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Google announced changes to their AdWords platform yesterday with a new advanced content network option has been added to all advertiser accounts that allows advertisers to target both keywords and site placements within the same campaign and ad group.

When an advertiser uses a keyword in his ad campaign, with a contextual target in mind, Google will match it to relevant pages across all of the sites on the Content Network. Targeting site placements is an option that AdWords advertisers can choose to enable. If not, the ads will continue to run as before and will be displayed on any of the content network site based on Google’s algorithm.

Using this new facility, advertisers can bid more, or less, on specific content network placements that they are targeting. They will also be able to make ads for specific groups of pages, which they find highly relevant.

A long wait has come to an end Google has added a new feature to the external keyword tool, which now shows the approximate search volume numbers. You can now see statistics on the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords. This data allows you to better plan your budget and pick keywords most likely to return quality leads, which in turn can help improve your ROI.

Advertiser Competition: This column shows the number of advertisers worldwide bidding on each keyword relative to all keywords across Google. The shaded bar represents a general low-to-high quantitative guide to help you determine how competitive ad placement is for a particular keyword.

Approx Search Volume [Previous Month]: This column shows the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google and the search network in the previous calendar month. This number is specific to your targeted country and language as well as your selection from the Match Type drop-down menu. Learn more about the Keyword Tool’s search volume statistics.

Approx Avg Search Volume: This column shows the approximate average monthly number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google and the search network over a recent 12-month period. This number is specific to your targeted country and language as well as your selection from the Match Type drop-down menu. Learn more about the Keyword Tool’s search volume statistics.

A couple of years back phishers mostly targeted big American financial institutions, but nowadays phishing attacks have spread to other countries and languages as well and also target smaller companies, and phishing adwords accounts seems to be the target of the day.

If you think you’ve fallen prey to a phishing scam you should contact Google immediately through this form. You can also forward phishing emails to phishing@google.com

However, It is very important to stay informed about current Internet scams to be sure that you do not become a victim.

Google announced that the page load time metric is now a live factor that will influence your quality score and your minimum bids for your AdWords ads. Read more about it in their official blog…

Dear Google AdWords Customer,

We were unable to process your payment.
Your ads will be suspended soon unless we can process your payment.
To prevent your ads from being suspended, please update your payment information.

Please sign in to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login (different destination url) and update your payment information.

This is the first time I’m hearing about this, and one client, who recently opened an account with adwords, and outsourced the account to an SEM agency has fallen prey to this phishing mail. Landing pages have been changed, and hundreds of keywords were added to the account. Luckily, Google has stopped delivering ads after some time, as it has detected some kind of suspicious activities in the account. However, hundreds of dollars have already been drained out from the account…

This post comes as a warning to all new ppc advertisers…

Google now offers an enhanced level of customer support for some of its top AdWords advertisers and are now testing a new support option that allows its Customers to contact an AdWords Specialist by phone with just the click of a button. Google pays for the call and even do the dialing — all you need to do is pick up the phone and talk.

This option is available in the ‘Help Center’ via the ‘Contact Us’ link within the Adwords account. After clicking ‘Contact Us,’ follow the prompts to identify your concern. You’ll then be offered the option to speak directly to an AdWords Specialist by entering your contact phone number and clicking ‘Call.’ When your phone rings, answer it; you’ll hear ringing on the line as they connect you directly to the AdWords support team.

This service is completely free to users; as Google pays all local and long distance charges. AdWords Specialists are available by phone Monday - Thursday, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. PST (U.S.), or on Friday, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. PST (U.S.).

I was a bit surprised to see my clients adwords ad. displayed in Google Products results (on the right - under Sponsored Links) while searching from India, when the campaign is targeted to run only in the U.S. I went on to Google analytics and found that around 150 visitors have come in from the Google/CPC source from Non-US countries during this month. Absolutely Nonsense, but Quiet interesting to see that Google certainly has issues with geotargeting ads.

