Microsoft adCenter Issue Last Friday
Here is the word that Microsoft adCenter released regarding the bug they had in their system last Friday.
As a recap, they had a bug very similar to Google's where the CPC's got charged over the set maximum CPC. So advertisers ended up getting charges like $1500 for a keyword that would have only cost $100 (or more simply 1.05 instead of .05).
Hello,
A number of customers are seeing very high Average CPC and spend amounts in adCenter over the last 24 hours that are well above their bid amounts for keywords. This issue has been contained and remedied by our development team. You will not be responsible for the CPCs above your max bid amounts.
If you manually paused your campaign this morning due to questions surrounding your CPC you should reactivate these campaigns at this time. We are gathering more information regarding next steps for campaigns that have hit budget pause. I will keep you posted as I receive additional information regarding next steps for these campaigns.
We apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused and appreciate your continued business.
Thanks!
Technorati Tags: MSN, Microsoft, adCenter, PPC, Online Marketing, Paid Search, Search, Advertising, Ironvine
MSN adCenter Downtime
MSN is also having some scheduled downtime this weekend, for quite a bit longer than Google AdWords planned downtime.
I wonder if we are going to be getting any of the new features I mentioned a week or two in a post.
Microsoft adCenter will undergo scheduled maintenance for up to 24 hours starting at 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time, Saturday, February 10. During this period you will not be able to access adCenter to make changes. Your keywords and ads will remain live and continue to run.
Technorati Tags: MSN, Microsoft, Microsoft adCenter, adCenter, PPC, Paid Search, Search Marketing, Ironvine
Yahoo Panama Third Party Conversion Tool Bug
In Yahoo's new Panama Sponsored Search platform, they have a cool little utility that converts other parties campaigns (Google, MSN) bulk download sheets to the Yahoo format.
This is really cool, especially if you have multiple marketing platforms. You can now keep them matched in keyword updates.
There is a bug though. Google recently retired the ability to do bulk downloads from the AdWords interface. You now have to download the campaigns with AdWords Editor. The Yahoo tool, as of right now, does not work with the AdWords Editor bulk downloads. There are different field names and info between the old Google bulk download sheets and the AdWords Editor downloads.
This causes Yahoo to spit out a "System Error" message when you try to convert the file.
Solution: If you have an old Google bulk download, use that as a template and rework the AdWords Editor file to fit that. Then it will work.
Hopefully Yahoo will catch on and fix this soon.
Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Panama Search, Search Marketing, Paid Search, Google, AdWords, AdWords Editor, Yahoo Search Marketing, Ironvine
Upcoming Changes to Paid Search
There are a couple big changes to both the Yahoo and Microsoft search marketing platforms upcoming in the next 2 months.
Microsoft AdCenter has an expected new release coming out in the next 2 months with new features and updates made from testing and customer feedback. The focus to these should end up being on keyword optimization, video display ads, and support/help. Apparently this will also include a pilot program for Microsoft Content Ads, similar to Google's Content Network.
Yahoo Sponsored Search is rolling out a new ranking model on February 5th. The new model will take ad quality into consideration as well as the bid value. This comes in line with what Google already does, which follows Yahoo's current duplication of services theme. This will allow good quality ads to perform at a lower cost, or bad ads to perform at a higher cost. That will depend on the marketer and the ads.
Here's a quick summary of this important change:
- Both bid amount and ad quality will determine an ad's rank in search results beginning February 5, 2007.
- This will replace the current method, in which ads are ranked by bid amount only (bid-to-position).
- This is designed to allow you to focus less on competitive bidding practices and more on the quality of your ads.
- By improving the quality of your ads and making them more relevant to users, you may be rewarded with a better ranking and/or a lower cost for your ads.
What is "Ad Quality"?
Ad quality is determined by:
- The ad's historical performance - its click-through rate relative to competitors and normalized for position.
- The ad's expected performance - determined by various relevance factors considered by Yahoo!'s ranking algorithms, relative to other ads displayed at the same time.
Overall ad quality is displayed in a graphical form by the quality index.
The "historical performance" should be easy enough to understand, but the "expected performance" will be the mystery value that we can only guess at that Yahoo will be able to monkey around with.
Results of the changes TBD...
Technorati Tags: MSN, Microsoft, AdCenter, Yahoo, Sponsored Search, Search Marketing, Content Network, Paid Search, Ironvine
December U.S. Search Query Market Share
This report on the December US Search Query Market Share is produced by Citigroup's Mark Mahaney.
Here is the summary from the report that came out January 15, 2007.
Summary
- comScore released last Friday its U.S. December search query data.
- U.S. search queries grew 29.7% Y/Y in December vs. 30.5% Y/Y in November. U.S. search query growth has been surprisingly sticky this past year, showing no deceleration.We would attribute this to increased search frequency by Internet users & the greater availability of Search applications.
