Todd Malicoat (aka Stuntdubl) publishes some pretty cool articles over on his SEO Consulting Blog to which they are either his own personal commentary, or those of some very notable people in the Search Engine Marketing space. Today, I'm very pleased to announce that I am now one of the few to grace the pages of the Stuntdubl Blog with my latest article "How to Choose an SEO".

In the article, I went ahead and outlined 5 somewhat basic tips that I believe every company should consider before hiring on an SEO company or consultant. I tried my best to write something short (just under 2 pages) and straight to the point, and I think it paid off well.

Here is a small excerpt from my article:

I have been reading Todd's Blog for a very long time now and would definitely recommend it to anybody in the Search Marketing industry, as well as those individuals looking for ways to improve-on their own marketing efforts. Todd's a very intelligent guy and he certainly has a lot of knowledge when it comes to marketing websites.

I am very pleased to have this rare opportunity to cross-brand with Stuntdubl, and hope that his readers, as well as mine, can take away something of value from the piece.

To read my new article, please visit Todd's post here.

Enjoy!

I first came across this book while comparing prices for a few of Seth Godin's books at Wal-Mart.com... did I really just say Wal-Mart... YES I DID! If you didn't already know it, Wal-Mart.com sells books and they do so quite-a-bit cheaper than Amazon, Borders, and Barnes and Noble. In fact... if you take nothing else away from this post please walk away with this tip: Books, like most things, are cheaper at Wal-Mart.com.

Anyway, so I'm checking out Godin's books and I come across "1,001 Ways to Keep Customers Coming Back", written by Donna Greiner and Theodore Kinni. It turns out that Seth Godin did a forward for this book, which sparked my interest, and so with that I decided to add it to my shopping cart. What the hell... the book was only 10 bucks!

Godin wrote:

"There's only one idea in this entire Book."

"Fortunately for you, it's a great idea. An idea that will make your small business bigger or your big business more profitable. An idea that's been overlooked by most marketers, and one that doesn't require an awful lot of investment, machinery, or risk. The fact is that most companies are obsessed with getting new customers. They advertise, plead, cajole, bribe, and bend over backwards to get a new customer. And then, once they get them, treat them like dirt. Wish that they'd go away. Disrespect them. Cease to invest. In general, marketers act like idiots when it comes to great customers."

"And this book will open your eyes to the problem and give you not ten, not twenty, but literally one thousand ways to do something about it."

After reading "1,001 Ways to Keep Customers Coming Back", I can honestly say that the book did not meet my expectations. Granted, the book did outline many interesting ideas that many of today's top retailers and businesses have used to capitalize on repeat business, but none seemed to work for me or any of my prominent clients.

In fact, much of what was suggested seemed to be geared towards huge companies with deep, deep pockets. That's not me. I bought a $10.00 book... I want $10.00 ideas.

What it comes down to is I bought this book for the following 2 reasons.

1) Seth Godin did the Forward for the book
2) The title/concept of the book intrigued me

I made the mistake of purchasing this book without doing any kind of research. I also purchased this book thinking that I'd be able to take away several new ideas that could be applied in some way or another to my site, or the sites of my clients. I was wrong.

I want to make it clear and say that I don't think that this book isn't any good or that it doesn't serve a purpose... I'm merely saying that it was not helpful to me and I don't imagine it to be helpful to many companies with small to medium sized budgets. And just so that I'm not totally ripping on this book I'm giving it 2 Klogs (out of a possible 5) in my Book Reviews section. To be fair, this book is a dictionary of great ideas for getting customers to come back. Also, I believe this book is one that can be shelved, not thought about for a year or so, and re-read whenever you're in need of a new idea for attracting repeat business.

Are you in search for ideas that can help you to capitalize on your repeat visitors and buyers? If so, you may (or may not) want to take a closer look at "1,001 Ways to Keep Customers Coming Back", written by Donna Greiner and Theodore Kinni. They have plenty of ideas to share, some more complicated and costly than others, but they do help with getting the "idea" ball rolling... and sometimes that's all a person needs.

