For the first time Google shares have broken the $500 mark and Wednesday morning saw an opening at $510.78. These figures give 8 year old Google a market value of approximately $154 billion. When they priced its IPO back in August 2004, the value per share was $85 and after the first day of trading it broke the $100 milestone.

I recently had a conversation with a client who was having some difficulties with his Google AdWords account. This client had then made some changes to financial settings and had resulted in significant charges beyond what was anticipated. In this example, the date range being displayed on the reports was set to a range which made it difficult to see the charges being accrued.

I spent some time working things through with the client which ultimately resulted in the effect on the account being originally sought after.

While managing PPC campaigns is an additional service offered by StepForth, for existing clients I am happy to answer any questions to try and help. For extensive issues we may require a PPC contract, but in many cases I will likely be able to simply answer your questions to help get things on track.

If you have any PPC related questions, please feel free to drop me a note at scott@stepforth.com and I will see what I can do to assist!

The search engine world never rests. As online marketing professionals discover new ways to obtain top rankings the algorithms evolve right along side. There are two primary reasons behind the updating of ranking algorithms. To increase the quality and relevancy of the results, and to decrease the many page of online spam. Read more…

First there was Google Earth, Then Google Moon, now Google Sun? Robyn Beavers announced on the Google Blog Monday that soon Google will be installing 1.6 megawatts of solar panels at their Mountain View campus. When complete Google will have the largest corporate solar installation in the US and possibly even in the world.

The electricity generated by these solar panels is equivalent to that used by about 1000 average California homes and will offset roughly 30% of their peak electricity consumption.

Good job Google on working towards a greener environment.

Yahoo will be introducing the new sponsored search soon and with it Yahoo wants their advertisers to know about a few structural changes about to take place. In their latest monthly edition of “On Target”, Yahoo noted a few key points advertisers should know about.

1. Account upgrades are expected to be released in the fourth quarter of 2006. At this time some of the account terminology will be changed.

2. Listings will now be known as ‘Ads’ and will be joined into Ad Groups (not to be confused with Google AdGroups). This will allow for bidding based on the entire group, or by individual keyword.

3. Categories will now be known as ‘Campaigns’ which will consist of one or more ‘Ad Groups’. (This is starting to sound a lot like the AdWords setup.)

Once Yahoo has implemented the new structure all current categories will be moved into campaigns automatically. However it is advised that if you have not already done so ensure your current listings are added into appropriate categories. This is not required, but this extra step may help you with organizing your account after the switch over.

All in all the account upgrades are likely to make life easier and more structured. The one thing I wonder about is why it has taken so long to have them implemented. The changes have been in the works for a while now and it will be nice to see them in place. Hopefully they meet their projected Q4 deadline.

Yahoo announced this morning their beta launch of sponsored search results on their mobile web service in the US and UK. This will allow Yahoo! Advertisers to reach searchers on their cell phones and other mobile devices.

The beta launch will allow a select group of advertisers to post their sponsored ads to the mobile marketplace. While this service is not yet available to the general business person, it is certainly a step in that direction.

Ads will allow you to direct consumers to either a mobile landing page, courtesy of Yahoo which can display your company info and phone number, or to a mobile site of your own.

Yahoo already has a Mobile Web service available throughout the US and UK with a browser-based service designed specifically for the mobile market. Incorporation of paid ads seems like a natural progression. For more information on Yahoo Mobile visit http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/mobile

While it is currently by invitation only, Monday night, Microsoft released a beta version of Soapbox to compete with the highly successful YouTube. Currently you can request an invitation; however, when clicking the link I was presented with an error “Oops. It’s not anything you did–it’s us. Our site’s down. Please try again later.” No real surprise here, after all it is a Microsoft Beta.

YouTube is the ultimate video sharing venue attracting 34 million visitors in August according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Users worldwide can upload and share their videos in just about every category imaginable. Read more…

Microsoft officially launched its “Live” search Last Monday. Live Search, Live.com, and Live Local Search were officially released from Beta. Live Search will also be the new power behind MSN Search.

Live.com has been released in 47 worldwide markets. Throughout its Beta period users have sent in suggestions and complaints which have been used to refine the software in preparation for its prime time debut.

Live.com uses a very clean, easy to use, uncluttered design which is sure to attract those looking to simply perform a search. Live can be used to search for web, images, news, rss feeds, blogs and video according to the

We were recently contacted by a client who had found a number of occurrences of search engine SPAM. What made this SPAM a problem is that they were targeting the clients business name and coming up in some of the top 10 rankings! The pages were littered with the company name, and appeared to have been created by a bot (which the majority of SPAM pages are).

The question we were presented with was: “These sites keep popping up, they are blatantly using our company name as an SEO landing page, do i have any recourse?” Read more…

Recently the world of online auctioneers saw the rates at eBay spike a little higher, and has a number of sellers very unhappy about the situation. This has also sparked a number of eBay listings surrounding this hike, like this T-Shirt “I survived the eBay Rate Increase of August ’06“. Wonder how many they will sell?

Finding information on the eBay rate increase was more difficult than expected. One would expect to find a press release, but a look at their PR page come up blank (). I’m curious, eBay sends out a ton of messages advertising free listing days and other various news to its users. I on the other hand did not receive a single message from them stating the rate increase. Would this not seem like a natural thing to do?

Many are turning to Google in hopes that the internet search giant will come out and develop a true eBay competitor. Today eBay has a virtual monopoly on the online auction business. While there are many auction sites on the internet, none can even come close to comparing to the immense power and spread of eBay. Where’s Google? Even Yahoo has an auction site, although I have to be honest, I have yet to try it.

This does bring up the question, why has Google not come out yet and created a competitor? Google seems to have a knack for this kind of thing. It seems to me that because of the power and revenue generated by AdWords ads, they could do quite well even offering a free online auction service. The ad revenue could far exceed the auction listing fees and combined with an even stronger online presence, Google could certainly overtake eBay and profit considerably.

A search of Google Labs, or even a general internet search doesn’t turn up anything official even suggesting that Google is thinking about going in this direction, but it does seem like a natural progression seeing as how they have roughly 50% of search already, and have developed a name trusted around the world.