- Google's query share increased 40 bps M/M to a record high 47.3% of the U.S. market. This market share gain continues a very consistent trend for Google.
- Yahoo!'s query share increased 30 bps M/M to reach 28.5%. The data indicate a clear stabilization in Yahoo!'s search share in '06.
- Microsoft's query share decreased 50 bps M/M to reach a record low 10.5%.
- The Ask Network's share decreased 10 bps M/M to 5.4%, roughly in line with its '06 average position. We treat the comScore data as directionally accurate, but would not read too much into any one month's results.
This seems to follow the common averages for the past quarterly trends. Google going up consistently, Yahoo! building its power base (especially with the release of its new Search Marketing tools and Panama paid search platform) and the declining of Microsoft along with the barely mentionable Ask.
Technorati Tags: Citigroup, Google, Yahoo, MSN, Microsoft, Ask, Ironvine, Search Marketing, Internet Industry, Internet News
Microsoft Labs Photosynth
http://labs.live.com/photosynth/
Photosynth is an amazing new technology from Microsoft Live Labs that will change forever the way you think about digital photos.
Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.
With Photosynth you can:
* Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
* Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it's megapixels or gigapixels in size.
* See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
* Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing.
* Send a collection - or a particular view of one - to a friend.
This is a really cool application that works well if you have multiple photos to create a set.
What does the engine do?
Your brain knows that your eyes are about two inches apart. But when Photosynth does its magic, it doesn't know where the cameras were, or which way they were pointing. Fortunately, when there are many cameras, and many features in common, the algorithms behind Photosynth can figure out not only where the features are in 3D, but where all of the cameras would have to have been, and which way they were aimed, consistent with the features they "saw".
I look forward to seeing what they produce out of this. If they can get it so that it will index photos online and auto plot them they could have a huge 3D world at their disposal for all sorts of uses.
Maximize Holiday Sales with QuickLaunch
We haven't talked about Microsoft's adCenter in a while so here is a nice update about the QuickLaunch service that adCenter provides.
If you can spend at least $30/day on adCenter, check out QuickLaunch and get your holiday campaigns rolling.
This can be especially helpful during the busy holiday shopping season with all the new products you can find online. Don't miss your chance to make those holiday sales and let your competition beat you out!
Search News
Welcome to Ironvine Search Marketing (http://www.ironvine.com/blog/), providers of quality content including search engine optimization tips, search marketing, search industry news and programming tips with code samples. Today we will cover some of the latest news and happenings in the world of search.
This weeks topics:
Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) Released
Google Custom Search Engine
eComXpo Online Search Marketing and Affiliate Tradeshow
URL.com Reviewed
Yahoo! Search Marketing - Panama
Google AdWords - New Tools
=================
Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) Released
Microsoft Corp. launched it's latest version of Internet Explorer (7) on Thursday Oct. 19, 2006. It is being touted by Microsoft as being more secure, user friendly, and full of new features including tabbed browsing, RSS reader capabilities, pop-up blocker and automatic phishing filter.
As with most Microsoft launches it was met with bugs and a security problem. I have read several people's reports, including one from Danny Sullivan where IE7 seriously messed up the system, including system restore. I also had several issues while installing IE7 that took about 2.5 hrs to resolve and lots of manual operating system fixes / configurations.
After testing IE7 throughout the beta and RC releases there has been some improvement in the functionality and compatibility with current internet standards, but I feel there are certainly some compatibility and stability issues.
Read more about my Internet Explorer 7 installation experience.
=================
Google has released a custom search engine that you can add to your own web sites. You are able to customize the search parameters to a fairly decent functional level you would expect from a custom search box. Currently the sign-up page is opening under the Google Co-Op Beta banner, so it may be being added as a splinter application of that program.
Earlier this quarter Yahoo! released its version of a custom search box, Yahoo! Search Builder, you can configure and place on your own site. It includes tracking and reporting on the performance of the search box you add as well.
=================
eComXpo Online Search Marketing and Affiliate Tradeshow
This fall's eComXpo started yesterday, October 23, 2006. eComXpo is an online virtual tradeshow where search marketers, affiliates and specialists can all attend the show free along with special guest speakers covering about 8-15 topics each day of the show.
Attendees can meet with company employees via chat or send emails with vcards attached. There are over 140 contests and giveaways you can also find while browsing the vendors booths.
You can find companies at the show including Google, Yahoo!, Ask, Microsoft, Webmaster Radio, Clicksor, and many more search marketing companies and affiliate marketers.
=================
Url.com is a new social search engine that pulls the top 10 results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The interface is pretty well done and allows users, once registered, to respond to resulting search pages as either a good result or bad. You are able to promote your site or any others you feel deserve it.
Interestingly enough a search query on url.com for Ironvine Search Marketing comes up as #5 result on MSN and you are able to click it and vote on your url.com result page. While using it I did get a "Application error (Rails)" error on going back to the results page from the url.com frame bar. It seems there are a few bugs yet to work out for the developers, but it seems to be a decent service overall.
