Daniel.Hjelmtorp.com

[Update]

To make it even worse for the credibility in the search Ads, a new trojan have been found that hijack peoples computer and replace the Google Ads with their own network of Ads. Google will loose money, the advertiser will loose traffic and the user will not get the results they want.

Search engines. Most of us use them for many many things. And we have been for over a decade. I suspect that we wouldn’t use them as frequently as we do, if we had to pay to use them. They have also become one of the most important tool for online marketing, mainly cause people use them. I work with them everyday, they’re my work tool.

In the early days of the search engine, they were jokes, compared the modern search engine. Back then the model was the classic, the more you pay the higher you get. And then came Google and changed the SearchEngine market. They focused on relevance, and developed a algorithm that have been kind of the standard for the industry. That made them big was the simple fact that people actually find that they were looking for.

Alongside the rise of the search engines, a new business have emerge. Namely the Search Marketing business! That’s the vital simple thing that created the whole economic of Google. The consumer never have to pay anything to make a search. And free is good!

In the Search Marketing area there’re two main areas:

- Search Engine Optimization

- PPC (pay per click)

In brief, optimization focus on improving your own website according to a few (not completely confirmed) guidelines. Everything from Tags, Links, Text and structure. The result should be improved organic search placement. But the basic idea is to improve the site, not really for the search engine, but rather the people actually bother to visit your site.

The other method it the new way of working with ads online, namely PPC. This stands for about 98% of were Google make its money. Here companys create an accont and then make the ads, select keywords and decide what they are willing to pay for them. And when people search for that keyword, hopefully the ad will be displayed beside the organic search results. Here the 2 leading platforms are Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing.

The search industry is one of the most hyped right now, and the grown of the market for search marketing company and consultans is really high. Here in Sweden the industry is suppose to be worth about a billion Swedish “kronor”. And in a lucrative market like this, its inevitable to attract crucks and bad people just wanna make a quick buck!
The search engine have guidelines for web developers to follow, and those have been implemented cause people have misused some unethical techniques to fool the engines. And the market and companies have matured. But still there some fucking quackers out there, trying to fool companies that desperately want more traffic from the search engine but lack the knowledge.
Then I work in Visby a sales person called me from one company, offering search engine improvement services. The product he sold was basically a tool that duplicate websites, and we where suppose to pay for this tool, and then do the duplication our self! That’s fucking insane! And it was only about a year ago. No wonder that people and company are sceptical with all the hype working with search engines. The search engines constantly trying to implement new features stop these bastards.

The problem is often focused on the optimization part, but sometimes things happen with PPC too. Just the other day I read an news about the Swedish site Tradera, who paid a second company to buy keywords for their Adwords campaign. And the second company had bought many strange words and negative words to, just because they where cheap. Tradera have now broken the contract with that company.

I work with PPC everyday, and in my view one should always try to be as honest. And the search engine wants that too! They want people to find that they search for! Still the search industry is so young, company have much to learn. I’m glad that I work with it now, when its evolving.