Softball, mysql, and Bush.

George Michie wrote a solid SEL post on the perils of overly-automated keyword generating systems.

Mia Brennan, a Senior Analyst at RKG, shares research on the impact of today’s turbulent economy on PPC campaigns for her clients.

“But one thing that struck me is that I just found out today that the way AdSense works is we don’t actually know how much of a cut we’re getting. We just take their ads and run them on our site and they send us a check at the end of the month, and we trust them to give us a fair amount of whatever they were paid, though there’s no actual way to determine what a fair amount might be.” - FJY

Here’s a new RKGDuck video showing how in a couple minutes you can write a powerful filter to assist with cleaning up keyword lists.

For the third year, we’re proud to have sponsored the annual North American Perl conference, a great geek conference which occurred last week in Chicago.

Keywords, bids, and matchtypes — those are the big levers of paid search. To get your PPC programs generating maximum profit, focus there first.

Last week Google and Yahoo announced an agreement by which Yahoo would be allowed to selectively serve Google ads along side search results on Yahoo.com and Yahoo’s partner sites, and take advantage of Google’s Content ad platform as well.

Measuring new customer acquisitions and lifetime value calculations applies not only to traditional marketing, but paid search too.

The second of a ten part series on what is required of top tier bid management platforms in 2008.

I raised a great many hackles at IRCE in Chicago on Monday 6/9 pointing out some of the important issues associated with Affiliate Marketing. Did I go too far? Yes and No.

Site search is a conversation, a chance to listen to your customer and respond. Tune it up, and it has the potential to be one of the most ROI-positive investments you’ll make in your site. Is your site search providing maximum return?

May 2008 search engine share results aggregated across RKG clients: steady, no big change. Google at 81%.

Microsoft to pay HP to make Live the default search engine in IE on new HP machines. Meanwhile, Ffox adoption continues to grow.

Ever wondered how Google decides questions ranging from how many results to serve on a page, to the amount of whitespace with which to pad the logo and the most effective color with which to tint the sponsored link box at the top of the page?

“The only way to grow your business long-term is through this process of turning your customers into your sales force.”
- Fred Reichheld

Google’s Ad Preview Tool (APT) provides you more information about your search campaigns than you’d have otherwise. But some advertisers mistakenly believe APT reveals more than it actually does.

Like glancing at page one headlines of the newspaper, Addictomatic gives a one page summary for your specific search term, right now, across 18 leading sites.

Online retailers seeking more agility in their web development should give “Getting Real” by 37Signals a thoughtful read.

I’m giving a 2 - 2.5 presentation on PPC Marketing next Thursday 6/5 at noon EST. Join us!

Embracing design and usability conventions is absolutely foundational — but just 1 critical dimension of sites that sell effectively. What else matters?

Scott Silverman of Shop.org talks about internet privacy, interstate collection of sales tax and other issues facing online retailers.

USPS direct mail usually leaves me befuddled, and the environmailist [sic] mailing doesn’t disappoint.

The first installment in a series on critical technology and know-how associated with bid management in 2008.

Interesting news items from SEL, TechCrunch, and SearchEngineJournal: screenshots of internal Google pricing metrics slipping out onto public SERPs. Stale news, perhaps fake, but interesting!