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Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Open Video To Google – Please Reinstate Chrome
Dear Google
Your recent decision to invoke a manual penalty on the download page for Google Chrome will have lasting ramifications for the whole of online marketing, whether display advertising, affiliate marketing, and other performance marketing such as CPA models, making many such business models unworkable.
Policing every piece of content produced by marketing partners (affiliates etc) on the offchance that they inadvertantly linked directly to the traffic or buzz benifitiary without using a nofollow or otherwise blocking the direct link is commercially untenable.
In the following video I have outlined what has led to this unreasonable decision being made, and elaborated a little on some of the commercial implications not just for competitors in the online advertising space, but even for Google services such as Google Publisher Network, Google Affiliate Network & Doubleclick.
Here is a 720p 1280×720 mp4 of the above video (looking forward to supporting this in a player real soon now)
Sincerely
Andy Beard
Here is a specific example
This is an Amazon widget
//
// ]]>
Wow it is promoting a really cool Google phone!
Here is another iframe creative
Here is a text only link
T-Mobile G2 with Google Android Phone (T-Mobile)
So far I haven’t broken Google’s new interpretation of the webmaster guidelines
I love Amazon
Oops… sorry Amazon that wasn’t an affiliate link, but an editorial link… Google will now feel that they have to remove the Amazon home page from the search engine results and Amazon won’t sell 20M Kindle Fires this year… Just 19.8M – or maybe 21M if they replace the Amazon home page with the Kindle Fire product page. (yes I realise they are very similar)
Whilst pureists might argue that this wasn’t a video CPA advert but an affiliate link, a huge amount of the sites that Google filtered this year as poor quality thin affiliates were using Amazon and other affiliate networks for monetization. The purpose quite often for the content was to drive traffic to the ads in small quantities.
At scale the revenue from 1000s of websites earning just a few dollars a month above the hosting and domain costs add up.
Another comparrison is Google’s own Adsense program and the vast numbers of poor quality sites that have arisen because of it. The good often (in search visibility) outweigh the junk MFA (made for adsense) sites, but it really is a chicken & egg situation. The webmasters target specific topics and even optimize content not just for SEO, but to pull up the highest paying and possibly even specific advertising creatives for products, maybe even video content, and they get paid for clicks on that content.
If I write a blog about Android phones and included an Adsense advert at the bottom of each post, allowed video and display ads, the situation wouldn’t be vastly different to some junk content followed by a video embed of a Google commercial I was being paid for on a CPA basis.
People in the past made complete websites dedicated to the promotion of Google pack, their Adsense program etc, and even offered incentives such as training in online marketing, or included the Adsense registration links as part of the course material… of course without disclosure as that wasn’t allowed.
Google… Please Reinstate Chrome
Here are the links referenced in the video
Matt’s post on Google+
Aaron’s’s post Sponsored By Google that started this huge mess.
Danny’s post on all the thin content
Unruly Media is clearly CPA (grats on $ 25M funding guys)
Wikipedia on CPA (will Wikipedia be the only independent content site soon?)
Wikipedia on Online Marketing advertising models
Andrew Girdwood proving Google has used this form of CPA before
Danny with Google’s statement throwing their agency and Unruly under a bus
Google’s staement and effect (from Danny) – Statement saying this was a violation of their guidelines, possibly from someone who hasn’t read them recently.
My post on Google pack and word of mouth marketing
Google’s policy statement for their Google pack CPA campaign No mention of not giving editorial links etc
The CPA video embed (the iframe contents) – I am not going to drag an individual blogger who may have given a quite nice editorial link to Google Chrome through the coals
The Unruly Media terms of service which have now been enhanced – the nofollow statement is a new bullet point – it shouldn’t be needed as payment is not for the content of the blog post, or links, but based on CPA actions with the video.
Webmaster help forums on Affiliate links Google repeatedly avoids answering questions regarding the use of nofollow with affiliate links and other forms of display advertising.
How to report paid links and selling links that pass pagerank
Disclosure: I work for an online video & affiliate marketing startup called uQast but I am posting this on my personal blog and the words and opions expressed here are my own and my volition and not of my employer (does that remind anyone of Matt’s disclaimer?) – I have been involved in affiliate marketing for 7 years and the issues discussed here have been a topic of this blog since I started publishing it in 2005.
