Advertising network AdBrite closing down

Online advertising network Adbrite

AdBrite the second largest independent advertising network is about to close down. Due to increased costs of operating, smaller profit margins and failure to find investors for its business, they have decided to close down operations. They've had big competition in the past few years with a lot of competition popping up and coming up with better solutions and more effective advertisement. 

Once the go to advertising agency for those looking for AdSense alternatives, these days easily dismissed for other networks, AdBrite has seen a slow and steady decline, culminating in their closure.

Yahoo to cut more jobs

Yahoo will cut 400 more jobs, after the previous cuts. Yahoo has been on the brink of profitability for some time now and after the microsoft bid to purchase Yahoo failed, Yahoo's stock plummeted, since then and the ecomomy crisis now, its been hard time for Yahoo and there is no sight of light at the end of the tunnel.

Google and Yahoo reading flash

Google and Yahoo have apparently been working with Adobe so the search engines are now able to read Flash.
This is a very old suggestion but its been just now starting to happen.
This means flash only websites can now cheer as they will be noticed by search engines and may even end up ranking high enough.

Google Suggests Fresher Ideas In Search

Google Suggests Fresher Ideas In Search.

More options to refine based on current eventsGoogle's spidering of the Internet appears to have picked up pace dramatically, as the company noted its related search suggestions will be much fresher for users of their search engine.

Algorithmic tweaks for faster information processing make the search result suggestions appearing at Google a more timely prospect.

The announcement of fresher suggestions in Google's search results pages got lost in the shuffle yesterday, when the company disclosed its search ad agreement with Yahoo. Despite that headline grabbing item, plenty of people continue to work on improving what has become the dominant search presence on the Internet.

"You won't see related search suggestions for every query, and while they are usually shown below the search results, the algorithm sometimes causes them to display above the search results," Google said.

Google pagerank update

Over the past few days, Google has updated the pagerank. Although this is one of the bigger pagerank updates its doesen't appear to have impacted rankings too much.

Google will give people privacy in 18 to 24 months

Google has been taking personal information from every person who ever used google search, in own google words it goes like this: When you search on Google, we collect information about your search, such as the query itself, IP addresses and cookie details. Previously, we kept this data for as long as it was useful.

But forced by goverment officials and privacy rights organizations, google is forced to increase users privacy at least a bit. Here is the full google article:

Today we're pleased to report a change in our privacy policy: Unless we're legally required to retain log data for longer, we will anonymize our server logs after a limited period of time. When we implement this policy change in the coming months, we will continue to keep server log data (so that we can improve Google's services and protect them from security and other abuses)—but will make this data much more anonymous, so that it can no longer be identified with individual users, after 18-24 months.Just as we continuously work to improve our products, we also work toward having the best privacy practices for our users. This includes designing privacy protections into our products (like Google Talk's “off the record” feature or Google Desktop’s “pause” and “lock search” controls). This also means providing clear, easy to understand privacy policies that help you make informed decisions about using our services.

Today we're pleased to report a change in our privacy policy: Unless we're legally required to retain log data for longer, we will anonymize our server logs after a limited period of time. When we implement this policy change in the coming months, we will continue to keep server log data (so that we can improve Google's services and protect them from security and other abuses)—but will make this data much more anonymous, so that it can no longer be identified with individual users, after 18-24 months.Just as we continuously work to improve our products, we also work toward having the best privacy practices for our users. This includes designing privacy protections into our products (like Google Talk's “off the record” feature or Google Desktop’s “pause” and “lock search” controls). This also means providing clear, easy to understand privacy policies that help you make informed decisions about using our services

November search engine optimization updates SEO

October search engine - SEO updates

Decreased seo importance:
Keywords importance decreased even further
Description importance reduced
Updates importance decreased drasticly, in a bit of a surprising move Google seems to have reduced importance of posting fresh content drasticly!
Web host stability importance droped quite a bit

Increased seo importance:
pagerank importance increased a lot
Text quantity importance increased
Domain age importance increased just a little bit

Valid through November-December

Page Rank update today

Google has just updated its toolbar pagerank today.
Next toolbar pagerank update will be in about 4 months.

October search engine optimization SEO updates

October search engine - SEO updates

Decreased seo importance:
Both free and paid directories links importance droped
Unrelated backlinks importance droped
Sheer amount of text importance droped

Increased seo importance:
Title tag importance is again increased a little

Unchaged seo importance:
related links
new content
domain name
site content

AdBrite news

Today at the Techcrunch40 conference, AdBrite announced a new product we’re about to launch called Spottt.
Spottt’s mission is to provide free advertising for small websites and MySpace profiles. Spottt works like this: each time you show an ad for someone else’s site, they’ll show an ad for your site.
AdBrite is currently accepting beta users into the program.

