Chinese Domain Name Registration Game

October 17, 2008

I received the following email today from a Chinese “entrepreneur”.

The email is a rather exaggerated attempt at selling Chinese domain name registrations via the 87Global.hk web site.

The email sender’s reply address @ “Registry-China.org” redirects to 87Global.hk – a domain which in turn was registered by “Wang Yugen”.

87Global.hk

87Global.hk

Both the above domains have been registered and online less than three months…

The domain “registrar” site does provide legitimate lists of Asian Pacific and European domains.

Asia Pacific Domains

Asia Pacific Domains

Asia Pacific Domain Extensions

European Domains

European Domains

European Domain Extensions

The site also has a form for registering the following extensions including .Com.Cn domains albeit – at unbelievably high prices.

The .Com.Cn domain is an interesting extension. I am not sure how it came about, but Google already finds about 524,000,000 pages with “com.cn” in them.

.com.cn

.com.cn

I am sure if I did some digging, I would find that both site’s have content that was either – in whole or in part – copied and pasted directly from known and reputable registrar sites.

What I am not sure of is whether anyone has ever registered a domain successfully through either one of the two domains mentioned above.

The aforementioned email:
_____________________________________________________________________________
(If you are NOT the CEO, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks.)

Dear CEO,

We are the department of registration service in China. we have something need to confirm with you. We formally received an application on October 17th, 2008, One company which self-styled “POI Soft, Inc.” are applying to register “marketingprinciples” as internet brand and CN domain names as below:

marketingprinciples.asia
marketingprinciples.cn
marketingprinciples.com.cn
marketingprinciples.com.tw
marketingprinciples.hk
marketingprinciples.in
marketingprinciples.net.cn
marketingprinciples.org.cn
marketingprinciples.tw

After our initial examination, we found that the internet brand applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. These days we are dealing with it. hope to get the affirmation from your company. If your company and this “POI Soft, Inc.” as the same company, there is no need reply to us, We will accept their application and will register those for them immediately.

If your company has no relationships with that company nor do not authorized, please reply to us within 7 workdays, if we can’t get any information from yours over 7 workdays,we will unconditionally approve the application submitted by “POI Soft, Inc.” .

Thanks for your cooperation.

Best Regards,
Xx Yy

____________________________________________________________________________

If you have an interest in registering your brand or brands in foreign markets and instead of risking domain registration with an unknown registrar, visit Internic to find an accredited registrar for the country and language you plan to register in.

Incidentally, none of the above Chinese “registrars” are listed on Internic’s page of accredited registrars.

More Adwords Campaign Data Summary Display Options

October 16, 2008

Adwords is now offering seven different levels of campaign summary data at the Adwords campaign level.

The seven options are:

1. Summary: The Adwords campaign summary combines all data into a single top line of data.

Adwords Campaign Summary

Adwords Campaign Summary

2. Split – all search/content network: Search networks are combined and displayed along with content network results.

Adwords Split All Search Content Network

Adwords Split All Search Content Network

3. Split – Google search, search partners and content network: All three types of Adwords search distribution are delineated and displayed – Google search, search network partners and content network.

Adwords Split Google Search Search Partners Content Network

Adwords Split Google Search Search Partners Content Network

4. Only Show  – Google search / search partners: Adwords combines Google search and search partners’ results ( if in fact search partners distribution has been enabled ) into a single total.

Adwords Google Search Search Partners

Adwords Google Search Search Partners

5. Only Show – Google search: Adwords campaign results data for only the Google search portion of a campaign.

Only Show Google Search

Only Show Google Search

6. Only Show – Search Partners; Adwords campaign results for search partners only – again if your campaigns have been enabled to distribute ads via Google search partners.

Only Show Search Partners

Only Show Search Partners

7. Only Show – Content Network: campaign results from Google Adwords content network distribution.

Only Show Content Network

Only Show Content Network

By providing these additional levels of data at the campaign level, Google Adwords has made scanning and interpreting Adwords campaign distribution results quicker and easier.

Google Street View: Eiffel Tower Paris France

October 16, 2008

Google Maps now have Street View available live in France.

