It has been a week passed when Google image search was displaying distorted picture of the first lady of the United States in their search results and they refused to remove it stating the integrity of their search algorithm.

Finally they admitted their fault and removed the controversial image on Wednesday and banned the website which posted it.

Moving a step ahead the apologized the first lady and posted an explanation about their search results. You can read it below…

Sometimes Google search results from the Internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries. We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google.
Search engines are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the Internet. A site’s ranking in Google’s search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page’s relevance to a given query.
The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results. Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority. Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it. We will, however, remove pages from our results if we believe the page (or its site) violates our Webmaster Guidelines, if we believe we are required to do so by law, or at the request of the webmaster who is responsible for the page.
We apologize if you’ve had an upsetting experience using Google. We hope you understand our position regarding offensive results.
Sincerely,
The Google Team

You can read it online at: http://www.google.com/resultsinfo.html

After all they (Google) cannot mess with the president and the first lady of United States

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It was a usual morning for me today until I read an interesting news in news paper, Time of India, New Delhi Edition, one of the India’s leading English daily. After reading the whole news I laughed a bit and it gave me an immense pleasure that Google has its root from India ( though it might be not true and just a unusual co incidence)

Read on for the original news… and enjoy!

You can’t Google (search using Google search engine) in Google (a village near Bangalore in Karnataka). For, Google, a tiny village about 510km north-east of Bangalore, doesn’t have internet connectivity.

This village on the banks of the Krishna river in Raichur district, with just about 1,000 residents, is far removed from the search engine company based in Mountain View, California. And how you spell the name in English is left to you as all signboards here, including those of government offices, are in Kannada. When the government tried to put up English boards, activists stopped them. ‘‘We asked officials if anyone from Cambridge University would come here to read these boards,’’ laughs Kannada activist K P Yallayyanayaka.

No wonder then that only a few villagers have heard of their famous namesake in cyberspace. ‘‘My grand-daughter told me that two boys have named a website after our village. I feel happy and proud,’’ says landlord Basavarajappa Gouda Police Patil.

‘‘Who’ll not be happy to know the name of our village is so popular in the cyber world? But this is just a pleasant coincidence. Americans will have totally different reasons for naming their company Google,’’ reasons native Sharana Gouda, an agricultural scientist who works in Bellary.

The story goes that 12th century saint poet Allama Prabhu stopped by in the village while traveling from Basava Kalyan to Shreeshailam in Andhra Pradesh. The cave he stayed in has been described as ‘Gavi Gallu’ (cave of stone), say villagers. ‘‘Our village was hence called Gavi Gallu. Over the years, it became Googallu and now it’s Google,’’ says Gouda.

As proof, residents point to the temple atop the underground cave now. Devotees crawl through a hole in the ground to enter the cave, which has an idol of Allama Prabhu and a small well. Experts, however, point to a piece of history that they say is closer to the truth.

‘‘The Helavas, who went around telling people about their ancestral history, say the village was named after rocks that seemed to sing,’’ says writer Chidananda Sali.

The name comes from ‘Kooguva Kallu’ (stones that make a pleasant sound when river water strikes them), he says.

‘‘The sound wasn’t produced by river water but by people who wanted to communicate with villagers in far-off places,’’ explains S K Aruni, assistant director of Indian Council of Historical Research.

‘‘In ancient times, people would send signals to far-off villages by hitting rocks with small sonorous stones. This produced cup-like marks in the rocks. Prehistoric rocks with such cup marks are found in several places in the Krishna river basin, such as Watkal, Hunasagi, Hebbal Burj and other villages in Gulbarga and Raichur districts. So, it’s possible that a village with such rocks was called Kooguva Kallu,’’ he adds.

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The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) is a global non-profit organization serving the search engine marketing industry and marketing professionals engaged in it.

Their aim and  purpose is to provide a foundation for industry growth through building stronger relationships, fostering awareness, providing education, promoting the industry, generating research, and creating a better understanding of search and its role in marketing.

Recently SEMPO has conducted a survey of salary of SEM professionals, below are some key points

How the survey was conducted:

Twenty-two question survey (written responses included in some parts of the survey), Survey was sent to all SEMPO members through email, Information analysis and commentary provided by TMP Directional Marketing

How many in-house SEO/SEM Professionals Participated:

Over 600 in-house SEO/SEM professionals from the USA and Canada during the 2nd quarter of this year

Key Findings:

Most respondents state they report to a Director or Vice President and 39% of respondents had 1-3 people reporting to them. Most who participated in the survey work for companies with less than 1,000 employees.