Agloco adding ask.com

News from agloco:
We are very excited to announce that Ask.com will soon become AGLOCO’s official worldwide default search provider.
For those of you not aware of Ask.com, here is some recent information. According to the August 14, 2007 report, of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), Ask rates right with Yahoo and Google in customer satisfaction - Ask 75, Yahoo 79 and Google 78. Also, ForeSee Results added that, “Ask has had the biggest increase of any e-business company measured by the ACSI, up 21% since it was first measured… Ask.com seems to be well-positioned to rival Google in the coming years because it has a strong search technology lauded by analysts and users alike.”
We will be adding Ask to the Viewbar search area in the next couple of days. The AGLOCO Development tem has been using the Ask.com search site the last month and we are very impressed with the results. We hope you will be too.
This is a very important step for AGLOCO. It is our first major revenue partnership and should greatly improve our earnings starting in October. We will update you further as the Ask.com search come online in the Viewbar.
As usual, more and quicker updates are available on the AGLOCO company blog.

Google bringing new gadget ads to the internet

As if it wasn't enough ads and ad companies, Google is bringing new kind of ads. Their latest ads are Google gadget ads and their primary role is to bring interactivity with the ads as well as more information about the product or service on the ads.

Some of the features of the new gadget ads are:
Host your ad anywhere
Host your content anywhere, and Google's caching infrastructure will allow you to serve at scale.
Caching of creative
Regardless of where it is hosted, Google will fetch a copy of your gadget ad every 1-2 hours and cache it on our servers. This reduces the impact on your web servers and avoids incurring bandwidth charges.

Custom refreshing
To be sure your gadget ad has the latest data, you can force a refresh at an interval you specify.

Free YouTube hosting
Hosting videos on YouTube ensures that you will be able to handle the traffic and load coming from your gadget ad.

Branded players
Use your own Flash player to playback videos hosted on YouTube.

RSS
Utilizing feeds are an easy way to keep the content of your gadget ad timely and relevant.

Trusted hosts
Hosting your video elsewhere? Ask about our list of approved content delivery networks (CDNs) that can handle your campaign

Currently the new ad format has been in limited testing with a few companies. Google says that they are now ready to roll the ads out to a much larger audience of participating advertisers. The new ad format will be served via Google’s Adsense network and will be priced by the number of clicks or the number of impressions.

Google adsense webinar

Google get ready for new webinar that will be held online next Wednesday, September 19th from 11:00-12:00pm PDT.
The biggest thing will be the announcment of new adsense features, in addition to providing you with more information about new features, google will provide a refresher on the top support issues every publisher should know. Those attending can also ask questions at the end of the webinar.

"To register, click on the link below or paste it into a new browser window:https://googleonline.webex.com/googleonline/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=572956326After you've registered, you'll receive an email from WebEx with details on how to participate. If you encounter any difficulty in registering, please contact adsense-webinar@google.com. If you're unable to attend, rest assured we'll be recording the webinar so you can view it later"

Webhosts to stay away from

Here is a list of webhosts to stay away from. This list includes bad webhosts, scam webhosts, hack webhosts, big downtime webhosts and so on...

shoutserv.com (BIGGEST ONE TO STAY AWAY FROM!!)
aznx.net (2 reports)
numberonehost.co.uk (now has a new owner new review pending)
webhostingtalk.com
DREAMHOST (steals domains. Oversells)
homeworkershosting.com(terrible uptime. Constant hacking)
Servage.com (not bad for me but for many others)
godaddy.com (garbage panel, over selling)
netfirms.com (same as above)
1and1.com (terrible support, uptime bad)
netnation.com (ignorant support...)
webcreationspace.com now hostingzip.com (offered to sell there site to random client)
smartwavetech / hugotonhosting
ooble.net - openpipe.co.uk (scammers)
vetrox.net (shoutserv.com need i say more?)
Jaguarpc.com (deleted clients content without notice)
kwihosting.com (suspends accounts for others problems.)
xeonhosting.net
ADIUNGO.COM
HostedFX (never informed of anything.. support bad. to much downtime)
myezhost.net (oversold. Forced to close)
dot5.com (do not offer what they say they do)
namecheap.com (client never received details after submitting 2 support tickets)
Site5.com
hostgator (questionable.. but member had issues with them)
webmasters.com
cpwebhosting.net
Surfspeedy.com
hostbytes.net
uni-host.com (terrible all around)
creatious.com (bad support. TOS not clear)
primaryvps.com (there system crashed, site never came back online)
homestead.com (holds domains hostage)
globedomain.com (for sucking and members spamming)
webair.com (just bad)
Correctus.com (nothing good about them)

If you wish to contribute to this list go to http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=450782&page=7

Yahoo Announces Agreement to Acquire BlueLithium

Internet services giant Yahoo! announced in a corporate press release that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire BlueLithium, one of the largest and fastest growing online global ad networks that offers an array of direct response products and capabilities for advertisers and publishers. Under the terms of the agreement, Yahoo! will acquire BlueLithium for approximately $300 million in cash.