To get an idea of which cities in France have Google Street View available, search Google Maps for “France” and switch to the street view tab.

Google Street View France

Google Street View France

This will give you a general idea of where Google has street view images available in France.

Next, search street view while in Google Maps for a specific city within France to see whether the city has been photographed yet or not.

This image indicates Paris, France has live Google street view images.

Paris France Google Street View

Paris France Google Street View

A search for Eiffel Tower Paris France then produces a view from the base of the Eiffel Tower.

Clicking or moving the orange person icon onto any blue street and panning the camera image can give you a better perspective of any location or landmark as in the picture below.

Welcome to the Eiffel Tower.

Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

Firefox Beta 3.1, Google Search and Poll Daddy

October 15, 2008

I have downloaded and started using Firefox Beta 3.1 and I’ve immediately noticed some new features.

Search terms are now highlighted in search results pages.

Google 3.1b1

Google 3.1b1

This feature highlights searched for terms in bold wherever they appear within the search results page.

By reducing the eye focusing labor required in the browsing process, Firefox Beta 3.1 makes searching for and finding what you are looking for much easier.

Search terms are highlighted in search results within Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.

I haven’t yet checked site search or any other search engine.

Firefox 3.1b1

Firefox 3.1b1

In Firefox 3.1, when a RSS is available from a particular site, the RSS icon is displayed in the far right end of the address bar.

Displaying the RSS button in the address bar makes subscribing to any web site’s feed far easier than hunting down the RSS button within a particular site.

Firefox Beta 3.1 Address Bar RSS

Firefox Beta 3.1 Address Bar RSS

RSS feed sources aren’t often easily located through a site’s internal search.

If I haven’t been able to locate a site’s syndication button from within a couple of clicks of a site’s home page, I will search Google for RSS XML and the domain name or business publication I want a subscription to.

The Google search query looks like this: “get RSS XML Adweek”

Google Search RSS XML

Google Search RSS XML

This type of search query will usually produce the RSS feeds page address – if there is one – within the first two search results for any web site – large or small.

Firefox Beta 3.1 new features make browsing more intuitive and working online more efficient.

Take the Firefox Beta 3.1 poll with the new WordPress Poll Daddy polling tool:

2009 Ad Spending Forecast and Media Attention Deficit (MAD)

October 14, 2008

Predicted growth in advertising spend per media for 2009 from Wachovia via the Wall Street Journal:

Growth of total U.S. advertising -0.8%

Internet +10%

Yellow Pages +6.3%

Cable TV +4.0%

Billboards +3.0%

Magazines -2.0%

Broadcast TV – 2.7%

Cable -4.0%

Radio -4.8%

Newspapers -9.8%

Don’t these ad growth – or lack thereof – predictions represent each specific media’s ability to reach, target and hold its audience’s attention?

When the overall economy contracts, aren’t general media those who first experience a contraction in their audience’s attention?

When media loses it’s ability to hold its audience’s attention doesn’t it soon thereafter lose advertiser support as well?

Top 10 Drug Brand Name Websites

October 13, 2008

comScore has released a study which shows the top 10 pharmaceutical brand web sites by unique visitors.

Their study compares website traffic changes from Q2 2007 to Q2 2008.

Nexium was marketed more heavily during the quarter – running twice as much display advertising over its two closest competitors.

This tactic appeared to vault Nexium (purplepill.com) into the top most visited drug brand name web site position during the second quarter of 2008.

Collectively, the top 10 most visited drug brand name websites during the second quarter of 2008 received 6,394,000 unique visitors compared to the second quarter of 2007 where the same group of drug brands received 5,294,000 unique visitors.

Top 10 Brand Name Drug Websites

Top 10 Brand Name Drug Websites

Geotargeting Search Advertising in Microsoft adCenter

October 12, 2008

In a previous post I wrote about the differences I found between the four major search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask and their search advertising geo-targeting options.

I stated Microsoft didn’t offer geotargeted search advertising options to its advertisers.

However, Dave Naffziger pointed out Microsoft AdCenter’s geotargeting features can be found under the “edit ad group settings” instead of the “edit campaigns settings” like in Google, Yahoo and Ask.

