. Files are then stored as attachments within your Gmail account.

One of my favorite reasons to use GSpace is that its 100% mobile. Because files are saved within the confines of a Gmail account (as an attachment), users can access their stored items from any computer that has the FireFox browser and the GSpace add-on. I enjoy being able to transfer files from the office to my home or to my hotel room (when I'm away at a conference) and back again without a single worry or problem. Also, as Disco highlights, GSpace is a great place to back-up some of your more important digital information in the case that your hard-drive should someday crash.

If you're interested... here is the set-up process:

1) You must have the FireFox Internet Browser. If you don't, download the latest version here.

2) Create a Gmail account. If you already have one, you might want to consider creating a new one specifically for this project. I was advised to do so, and so I'm advising you to do the same. I'm guessing that the reason is because the stuff you upload will become intertwined with your actual email files... and that's not a good thing.

Gmail is still in beta and so one cannot just go to their site and sign up. What you'll need to do is track someone down who already has an account and ask them to send you an invitation to join. If by chance you don't know of anyone (or don't want to take the time to think about it) just shoot me an email and I'll hook you up.

3) Download the GSpace add-on here:

4) Once GSpace has been downloaded and installed, open up your FireFox browser and click on "Tools" on the top menu and then select "GSpace" from the drop-down menu. Doing so will bring up the GSpace interface.

If you already use GSpace or know of another really cool FireFox add-on that's worth downloading please feel free to share.

Enjoy!

Yahoo!, the world's largest Internet media company, announced this past Wednesday that it has inked a deal with Motorola, the second-largest maker of mobile phones. The new multiyear deal calls for tens of millions of new mid-priced and high-end Motorola phones to run an integrated set of services known as Yahoo! Go for Mobile.

Yahoo! Go, a software system designed to make Yahoo! services as easy to use on mobile phones and TVs as they have become on computers, will feature mobile versions of many of its premiere services including Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, photos, calendar, address book, web and image search, news, sports, and finance.

I had first Blogged about "Yahoo! Go" back in January of this year, but only then Yahoo! was striking a deal with Nokia, the world's largest mobile handset maker. Here's an excerpt from that post:

These new ties between Internet companies, such as Yahoo!, and hardware makers, such as Nokia and now Motorola, promise to provide consumers with easier and quicker access to personal Internet information. As mentioned in my January post... Yahoo! Go is a monster of an idea. Yahoo! has near 500 million users or more accessing their website (services) each and every month, and until now their lives have been literally locked into a PC browser. Yahoo! Go is the first step, of what I believe are many to come, in the direction of a more-mobile Internet.

With both Nokia and Motorola, the #1 and #2 companies in mobile phones, under Yahoo!'s belt I can't help but wonder what the company has in stored for future distribution of their mobile services. I also can't help but wonder how their closest competitors, mainly Google and MSN, could allow Yahoo! to get 2-up on them.

Yesterday All Web's GM Michael Roebuck directed me to a very interesting Blog post (which happened to be about someone else's case study) regarding ways one could easily increase their website's conversion rate. I found both, the Blog post and the originally case study, to be very good reads, and so I thought I pass them on.

Interesting enough, the case study featured a ski & snowboard sporting goods store that experienced a 30% increase in conversions just by making changes to one page... a page that I'd bet you already have incorporated into your website.

Can you guess which page they changed?

The Blog: Increase Conversion Rate by Showing Personality and Building Trust - Written by Paul Boisvert of the Yahoo! Store Blog.

The Case Study: Personable 'About Us' Page Lifts Ecommerce Conversions 30% - Written by MarketingSherpa

Also, if you're interested in other ways to covert traffic, check out my latest article "Converting Browsers into Buyers" published back in May. It includes 5 helpful tips that you may have never thought would affect a sites ability to covert trafic. I know... I know... it's a cheap plug... and I'm well aware of it.

Enjoy!