I went on to chat with an Adwords Rep, who has agreed to contact me once he has additional information. Not sure what they have to say. To understand more about this issue, please read the actual chat with the Rep…

Thank you for contacting Google AdWords. Please hold a moment while we route your chat to a specialist who will help you with your question: “hi”.
Dave has received your message and will be right with you.
Dave: Hello Ezhilraja. Thanks for contacting Google AdWords. How may I help you today?
ezhilraja: we have targeted ads to run only in US, but I’m seeing them in India while searching on google products
Dave: Let me look into that for you.
ezhilraja: http://www.google.com/products?q=xxxxx+xxxxx
ezhilraja: please look at the adgroup XXXXXXX
Dave: which campaign is that in?
ezhilraja: XXXXXX
Dave: Ok I have located the ad and see that it is a match.
ezhilraja: why does this happen?
Dave: I am not sure if this is expected behavior or not.
Dave: When you target by country we use domains.
Dave: For example, if you target Canada we only show your ads on Google.ca.
Dave: I would like to escalate this issue to our technical team for further clarification.
ezhilraja: okay, whom should i contact
Dave: What is the IP address of the computer you used to run this search?
Dave: I can follow up with you once I discuss this issue with the appropriate team.
ezhilraja: 122.164.165.72
Dave: Ok thanks.
Dave: And what is the best email address to reach you at?
ezhilraja: XXXX@XXXXXXXX.com and cc XXXX@XXXXXXXX.com
Dave: ok.
Dave: I will look into this on your behalf right away.
Dave: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
ezhilraja: we use google analytics, and it shows
traffic from over 30 countries from google cpc during this month
ezhilraja: around 150 clicks
ezhilraja: and we have targeted only US
Dave: All of these campaigns are keyword targeted?
ezhilraja: yes
Dave: Have they always been exclusively targeting the US?
ezhilraja: yes, right from the begining
Dave: Do you mind if we review your Analytics
account while investigating this issue?
ezhilraja: sure, no issues
Dave: Ok.
Dave: Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Dave: I will contact you once I have additional information.
Dave: Is there anything else I can help you with?
ezhilraja: nothing else this is the only issue
Dave: ok great.
Dave: It was a pleasure chatting with you. If you have any more questions, please feel free to visit our Help Center. You can also print this chat transcript for your records. Have a great day. Thank you for contacting Google AdWords. Your chat session has ended. Click To Print

At times, your Google ad. that uses dynamic keyword insertion can be displayed on Google Partner sites that use Google Adsense with awkward titles like the one shown in the below image, with the ad. title saying Keywords:Jokes instead of displaying just Jokes. This looks like a technical flaw on part of Google Adwords system, and there seems to be nothing wrong in the way that the campaign is created.

Thus, to ensure that your ad. doesn’t get displayed like this… make sure you turn off Content Match for the time-being in all those campaigns in which you have ad. copies that use dynamic keyword insertion till Google fix this issue…

Google recently admitted that hackers successfully hijacked AdWords, which allowed cyber criminals to use affected links to redirect users to web sites that contained malicious software. Google immediately shut down the offending links once they were discovered early last week.

At least 20 specific search terms that appeared on Google as legitimate ads, redirected users to smartattack.org, which distributed the malicious code. The flaw appears to only have affected users of the Microsoft Windows XP operating systems. The web exploit was discovered by Exploit Prevention Labs, a security firm. They said they found the threat earlier this month when searching the phrase “how to start a business.” One of the hyperlinks related to the search term led to a site that attempted to install a keylogger.

Google is now looking at its AdWords practices to prevent similar incidents in the future…

Online Marketing constitutes over $2 trillion in annual sales of th U.S economy, and two-thirds of American households now contain a computer with Internet access. Businesses try to get a competitive edge with their Web sites and some of the Online Marketing tactics run afoul of traditional notions of trademark infringement and unfair competition.

Google Adwrods apparently allows competitors to bid on trademarked terms, including competitors business names.

AdWords Trademark Complaint Procedure

When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we only investigate the use of the trademark in ad text. If the advertiser is using the trademark in ad text, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademark and prevent them from using it in ad text in the future. Please note that we will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint. In addition, please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google.

Search engines organic results are based on how search engine robots read metatags written into the Web site code, which further describe the nature of the site. Some site operators include the trademarked words of competitors in the metatags. For instance, a Hewlett-Packard personal computer retailer might create metatext so that a person typing into a search engine the term “Apple Computer” might end up finding the Hewlett-Packard personal computer retailer.

This phenomenon, defined as “initial interest confusion,” can cause an inquiring buyer mistakenly to visit a Web site which sells something he needs, but is of a different brand; and Trademarks and Brand names as of now aren’t protected on the Internet.