Small update: just added a download link for the MP4 version in HD 720p
The post Open Video To Google – Please Reinstate Chrome appeared first on Internet Business & Marketing Strategy – Andy Beard.
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Video SEO Bullshit – I Call Your Bluff!
Recently I have been researching what everybody else is saying about Video SEO. The topic being new and hot, it is interesting to see how it unwinds. While there certainly are some good bits of information around (including SEODojo’s podcast on the topic with Carla Marshall and Steve Gerenscer), there is plenty of stuff that cannot be referred to other than pure bullshit – so it certainly deserves its place here.
Search for “Video SEO ” in Google and one of the first things you get is an article published two years ago on TechCrunch. Now, TechCrunch is surely not an SEO site so can pretty much be regarded as any other mainstream publication trying to write about SEO (we all know what comes out of it – either something we all laugh about or some site getting banned/penalized). But FFS, if you claim to be an expert on the topic and submit your article to a large publication like this, could you at least get your facts right and word it properly???
Quote:
“You’ll also need to make sure that you have a robots.txt file on all video pages” (via TechCrunch)
LOLWHUT??? A robots.txt FILE on every page? Do you even have a clue how it can be implemented practically, other than maybe <?php include “robots.txt”;?> Should I just email the guy and ask him if he managed to figure out what robots.txt is since that publication? Should I launch an online course called “ROBOTS.TXT FOR CLUELESS MARKETERS “?
How much do you think I should charge for it?
Moving on to other results, that’s not the only one interesting in this manner. AimClear has published a whitepaper a year ago. OK methinks, aimClear is a reputable agency, must be good information, in their blog post announcing the whitepaper we are promised to see “a blockbuster featuring a correlation study of query intent, tagging, and how the combination effects a video’s chances in Google and Bing SERPs” so should be some impressive in-depth study…
No such fucking luck! Pure whitepaper spam! Out of 12 pages of the PDF, 6 are screenshots of Google SERPs and how video results can be included in them, plus there is a list of a bunch of video sites they have discovered – only this list is an image so not much can be done with it, and it has duplicate entries in it too (makes one doubt how accurate the rest of the data in the paper is). The closing points of the whitepaper mention that “aimClear has a rank checking extraction agent. Contact us for further information.” – wait, what? That was just a bait-and-switch to try and pitch your scraper to me?
I can build my own scrapers alright, been doing so since 2005. Another possible revenue stream for me: sell my scraper optimization services to aimClear so that their scraper does not output duplicate results, dohh…
Of course video SEO is a relatively new topic so good information accumulates over time. But as long as people accept bullshit as “expert opinions” under the veil of authority mainstream publications and whitepapers, separating good information from worthless banter will not be an easy task. So many people believe if it ranks on Google it must be good information! The two examples above show how it is not necessarily so. Google is all about rel=author and AuthorRank – how about BullshitRank?
from WordPress http://www.reparacalculator.com/video-seo-bullshit-i-call-your-bluff/
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Video and Game Widget Optimization
The question often arises whether or not to use Youtube as a Video strategy. My knee-jerk reaction is usually to cringe. Because, I know when a user grabs the embed code to place it on a blog, website, Facebook, or whatever Social Media platform, it’s Youtube that gets the backlink. Not my client. Youtube gets all the authority and link love.
I’d much rather prefer to see my client get the link love, and authority. Although, there is a consideration to use Youtube to build an audience. But that’s for another post.
So, this post will be on how to use “widgets” (whether they be game widgets, or video widgets) as part of the Video SEO strategy, and how to make sure they are optimized.
Syndicated game widgets and video players are an effective strategy for increasing inbound links. If a popular widget “goes viral”, it can mean tremendous gains for a site’s visibility and PageRank as each link builds PageRank and ultimately improves search engine rankings. However, these gains can only be realized if the widget or video layer is properly optimized. Search engines can follow the source attribute used to reference the content, however, PageRank value cannot transfer directly to the widget source file, instead it must be passed via plain HTML links (anchor tags) to another HTML page.
To ensure syndicated content is fully optimized, an HTML wrapper needs to be provided within the Flash embed “clip code.” Search engine spiders will be able to follow any links contained in the wrapper and pass full PageRank value back to the source and linked pages. Targeted and appropriate keyword-rich anchor text for any HTML links will also increase the efficacy of this type of linking strategy.
