While the status of that lawsuit is unknown, it is now official: Google has entered the lead gen business.

Last Thursday, Google announced the launch of AdWords Comparison Ads:

Today we’re excited to begin testing a new feature of AdWords called AdWords Comparison Ads, which lets users compare multiple, relevant offers more easily. Comparison Ads is part of our continuing effort to make ads more relevant and useful to our users and to help you, our advertisers, reach the people who are most interested in your products and services.

Comparison Ads’ first market: mortgages. For select searches, Google is now displaying an ad unit that invites users to compare mortgage rates offered by competing providers. Users can also access the comparison service directly via http://www.google.com/comparisonads/mortgages.

The comparison service allows users to view actual mortgage rates being offered by various providers based on criteria such as home price, credit rating, location and down payment. If interested in a specific provider, users can call a toll-free number provided by Google to reach the provider, or they can fill out a form to receive a call from the provider. Google anonymizes users’ phone numbers in an effort to protect their privacy. Google charges providers on a cost-per-lead basis when a user calls the toll-free number or requests a call back.

Right now, Comparison Ads is available in select parts of the U.S. and to select providers. Google says that coverage and participation will increase over time. Google also tentatively plans to go beyond mortgages into other markets. Google’s Nick Fox told Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land:

We don’t have anything to announce in terms of the future areas this will expand in. We’ll learn from the mortgages experiment, how well it is working, where it is working and based on that, we’ll have a better sense of other places to expand the product to.

Make no doubt about it: Google’s move into the lead gen space is a big deal. And if Google succeeds with mortgages and expands into other lucrative lead gen verticals, watch out. As written wrote in a post about this subject:

In the mortgage space, many of Google’s advertisers are themselves middlemen in the business of generating leads. If Google disintermediates their market by building an online loan marketplace of its own, Google would be competing head on with its own customers. Maybe this would prove to be worthwhile, but it could also backfire.

In theory, Google could ‘usurp’ its SERPs to drive massive amounts of traffic to its lead gen services. Massive amounts of traffic that other lead gen businesses currently pay Google significant amounts of money for on a cost-per-click basis via AdWords. In the mortgage space, Google is essentially already competing with its own advertisers and while there’s enough money in the lead gen space to keep a lot of people fat, I’m sure there’s a lot of concern about just how much of the market Google might be able to disintermediate if it really wants to.

Beyond the immediate impact to advertisers, there are a lot of additional implications that could evolve out of Google’s entry into the lead gen business. Two that spring to mind are:

* Greater potential of regulatory scrutiny. It’s not hard see some similarities between how Microsoft took advantage of its OS monopoly to take over and dominate the market for web browsers and what Google could conceivably do with lead gen. After all, if Google uses its dominant search position to steer users to services its owns, someone will eventually make the argument that it’s abusing its dominant position too.

* The possibility that Google’s relationship with consumers will change. Providing a search engine and running a lead gen business are two very different things and Google’s relationship with consumers could very well change as it goes from referring consumers to relevant websites to directly connecting consumers to businesses. On the surface the distinction may be subtle but selling advertising and selling leads entail a very different consumer relationship and Google’s trust is potentially on the line.

Fasten your seatbelts. If Google succeeds with Comparison Ads, this could get real interesting real fast.

Article’s source is here.

1. Anchor Text

Obviously the most profound is anchor text value. Google places a lot of value on the anchor text in your backlinks. So much that even if your onsite optimization factors aren’t aligned to support the anchor text. your site could rank high.

The most popular example is the “click here” example where Adobe ranks on number one position, because a lot of site uses the click here link to download the Adobe flash player and the PDF reader.

2. Context quality

The next most influencing factor is probably the context of the backlinks. What content is the site that’s backlinking to you, and how is the link passed on. Is it a sidebar/footer link or a contextual link ? Its always a plus to have contextual links rather than sidebar links as contextual links makes more sense content wise.

3. Diversity of Link Sources

Ideally, all backlinks should come from sites in context within your niche. But this could prove a bit unnatural. Rather, its gets more interesting if links comes from all around and there’s a bit of irregularity in the sources. Natural link building methods can source you links from a variety of sources and this is found to be more efficient than trying to get links from a particular niche. That’s a bit odd.

What does this mean? Well, although you can already submit your sites/blogs through mapsite system, this feature will make your site/blogs discoverable even if you don’t submit a website sitemap to Google.

If you want your RSS /Atom feeds to discovered by Google make sure you allow crawling of robots.txt.

Read this. Especially in Turkey many (so called) SEO experts! will give you 7 signs of a disaster.

These are;
1. We can rank your site in 48 hours!
2. We will submit your site to 1,000 Search Engines!
3. We will get thousands of links to your site!
4. Have your site optimized and promoted for only $71.95 a month!
5. We can’t tell you what we are doing: it’s a trade secret.
6. We know a guy at Google.
7. We guarantee page 1 rankings!

Do you want to know what these seven facts are wrong and announced as SCAM? The go on reading…

As a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO), my job is to make use of a number of methods in order to help a site rank higher in the search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc.).

