Monday, April 18, 2011

Googland

Googland

[G] More clarity in AdWords for advertisers affected by landing page policy

Posted: 17 Apr 2011 06:24 PM PDT

Inside AdWords: More clarity in AdWords for advertisers affected by landing page policy

It's easier to fix a problem when you know what it is. Today, we're making it easier to know when you're affected by a landing page or site policy problem, rather than a landing page quality problem. Before we look at the changes we've made in AdWords to make this more clear, let's review the differences between policy and quality for landing pages.

What's the difference between policy and quality for landing pages? The primary purpose of landing page policy is to make sure that the sites to which users are taken after clicking on ads are safe, trustworthy, and legal. Automated systems and trained specialists make policy enforcement decisions. When landing pages are suspected of violating AdWords policies, ads and keywords linked to them are disabled and not allowed to enter the AdWords auction.

Landing page quality, on the other hand, is important for ensuring that users have a positive experience on your site. It can affect your ad position and performance in the AdWords auction. And as with all factors in Quality Score, landing page quality is determined by automated systems.

What's changing in the AdWords interface? Previously, if a destination URL wasn't compliant with our landing page and site policy guidelines, the associated keywords would show a Quality Score of 1/10, a notice that ads were rarely showing, and an indication of poor landing page quality.

However, you wouldn't see anything explicitly mentioning a landing page policy violation. Now, if your keywords are affected by a landing page policy issue, here's what you'll see on the Keywords tab in the AdWords interface.


Affected keywords will show "Site suspended" in the status column. And since affected keywords aren't able to trigger ads, a Quality Score is no longer calculated or shown. If you switch to the Ads tab, any ads that aren't serving as a result of the policy violation will show a status of "Suspended."

These changes are visible for most landing page policy violations. For serious offenses, however, remember that we may immediately suspend an account.

We hope this makes it easier to see when you're affected by landing page policy issues and take corrective action.

Please visit the Help Center for more information about AdWords policies or landing page quality. You can also contact us about a specific AdWords policy issue affecting your account.

Posted by Lisa Shieh, Inside AdWords crew
URL: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/04/more-clarity-in-adwords-for-advertisers.html

[G] The taxman searcheth

Posted: 17 Apr 2011 02:50 PM PDT

Official Google Blog: The taxman searcheth

While he may not have been the first to say it, Benjamin Franklin famously wrote in 1789: "Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

It's tough to argue with Ben's point, but as it turns out, a spike in searches around the two most significant events of tax season in the U.S.—the availability of W-2 forms and the due-date for federal tax returns—are pretty dependable as well, as search volume increases in January/beginning of February and in early April. Like other years, users have been looking for info on the process, places to turn for help, and service providers to get their taxes done. As expected, in the "Accounting & Tax" category, the fastest rising searches since mid-January include both commercial terms like [TurboTax] and [H&R Block] and government-specific terms like [IRS forms] and [1040 instructions].


Americans looking to file their taxes in advance aren't the only ones searching for information on the subject; the last-minute filers have been searching quite a bit as well. In recent weeks, as the deadline has approached, searches for terms like [tax extension] have shot up. Elsewhere, tax filers from around the country are increasingly looking for ways to complete their taxes online in 2011. This year, searchers in North Carolina are leading the way in [do taxes online] followed by Missouri, and Pennsylvania.


During tax season, professional accountants aren't the only ones that get consumed with tax preparation. Proof that Americans get seriously tax-obsessed: in the last week, folks have been searching more for tax info than for that other seasonal fixation, [american idol].

But no matter how consistent tax-related queries tend to be, the 2011 calendar features a wrinkle: in observance of Emancipation Day on April 15, the IRS has extended the deadline for federal returns to Monday, April 18. If you thought you were the only one who didn't know that, you're not alone: The deadline change has prompted quite a bit of action for [when is tax day].

Of course, taxpayers have been keenly interested in how they can save on taxes. For example, [American Opportunity Credit] searches have increased substantially from last year. More creatively, some Americans are looking to maximize their refund by documenting their financial activities of the past year. For some, that means looking at the monies that they *gave away* in one way or another. When it comes to taxes, perhaps vices trump good. Case in point: Like in past years, searches for [gambling losses] are currently besting those for [charity deductions].


For a view into what truly enterprising taxpayers have managed to claim in past years, see this list of deductions that have been actually been approved. Do you think we might be able to claim a deduction for our lava lamps?