A few weeks ago I realized that I needed to step it up a notch in my navigation efforts. A problem that I was having was that I could not locate older posts as quickly as I wanted to... and with that the thought of my website visitors not finding the information that they needed as quickly as they'd like, or worse yet not at all, came to mind.

So, to correct this problem, I spent the greater part of this past weekend implementing a search engine into my website, specifically into the top-banner of every page (including my Blog and Directory). Now, with a couple of key-strokes, I, website visitors, and Blog readers can search for any and all content that resides on my site (excluding the directory for time being).

A quick "thanks" to Peter Roebuck, of team All Web, for his assistance with the back-end / server-side set-up. Obviously without his help I wouldn't have been able to integrate such a feature.

A quick note... a few bugs may still exist in regards to the indexing of the site as well as with the relevance of the results, but they will be addressed shortly. Please feel free to mess around with this new search feature, and if you do I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Before I go... I leave you with the following questions:

What are you doing to improve your website?

What are you doing to help your visitors in finding the information that they are searching for?

As I had first mentioned in my 100th post (exactly 18 posts ago) I have been pondering the idea of incorporating a "Book Review" section into my Blog. Basically, I was hoping to create a resource for those looking to purchase industry-related reading by simply providing reviews of the books that I've personally read. The benefit in such a page is that a person can easily compare the many industry books that exist by simply reading my reviews of them.

A downfall to this methodology is of course that interested readers would only be reading my take on specific books... however, that shouldn't be all that bad because, as readers of this Blog, they read my takes on just about everything Search Engine Marketing related anyway.

Well... before leaving for SES-San Jose last week, I decided to move forward with this idea and began creating this section. Today I am happy to announce the semi-completion of this page and that it is now available on my Blog. You can view it here, or by using the "Book Reviews" link found on my Blog's navigation scheme (over on the right).

As you'll soon see, I have only reviewed 5 books, but am planning on adding a few more in upcoming weeks and of course as I finish a new book. As of now, I just wanted to get the section out there and make it available for people to look at in hopes to getting some valid reader feedback on what else to add and maybe what to remove.

Here are a couple of features that I've included for the benefit of this project:

• Image of the Book (for when readers make their purchase)
• Book Information (such as author, publisher, and ISBN #)
• A Small Description of the Book
• A Link to the Post of when the Book was First Reviewed
• A 5 Klog Scale (similar to a 5 Star Scale)

With that said, please take a few moments to check it out. I'd love to hear what you think, so please feel free to use my comments section.

Enjoy.

Ok... it's quickly nearing mid-night and I still find myself making an effort to catch up with last week's emails, industry news, and Blog content. The funny thing is... I have already published 2 times earlier today (1 an hour ago and another an hour before that) featuring a couple of new things going on with Google. So why am I Blogging again when my attention is obviously needed elsewhere? Well, because I feel that now is a great time to rant and share with you all my personal feelings towards the Microsoft AdCenter team. Point blank... they're all a bunch of INCOMPETENT ASSES!

I'm going through my stack of emails and come across one titled "Microsoft adCenter Survey". Now I usually never look at shit like this, especially when I have so many other emails to check into, but today I felt different and left it in my inbox to decipher through later. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I kind of wanted to fill it out and provide feedback to MSN regarding their ad-platform. You see, I want Microsoft to succeed in the Pay Per Click search industry mostly because Google and Yahoo! need competition... and we all know competition breeds better services and products for end-users.

Up to this point, Microsoft has done a lot to implement a new way of managing paid placement ads, but they've also failed in many ways... mostly, in my opinion, in their customer service efforts and with their platforms design and usability. I'm assuming that Microsoft understands that they have many kinks to work out and soliciting the feedback from advertisers and adCenter users is apart of their ongoing attempt to better themselves.

So I go back to the email just a few moments ago, after spending all of this time deciding whether or not I really wanted to take part in their survey or just trash it, and begin reading it again.

