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 <title>Hiveminds Magazine - Google</title>
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 <copyright><![CDATA[Hiveminds Magazine copyrighted 2005-2006]]></copyright>
<item>
 <title>The Best Idea in IT for 2008</title>
 <link>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/the-best-idea-in-it-for-2008.html</link>
 <description><![CDATA[I was diddling around trying to get the Hiveminds mobile pages going when I came across the best idea for 2008. It involves Google so maybe they will send me one of those cool varisity jackets for the suggestion.
]]></description>
<comments>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/the-best-idea-in-it-for-2008.html#comment-form</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/645">Google</category>
<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jan 2008 06:04:09 -0800</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/node/3659</guid>
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 <title>Tracking Downloads with Google Analytics </title>
 <link>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/tracking-downloads-with-google-analytics.html</link>
 <description><![CDATA[While updating the Hiveminds website I thought  that we should be tracking downloads via Google Analytics. I had two reasons for doing this. The first was to have a proof that it could actually be done because of constantly being ignored by management. For some reason they always bring up the subject of tracking downloads , flash and internal campaign links but there ears and minds shut down whenever the solution is to use Google Analytics.
]]></description>
<comments>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/tracking-downloads-with-google-analytics.html#comment-form</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/164">Developer Zone</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/645">Google</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/185">Tips and Tricks</category>
<pubDate>Tue, 25 Dec 2007 03:00:46 -0800</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/node/3641</guid>
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 <title>5 Good Reasons to Drop Google Adsense</title>
 <link>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/5-good-reasons-to-drop-google-adsense.html</link>
 <description><![CDATA[Dropping Google Adsense is easier said than done. First I have to acknowledge why I use Adsense in the first place. I use it because it is easy and if I get lucky and write something meaningful then maybe I will get enough traffic, appreciation or sympathy to nail a few clicks that pay. Otherwise there is no good reason for using adsense. That was the pro but there are many cons to using Google Adsense.]]></description>
<comments>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/5-good-reasons-to-drop-google-adsense.html#comment-form</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/60">Announcement</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/645">Google</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/410">Review</category>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:29:54 -0800</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/node/3632</guid>
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 <title>More Google Adsense Nonsense</title>
 <link>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/more-google-adsense-nonsense.html</link>
 <description><![CDATA[This morning I spotted some new sitings of google testing of Adsense formats. This time they seem to be testing scrolling the iframe through  multiple ads. It threw me off at first because i though that it was adbrite placing an overlay on the Google ads. But then they appeared in ads that come directly from the Google Adsense server.
]]></description>
<comments>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/more-google-adsense-nonsense.html#comment-form</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/60">Announcement</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/645">Google</category>
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<pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:25:11 -0800</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/node/3633</guid>
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 <title>The Google Monopoly is Becoming a Reality</title>
 <link>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/the-google-monopoly-is-becoming-a-reality.html</link>
 <description><![CDATA[Now more than ever website owners and internet businesses are realizing that Google is in total control of the free internet economy. Not just a monopoly but one that can effect the internet in the same way that OPEC can influence the transportation industry.
In its latest incarnation the Google pageranking scheme has taken another competing advertising target, the PayPerPost crowd. Not only has Google controlled the contextual ads market via their strict Adsense policies but are rapidly using their position to eliminate and restrict competing advertising technologies and ideas.
So how long will it be before some Congressman or Senator decides that Google tactics needs to be investigated and controlled? Well probably as long as it took for them to realize that Microsoft has a stranglehold on the PC market. 
 The Competetion Speaks
CEO Ted Murphy, speaking on the IZEA blog, claimed foul play, and opined that Google is at the heart of a censorship conspiracy.
    “Google has proved that PR has little to do with blog traffic, influence or relevance and everything to defending their monopolistic stranglehold on search and online advertising.”
    “It is no coincidence that Google has gone after some blogs that utilize PayPerPost and many of our competitors services. We offer a very attractive alternative to AdSense and are leading a charge to provide real monetization for everyday bloggers. Unlike the Google AdSense black box, we are palms up when it comes to revenue share and give bloggers the lions share of advertising dollars that they deserve.”
    “I find it laughable that high profile bloggers like TechCrunch aren’t being penalized in the same way. Perhaps it’s the fact that they use AdSense. Perhaps it’s the fact that they are silicon valley insiders and are invited to special Google events.”
"First text link ads" and now "Pay Per Post". Ooops! it might not be safe to post those words on your website from now on. Google is using bots to scan for websites so the use of this particular text may get you a PR of  Zero! Linking to the wrong advertiser may also reduce your pagerank. The bot may start going after links to say a hundred competeting ad networks and penalize you for them. 
Yahoo to the Rescue?