Posted by Sam Sebastian, Industry Director Local, B2B and Government and Reggie Riley, Head of Industry, Financial Services
URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/taxman-searcheth.html

[G] Luxury Real Estate Company Improves Mobility, Security and Email Performance with Google Apps

Posted: 17 Apr 2011 10:37 AM PDT

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Luxury Real Estate Company Improves Mobility, Security and Email Performance with Google Apps

Editors note: Today's guest blogger is Colleen Barry, Director of Marketing for Gibson Sotheby's International Realty, a luxury real estate company in Boston. Gibson Sotheby's International Realty joins other real estate businesses like Baird and Warner, Ray White, and Cadillac Fairview in switching to Google Apps. Learn more about other organizations that have gone Google on our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google Cloud Calculator.

We are the Boston-based franchise of an international luxury real estate company. To support sales and marketing, as well as 200 independent agents who are constantly on the go, we needed a more mobile, secure, and fast solution for communication and collaboration. We were providing email services centrally for 300 mailboxes using SmarterMail, but this solution's capabilities were very limited. People only had 10MB of storage. The service was slow and somewhat unreliable. Everyone had to use an email client, and because many are independent contractors, they chose whatever they wanted to use. This ultimately led to complexity and a higher likelihood of data loss. With Google Apps for Business, the company now has a more secure, consistent toolset that is increasing sales productivity while reducing IT complexity.

Over the years, I have had so many agents call me on the verge of tears because their machine had crashed and they lost everything on their hard drive. If Microsoft ® Outlook is your record-keeping mechanism, you're in trouble unless you back it up – and let's be realistic – people rarely do that. They also lose their computers and phones. We wanted to move into the cloud so that we no longer had to worry about data loss or data back-ups.

Another motivation for change was the need for better mobile access. We were using POP mail so agents and others could see emails on their mobile phones, but the experience was limited and ultimately frustrating. Because the email wasn't in the cloud, you couldn't do much more than view it. In an industry like real estate, it's essential that our agents can access their information instantly from wherever they are.

We were pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to deploy Google Apps. We worked with Google reseller, SADA Systems, to purchase Google Apps, but two office administrators and I completed the implementation on our own. Because Google is so great at making information available, we didn't even need to hire anyone to migrate our data. We brought 300 email accounts to Google Apps, without needing a partner for the deployment.

The ability to share and collaborate on Google documents and spreadsheets has saved us from having to do a lot of repetitive and manual tasks. For example, we can now share "show sheets" – brochures about a property listing – in Google Docs directly with our clients. We previously created PDFs and emailed them around to agents and then the agents downloaded them and attached them in emails sent to clients.

We're also using Google Forms for requests for services that we offer to our agents. Instead of receiving countless email requests, we can now just circulate a survey, which populates instantly into a Google spreadsheet. That spreadsheet also lets us track trends and forecast. All of the essential data is there and accessible to the entire team.

With all of the snow we've gotten this year, Google Talk has been a lifesaver. People can work from home yet still preserve the connected, social aspect of their work while getting questions answered and discussions taken care of in minutes. These examples may not seem like much, but they add up to big productivity gains and help our employees feel connected and part of a team, even when we're not physically in the same office.

Our employees are happier, and our IT costs are decreasing. With Apps we are dealing with fewer IT problems and are operating at a much quicker pace. Google Apps quickly begins to pay for itself. Our employees know that we're investing in them and giving them the tools to do their jobs better and work together. We are providing a more valuable service to our agents and, ultimately, to our clients. We believe moving to Google Apps will be one of our great achievements this year.

Posted by Colleen Barry, Director of Marketing, Gibson Sotheby's International Realty
URL: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/04/luxury-real-estate-company-improves.html

[G] An Update on Tags

Posted: 17 Apr 2011 06:30 AM PDT

Google LatLong: An Update on Tags


[Cross-posted from the Google Small Business Blog]

As users increasingly rely on tools like Google Maps and Places for information about the world around them, we're working hard to develop products that help local businesses highlight themselves and their offerings.

Last year, we introduced our trial for Google Tags, a way for businesses to highlight their organic Google Places listing with a yellow tag that showcases offers, photos, videos, menu, and reservations for a flat monthly fee.

Since that experiment began, tens of thousands of businesses have used Tags to help potential customers make easier, more informed decisions when searching. Throughout this period, we monitored Tags closely to learn more about our users' business needs and how they used the product.

We've made a decision to shift our efforts toward other present and future product offerings for local businesses, and will be discontinuing this trial. To that end, we've now halted new signups and will be working with existing participating businesses over the coming weeks to help them meet their marketing needs with other Google products where possible.

We've learned a lot from our Tags trial and will take that knowledge into account as we continue to find the best ways to serve users and local businesses alike. Lastly, we want to thank all of the businesses that were part of our Tags trial, and we hope we can meet their advertising needs with one of our existing products.

Posted by Shalini Agarwal, Product Manager
URL: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/04/update-on-tags.html
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