I’ll save you some of the boring parts, but SEO is a pretty important aspect of any serious business venture with an online component. However, my business is also a pretty strange one. It requires a lot of experience, research, and patience to effectively get a website to rank highly. Because of this, a lot of what I do is still a mystery, even to clients I’ve had for over a year.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of “SEOs” out there taking advantage of the unknowing site owner, leaving a bad taste in their mouth about what SEO is and how it can help. With this post, I would like to give you a few signs that someone is trying to rip you off. These are seven signs of SEO scams.

1. We can rank your site in 48 hours!

Boy, I wish this was possible. It sure would save me a whole lot of time slaving over my computer like a maniac, pouring over search term trends, conversion reports, traffic and ranking reports, etc. I wouldn’t be spending hours on end modifying and optimizing content until my SEO fingers bleed. Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case. It takes hours to find the right search terms. Depending on the size of a website, it can take days to implement changes. It takes weeks to see the initial effects. It can take months to get things going in the right direction. If you’re being promised results in a few days, your being offered a money pit and little more.

2. We will submit your site to 1,000 Search Engines!

Put aside the fact that I’ve been doing this job for years, and I can only name about 10 search-engines without cheating. Instead, consider the fact that I haven’t submitted a site (personally or professionally) to a search engine in over three years now. Even the guidelines of the search engines themselves tell you it doesn’t really do anything for you anymore. The major search engines have also been in this business for years, and they’ve gotten pretty good at finding sites themselves. No need to submit, let alone pay someone to do so.

3. We will get thousands of links to your site!

This claim is usually paired with an incredible time frame, but the sheer number of links promised alone is beyond amazing. First, it’s not the number of links coming to your site that makes a difference. It’s the number of QUALITY links. Second, where are all of these links coming from? Probably what’s known as a link farm: a large number of websites set up in order to link one site. The search engines don’t normally appreciate this practice, and it can lead to penalties. Third, it’s more likely a straight out lie. Even scammers don’t waste their time with link farms. It takes too much more time to set all that up than it does to just take your money and disappear.

4. Have your site optimized and promoted for only $71.95 a month!

In my first point, I hinted at the amount of time and work I put into a single website. Not only making the changes, but keeping up with the site’s progress, promoting it through links and thinking of ways to drive traffic to the site. Consider the countless hours I’ve spent learning what it takes to rank a site. Consider also the returns a proper SEO campaign offers a site. Ranking well for a competitive search term can yield some pretty nice rewards. Think we would do this for $79.95 a month? Not to sound crass, but I wouldn’t even open my laptop for that much money. If you’re serious about your site’s success, expect to spend no less than a few thousand dollars, and that’s low end. There are some SEOs that charge $1000 an hour for consulting, and they are worth every penny.

5. We can’t tell you what we are doing: it’s a trade secret.

Other than a few tid bits you find after years of doing this kind of work, there really isn’t a whole lot of “secret” information. We aren’t paid because we have some incredible secret wrapped up. We are paid because of the experience we have in dealing with the search engines, and the success we can bring to the site’s table. If someone makes this claim, they either don’t want you to know how poor the service is, or they have no idea what they are doing.

6. We know a guy at Google.

I love this one. Mostly because I know a guy at Google. I also know a guy at Nissan, but I still make monthly payments. I know a guy at Sprint, and I still pay a monthly bill. I know a guy…well…you get it. Think of the search engine ranking factors as the closely guarded secret formula for Coke. You have to get pretty close to the code to have even a clue about what goes into it. The guys and gals that do know for sure what the factors are also fully understand the legal implications of giving away such secrets to some guy charging you $79.95 a month to rank your site in 48 hours (like how I tied all those into that one?).

7. We guarantee page 1 rankings!

Nobody can do this. Nobody. In SEO, there are no guarantees on rankings, traffic, or any other measure. Think of SEO like advertising (that’s really all it is, just online). The best marketing guys don’t guarantee anything either. Neither do doctors or lawyers. You hire these professionals based on the questions you’ve asked them, their past successes, experience, etc. SEO is no different. Good SEOs are good SEOs because they have spent years learning and testing, and know of the measures most often needed to produce results. So if anyone guarantees anything, they are only guaranteeing that you will be wasting your hard earned money.

What does that mean for SEOs? Mostly, it means there are TONNES of links waiting to be picked up. 850 million, in fact, says a group called Majestic SEO.

Here’s the concept: thousands of these Geocities pages have been taken down. The site you made at 12 with Michael Jackson midi files and Simpsons gifs: gone!

That leaves a whole lot of webmasters with links pointing to dead Geocities pages. Get those links.

Find those Geocities links!

Other sites have recommended searching like this to find links to these Geocities sites:

“linkdomain:geocities.com your-keyword“

I’ve found that this pulls up a lot of crap, plus a lot of discussion about the technique itself.

Far more rewarding, in my opinion, is to search like this:

“site:geocities.com inurl: your-keyword“

You’ll then find the Geocities pages themselves (get used to seeing Yahoo’s holding page!), from where you can use Yahoo! Site Explorer to find links pointing to these pages.

