Michael Roebuck's Blog

Is your website up and working properly? I received a call from my sister over the weekend who stated she published her Yahoo Store website and since the publish, could not add any items to the shopping cart.

This type of thing rarely happens at 11:00am on a Wednesday when everyone is in the office. No, Whenever Yahoo or Google have a meltdown for whatever reason or wants to reject an ad, it occurs at 10:00pm on a Friday or Saturday night. My sister called me around 2:00pm on Saturday afternoon as I was driving in the country looking at property with one of my kids. Over 30 minutes from home and an Internet connection (There is only so much one can do with an iPhone!)

Yahoo stated in an email sent to customers today that it had a power outage...

"Dear Yahoo! Merchant Solutions customer, We experienced short service interruptions that were noted on our system status page. These affected, at different intervals, page-serving and add-to-cart functionality for some visitors to Yahoo! Merchant Solutions and Yahoo! Store sites. As a result of this short service interruption, some merchants were also unable to access their Store Manager for a period of time. We would like to take this opportunity to apologize for these interruptions, and to provide you with information on their root cause."

The letter further goes on to explain what happened and the safety precautions in place to prevent further disruptions and so forth. It was a nice, informative letter and I'm sure much appreciated by the customers.

I believe my sisters problem was an affect of this power outage. I went home and her website was performing fine. I published a few times and all seemed to be in working order. Only my Saturday afternoon activities were cut short. Maybe Yahoo should send my son a t-shirt or something to make up for his lost afternoon.

Anyway, things happen and sites go down periodically. It's a fact of life. But you should know exactly when and for how long these events take place. Don't just assume you had a bad sales day when in reality your Google PPC was turned off for reaching it's budget or you accidentally password protected your entire website (Yes, this happened to a client once! See below)

All Web Promotion monitors several clients' websites roughly every 10 minutes. Meaning if there site ever goes down, I'm paged within 20 minutes of the failure. I monitor pages within the website as well as the secure shopping cart. I'm working on a program that will actually add an item to the shopping cart to ensure all aspects of the site are operational.

We also monitor Google Pay Per Click accounts. Meaning if your Google account is ever shut off due to reaching it's budget limit or some other reason, we are paged as well.

Along with monitoring, I have systems in place that automatically read email and if an email is received that contains a pre-programmed actionable trigger, I get paged and the email forwarded to my phone.

I do all these things not because I like to ruin my nights and weekends but I feel you need to know when something isn't working right. Some clients pay me money to ensure there site is monitored and all systems are a go. (Yes, I charge my sister. It's payback for her picking on me while growing up)

Why I started Monitoring Websites:
One Saturday afternoon I was having lunch with my wife and her family at a restaurant (Pappa's in Spring Valley) when I received a phone call from a major client stating his website was not working. I went home and it turned out the client had password protected his entire website. Yahoo Stores have the ability to set up an account access which basically password protects the entire site. He accidentally activated this feature the day before and didn't know how. Because his sales stopped, he figured his website had a problem. He lost 2 days worth of sales because of this. Fortunately, it wasn't my error!

Pay Per Click Monitoring Scenario
Client had a product that was mentioned on nationally syndicated TV show. The TV show drew so much click traffic that they exceeded daily budget and was shut off. Since sales were justified, we increased budget and client continued to receive sales.

In short, be prepared. Knowledge is Power. Know when your site is up and when and why it may be down! Contact me if you have any questions.

Labels: monitoring, ppc

Google will be updating it's display URL policy beginning April 1st. This change marks the beginning of a stricter stance on display URLs. No more re-directs or vanity URL's will be allowed. Google states that this policy will be strictly enforced regardless of past approvals and will apply to all advertisers.

Basically, the new rules state the display URL will need to match the destination URL. Most exceptions that were allowed before will no longer be approved.

Here are a few examples that will not be approved:

www.Google.co.uk - this URL leads to a different site

www.Gogle.com - this URL simply redirects to www.Google.com

www.Gooogle.com - this URL leads to a page showing content identical to www.Google.com
Google will also not allow the use of multiple domains or branding and vanity URLs.

