Month: May 2008

Posted on

The Value of A Google AdWords Account Manager – Preventing Fraud

I had a client on let me know on Sunday night that they would be bringing their Google AdWords account management in-house. I disabled my access to their account Monday morning. On Wednesday, they let me know that they could not log into their account.

It appears that in three days their account was hijacked and someone installed two campaigns on their account and ran up a bill of over $9,956.00 in clicks. Some of the clicks were over $28 each. I contacted Google for them today as soon as I was told they could not login and got Google working on a click fraud and account hijack issue. I reported to the client to advise his credit card company to put a fraud alert on his account. I can still not get into their AdWords account, but have access to Google Analytics and can see that new campaigns were set up and nearly $10,000 spent in just two or three days.

I have to say as I am on my Google AdWords accounts daily through My Client Center, that it would probably not have happened on my watch!

This is just one of the values of an account manager, identifying strange behavior that could be fraudulent, finding new campaigns or keywords, and catching a spike in activity. If you are not monitoring your Google AdWords account on a regular basis, you really should start. I never thought that this would ever happen to anyone I knew but yet here it is. Fraud happens!

Posted on

WordPress 2.5.1 Get Ready For Big Changes

If you are using WordPress for your blog, you will not even recognize the newest version of WordPress as a WordPress application.

The interface is slick and loaded with AJAX, but is slicker better? Well we’ve seen bugs in the spell checker and image up loader already. I know that WordPress has some fixes for this already in place, but what a pain.

There is some new power with the new application, but I was so comfortable with the old set up, it is hard to get used to the new interface. If you are currently using the older version of WordPress, you may want to wait several months to upgrade until some of these bugs are worked out.

Posted on

Yahoo Sponsored Search Still a Great Value

Now that the Yahoo Microsoft merger is kaput, it is time to look forward to the future of Yahoo, and I have to say that I think that it is bright.

Yahoo Sponsored Search is a good application, delivers clicks and conversions and is a great place for some to start out with a pay per click campaign. With prices lower than Google AdWords, a very user friendly interface, and the ability to see what top bids are for your keywords, Yahoo Sponsored Search is a great value.

The reality is however that you will get one half the clicks and one half the conversions that you will on Google AdWords, but for some this is satisfactory and a great place to start especially if you are managing your own pay per click campaign.

I for one and still expecting great things for Yahoo and know that this merger threat will help to strengthen them as they move forward. So Yahoo, it’s time to get back to business!

Posted on

Podcasts and RSS News Feeds

This is an interesting tidbit of information for today. Did you know that only 7% of the Web market is actually reading news via RSS news feeds, but 9% of the market is listening to and downloading podcasts?

I found it interesting that RSS still has so little acceptance in the wider market. Personally I watch blogs that I am interested in with a My Live portal page and then if I am interested I click in to read the full post. I find it easy and practical to be able to scan large amounts of content at a glance and cherry pick the items for the day that warrant my attention. It is surprising to me that more simply have not embraced the true power of RSS and continue to manage large bookmark files and click in to every blog that they watch.

Why do I like My Live as my RSS news aggregate? Well I used to use My Yahoo, but now with My Live I have a cleaner interface without ads. I think that it looks less cluttered.