Optimizing the HTML Wrapper
The HTML wrapper is a simple DIV tag that either wraps the EMBED tag (Flash), or immediately precedes or follows it. The widget HTML wrapper should be designed and coded with these best practices in mind:
- No external style sheets can be referenced, so only inline CSS styles can be used.
- CSS code should be kept clean and concise. Users may become frustrated with unmanageable code if it doesn’t render properly and simply delete it.
- The styling should match the “chrome” or “skin” of the widget so that it appears seamlessly integrated as a part of the player.
- Three to four links should be added below or above the player, typically a link back to the main site or vertical and three links to related content.
- Link anchor text should target keywords that are relevant to the content being provided.
TECH NOTE
DIVs and EMBEDs are both block level elements, so the wrapper DIV tag can follow the EMBED tag and sit right underneath it without any special styling for positioning.
Anchor Text and Inbound Recommendations
- Include no more than 3-4 links back to the site.
- Anchor text should be optimized to increase ranking and PageRank for a specific phrase.
- At least 1 or 2 of the links should be contextually relevant to the widget content. If the widget is for a specific category, include a link for that category. Also include a link for a specific product.
- 1 inbound link should be to the homepage and include optimized anchor text for a high volume keyword the homepage is already optimized for.
- Do not place tracking parameters on the links, this will dilute the PageRank for the URL.
CSS Styling and Coding Best Practices
It is imperative to keep the clip code as clean and unobtrusive as possible. Overly heavy CSS increases the chance of broken code and users removing the HTML wrapper because of incompatibles with their site.
Specific code recommendations include:
- Use only a single DIV container before or after the EMBED tag. A DIV tag is needed to contain the links, but a second DIV is not needed to contain the link DIV and EMBED together.
- Do not use UL and LI tags to list links. These elements are semantically correct for navigation, but are not necessary and create more code and as block level elements, require additional CSS to be displayed inline.
- Apply font styles to the container DIV so that they are inherited to each A element. Margin styles or different font colors can be applied individually.
- Avoid using onMouseOver and onMouseOut to create hover text effects.
- Condense the FLASHVARS variable string by using a single configuration script or XML file to feed all the vars to the Flash movie.
- Avoid using images, especially to create custom bullets or extra design elements. Images have to be referenced by their full URL which increases the amount of code.
- Wherever possible use shorthand for styles.
Optimized Widget Example
Here’s a great example of an optimized video wrapper on SEROUNDTABLE of an old video from The Daily Show.
The post Video and Game Widget Optimization appeared first on SEO Consultant – Shimon Sandler.
SEO Consultant – Shimon Sandler
from WordPress http://www.reparacalculator.com/video-and-game-widget-optimization-8/
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Video and Game Widget Optimization
The question often arises whether or not to use Youtube as a Video strategy. My knee-jerk reaction is usually to cringe. Because, I know when a user grabs the embed code to place it on a blog, website, Facebook, or whatever Social Media platform, it’s Youtube that gets the backlink. Not my client. Youtube gets all the authority and link love.
I’d much rather prefer to see my client get the link love, and authority. Although, there is a consideration to use Youtube to build an audience. But that’s for another post.
So, this post will be on how to use “widgets” (whether they be game widgets, or video widgets) as part of the Video SEO strategy, and how to make sure they are optimized.
Syndicated game widgets and video players are an effective strategy for increasing inbound links. If a popular widget “goes viral”, it can mean tremendous gains for a site’s visibility and PageRank as each link builds PageRank and ultimately improves search engine rankings. However, these gains can only be realized if the widget or video layer is properly optimized. Search engines can follow the source attribute used to reference the content, however, PageRank value cannot transfer directly to the widget source file, instead it must be passed via plain HTML links (anchor tags) to another HTML page.
To ensure syndicated content is fully optimized, an HTML wrapper needs to be provided within the Flash embed “clip code.” Search engine spiders will be able to follow any links contained in the wrapper and pass full PageRank value back to the source and linked pages. Targeted and appropriate keyword-rich anchor text for any HTML links will also increase the efficacy of this type of linking strategy.