Once again its time to dust off those Champaign glasses, pop open a little bubbly, and celebrate! Oh, and what are we celebrating exactly? Well, if you didn't happen to catch it from the title above... this is my 100th Blog post. I know... I know... 100 posts is a small accomplishment by today's Blog standards, but it's still one that I'm very happy and proud to acknowledge. So raise your glasses!

With today's post, I have a couple of new features that I'd like to introduce, as well as a few future plans/ideas/features that I'm looking to incorporate into the Klog very soon. On to the good stuff...

So What's New?
Well, after looking back at my previous 99 posts, and realizing just how large 100 posts actually is (especially based over a 1 1/2 years) I've decided to implement 2 new navigational elements. The first is a "Browse by Category" section, and the second is a "Top 10 Posts" section.

Category Navigation
Let's face it... as the Klog continues to grow week after week, both in readership and in information, locating the information that's most important to you, my readers, becomes some what of a hassle. Just because a post was written back in "05" doesn't mean that the information is no longer valid, valuable, or desired. Understanding this, I've added a "Category" section to the right navigation panel.

The "Category" section allows readers to easily locate and browse by topic. Therefore if you're looking for information on a recent Yahoo! Store update, simply go to the "Yahoo! Store" Category. If you're looking to see what new Company Google just acquired, than you'd check out the "Google" Category. It's fast and easy... go where you want to go... read what you want to read.

Top 10 Posts
After seeing some of the website-stats associated with my Blog, it was an easy decision to implement the "Top 10 Posts" section into the right navigational panel.

I was finding that several hundred new "unique" visitors (from various different avenues) were landing on my Blog each and every month. With the "Top 10 Posts" section, I am now able to reference 10 of my better posts in hopes to provide visitors with a better understanding of the kinds of information I Blog about, as well as the manner in which I provide it.

Here are the top 10 posts that I've nominated as of today:

- "Purple Cow" by Seth Godin
- My SEO Music Mix
- Dilbert Takes on the Search Giants
- Iconico's Screen Calipers Tool
- "Can You Guarantee #1 in Google?"
- YSM - "Dropping The Ball"
- Do Students Want Google Rollin' Wiki style?
- "I Does What I Does"
- Blogging and Comments
- Yahoo! Sheds Its "Overture" Skin

It's important to understand that these posts were and will continue to be chosen by me, and with a couple of different criteria elements in mind. I will choose a combination of my personal favorites, easy reads, informative reads, and those that sparked valuable comments from readers. As my Blog continues to grow, I'll be forever changing this section to include future top 10 posts.

So What Can We Expect In The Near Future?

In-House Search Solution
Using an in-house solution, I will be implementing a search box somewhere into my website's template. A search function will provide yet another navigational tool for my website's users and Blog readers should they have troubles finding the information they seek.

Industry-Related Book Reviews
As I'm sure you've noticed, I've been posting more and more reviews of the books I've been reading. Hell... if a resource or a book is worth a look at, of course I'm going to mention it and maybe even suggest it. I'm looking to expand on this idea and create a section (really just a page with a link coming into it) where readers can view many of the industry related books I've read, and see how they stack-up against one another. Obviously this would only serve as a resource for those who were looking to purchase industry-related reading.

Industry-Related Interviews
I've been pondering this idea for some time now and I believe that I'm ready to give it a shot. In the very near future, I'm looking to set-up interviews with reputable industry-folks (SEMs, SEOs, Graphic Designers, Website Designers and Developers, 3rd Party Providers, etc...) in hopes to provide some real industry insider information for my readers.

As it currently exists in my head, I'm going to be providing Q&A type interviews where the results will be Blogged for everyone to read. The "comment" sections on these posts will hopefully serve as a way to generate reader feedback as well as a place to ask and address additional reader questions.

In Closing
Before cutting out, I want take a quick second to 'thank' some people. I know it's kind of corny... but it's important to me that I do so.

