Many of you have at least heard about how Google has tightened the reigns on internet advertising. Well for some they’ve come down hard, “big time” since the end of August 09 with little warning or explanation. The background is pretty interesting regarding what motivated this change and how it came about. If you’ve been affected then understanding why and how to react accordingly definitely will help your business marketing effectiveness.Google was backed into a corner and the changes were made as a direct result of pressure put on by the FTC. Pressure specifically brought to bear by David C. Vladeck who was appointed by Barack Obama to head up the Bureau of Consumer Protection within the FTC.One thing to remember is that the FTC approved Google’s acquisition of Double-Click last year which many argued was a clear tossing aside of anti-trust laws in vertical market mergers. It has appeared that they are far more aware of ramifications born from that controversial decision seemingly recognizing that it essentially created a big advertising gorilla that didn’t effectively police itself. So, much like when baseball enjoyed so many HGH induced home runs while MLB turned a blind eye; the government felt they needed to flex their lawmaking muscle a bit. With that being the case and with a new sheriff Vladeck in town, the stage was set for some major changes to be made.The concern stems from the far-reaching freedom of any company or individual to make any claims based on their product or service they wanted to as long as they had a disclaimer at the bottom of their site. Such disclaimers would routinely begin with such verbiage as “The claims made on this site do not guarantee that you will experience the same results. Individual results will vary greatly and in accordance to….”. The truth is that this does not protect the potential customer and actually allows the advertiser to essentially have a green light to use unverifiable claims – especially when used in business or business opportunity advertising.In his first 90 days Vladeck had gone on record as saying that the industry’s attempts to police itself were not good enough and met with industry execs to talk about the issue. In fact in his first six weeks on the job, he asked Congress for a bigger budget and for a streamlined way to create regulations. He also stated that he would hire technologists to help analyze online marketers’ tracking.The end result was the FTC brandishing their big “whooping stick” to put pressure on Google to reign in their biggest moneymaker. Given the fact that approximately 95% of Google’s revenue comes from advertising, it says a lot about the leverage they feel they have (ie we made you a Goliath by approving the merger and we can take you out).So what does that mean to all of us in the advertising community? Well, if you are advertising a business opportunity that uses large or (what appears to be) unsubstantiated compensation claims, a website template hosted by such a business opportunity without original content you are getting flagged, slapped or suspended all together (aka The Google Slap). The problem is that there are legitimate companies that are being drastically affected because they are being misidentified as being the same business opportunity animal. I know of several affiliate marketers that were spending over $100,000 a month on Google AdWords advertising whose accounts are presently suspended altogether. Ouch!From what I hear, if it happens to you you’ll find the quality score of your keywords will immediately drop from good or excellent (7+/10) to poor (1/10) due solely to being determined to have low website/landing page quality. Your ads will then rarely be shown if at all.Personally, I think Google is taking a hard swing to show they are taking the FTC bullying seriously and then as dad has his back turned, focusing on other troubled children in the business playground, they will then slowly ease off. But make no mistake, I believe these restrictions are here to stay they just wont be as militant about it. The famed Google Algorithms will balance out and find a happy medium but still keep out those that might give internet marketing a bad reputation.The bottom line is that even though I abhor government intrusion, the original motivation was to keep much of those in our industry who muddy the waters and which my friends, is actually a good thing. The problem is that it has been poorly executed creating collateral damage.Those that have been “‘flagged or slapped” need to retool their marketing strategy. If you’ve been drastically affected then you don’t need anyone to tell you that you’ve put too many eggs in the Google AdWords basket. You have to diversify your marketing methods! They must also closely examine their site content, where the site forwards too, who hosts it (ie web templates provided by their business opportunity). This will force many to rethink their business relationships and chosen business opportunities, especially if it is MLM or Network Marketing in nature.Change ALWAYS presents opportunity. If you can retool, regroup and adapt you will be positioned properly to capitalize on that opportunity because unfortunately most become discouraged, lose heart and do not. For ideas on diversifying your advertising strategies, review my article “Hit Your Target When Advertising Your Business Online”. There you’ll find 11 options available for you to take advantage of that will allow you to better diversify your marketing strategy.