Here's what it said:

I thought cool, and to top it off their going to give me a $10 gift certificate to Amazon. So I start filling in my information as shown with this screen-shot:

I clicked the action button to proceed and got the following message (I'll quote it because the screen-shot is fairly large):

Are you kidding me? After all that time deciding whether or not I should participate, I finally decide to do so (which is not typically the case with surveys) and I get that B.S. message. I was even promised a $10 gift certificate... damn you people!

To be perfectly honest, I'm more frustrated at the fact that Microsoft closed the survey after only a day. Forget the fact that they wasted my time. Forget the fact that they promised an Amazon gift certificate that will never be delivered. How do they ever expect to top Google and Yahoo! if they can't even do a simple survey.

I wonder how many surveys they were able to collect in the past 24 hours. 1000? 10,000? Whatever the number is it's not nearly enough. Their team should be willing to receive feedback surveys for as long as a year from now if they're ever going to get their ad platform on par with that of Google's and Yahoo's.

Addressing the Microsoft adCenter Team:
Simply put... don't ask for my opinion/feedback if it's not worth waiting 24 hours to hear. Had I been able to take your survey I would have informed you that your call-center sucks and is lacking the necessary knowledge to take phone calls. Also your platform is very confusing and often does not let me make changes to my ad's creative and/or keyword's list... a big problem if you haven't yet realized it.

There... said and done with.

I came across another interesting tid-bit of information in my efforts to catch up after missing an entire week of work to attend the SES Conference (quick thanks to Michael for IMing me the details), and it too is Blogworthy. Apparently Google Maps is going to be offering printable coupons for everything from pizza to car washes as they make a move designed to appeal to peoples' appetites for a bargain.

Also, and in addition to offering a service to Google Map users, Google is also providing an easier way for merchants to understand the impact of their online presence by allowing them to better track online leads that convert offline... which is one of the major purposes of Google's Maps and Local Search divisions.

Under the conditions of this new service, a search for "Day Spas in New York" will display business listings that match those terms alongside a map. If any Day Spas are offering coupons, a link accompanying the listing will take people to a separate web page where the coupon can be printed. The coupon can then be redeemed in person at the business location... which to sum up my point will assist merchants, in addition to the customers, by providing them some basis of how their local search campaigns are doing.

Here are a few snap-shots of this new service:

Example of a Google Maps Coupon Listing

Example of Google Maps Coupon

Beginning as early as this morning, Google Maps users will see coupons from the more than 12,000 advertisers who offer printable online coupons. As of right now, it appears that any and all merchants are eligible to sign up to offer coupons, at no charge, on Google Maps at Google's Local Business Center. Google will also begin offering in coming months the ability for businesses that purchase AdWords search-related keywords to send people who click on the ads to a page containing a coupon hosted by Google Maps.

Ok... with all of that said, here's my take on this. In the traditional offline world, coupons drive a lot of business, and they haven't been well-explored online. What Google has done here is provided a very valuable marketing tool for local businesses and it doesn't cost anything beyond the discount given to customers.

For the longest time, online maps from Google and rivals Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL have been racing to offer the most bells and whistles to attract more user-eyeballs that can then be fed advertisements. With that in mind, "Bravo" goes to you Google for being the first major map provider to offer coupons, which will not only appeal to cost-conscious consumers but also offer advertisers a reliable way to gauge the success of an ad campaign.

There is only one major downfall to being gone an entire week attending any kind of conference or trade show, and that is dealing with the amount of work that awaits your return. And not only that, but after attending a show like SES, I've got a few ideas that I'd like to test, try, and work on but am unable to do so until I address the mountain of emails and tasks that reside within my inbox. I guess these "grand" ideas will just have to remain scribbled out in my notebook until I can find the time to check into them.

So I'm going though the hundreds of Blog posts (no lie) and news emails that currently have my attention, and I found an interesting, Blog-worthy announcement that took place last week and figured now is a good time to share it with you.