"Thank You" to those individuals involved in the production of this Blog. This is indeed a one person operation, however, I do owe a bit of gratitude to those who continually offer support, technical solutions, and feed-back.

"Thank You" to my feed and email subscribers for choosing to follow this Blog in addition to any other resources you may also follow. I do my best to provide relevant and informative Search Marketing / Website Development information, and truly hope that you enjoy reading, as much as I do writing.

"Thank You" to those who comment! I encourage reader participation, and thoroughly enjoy reading the thoughts (positive or negative) of my readers. You spark ideas and conversations, and contribute to the betterment of this Blog.

"Thank You" to Jessica Guadiana for your willingness to step in and provide excellent commentary when I'm unable to do so. I wouldn't be writing number #100 right now if you didn't contribute #65 and #90.

"Thank You" to Michael and Peter Roebuck for providing me with a majority of the technical solutions needed to run this Blog. I appreciate the freedom and support that you've given me to do my thing.

And last, but absolutely not least... "Thank You" to my girlfriend / editor / idea bouncer, Jackie! Your encouragement and efforts are greatly appreciated.

And that's that. 100 posts down... many more to go. See you at 101!

When I first designed and developed this website I did a lot, and I mean A LOT, of forward thinking about what kinds of information I was going to present and how I was going to present it. From day one, I understood that Karl Ribas.com would be a fairly large website, especially when considering the main site, this Blog, and a link directory all under the same roof. I knew that if this website was to have a chance at being successful I was going to have to implement an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand navigation scheme.

At the time, and against all basic SEO knowledge, I chose to incorporate a JavaScript-based drop-down navigation system. The major drawback with using JavaScript, at least by SEO standards, is that search engine spiders aren't able to read the code. If a spider can't crawl or read a website's links, it certainly can't locate or index other pages within the website... leaving a piss-poor SEO effort.

Having understood this, I still chose to work with JavaScript because it provided me with better options for organizing my site's pages. I also figured that a good navigation scheme trumped all marketing efforts... at least at that point in time. And besides, I knew a few work-a-rounds that could easily be implemented to solve most of these crawling / indexing issues.

This past Wednesday, my friend and Colleague Kelly Wilson introduced me to an alternative drop-down navigation scheme, only her solution was created with a combination of HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). The solution was basically an HTML system that uses CSS to tie-in the mechanical portions of the drop-down, as well as many of the visual elements used in the scheme. An obvious difference between the two is that the URLs, those once buried in unreadable JavaScript, would now be displayed in standard HTML... and therefore could be crawled, read, and indexed by search engines.

It didn't take me too long to weigh-in the pros and cons of either sticking with my current solution or switching over to Kelly's option, and before I knew it I was eyes-deep into code. I spent 6 hours researching, coding, and tweaking the bare-bones system that was provided and when I finished I had on my screen an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand, visually pleasing, and search engine friendly navigation scheme that I was very proud of. In fact, it looked very similar to the one I was replacing. I spent an additional 2 hours optimizing the code for the FireFox browser, and then decided to make the switch.

What do you think? Did you notice the difference?

Before making the switch yesterday, I happened to be doing very well in the search engines for my select keyword phrases, and even maintained an average PageRank of 4 on the main pages and 3 on secondary pages. It's going to be very interesting to see how making this one change will improve on both of these areas.

What's going on with your navigation scheme? Are you using JavaScript or other "unfriendly" code in your navigation? Can search engine spiders crawl and locate your website's most important pages?

This past week I finished reading "Purple Cow," one of several new marketing / design books that I've picked up in recent weeks. The book is written by Seth Godin, a renowned public speaker, and, in my opinion, one of the best authors to ever touch on the subject of marketing. The man and his books (those I've read) are incredible.

In fact, as I write this I'm already several chapters deep into one of Godin's latest books "The Big Moo," which so far seems to be a continuation of "Purple Cow". I have also invested in a few of his other books to which I'm hoping to be able to read before too long. I will no doubt have a little bit to Blog about on each of them.

