On 2-5-07 Yahoo Sponsored Search is implementing a “quality-score” like change for determining ad placement on the page. Yahoo had announced this pending change as it rolled out its new advertising interface and now the day is upon us.

For some advertisers this is terrible news. For other advertisers great news as now the bidding wars will cease. We have found that clicks on Yahoo are position sensitive. You will get more clicks if you are in the top three ads. Now that the way you get to the top has changed, this could impact significantly some accounts performance.

Personally I feel that all the changes that Yahoo has been making have been improving their quality, dependability, and instilling my confidence in their product. I welcome the change as a way to help Yahoo become a more viable alternative to Google Search and to Google AdWords.

A $600 million computer server farm is scheduled to be built by Google in North Carolina. Google has quietly been expanding out of California and now even has an office in Washington DC. Now, it is expanding it techno-empire into the farm lands of North Carolina. The new server farm or data center will employ about 200 people.

Google currently has three large server centers that we know of. We use the various IP addresses for testing and so we’ll be on the lookout for the IP address of this new center as well.

Just click the post title to read the full short article online.

Google is clamping down. Now that ad landing pages and websites are spidered as part of the ad approval process and typically within two weeks of a new program launch, site owners are being notified about trademark infringements.

Not only are some site owners being sent cease and desist notices to remove any Google logos, but the associated AdWords programs are being turned off. As an account manager, and even a AdWords user, it is important to understand that Google really means business on this. You can be banned from Google AdWords for eternity – that’s right – if you repeatedly do not take action or try to scam Google into thinking that you have.

The best course of action is immediate and prompt action to ameliorate the problem and get back on track with out the trademarked term, even though it may hamper your results. Google is holding all the cards if you take time to read the EULA for Google AdWords.

Wow, this is really the tool for serious Google AdWords professionals! Google has invited us to test out the Website Optimizer, a professional grade tool for testing landing pages for Google AdWords performance.

What an excellent tool! Click our post title to sign up to receive an invitation when they have spots open. I just completed our test set up and I have to say that the tool is complicated but looks like it should really be a jewel in Google’s toolbox for account management professionals.

A few tips, I found it confusing to add the scripts to the various includes for headers and footers that I have on my site. Even though I added the code, Google had trouble sensing it. I ended up just making an HTML page from my includes and put my content in there without a problem. Highly dynamic sites may be harder to set up if you are using several includes.

Take time to watch the movie first, I scrimped on this and will now watch the full video to see what I missed.

Don’t do your work late at night. The implementation and set up took several hours and so it is best to do this when you are fresh not at the end of the day. The level of detail is intense to make the program work best and so take your time and think out what kind of testing you want to do first.

This tool will be a real resource for clients who really want to test landing pages for improved results.

This is what the Website Optimizer does. Allows you to create a page, tag special sections, then create dynamically inserted new sections – this makes up your test and Google will measure the activity and let you know what is working. Google serves up the dynamic content for you.

I was able to make one landing page with three different titles, two different content blocks, and two different images one male one female for our ghost blogging ad group.

Google has detailed reporting that will identify what is working best during your test period. It is all tied into Google Analytics and into the Google AdWords interface.

An excellent, top level, professionals tool that you will definitely want to check out.