Apparently on that Monday (7th) Google inked a deal with MySpace.com, outbidding Yahoo! in the process, in which it will serve its web search and advertising listings to MySpace's nearly 100 million members. That's right... for those of you who are among the millions of MySpace users you can expect a change in scenery, as far as your search box is concerned, because Google will be implementing itself into your sites very shortly.

Under the terms of the agreement, which will begin in the fourth quarter, Google must guarantee Fox Interactive, MySpace's parent company, minimum payments of $900 million over a 3 year period of time. This is of course if MySpace can meet certain traffic expectations set forth by Google.

MySpace, for those unaware of it, is a social networking website which offers an interactive, user-submitted network of Blogs, profiles, groups, photos, MP3s, videos, and an internal e-mail system. In fact, in July of this year MySpace became the #1 ranked website in the United States (according to research performed by Hitwise)... which is probably what led Google to bid in the first place.

With this deal, Google is simply doing what they've always done... and that's move Google to where users are, as well as user-generated content. Great job Google, you've secured an important source of traffic and ad revenue by exposing it to a thriving young audience of millions on MySpace.

Ahhhh... it feels so good to be going home. Despite all the extra security issues at the airport (which really isn't all that bad in San Jose), today's trip has thus far gone smoothly. In fact, because of a certain someone, who I will keep nameless (did you see the link), we arrived at the airport super early, and so I have plenty of time to get today's post written and hopefully published.

Before jumping into my SES wrap-up, it's important for readers to understand how huge, in terms of importance, the San Jose Search Engine Strategies conference really is. Even though SES is a traveling search marketing trade show and can be found throughout the year in Chicago, New York, Toronto, Paris, London, and many other places, no other venue is as important as San Jose. Care to wonder why? It's because San Jose is in the "Silicon Valley". Know what else's in the "Silicon Valley"? How about the home to IBM, Apple, Adobe, Google, Yahoo!, a Microsoft office, eBay, Pay-Pal, MacAfee, and so many other major Internet brands.

With that said, many of the major industry announcements take place at or during the week of SES San Jose. Don't get me wrong... stuff is announced at SES conferences all the time and all over the world, but in San Jose it just seems like there is more to announce. It almost seems as if Internet companies use the SES conference as a stage to trump each other for the biggest announcements, and use search-industry experts, followers, Bloggers, PR people, article writers, and other authoritative news-people that are in attendance to spread the "buzz".

I guess it works because here are some of this past week's SES highlights:

• "Google Sitemaps" Changed to "Google Webmaster Central".
• New Studies "on Searcher Behavior" Have Been Released.
• Google Finds Faults with Major 3rd Party Click-Auditors.
• Yahoo! Did a Live Demo of Their Upcoming Ad-Platform.
• The Exhibit Hall Was Big and Featured Many New Vendors.
• The 5th Annual Google Dance Wins Best SES-SJ Party.
• Danny Sullivan Interviews Eric Schmitt, CEO of Google.
• A Yahoo! Store Developers Meeting Took Place.

Overall, my experience with the conference and the trip is a pleasant one. I attended numerous sessions and sponsored events, had plenty of time to meet up with some old acquaintances and introduce myself to many new ones, visited Fisherman's Wharf, The Winchester Mystery House, and Alcatraz Island, and to top things off I took a lot away, in an educational sense, which can be used to improve on my efforts as a Search Engine Marketer and All Web's efforts as a provider of Search Engine Marketing services.

If you've never been to an SES show, I encourage you to go. Even if you're one who believes they know all there is to know... I can guarantee you'll come home with something new to test and/or implement.

Here are some "Behind-The-Scenes" highlights which made this trip even more than interesting than can be imagined:

• I Lost my License 3-Days Before Going to San Jose.
• I Recovered my License a Day Before Going to San Jose.
• I Had Problems with Re-Charging My Cell Phone
• I Lost my Wallet in San Jose.
• I Cancelled my Credit Card for Obvious Reasons.
• I Recovered my Wallet 1-Day Before my Flight Home
• I Ran Out of Money and Had No Active Credit Card.
• I Sat in Front of Dave Naylor on my Flight Back to Chicago.
• I Left my Phone on a Bench at the Chicago O'Hare Airport.
• My Phone was Found and Will Be Mailed Back to me Soon.