So what is a Purple Cow? Well, a Purple Cow, as described by Godin, is a metaphor for a remarkable, interesting, and revolutionary idea or product.

Imagine for a second that you and you're family are traveling across country on vacation. As you continue to travel towards your destination, you begin to drive past several farms where cows can be seen grazing in the pastures right next to the highway. For the first few miles you and your family would no doubt be intrigued, finding every cow amazing and fun to watch as you continued to drive past them. Now, fast forward a bit to the 20th farm or the 25th farm down the road... are you and your family still watching the cows? Are you still intrigued? Probably not! The new cows are just like the old cows and what was once amazing is now common. Worse than common. It is now boring.

The same can be said with many of today's products and services. Many are indeed so similar to their competitors that they themselves have become boring. Take the aspirin industry into consideration... a quick visit to the drugstore turns up Advil, Tylenol, Aleve, Bayer, Motrin, Alka-Seltzer, and so many other brands of aspirin. They're all pretty much the same, aren't they? They all claim to relieve head-aches and head-ache related symptoms, and all promise to do so quicker than their competitors can. Aspirin and the aspirin industry are boring.

Now, going back to you and your family traveling down the road, what if you happen to spot a Purple Cow at the 30th farm? That would be interesting and intriguing... wouldn't it? Sure it would... it's a freaking Purple Cow on the side of the highway. It is so different, so uncommon that you and other travelers would no doubt pull over for a closer look. You'd begin to ask questions, take pictures of it, and even go as far as telling someone else about it. Wouldn't you?

The same can be said for an idea, product, or service that is truly remarkable and different... one so remarkable and different that it gets us to take notice of it, to ask questions, to tell someone, and to actually invest in. Such an idea, product, or service is what Seth Godin refers to as a Purple Cow.

A coffee stand was just a coffee stand... until there was Starbucks. Starbucks is the now purple cow of coffee shops.

A donut was just a donut... until there was Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme is the now purple cow of donuts.

A search engine was just a search engine... until there was Google. Google is the now purple cow of search engines.

The same can be said for many companies within many industries both online and off.

The book "Purple Cow" is about the why, the what, and the how of remarkable. This book highlights many of today's Purple Cows, and shares in-depth ideas and concepts of how a company can become one. I've personally taken a lot from this book, most of which has ended up on a notepad to be deciphered through later, but nonetheless I feel that the information was definitely well worth the price of the book. Godin has introduced me to several interesting ideas to which I am already planning on incorporating into my own personal projects, as well as those of All Web's.

A company that is looking to be successful can't continue to hammer out the same ideas, products, or services. It's both boring and dangerous. In order to be successful, a company needs to be different, innovative, and remarkable.

Here is an excerpt from "Purple Cow" regarding Godin's intentions:

Is your company a Purple Cow? If not, you may want to take a look at "Purple Cow", written by Seth Godin, for ways to become one. This book will provide you with a new and innovative way to think about your business and those businesses in your industry.

A marketing book was just a marketing book... until there was "Purple Cow." "Purple Cow" is the now purple cow of marketing books!

The biggest, best advice that I could ever offer as a Search Engine Marketer, as a Website Developer, as a Graphic Designer, and hell even as a basic computer user is to back-up the information that is most important to you. It really doesn't matter how. Save it to an external hard-drive, save it to a flash drive, save it to a CD or DVD, email it to yourself, or save it on a second computer (yours, a family members, or a friends)... just ensure that you do it!

The Story
My girlfriend's laptop computer had crashed just before summer. Her operating system (Windows XP) would not boot from the hard-drive nor could we extract the information from it (so I thought). After looking into the problem, I gave her two options:

1) "I can completely clear your hard-drive (thus she'd lose everything) and I would reinstall Windows XP, your other programs, and all necessary drivers."

2) "I can do nothing and you'd be without this computer."

