Eric from Stone Temple Consulting has published a great interview with Adam Lasnik from Google discussing both paid links and duplicate content issues. Anytime Adam talks, I listen. He is honest and to the point unlike some from Google who prefer to say just enough to leave everyone wondering what is really going on.

Adam clears up much of the concern with the call for paid link reporting. As with any spam report, it’s not going to be used for direct action. Link reports are there to use as a benchmark when modifying the algorithm in an attempt to thwart similar spam actions.

Google has been running small checkout icons next to Adwords ads above the fold and large buttons with the sidebar ads for awhile now. They are now placing the large button next to the above the fold ads. I am seeing the large icon on all searches with all browsers so I am not sure if this is a test or something that’s permanent.

I wonder if the Paypal / Yahoo partnership prompted the change. Information arms race anyone? Or maybe it’s in response to dropping CTR rates.

With the recent brouhaha Matt Cutts raised over webmasters reporting paid links, I’ve had a few customers ask me how they might protect themselves. Since I was on the subject, I wanted to give you all some real world examples of how to cover tracks from the prying eyes of your competitors.

There are limited resources for webmasters to do competitive intelligence on another website’s link building activities, and of those resources, all of them return only limited results. Yahoo for example returns a maximum of 1,000 backlinks. You can pull a few tricks out of a hat and get maybe 2,000-3,000 backlinks if your lucky. That doesn’t help for a site with 20,000 backlinks.

Google has released a new type of report named “Placement Performance Report.” With this report you get detailed statistics of where and how ads performed on sites within the content network. From Google:

Google is testing a new report type called the Placement Performance report so advertisers can view performance metrics for ads that may be running on URLs or domains within our content network.

Google has always provided full online statistical, conversion, and financial reporting for the Google AdWords program. Now with the Placement Performance report, you can gain greater transparency about your campaigns’ performance on the content network for the first time. This report is intended as a tool for you to make informed decisions on improving your campaign’s return on investment.

Back in December Google ran a very limited beta test of their new Audio Ads product. They recently began expanding the beta and I was able to get my hands on an account.

Below are a few screenshots and an overview of the Audio Ads system setup. For more detailed information you should read the Audio Ads help section.

Campaigns
The campaign view looks much like the normal Adwords interface. Instead of clicks and CTR% you see ad plays (number of time an ad airs) and impressions (estimated number of people who heard your ad).

audience estimates (impression estimates) are delivered by Google based on Arbitron’s copyrighted and proprietary audience estimates. They are not estimates produced by Arbitron. For details on survey period & audience type, please refer to your campaign reports.

Audio Library
The audio library is where you upload, store, and preview your radio ads for current and future use.

• When uploading, you are asked to include a written transcript of the audio ad.
• Your ad is sent to Google for pre-approval before it can be used live.