Yes, it’s a longer process, but you’ll find old Geocities pages with your keyword in their URL, and then quality links pointing to the pages.

Pick up those Geocities links!

When you’ve found these external links, contact the webmaster with a request such as this:

“Hey there, I noticed you’re linking to [old geocities site], perhaps you might like to update your link to this site.

As you can see, there’s relevant content to your niche … “

Simple as that!

The best part is, while you’re trawling all these old sites you’ll often come across some juicy guestbooks and opportunities to add your URL to small directories. Both aren’t the best practices, but remember: these are most likely old domains and very relevant to your niche

Good luck! I’m off to pick up some myself…

Google Page Rank counts or not?

Being a full-time SEM (Search Engine Marketer) we have been conditioned like Pavlov’s dog (not a pretty picture) to jump every time Google twitches. Lately Google has been doing a lot of twitching.

Specifically, the rather startling news from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa that Google has ditched PageRank from Webmaster Tools.

“We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true,” states Moskwa. “We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.” (Source: WebProNews)

Now, for SEO reasons or for ranking in Google’s index, PageRank has long been eunuchified by Google. However, even missing a few dangling bits, history has shown us, eunuchs still wheel tremendous power. PageRank is no different.

Regardless of what Google wants to happen, PageRank is still extremely important to anyone marketing on the web, especially if you’re selling SEO services or operating a web business. Try selling SEO services when that little green bar on your site is pointing to PR0 or worst yet, pointing to a solid gray bar.

Obtaining a high PR7 or PR8 simply means more business and revenues… regardless of how Google is or is not using PageRank. People know how to count and they learned long ago, a ten is a lot more than a big fat zero.

Placed against a PR1 site, a PR8 will win more respect in the eyes of potential clients and can produce enormous profits for the site owner and we won’t even mention the still widely practiced habit of selling links, which Google is desperately trying to stop. Total and full elimination of PageRank would be an honest start but it will still be an uphill, if not an unwinnable battle, for Google to fully eliminate link selling.

Even with my modest sites, I have turned down a small fortune by not selling text links on any of my sites. When I had a PR6 site instead of a PR4 – those link requests were nearly doubled. So one can easily understand Google’s position and the need to downplay PageRank, if they want to put even a small dent in all this link selling and buying, which is still running rampant on today’s web.

PageRank is Google’s creation, and unless they remove it fully from their system and the Google toolbar, then PageRank still Counts. Actually, in the whole scheme of marketing your website on the net, PageRank counts big time. And in more ways than one.

There are several reasons why you shouldn’t count PageRank out.

For years Google has been downplaying the important of PageRank and states it’s only one of about 200 ranking factors which determines how Google ranks its index for keywords. Obtaining top organic rankings for popular lucrative keywords in Google simply means money in the bank. Actually, even a movement of only one or two places on those first page SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) can make a major difference to any online marketer’s bottom line.

Now while you can have a lower PR number and still rank above other higher PR pages for your chosen keywords, I have even had many times when my PR drops but my actual SERPs rankings in Google goes up, mainly due to building related relevant backlinks. So PageRank counts little towards your keyword rankings but it can’t be totally dismissed.

Mainly because, even if PR is just one ranking factor, in close competitive keyword battles (I am presently fighting tooth and nail for some very choice keywords) just one ranking factor such as high PR can make the difference of whether or not you get to the top spot. Big dogs are still jumping and for those of us who know how to count, getting a number one spot in Google makes all the difference in the world.

Not only because Google controls roughly 80% of all search engine traffic, but more importantly Google has established unmatched credibility and brand recognition in the eyes of potential customers visiting your site. Web users trust Google. Web users look to Google for guidance and direction. Web users believe what Google is telling them. In the online world, rightly or wrongly, perception is everything.

As an online marketer, I am completely amazed each day at the marketing power Google now commands with web surfers and with the general population. Google is king of online search and no other search engine even comes close to Google.

PageRank is Google’s ranking system, and in the eyes of those who notice these things, it still wheels tremendous influence and power. By default, PageRank is Google’s opinion of your site, and web users can count (at least to 10) and if Google believes people are still not counting when it comes to PageRank, then they are fully mistaken.

They had a really very bad website which was barely working on terrible conditions. At that time I have been asked whether to fix that site, or make a new one. The channel wanted to be at top 10 with the keywords of “akdeniz haber” as haber means “news” in English.

Yes, money is a fact in business, and the most important fact it is, and this work had to be done with very low prices. I wasn’t interested in designing a website for the company and as I advised them the company started to employ a new webmaster.

The website was built on “MyDesign Haber Portal” which is distributed freely from their website, and although I nearly hate ASP, it was coded in ASP. We took that codes, and the new webmaster “Huseyin Yildirim” made so many changes and the site came to a place which it has neer been before.

We opened up a Facebook Page for the company and gathered more than 2000 fans, and the site was up in 15 days.

As I look at the search term “akdeniz haber” the site is second on the search of 2.270.000 competing sites.

Voila… The job’s done…