Talk about problems... I had many. Can you imagine how hard it would have been to board a plane without a Government issued Photo ID or any other proof of who I was... especially with the latest terrorist attack and all the extra security in place. I'm just glad I didn't have to find out.

I am hoping to get all of my photos from this past trip published sometime in the next week. When i do... you can view them here and here.

Here is a list of links to all of my San Fransico / SES posts:

- SES San Jose 2006: Day 4 Notes
- SES San Jose 2006: Day 3 Notes
- "What I Like About You"
- SES San Jose 2006: Day 2 Notes
- SES San Jose 2006: Day 1 Notes
- Live From SES San Jose

The conference today was a lot like yesterday, mostly in the sense that I attended my scheduled sessions but really don't have much to report... at least anything that qualifies as absolute "ground-breaking".

I did, however, join up with team All Web and several other very prominent Yahoo! Store developers to visit Yahoo's Corporate Headquarters for what has become our yearly "developers meeting". Although I'm not at liberty to talk specific details... I will comment that I found the round-table chit-chat, regarding the Yahoo! Store / Merchant Solutions current and future products, very educational and enjoyable. "Thank You" Yahoo! for such an eventful evening. I had a blast!

Because I have to board a plane semi-early tomorrow morning and because of the fact that I have not yet packed, I will cut this post short. I will, however, leave you with some photos from tonight's Yahoo! Store Developers meeting.

Enjoy!

Yahoo! HQ - Sunnyvale CA

Yahoo! HQ - Sunnyvale CA

Yahoo! HQ - Sunnyvale CA

Dinner with Yahoo! Store Developers

Dinner with Yahoo! Store Developers

So I'm checking my notes and realize that I didn't write anything down today... meaning I really don't have anything to which I feel is Blog-worthy to pass along. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I didn't learn anything from today's sessions or find the information presented valuable. I'm merely stating that I don't have anything to share with you as far as new updates or statistics, such as I have been doing all week long.

I did, however, happen to catch the Danny Sullivan, head-honcho of this conference, and Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, interview which took place earlier this morning. To be honest... I really enjoyed seeing Eric in person, but I didn't learn or take away anything of value from the whole deal. The questions that Danny had asked seemed to be pre-scripted (as one would expect) and they had seemed to be a bit too safe... meaning that the answers were pretty much "Google is great because".

Other than that, the sessions today were pretty normal... with the exception of the Webmaster Radio's Search Bash Party to which I'm just now getting back from. The party was a GREAT time in case you were wondering.

The following are some pics that I happened to snap today:

The Google Booth

The Yahoo! Search Booth

The Ask.com Booth

A Car To Be Given Away By "weRlive"

The ClickTracks Booth

A Quick Shot at the Webmaster Radio Bash

Yahoo! Store Designer Kelly Wilson

Me and Doug McConnaughhay

Enjoy and stay tuned for more updates tomorrow!

In addition to today's SES update, I have a special treat for you guys... one that requires its own post.

While at the Google Dance tonight, Michael, Jessica, and I (team All Web) took part in this really cool Bobbing head-to-music thing and so I thought I'd share. This is of course really embarrassing and at the same time pretty funny.

Here's the video:

If this by chance doesn't work, please use this link to download the video: http://www.youtube.com/v/aM9wjqYHG6Y

What do you think? Cool or un-cool? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Today was indeed a busy day for me, and I'd have to admit that I'm pretty tired as I'm writing this. With that said, please excuse any typos or bad grammar usage that you come across as I just don't care enough at the moment to triple check things. I just got back to my room from the Google Party... thank god tomorrow is a late start. I'll touch more on the actually Google party a bit later, but for now... on to the good stuff.

My day kicked off with the "Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues" session, which happens to be one that I typically try and attend each time. The session covers how to spot abnormalities and follow-up with search engines if you should suspect a competitor or someone else is creating invalid clicks on your accounts. Personally speaking, this session is a great way to keep up with the latest on click-fraud class-action lawsuits, as well as what the engines are doing to combat malicious click activity.