The yahoo ad network which seems to be the only direct competetion to Google may be the largest company that will be effected by the new Google standing. Though Yahoo lost a bit of its initial luster with it lack of international support, it is still popular with a small group of users. If Yahoo starts losing advertisers then maybe they will step in and put a stop to this mess. We can only hope. Maybe they will come up with there own ranking system as a lure to get more Yahoo ads users on board
Open Ranking
As always when the big boys get too full of themselves with their secret recipies and posturing they cause a fallout in the form of an open source movement. Is Google setting itself up for a an open source initiative for pageranking? Probably. If some group of determined minds sees fit they will create a competing network of ranking systems. Hopefully there won't be a throwback into 1996 where every other site was a site counter. ]]></description>
<comments>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/the-google-monopoly-is-becoming-a-reality.html#comment-form</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/645">Google</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/169">Internet</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/345">SEO</category>
<pubDate>Wed, 21 Nov 2007 08:41:37 -0800</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/node/3626</guid>
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 <title>Google Pagerank Dropped to Stop Adsense Competition?</title>
 <link>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/google-pagerank-dropped-to-stop-adsense-competition.html</link>
 <description><![CDATA[Twice in the last week or so the Google Page Ranking of this website dropped. At first I was a bit baffled and concerned like everyone else on the web that experienced similar activity. That is until I figured out why it happened. It is only a theory of course but one based on good evidence. The reason that Google is dropping the pagerank of websites is to stop Adsense competitors from taking advantage of using pagerank.
The pagerank for this site was 6 and probably was due to go up since the links in increase with the popularity of some of the GPL software distributed. But it fell to 5 about 10 days ago. I attributed this to the rumors that Google was penalizing crosslinking and the selling of links. But then a strange thing happened. About 5 days ago I changed the ads on Hiveminds to include a new ad network called from www.contextweb.com. Two days after the page rank of Hiveminds dropped to 3. So this seems to point to the fact that Google is not targeting link farmers but are instead targeting their ad competitors that use Google page rankings to calculate the advertising worth of a website.
Quite simply Google wants to put a ceiling on websites that gain revenue from their high pageranks. Probably because a high pagerank means that a competing ad network that pays more will get premier placement on websites. Google Adsense though still present on a site will get placed out of the web pages hot spots. Google Adwords buyers will stop paying for Google ads and go with the competing company where they get more for their money.
Page ranking is now a dead or dying phenomenon. Good ridance I say because it is a lot easier to get good advertisers based on content and visitor stats. But just after I thought this I became worried. When I go looking for an ad network for a website I usually use Google Adsense statistics and Google Analytics. Will Google change and start hiding certain information from my accounts to prevent me from using the information to influence advertising purchasers? Probably not since in is not quite the same thing. Page ranking is visible to all but Google Adsense stats are hidden and protected by a terms of service agreement. Better news is that no  other search engine has started a system that competes with Google page ranking. Maybe Yahoo and the others are smart enough to know that page ranking is not a good indicator of the worth of a website.
Now though this new situation is a wake up call for many it is probably not the one that Google is expecting. When a large company like Microsoft.. er ... Google has a monopoly on the behavior of its users those users have a tendency to start rebelling. In the next few weeks I expect to see an increase in blogs on switching away from Adsense forms like, Yahoo, Contextweb and  more bloggers doing their own ads through systems like Open Ads. Internet advertising looks to be headed into a boom year and Google does not want to loose out on any revenue.
While pagerank may fall the visitor stats of good websites are not effected. Ad networks will just switch to using the older ways of gaining stats and using other systems like Alexa and Compete. I really don't think anyone one will miss the pagerank revolution. Many will just say "...Good-bye and  thanks for all the fish".

]]></description>
<comments>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/google-pagerank-dropped-to-stop-adsense-competition.html#comment-form</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/286">Editorial</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/645">Google</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/345">SEO</category>
<pubDate>Sun, 28 Oct 2007 23:48:39 -0700</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/node/3615</guid>
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<item>
 <title>Google's  Adsense Branding Experiments</title>
 <link>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/googles-adsense-branding-experiments.html</link>
 <description><![CDATA[Google is experimenting with adsense again. Many still have not gotten used to the "Ads by Goooooogle". Complaints about the branding scheme have remained. Now there is a new logo appearing in ads. The new logo was seen on this site and on others in the last few hours. It shows an image with "ads by Google". What is irritating is that the background for the image does not match the chosen color in the ad setup.
]]></description>
<comments>http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/content/googles-adsense-branding-experiments.html#comment-form</comments>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/645">Google</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/169">Internet</category>
 <category domain="http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/taxonomy/term/172">News</category>
<pubDate>Sat, 09 Dec 2006 05:37:10 -0800</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.hiveminds.co.uk/node/3181</guid>
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