=================
Yahoo! Search Marketing - Panama
Yahoo! this week has started integrating it's latest paid search interface codenamed "Panama." Most of the new interface won't be applied to general users of Yahoo Search Marketing until first quarter of 2007, but Yahoo has released several previews and tutorials as well as an option to request to be included in Panama as soon as possible.
This update is a long awaited upgrade to a system that was beginning to lag behind both Google AdWords and the new adCenter from Microsoft in tools, features, speed, and usability.
=================
Last Friday, Google AdWords announced on it's blog that 3 new features have been added to Google AdWords. These additions include:
- 'Last thirty days' date range for reports
- Graphs for weekly and hourly reports
- Ad format filters for the site tool
Read the official announcement on the Google AdWords Blog.
=================
About: Ironvine Search Marketing (http://www.ironvine.com/blog/)
Author - Steve Terjeson - Online Marketing Specialist for Sesame Communications with over 10 years assorted programming, marketing, sales, and computer experience.
Internet Explorer 7 Launch: Reviewed
Yesterday Oct. 19th Microsoft launched its latest version of Internet Explorer, IE7. There have been lots of radio spots, radio ads, and news articles going out to let everyone know IE7 is live. It is being touted by Microsoft as being more secure, user friendly, and full of new features including tabbed browsing, RSS reader capabilities, pop-up blocker and automatic phishing filter. The microsoft.com homepage has a 400x400 IE7 graphic to announce the launch and provide an easy link to the download section as well.
So, now everyone knows all about IE7 going live and knows where to go to download it. The question is: Should you and what issues does it have?
To answer whether you should or should not download IE7 is basically personal preference in my opinion. Developers and hard core internet techies will find it somewhat of a pain compared to the much more stable and equally powerful FireFox 2 RC3. For the casual internet user IE7 has a few more features than IE6 which keeps it up with current trends like blogging and RSS feed readers as well as general security updates.
Are there issues with IE7? Oh yeah.
I installed IE7 today, replacing the IE 7 RC2, which replaced the IE 7 RC 1 which replaced the IE 7 Beta 2 and 3. Honestly IE 7 Beta 2 and 3 have been the most stable versions of the lot.
Issue #1 - Today's installation (#1) went in fine, then restarted my computer as goes general Microsoft installation packages. On reboot IE7 spent about 5 minutes downloading and installing updates before it would even let me into Windows. That was a bit of a frustration and pain, they could have at least warned me it would update on reboot.
Issue #2 - All my active desktop and application links have changed from opening with FireFox 2, to now open with IE7. I have my browsers specifically set to use Firefox as the default. No matter how I set them IE7 took over and stayed in control. I had to resort to going into folder options and specifically setting the URL: http and URL: https settings to use firefox.exe directly. Honestly how many people are going to know how to do that?
Issue #3 - Internet Explorer 7 likes to lock up. It has locked up on me 3 times just trying to close the browser window after general use. No special tricks or specific web page. Just in general hard application lock up. End Now. Times 3.
Issue #4 - In attempts to fix Issue #2 I uninstalled IE7 completely, which restored the system back to IE6. That actually worked well. Had to redownload IE6 security patches however. Reinstalled IE7 a little while ago. They had changed the IE7 download page so you could select your OS version now and I didn't have to go through the secondary patching. Thanks for the mid-launch update!
So, I have my computer back to general use after about 2.5 hours of installing/fixing IE7. Firefox 2 became my browser of choice around IE 7 RC1 and so far is staying on top in my usage.
Soapbox Revisited
In my earlier post about being included in the Soapbox beta from MSN Video, I mentioned that I reviewed the functionality a little and got and error, but started the upload on a sample clip. Well the clip never did finish uploading after about 3 hours.
I still get the same error message if I try to do anything except view the 6 clips on the initial page I get an error. Trying to view my profile I actually get a pop up error and the normal on page errors under every topic listed. There are just a few bugs they need to work out it looks like.
I think Google went the right direction when they bought YouTube instead of looking at Microsoft.
Soapbox Beta on MSN Video
I was accepted into the beta finally. Gave it a look this morning. Unfortunately browsing videos yields the result of "We're sorry, Soapbox is experiencing technical difficulties."
The only videos that seemed to work were the 3 newest, and the 3 most viewed. The video labels need a lot of work as well especially for translation. I think there will be a lot of issue with videos being listed in Chinese or other languages, especially when they are listed as the top 3 newest clips uploaded.
I uploaded the internet help desk video comedy, just to test. Took a while to upload.
MSN: Soapbox Beta
Microsoft has introduced their new Soapbox for sharing videos similar to Google Video. Again they are a bit behind in releasing things out on the market to compete with some of the other offerings already out there.
Right now you are only able to sign up for the limited access beta.
They have an interesting demo player clip on the http://soapbox.msn.com page of the MSN butterfly man dancing.