What about Yahoo Tracking URLs?
Google understands that many advertisers utilize tracking URLs within the destination field of their ads. Therefore, if the URL of your landing page matches that of your display URL, your ads will be approved.

For example:
Display URL: www.mydomain.com/widget
Destination URL: http://store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/clink?yhst1234567+a1B2C3D4E5+widget.html
--> Landing page URL: www.mydomain.com would be acceptable

Display URL: www.mydomain.com/widget
Destination URL: http://store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/clink?yhst1234567+a1B2C3D4E5+widget.html
--> Landing page URL: http://store.yahoo.com would not be acceptable

Are sub-domains or extra text still acceptable?
Yes, the use of sub-domains and additional text within the display will continue to be acceptable provided the top-level domain matches the URL of your landing page.

For example, display URLs such as the following:
sub.google.com
google.com/extratext
www.google.com/extratext
would all be acceptable for the landing page URL below, as the top-level domain of google.com is matched:
http://sub.google.com/miscellaneous

Finally, note that you don't have to change your ads. Existing ads within your account will not be immediately affected by this change. However, if Google receives complaints regarding specific violations of this policy, they will review and take the appropriate action. (Usually at 5:00pm on a Friday night). I would however, suggest that everyone check their account for potential blatant violations.

For more information regarding the update, look at the Google Blog

Labels: adwords, google, ppc, tracking

My good friend and co-worker, Karl Ribas was recently interviewed by Joe Balestrino with Mr. SEO. I'm a bit behind in my podcasts and finally got to hear his interview this morning. It was a great discussion about PPC advertising. As with every great discussion, I feel my two cents worth will only make them better. So, as you listen to this great podcast, here is my 2 cents worth....

1 Cent: My first cent involves the ability to run A/B tests with Google Adwords. Joe briefly stated the ability was there but I feel that topic needs more time. The ability to run an A/B test will help virtually every aspect of PPC advertising, from landing page design to ad copy. When asked what to avoid in ad copy, Karl mentioned each business was different. Well, how can you tell what works for your business if you don't run A/B tests? Google make the ability to test so easy, that not to test, is a crime. Changing one word in your ad can make a big conversion difference. (Karl mentioned Rob Snell; Our friend and Yahoo Store conversion expert) By running against a control, you can guage just how much of a difference you'll get.

By testing different landing pages within same viewable ad, you can test various aspects of your landing page copy. Yahoo trackable links make testing not only your ads but the landing pages easy as pie!

By the way, Yahoo Search Marketing also allows for ad copy A/B testing as well.

In short, the ability to do A/B testing is easy to do and a necessity. Call me (or Karl) if you get stuck or need any help.

2 Cent: My second cent involves Karl's comment about his use of Yahoo Search if he wanted to buy something and Google search if he was researching. I think he's wrong. Some people might say that different people search using different engines and different styles, but since he doesn't follow my style, he's wrong. (Joke)

I search differently. If I'm looking to buy something, I use Google Adwords because those people are paying for the ad and therefore want to sell something. If I'm researching, I use the organic results and Alta Vista. I like to read reviews on Amazon or other sites where people review. Organic results are chock full of independent reviews on why something is good or bad.

For example, Kelly sold me on the Cingular Blackjack phone. Before I buy, I want to see other reviews so I search Google for "Cingular Blackjack" and read the organic results showing me various opinions and reviews that have been published. When I'm ready to buy, I click on the paid links. Alta Vista provides good organic results as well.

OK. There you have it. My 2 cents worth on Karl's interview with Mr. SEO. Please be sure to listen to the Podcast and all Joe's podcasts as they are very educational and informative for the seasoned SEO person as well as the do it yourselfer. It's full of legitimate information and not fluff about what the speakers did over the weekend. Karl's blog is great as well! Check them both out:

Karl Ribas Blog

Mr. SEO

Labels: balestrino, google, karl, ppc, ribas, seo, yahoo