Cream of Life

Donate to the Tsinghua Foundation online using Google Checkout.

The following black box was displayed on the home page of Google.cn today.

You can track the torch in your country and around the world on the following Google Map gadget. If you have Google Earth installed on your PC, you can open the kml file and track it down on Google Earth. As the Games will take place in China, of course a Chinese version is also available.

When you start optimizing an AdWords campaign, usually you would have an objective in mind, e.g. lowering CPA, increasing CTR and so on, before you run any reports to collect data for your optimization. Among so many types of AdWords report you can run, I’d say the Search Query Report is very likely to be able to help regardless of your optimization objectives. Usually, I run a Search Query Report to dig out keywords that users searched on and clicked on my ads. I need to know these keywords so that I can do the following 2 things.
1. Develop some negative keywords to exclude irrelevant searches
2. Add keywords with high CTR but are not yet included in my existing keyword list

In practice, you need to filter the following info before you can get a smaller list of search queries to find the potential keywords to include or exclude more efficiently.

1. “other unique queries” in the column “Search Query”
2. “Exact” in the column “Search Query Match Type”

You may also want to descend the “clicks” column so that you can look at the high click keywords (very likely high cost as well) first to develop your lists.

Lastly, open your eyes big. Read all the filtered search queries one by one and pick those you want to kill or add. Afterall, there’s no solution called “one click does it all.”

Like it or not, keyword-targeted campaigns in Google’s Content Network usually gives you a cheaper click than your search-only campaign. Some advertisers dislike the Content Network and opt their campaigns out of it because they feel insecure about where exactly their ads are displayed. The feeling of lack of control of what you pay for really hurts. But there are ways for us to minimize the feeling of insecurity and maximize the ROI of your keyword-targeted campaigns on the Content Network.

1. Set content bid
2. Separate a campaign for content network from search network
3. Run Performance Placement Report to suggest site exclusion or placement targeting
4. Use 5-15 keywords in each ad group

I tried to get a domain name for this blog at GoDaddy yesterday. Despite the fact that Google partners with GoDaddy on Apps for Your Domain to help bloggers get their domain names, GoDaddy’s trick on domain name pricing is no difference from other small players in the domain name business. I went through the step-by-step wizard to buy a .net domain, and after hitting many “next” and “continue” and entering so much personal particulars and billing info, only did I find the total price was not US$9.99 as shown on the page of my step 1.

They had the so-called “ICANN fee of 20 cents per domain name year”. So the total price was actually $9.99 + $0.20. Do they indicate this ICANN fee at any part of the registration process? Yes, they do. But it’s somehow on places I failed to spot. I was not sure whose mistake this was, but I decided to get the domain name with some other companies.

I turned out go to Scicube. The first domain name I bought with this Hong Kong based company is in February 2006. The features and the customer service they provided, as far as I remembered, were not bad (actually they are good if you take the price into account). Hopefully, it’s still great this time.

Google’s Zeitgeist is one of my favorite websites that keep me up-to-date on the popular search keywords in different countries. As 2007 ended, they released 2007 Year-End Zeitgeist indicating the fastest rising and falling search queries in U.S. and across the globe. It’s no surprise that gadgets like iphone tops the chart of fastest rising keywords while communities like facebook, youtube and hi5 also get their places on the list.

I also looked up the top search keywords in Hong Kong and China in December 2007. As you can imagine, Chinese people in these 2 places tend to search with entertainment buzzwords. Names of online game, TV program, novel and song once again got a place on the Hong Kong and China’s top queries lists. Cell phone models and electronic gadgets are also popular queries in Hong Kong. Three out of the fifteen top keywords in Hong Kong in December 2007 belong to this type of B2C Consumer Electronics.