Monthly Archives: February 2023
Networking Fast Through the Incredible Li-Fi Technology
The century we live in has seen some of the most astonishing and sensational changes when it comes to technology. For a layman, these advancements may seem extremely challenging to grasp. This doesn’t come as a wonder because with all the inventions in the field of technology, it has become quiet complicated. However, the aim behind all this is to swiftly enhance the user experience and make their everyday lives better. The talk of the town lately has been the amazing Li-Fi technology. Although a lot of people still aren’t aware of it, there has been a rising curiosity to find out about its application and benefits to an ordinary user. Whether it will grow out to be as popular as the Wi-Fi is still a matter of speculation. However, it is certainly a mighty step in the right direction and would have a great influence if it runs successfully. To move a step forward in technology, let’s find out more about the Li-Fi technology.What is it?For many, this is still a huge question. The most common explanation you’ll come across is that this advanced technology is claimed to be many times faster than the Wi-Fi. Simply put, the Li-Fi technology is the wireless optical networking technology. What makes it super special is that for the data transmission, it uses the light-emitting bodies, commonly known as the LEDs. Li-Fi will make use of the LEDs quiet similar to what it’s like at your homes and offices. For optical data transmission, a chip will be used to make it function properly. The data through this technology is transmitted through the LED bulbs and the photoreceptors receive it.What is the Need of Li-Fi?Many of us are sufficiently satisfied with the Wi-Fi that connects us to the world and are anxious to find out why we need Li-Fi. It has been open to criticism since quiet sometime specially because of the convincing argument that in order to transmit data, light can be limited in comparison to the radio waves. However, the usefulness of this technology should not be restricted to this drawback as there are many reasons of investing in this form of technology.The most important aspect to consider here is the opportunity to access a much faster internet. It transmits signals multiple times quicker than your ordinary broadband connections. This means that during the peak times, you won’t have to face the misery of gaps or interruptions with the connection. The speed can dramatically change the ways we access internet and can totally revolutionize our lives. Another amazing benefit of using this technology is that it is cost effective. Light is the source and it is something we’ve been using for all of our lifetime. It is also an energy efficient way of using our technology. This is because the LED bulbs have won their reputation globally for being energy efficient. On the bright side of life, your broadband bills are going to vanish as well!
What You’re Communicating When You’re Not Communicating
There is a bizarre phenomenon in the realm of existence, and this rule applies in every area of life.There is something that goes on, even beyond humanity, to the birds in the skies, the animals over the ground, to the creatures in the sea, even to plant life. Something links at all, and that something is communication.Our very being here,bodily and spiritually,is communication.We are communicating constantly. Even when we are not communicating we are communicating, for in our non-communicating we communicate perhaps some of the most powerful messages. These are usually messages of inference and assumption – the promulgation of untruth.In our humanity, silence, for one instance, communicates volumes. It can communicate exclusion, derision, abandonment, the fact that there is no relationship, and it can suggest even love, but not usually. We normally associate silence with something negative.We are still communicatingwhen we’re not communicating.When we break connection we often force people to either second-guess our relationship with them, or our motives, or we get them to question the very future that we might share together, or not, as the case may be.And yet, we may have decided for good reason to break connection. Perhaps there’s been a toxic relationship formed that we need release from. The only way to do that is to stop communicating. But it is always nice if we can communicate with clarity what our intentions are, so the other person can commence their grieving. If they continue to beckon for our attention, avoidance is the only way of enforcing a communicated boundary.This issue gets very practical in our electronic world when we don’t receive replies to the e-mails or the text messages we send. It’s the same when people don’t get a response from us. It’s quite normal for people to think that we have forgotten about them, or that we don’t care, when we don’t respond in a timely fashion, or we don’t respond at all. Perhaps we’ve all thought that, ‘looks like they don’t like me anymore,’ and, ‘what have I done wrong?’It would be a useful prayer, in our electronic age, to ask God every day:’Lord, show me what I’m communicatingnegatively through failing to communicate.”Lord, reveal to me what I’m communicatingthrough my silence.”Lord, help me to know, also, how to keep my peacein situations where I ought to be silent.”Lord, give me ways of refraining from speakingwhen I ought to remain silent.’There are times when we don’t communicate out of choice, for good reason, but we should make it clear to the person we’re not communicating with as to why we’re ceasing contact. Say it once and never feel the need to go back.In other cases, the choice not to communicate is possibly passive aggressiveness. That’s never good. It would be better to have the conversation required to resolve the conflict.In some other cases, it just so happens we’re distracted, like the photo suggests, by myriad other abstractions.Sometimes technology takes the focusthat human beings ought to occupy.We have the opportunity to reflect how much technology replaces real communication; that our reticence to connect, because we’re so ‘plugged in’ to our device, speaks in deafening tones of our relational ambivalence. And this occurs in familial relationships as much as anywhere.In not communicating, we’re often communicatinga message we should not wish to communicate.