The following are screen shots of Microsoft adCenter’s geotargeting capabilities:

Like with other search advertising platforms, Microsoft ads can be targeted by country or region and then targeted specifically to cities within a region.

Microsoft Adcenter Geotargeting

Microsoft Adcenter Geotargeting

Although Microsoft lists all countries worldwide available for targeting, only five countries can be selected for geo-targeting search advertising through Microsoft’s adCenter at this time.

The five countries are:

The United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France and Singapore.

Microsoft Adcenter Country Targeting

Microsoft Adcenter Country Targeting

Once a country or region has been selected, advertisers can select a limited number of cities within each state to distribute their ads to.

Microsoft Adcenter Ad Group Geotargeting

Microsoft Adcenter Ad Group Geotargeting

Advertisers can’t target their ads specifically for distribution at the state level like they can in Google, Yahoo and Ask.

Microsoft Adcenter Geotargeting States or Cities

Microsoft Adcenter Geotargeting States or Cities

Once a city or cities have been selected for geotargeted search advertising, adCenter then provides a map of the targeted area.

Microsoft Adcenter Geotargeting Bellevue WA

Microsoft Adcenter Geotargeting Bellevue WA

I haven’t yet been able to get the adCenter map to display any of the locations of my geotargeted ads.

adCenter search advertising features still require further development before they will match the features and functionality already available from the other three major search advertising providers.

Adwords Examples on Google Maps

October 11, 2008

I was giving a presentation in Utah last week using Google Local Search and Google Maps as examples which evidently included new distribution points for Adwords advertising.

In the examples below, you can see an Adwords ad displayed in two locations in both types of Google Maps products being searched.

A search for Trump Soho Hotel in Google Maps produces two Adwords advertisers ads – one in the top left corner above Google’s local search results with the other ad below the map itself.

Trump Soho Hotel Google Maps

Trump Soho Hotel Google Maps

The same search in Google Street View also generates two Google Ads in the same locations as in the Google Map view search.

Trump Soho Hotel Google Maps Street View

Trump Soho Hotel Google Maps Street View

Its not clear to me as a Google Adwords advertiser just how I can get my ads distributed and displayed in these local map search results.

None of my geo-targeted Adwords campaigns are generating these types of ad distribution results.

Customized Search Results

October 10, 2008

Google has started delivering customized search results for local searches.

Customized Search Results

Customized Search Results

How does Google decide which queries are getting which area’s results?

If I were to venture a guess, I would say they will begin distributing search results within a scheme similar to Nielsen’s Designated Market Areas (DMA).

The timing for this new type of search result appears to coincide with the present United States economic cycle.

More about Google’s new customized search results:

Search Customization Details

Search Customization Details

Search Customization Details

Targeting iPhone Users with Google Adwords

October 9, 2008

Adweek reports Google has had discussions with ad agencies regarding advertisers targeting their ads to iPhone users specifically via Google Adwords.

While in Utah yesterday, my fly fishing guide Justin Harding and I noticed when using Google search from his iPhone Google Adwords advertising was sparse.

Initially, I thought it was because of the type of search we had ran.

However, after further investigative searches under highly competitive and advertised keywords, we weren’t ever able to see Adwords sponsored links on the right rail – only above the first search result.

Can a iPhone Google search display more than two Adwords advertisers ads as is now?

We weren’t able to generate any.

How is Google parsing iPhone search ads results for display? If they are, is Google distributing advertising to the iPhone with the same formula they use for displaying search results elsewhere?

Are iPhone screen real estate limitations the reason why we could only get two ads?

Even when we rotated the search results screen for horizontal viewing – under a Google search term that would typically have had up to ten sponsored links ( both above the search results and running down the right rail ) we were only able to generate two Adwords advertisers ads.

Will Google Adwords advertisers soon be able to select “iPhone” as a search distribution option along with “Google Search” and “Search Partners” within their campaigns Networks and bidding settings?

With 10 million iPhones in use and Apple’s iPhone supplying Google with its largest source of mobile search traffic, adding iPhone distribution to Google advertising campaigns will give Google Adwords advertisers another way to target and reach an increasingly mobile search audience.

Google Network Options

Google Network Options