I’ve been having a heck of a time with my IP address and Google. While Lauren does a terrific job over at Google tracking down that problem, I thought it might be a good time to run over the use of the Google Ad Preview tool, a savior for times like these.

The parameter that does the magic is “&adtest=on“, after which, you can add:

• Target country: use ‘&gl=aa,’ where aa is the
  country code.
• Target region: use ‘&gr=bb-bb,’ where bb-bb is the
  region code.
• Target city: use ‘&gcs=c,’ where c is the name of a city.
  You have to set the region code first!
• Target latitude and longitude: use ‘&gll=latitude,longitude,’ in micro-degrees.
• Target postal code (US only): use ‘&gl=US&gpc=nnnnn,’ where nnnnn is any 5-digit US postal code.
• Target DMA (US only): use ‘&gm=ddd,’ where ddd is the
  US Metropolitan Region code
  

I was working on a client project when suddenly I noticed that all of the results were from New Zealand. I checked my settings - yes, I’m signed in and my home country is set to the US. So I wiped my cookies and even tried another computer. Google is pretty confused who I am. Not only that, it’s showing me Adwords Ads from Arkansas and Frankfort (German) in the same session! I did not log out for these screen shots.

I had to go through a proxy to get work done today. I hope this gets cleared up soon!

Superpages.com is rolling out a new system that is supposed to improve relevance. It’s the latest in pay-per-click systems to move from the highest-bidder-highest-position and include other aspects of the ad. While it’s not entirely clear what those “multiple facets of your ad” are it stands to reason that factors similar to other pay-per-click engines will be applied.

Keywords in the business profile and searches from audience members of various categories will be taken into account.

There will be 2 weeks of testing, and then it will start being rolled out to existing advertisers. Advertisers will be getting emails about their accounts.

I asked about the dangers of people spamming their business profiles to get added rank and there was no real answer, so I guess we’ll have to see.

Many people take little time to get their business profile right, so I guess it’s time to spend some time on that!

Rustybrick at SEOroundtable has drawn attention to a very interesting thread which should make those in charge of client webservers prick up their ears. I encounter resistance from some clients when I suggest a hosting change once I see they’re using a cut-rate provider. DNS changes, server switch-overs, and broken 404 pages are all major poison to your Google rank. It’s also sounding like you may not get back where you were in the Google index - as it’s my understanding that Google counts “length in index” as one of its 200 ranking factors.

People wonder sometimes why I run my own servers and have a backup SLA of 4-6 hours. I think his observation speaks directly to the need for this. SEO and server uptime are peas in a pod, folks.

So the next time your host says “your site will be off-line for a few hours while we do maintenence” think about the implications to your rank!

Google’s just announced that they are starting testing site-targeted pay-per-click. Currently that is available only as CPM (cost per thousand.) It’s pretty clear that Google stands to make more money from a CPC model using site targeting as advertisers will be able to become extremely precise in their placements.

It will change the way I think about a few of my clients’ campaigns. I’m certain its going to increase costs in some cases as we’ve been running consistantly at $8 CPM on some great placements. The quality score calculations must be pretty complex for this kind of ad, as the site and the landing page are highly variant - unlike the SERPswhich have a predictable presentation. I’m thinking it will be pretty hard to know what these ads are going to cost and even harder to stay consisent.

I blogged about this over a year ago, but the latest debate has taken on a life of its own. I guess it can be healthy for the industry to have debate - because there are so many in our business who shouldn’t be there. Danny Sullivan has certainly posted fluently about the topic and I admire his perspective on the issue. I wish we could get focused on more productive discussions. Some of what I’m hearing sounds like some very insecure people are just whining. I’ve no time for it…. I have clients to take care of.