Lori Weiman, Director of KeywordMax, shared a very interesting statistic today. According to her and the research that she and her team have done:

Now to be fair to Lori and the statistic she provided (and because I spoke with her personally about it after the session) the 28% mentioned is 1 or 2 extreme cases that she's come acrossed and it certainly does not represent the large majority of her clients. Another thing to keep in mind is that an "invalid" click doesn't necessarily mean click-fraud.

Also, during this same session, Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager of Google, announced that a report had just been published (we're literally talking hours before the session) which claims to find fault in how 3 major 3rd party click-auditing companies, and potentially all auditing programs using JavaScript solutions, count their clicks. The report is titled "How Fictitious Clicks Occur in Third-Party Click Fraud Audit Reports" and actually featured Tom Cuthbert's company Click Forensics. The interesting thing here is that Tom just happened to be a panelist on this very session.

Now I have not yet read this report, and doubt that I will anytime soon, but I do encourage you all to take a look as Google's findings. You can check it out here.

A quick shot of the Click-Fraud Panel.

I happened to catch a special lunch session with the Yahoo! Search Marketing team where they showed off a live demo of their new, soon to launch, PPC Ad Platform. The new platform seems to be tons better than their current platform, and from what I've seen today it appears that Yahoo! is definitely moving in all the right directions. Here are a couple of major updates highlighted in today's presentation:

• A New User Dash-Board.
• A Time-Zone Setting.
• An Extremely Better Geo-Targeting Feature.
• A/B Testing Options.
• Budgeting on Both an Account Level and Campaign Level.
• Alerts and Customizable Alerts.
• A New Ranking Algorithm Based on an Ad's Performance.
• Plus tons more TBA.

This new platform is available now to a select few, but will hopefully be up and running completely by 4th Quarter of this year or by 1st Quarter of next year. The YSM mentioned that the delay is due to the fact that they'd like some time to beef up their customer service staff and ensure that they're indeed ready to assist advertisers when the time comes. Not a bad idea if you ask me.

A quick shot of the Yahoo! Search Marketing Panel. Sorry about the camera guy!

The exhibit hall opened up today as I found myself spending a great deal of time in the hall. There are tons of booths to cover and tons of people to look-up, and only 2 days to do it in... which validates my time on the exhibit hall floor. Here are a couple of pics that I was able to take:

The Google Booth

Me and CK Chung (AKA Kid Disco)

Me and Todd Malicoat (AKA Stuntdubl)

Stuntdubl and Disco

A Live "SEO Rockstars" Show

The Google Dance kicked-off in similar fashion to other years... boarding a bus at the convention center which takes attendees to and from Google. Upon arriving at Googleplex, we were greeted by members of the Google staff and were shortly after introduced to a bunch of great freebies, including food, beverages, and entertainment. As always this was a super great time!

The Google Dance

And that's it for now. Be sure to stay tuned for all the fun and excitement still to come.

The conference kicked off nice and early for me this morning as I needed to register, grab all the freebies that go along with antending, and get myself prepared for the upcoming sessions.

The Front of the San Jose Convention Center.

My first session was the "Searcher Behavior Research Update", with speakers Bill Barnes, Rob Murray, David Williams, and Anne Frisbie. For the most part, this was a good session as the speakers highlighted their latest studies and findings regarding how searchers interact with search engines.

Robert Murray, President of iProspect, shared a couple of interesting statistics that I thought were worth mentioning. According to his research:

This just goes to show how important top search engine placement is. Search users are no longer digging though the thousands upon thousands of search engine results to find a website (frankly... I'm not sure that they ever did). It seems that if the majority of searchers don't find what they're looking for by the 3rd page, they'll either enter a new query or try another search engine all together. Therefore, it becomes extremely important that website owners find their way to the top of the search engines, either organically or through paid-placement methods, for their desired keyword phrases.