Now, I know a little bit about the inter-workings of a computer. I've purchased a few. I've built a few. I've upgraded a few. However, in my experiences, if a hard-drive had crashed it and the information on it was lost. To my knowledge there were no ways to reconcile a crashed hard drive.

Well, it turns out that my options weren't good enough for my girlfriend Jackie. She insisted that her information (4 years of college materials and 1 year of teaching materials) was far more valuable than having a working computer... at least at that point in time. So... we left it alone.

The Solution
This past weekend, I found myself sitting in a local "watering-hole" chatting with my friend and colleague Michael Roebuck. Some how the story of Jackie's computer ended up in our conversation and Michael offered his 2 cents... 2 cents that would pay-off big! His idea was to remove the Hard-Drive from the laptop, place it into an external hard-drive casing (one specifically for laptop-sized hard-drives), and see if I could extract the information that way. It sounded good at the time, but hell everything sounds good after a few "waters". As it turns out... it worked.

I did run into one minor problem though... I was able to view the file structure of her whole hard-drive, however, I was not able to open the files I needed nor could I extract them to my computer. Jackie, like most people, has a password-protected account in which she must sign into before logging onto her computer. Therefore, the files we wanted to extract are seen as "owned" by Jackie and will only open under her login on her computer. After a bit of searching, I found a pretty simple walk-thru which helped me to release Jackie as the owner of these files and incorporate myself and my computer as the new owner. Once done, I was able to open, view and extract all the files I needed too.

Hopefully you'll never need to do this, but should you, here's a quick run-down of the solution:

----------------------------------------

For Laptops

1) Remove The Crashed Hard-Drive
2) Place the Hard-Drive into an External Hard-Drive Case (one specifically for Laptops)
3) Connect the now External Hard-Drive to another computer (usually via a USB cord)
4) Go to "My Computer" and locate the new External Hard-Drive
5) Extract the desired Files

For Regular Computers

1) Remove The Crashed Hard-Drive
2) Place the Hard-Drive into another Regular Computer
3) Set up the Hard-Drive as the Computer's Secondary Hard-Drive
4) Go to "My Computer" and locate the new Secondary Hard-Drive
5) Extract the desired Files

For Protected Folders and Files

Use this "How To Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP" guide, which is published on Microsoft's support website.

The time has finally arrived... Yahoo and MSN are partners' no-more. As of July 1st (this past Saturday) the MSN / Yahoo! agreement regarding the distribution of Yahoo! paid search listings has ended. That's right! Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers will no longer have the luxury of having their PPC ads reach MSN's search result pages. Instead, MSN will be employing their own PPC program, MSN adCenter, to fit the bill.

Here is an official quote from the Yahoo! Search Marketing division:

This shouldn't come as that big of a surprise to many... the MSN / Yahoo! days have been numbered ever since MSN first announced its plan to create a PPC program. In addition, for the past few months MSN has been serving many of its own adCenter ads, in place of Yahoo! ads, on its search results pages. This was most likely done to help search users and advertisers adjust to this weekend's transition.

So what exactly does this mean for Pay Per Click marketers? Well, if you haven't done so already, you should definitely consider breaking-down your overall Pay Per Click budget to accommodate MSN's new program. Most likely you've already split your advertising budget between Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google Adwords but now you really should consider "slicing the PPC pie" a third time. Even though MSN's reach is no where near that of Google's and Yahoo's advertising networks, MSN still rakes in over 40 million searches a month... and quite frankly, that's search engine traffic that no one can afford to miss out on.

In fact, now would be a great time to begin an MSN capaign. PPC competition isn't at its fullest and the per-click costs usually associated with competitive keywords are, for the most part, dramatically less. Of course, this is until the word spreads farther about the MSN adCenter program and the ending of the Yahoo! agreement.

For more information on MSN's adCenter program, including how to sign up, check out the adCenter home page.

What do you think? Does MSN have what it takes to compete on the frontlines with Yahoo!'s and Google's already established PPC programs, or do you think that they'll fall short? I'd love to hear your thoughts.