Salary:

Individual with 1-3 yrs relevant experience – US$ 40k to 80k
Senior Manager – US$ 70k to $120k
Vice President (Large SEM campaigns) – US$160k to $250k.

Core Task of SEM Professionals:

Most survey respondents are working to improve ROI from search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns – but within the same budgets.

Advertising Budget:

SEM budgets are mostly below $50K or above $250K with few in the in-between area.

New Avenues:

Search engine marketers are increasingly engaged in related activities such as organic search engine optimization, social media, email marketing, affiliate marketing and other forms of advertising campaigns.

Please visit www.sempo.org for more information.

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With the launch of Microsoft’s new search engine, everyone was appreciating the user interface of Bing and had a thought that the big G might change its own user interface and there was lot of rumors about it.

Now several news from different media sources confirmed that it was not a rumor and Google is really working for redesigning its user interface.

If you want to try the new Google search user interface, follow the following steps.

1. Open Google.com in your web browser.

2.When the page loading finishes, enter the following code in your browser’s address field and hit enter

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:
U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

3. Now refresh (reload using ctrl+R or F5 button) or open a new Google.com page

4.You can now see big G’s new user interface

Enjoy

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This is third and final part of the series 5 Tools you need for Effective Affiliate Marketing. if you are new here and missed previous posts, you can read it here at: 5 Tools you need for Effective Affiliate Marketing-1, 5 Tools you need for Effective Affiliate Marketing-2

Verified and Opted Email List: it is a popular saying in the internet marketing world “The money is in the list”, and it is quite true. If you are not building your list then you are loosing a lot of money, as well as targeted buyers forever.

Why list building is Essential: It is an evident truth that the chance of sale in the first visit is very low and mostly people buy in their third or fourth visit, so if you have to remain in internet business for long, you surely need a list. If you build an opted and verified list, you know for sure the requirement of the person on the list.

Suppose you are selling some dog training ebook and gradually you also build your list, you can sell related products to them later, like some dog training videos or some equipment. The conversion rate is always higher with these lists because you know their requirement before hand.

Now I know for sure that a question started buzzing in your mind. Why will anyone voluntarily provide me his name and email? Your question is right.

As there are NO Free Lunches in the World, you need to offer them something for free and it must be compelling and according to the need of your audience.

For an example if you are selling a dog training related product, you can offer five or six parts mini course for free like “ 5 Parts Mini Course on How to stop your dog from barking”. Free mini series is also an affective tool for promoting your paid product. During your course of sending emails, try to promote your affiliate product in a manner that it doesn’t seems a hard sell, but a value addition to your mini series.

You may feel problem doing the things right, but with time you will find it easy and effective. So start building your list today.

Now for effective responding, you need an effective Autoresponder.

Autoresponder Software: An Autoresponder is software used for sending automated replies and periodic emails.

For an example if someone signs up for your mini series, the Autoresponder will send a verification mail to the given address for confirming the email address, once verified it will then send a welcome email and your series, as configured by you. You can send emails periodically with its help.

There are many Autoresponder available in the market with different pricing structure and depends on the size of your list, but my personal choice is Aweber.

Mini Series for Follow Up: After the users have signed up for your mini email series, now you need content to follow up with them.

Where to arrange content- you can write the content for your mini series your self. If you are unable to do so for whatever reason, you can hire a content writer for the same.

But please make sure the content must be of very high quality.

In your follow up content do not try to become very elaborative, instead provide them information in such a manner that it increases their curiosity for having more. In other words the mini series will warm up the visitor to purchase your affiliate product. So prepare your content in the same manner.

Tracking Tools: Last but not the least you need very efficient tracking for all activity in your affiliate project.

Which data you need to know about your affiliate project?

1. From where is the traffic coming from?
2. Which content is attracting most of the visitors?
3. What is the bounce rate?
4. How much time users are spending on your website.
5. Top exit pages
6. If you are getting organic traffic, which keywords are bringing most of the traffic?

There are lots of more point you need to know, but the above points are very necessary for tweaking your campaign either it is optimizing your website or changing header or images.

If you are bringing in paid traffic by various PPC engines, you need to track your activity at keyword level. Which keywords are bringing in most of the traffic and which keywords are generating sales, so that you can dump your non performing keywords and boost your sales keywords? You also need to test your ads and landing pages for optimum performance

There are lots of tracking tools available in market both paid and free. But Google Analytics is best in my opinion. First of all it is free and you can get very in depth data about your visitors and website. In addition you can create different filters for more.

Hope this information will help in your affiliate marketing endeavor. What do you think, do you need to read more on some specific topics. Please post here.

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