Robert also mentioned that:

Which again, these statistics certainly say a lot about today's search users and their searching behaviors.

My second session was "Leveraging Social Media" and it focused primarily on how one can use media services like MySpace, YouTube, Friendster, and Flickr to deliver marketing messages without disrupting the diverse audience that exists within each area. Overall this was a pretty decent session and one that provided me with lots to look into and experiment with.

At lunch I sat in on a Google Sitemaps / Google Webmaster Central session. That's right if you didn't already catch it elsewhere... Google announced earlier today that it has dropped the name "Sitemaps" and dubbed the service "Webmaster Central". Personally, I hate the name, but 'what are ya going do'. The lunch / session featured the "Webmaster Central" team as they walked through some of the program's new changes and updates.

A quick shot of the panel (sorry its blurry). That's everybody's favorite Googler Matt Cutts on the big screen.

My last session of the day was a jam-packed, standing-room-only "SEM Via Communities, Wikipedia & Tagging" session. This session featured the all-star line-up of Rand Fishkin, Neil Patel, Andy Hagans, Todd Malicoat, and Chris Pirillo. Together they discussed the many services and strategies that can be used to tap into links and search-driven traffic, such as Wikipedia, Digg, Flickr, and Technorati. "Kudos" goes out to these guys for putting on a very entertaining, and yet informative, session.

The All-Star Panel: (L-R) Todd Malicoat, Chris Pirillo, Rand Fishkin, Neil Patel, and Andy Hagans.

Well, that's it for today. There's a party happening later on tonight sponsored by Ask.com, however, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to pass on it for a nice, relaxing cigar down by the hotel pool. Besides... I'm going to need my rest for tomorrow's opening of the exhibit hall and the big Google Dance bash. Stay tuned for tomorrow's updates on the conference and SES happenings.

If you didn't already know... I'm in San Jose, California this week attending a Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference. I flew in on Saturday afternoon with fellow All Webbers Michael and Jessica, and will be here until Friday. For those of you not aware, SES is a week-long event (Monday - Thursday) with several different kinds of search-related sessions, as well as a 2-day exhibit hall where attendees can visit with search-marketing vendors.

After getting settled in yesterday, we decided to take in some sight-seeing and putt around the San Jose / San Francisco area (we did have a 1 1/2 days before the conference).

Saturday afternoon, we visited the "Winchester Mansion and Mystery House" in San Jose. If you never been there, I'll spare you the long background story. The mansion was designed by a wealthy widow named Sarah L. Winchester and features 160 Victorian era rooms, 3 elevators, and 47 fireplaces. We took one of their hour tours, and to be perfectly honest, I had a very good time. Every room has a story to tell, and every story was uniquely odd from the next.

Michael and Jessica at the entrance to the Winchester Mansion.

Sunday we decided to saddle-up and head north to San Francisco where we spent most of the day taking in the sights at Fisherman's Wharf, however, we came prepared to tour the Alcatraz Island... formerly a federal prison. We took the self-guided/audio tour which explained, via a tape recording, the many different areas of the prison as well as the many stories that go along with them. The overall experience, from the boat ride in to the tour itself, was great and one I would definately recommend to those visiting the San-Fran area.

Me inside one of the prison cells at Alcatraz.

Well that's if for now. I will be attending many sessions, the exhibit hall, and several after-conference events, including the annual Google Dance, a SEMPO gathering, and a trip to Yahoo! headquarters to visit with our Yahoo! Store reps. With that in mind, I will do my best to provide daily coverage of the events that take place here as well as any major news and announcements associated with this conference. So... stay tuned!

Oh, and if you're attending the conference this week and should happen to see me walking around make sure you stop me and say "hi". I'll do the same.

After numerous class action lawsuits and criticism from advertisers, the major Web search companies, such as Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Ask.com, LookSmart and others, have announced on Wednesday their plans to work together with two industry groups, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the nonprofit Media Rating Council, to quantify click fraud. Together, they will be known as the Click Measurement Working Group.