"BlueLithium's products, technology and team will be an integral part of our drive to build the industry's leading advertising and publishing network," said Jerry Yang, chief executive officer, Yahoo! Inc. "This acquisition will extend our ability to deliver powerful data analytics, advanced targeting and innovative media buying strategies to our customers, who are increasingly looking for these insights. By leveraging BlueLithium's complementary expertise and tools, we will be able to better address the needs of our performance-based display advertisers and enhance the value of our publishers' inventory." -Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo said.

"We believe that Yahoo! is the ideal home for BlueLithium, as we share a common goal of providing both advertisers and publishers with high quality inventory and the essential targeting and analytical tools that are necessary to reach the right consumers at the right times," said Gurbaksh Chahal, founder, chairman and chief executive officer for BlueLithium. "We are extremely excited about becoming a part of the Yahoo! network and believe that together, we'll have the opportunity to shape the future of the online advertising industry." - BlueLithium said.

This is one of the bigger recent yahoo purchases!

Google updates webmaster central including webmaster tools, website optimizer, Google Analytics...

Google updates webmaster central including webmaster tools, website optimizer, Google Analytics, gadgets for your webpage and so on based on user feedback

Bloggers at Inside AdWords touted three updates to Website Optimizer. These additions have been driven by requests from advertisers and ad agencies, Google said.
Most changes were made to Google Website Optimizer and Google Analytics.

"The first feature that we've added is a wizard for creating A/B split experiments. A/B tests are ideal for testing how well different page layouts perform and for pages that don't get a lot of traffic. Although you can perform A/B testing in Google Analytics, using Website Optimizer simplifies the process and makes it really easy to set up experiments and view results. Watch this demo to learn how to set up an A/B experiment.We've also improved the experiment list display. Your most recent experiments appear at the top and you can now delete experiments.Finally, we've added My Client Center Access Manager. Now, with permission from their client accounts, agencies can access Website Optimizer directly through the My Client Center." Google reps. said.

The New Google Analytics
Google Analytics has been re-designed to help you learn even more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site.

The new Google Analytics makes it easy to improve your results online. Write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites. Google Analytics is free to all advertisers, publishers, and site owners

Google dropping paid link directories!?

Paid link directories have been plummeting in Google search results. Many are not ranking for their own business name. It seems that Google has set to put an end to paid link directories as we know it.
From an earlier report we know that Google was searching ways to diferentiate normal links from paid link and exchange links. It seems paid link directories are the first hit for Google.

Though for now nothing is certain and it remains to be seen how will this end!

Free $25 AuctionAds Bonus For New Publishers!

AuctionAds are giving $25 signing up bonus to new publishers.
AuctionAds: "We are excited to announce that AuctionAds is now part of the TLA family of products and to celebrate this addition we are offering a free $25.00 AuctionAds credit if you sign up this month! AuctionAds allows you to make more money from your website by displaying live relevant eBay auctions next to your content. AuctionAds are fully compatible with Adsense so there is no reason not to start running AA and start earning more money! Again, you will be credited $25.00 just for signing up"

Agloco update

Here is an email i got from Agloco with some updates:

Viewbar – We continue to be pleased with Member activation of the AGLOCO Viewbar. To download your Viewbar click here. (Goes to tucows.com download site.)Revenue – We are excited that we have signed one of our major revenue partnerships for North America last week. We will be making the formal announcement later. Getting a major company to work with their own internal system to start to take advantage of the Viewbar’s capabilities is very exciting to us. It will take our partner’s tech team 3 to 5 weeks to complete their work, so you should see changes occurring after that time. We are still looking for meaningful partners in Europe and Asia. If any of you works in an ad network company, please contact us at partners@AGLOCO.com to see if we can work on a partnership.Tech Update The tech team reported that our move to new servers was completed last week. Early reports are faster downloading for most locations. Also, all Member accounts have been updated for total hours accumulated. To check your account Click here. Media – We have received a lot of positive emails about Mike Klingler’s interview with Brian Greenwald. In it, Brian talked about the AGLOCO Vision and he answered some questions about the company’s current progress and trajectory. Mike and other Members have worked to make this available to all Members at: Click here to listen to the interview. Click here for written transcript Member distributions – If you missed the AGLOCO blog post on this, you can read it at Member distributions

Making money online more and more popular!

Recent studies have shown that people are becoming more and more interested in making money online.
This is seen in two directions, online jobs and through personal websites using advertising networks.

So why do people are becoming more and more interested in making a living online? For one beacose it works, there are lots of websites that make a lot more money than some of the high payed normal jobs. Other thing is beacose you do what you are most interested in, all the world in on your reach, internet is not limited by distance and countries so you basicly have unlimited visitors and potentially high monetization.
Seeing how an online company like google and yahoo make billions with their websites gives all the people a desire to at least try and make money online. These sites also have a huge number of staff and we are seeing more online jobs appearing.

So we are going to vitness how this interest continues to grow in the following years.