The group's mission is to establish guidelines for what constitutes valid clicks and invalid clicks on ads. Guidelines can help the industry measure how prevalent click-fraud really is. Third-parties who sell click-fraud-combating services to advertisers claim that click-fraud rates are as high as 30 percent. Google and Yahoo, however, counter that click-fraud rates are minimal.

This announcement comes a week after Google kicked it up a notch and began offering invalid click stats to their Adwords advertisers. For those of you not familiar with click-fraud it occurs when online ads are intentionally clicked on, either by websites who get paid for hosting the ads or by companies trying to deplete the ad budgets of rivals. This is typically done so that fraudulent clickers can buy the search keywords themselves and steal the business.

Since day 1, I've questioned whether or not search engines should be the ones to police click-fraud issues simply because of all the incentive and profit that goes with it. Let's face it, search engines make money on click-fraud... and I mean good money. Would you expect a company to take serious action against their primary source for revenue? I'd think not.

To me, it's always been the "fox guarding the hen house" scenario. Even though Google, Yahoo!, and others are some of the most respected and trusted companies of today, one would still have to wonder whether or not they're as honest as they should be when it comes to click-fraud.

With that said, I firmly believe that forming the "Click Measurement Working Group" is a step in the right direction for Pay Per Click advertising. The newly formed group will ensure that marketers of all sizes are provided the highest possible level of transparency when dealing with invalid PPC clicks.

Do you remember back in January when Google purchased the radio ad company "dMarc Broadcasting"? Well if you don't... don't sweat it because not many will.

I, for one, do remember reading about the acquisition; however, I never got around to Blogging it simply because there was so much other Blog-worthy stuff to post instead. If you remember, at that time I was only posting once a week and I guess this subject had been trumped a couple of times by more important posts. Eventually, I must have just forgotten about it... until now that is.

So what has made me think about Google and dMarc Broadcasting after all this time? Well, this past Wednesday, Google inked a deal with XM Satellite Radio... a deal that will eventually allow the search giant's AdWords advertisers to promote their products and services through XM spots.

With the dMarc platform in its possession, Google has made what otherwise would be complicated radio advertising procedures, such as sales, scheduling and tracking, automated and simplified. Currently, the platform is available only to dMarc advertisers, and not AdWords clients, but Google estimates that dMarc will be integrated into the AdWords software by the fourth quarter of this year.

This deal is the latest of what seems like a series of moves to expand the AdWords program beyond a strictly online medium... and such a partnership with XM radio is definitely a major step in that direction.

Just take a moment and think about what Google is doing. With the use of their dMarc Broadcasting system and this partnership with XM radio, Google has opened the doors for its advertisers to more than 7 million radio subscribers throughout the U.S. alone. That, combined with the already powerful distribution of their current Adwords program, offers several different marketing avenues for small, medium, and large companies to explore. Not a bad move if you ask me.

I just wanted to take a quick second to announce that Microsoft is planning a pretty big adCenter update... one that will offer a few new features that are geared towards improving their advertiser's overall online experience. The new features, as highlighted in an email I received from the Microsoft adCenter team, include:

• Compatibility with the Firefox 1.5 browser.

• All data (daily, weekly, and monthly) will be updated on a more frequent basis to help advertisers to view results and optimize campaigns more efficiently.

• An option to set and view your campaign and order summaries based on a specific time frame, as opposed to only showing summaries in the life-to-date format. Currently both Yahoo! and Google offer this features and my only comment for Microsoft is that IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME! Looking at summary stats in "life-to-date" was getting really annoying.

• A user-interface change, specifically to the "reporting" tab, that is said to make it easier to use.

This upgrade is expected to take place this Saturday (August 5th) and between the hours of 7:00am and 9:00pm Pacific Time.

During this time, all campaigns and ads will continue to run, however, advertisers will not be able to access or make changes to their adCenter accounts. Therefore make sure you make all necessary account changes before-hand, because your're going to be very limited on time for Saturday.

For more information on this and other adCenter updates, check out the adCenter Blog.