Optimizing the HTML Wrapper
The HTML wrapper is a simple DIV tag that either wraps the EMBED tag (Flash), or immediately precedes or follows it. The widget HTML wrapper should be designed and coded with these best practices in mind:
- No external style sheets can be referenced, so only inline CSS styles can be used.
- CSS code should be kept clean and concise. Users may become frustrated with unmanageable code if it doesn’t render properly and simply delete it.
- The styling should match the “chrome” or “skin” of the widget so that it appears seamlessly integrated as a part of the player.
- Three to four links should be added below or above the player, typically a link back to the main site or vertical and three links to related content.
- Link anchor text should target keywords that are relevant to the content being provided.
TECH NOTE
DIVs and EMBEDs are both block level elements, so the wrapper DIV tag can follow the EMBED tag and sit right underneath it without any special styling for positioning.
Anchor Text and Inbound Recommendations
- Include no more than 3-4 links back to the site.
- Anchor text should be optimized to increase ranking and PageRank for a specific phrase.
- At least 1 or 2 of the links should be contextually relevant to the widget content. If the widget is for a specific category, include a link for that category. Also include a link for a specific product.
- 1 inbound link should be to the homepage and include optimized anchor text for a high volume keyword the homepage is already optimized for.
- Do not place tracking parameters on the links, this will dilute the PageRank for the URL.
CSS Styling and Coding Best Practices
It is imperative to keep the clip code as clean and unobtrusive as possible. Overly heavy CSS increases the chance of broken code and users removing the HTML wrapper because of incompatibles with their site.
Specific code recommendations include:
- Use only a single DIV container before or after the EMBED tag. A DIV tag is needed to contain the links, but a second DIV is not needed to contain the link DIV and EMBED together.
- Do not use UL and LI tags to list links. These elements are semantically correct for navigation, but are not necessary and create more code and as block level elements, require additional CSS to be displayed inline.
- Apply font styles to the container DIV so that they are inherited to each A element. Margin styles or different font colors can be applied individually.
- Avoid using onMouseOver and onMouseOut to create hover text effects.
- Condense the FLASHVARS variable string by using a single configuration script or XML file to feed all the vars to the Flash movie.
- Avoid using images, especially to create custom bullets or extra design elements. Images have to be referenced by their full URL which increases the amount of code.
- Wherever possible use shorthand for styles.
Optimized Widget Example
Here’s a great example of an optimized video wrapper on SEROUNDTABLE of an old video from The Daily Show.
The post Video and Game Widget Optimization appeared first on SEO Consultant – Shimon Sandler.
SEO Consultant – Shimon Sandler
from WordPress http://www.reparacalculator.com/video-and-game-widget-optimization-6/
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Volvo Trucks | Jean Claude Van Damme Viral Video Campaign
Volvo shows us how to create a viral video campaign in just 48 hours
Volvo Trucks has just released its latest ad on YouTube, featuring Jean Claude Van Damme doing what he does best, being awesome.
The video, showcasing the Volvo Trucks stability and precision like you’ve never seen before, has become a viral video in only 48 hours, and has already had over 5 million YouTube views.
This isn’t the first time Volvo Trucks has used a crazy stunt to advertise its vehicles. The company’s president Claes Nilsson recently appeared in another viral video, standing on a truck as it was suspended over Gothenburg harbour in Sweden.
The post Volvo Trucks | Jean Claude Van Damme Viral Video Campaign appeared first on MarketingEasy | Digital trends from around the world.
MarketingEasy | Digital trends from around the world
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Bring Your Weblog to Life with Video Blogs
Here are three ways that you can use video to spice up your weblog the right way.
>> Search popular video sites to look for videos that you can post or link to in your blog. If you search for “online video” in Google or MSN, you will find half a billion different results online. You can narrow this search down considerably by typing in different keywords, or you can simply go to some of the big video websites such as YouTube, Mevio and MetaCafe. There are also a wide variety of different specialized video websites specializing in allowing you to post video blog content, such as news videos, music videos or comedy videos for example. Find videos that apply to the concept of your weblog, and post them, link about them or talk about them in your weblog.
>> Subscribe to popular podcasts and video weblog websites and they will give you inspiration so you can post video blog content too. Subscribe to these blogs posting media that you appreciate, and reference them, link to them and talk about them as often as you can. If you refer to them, you may just be able to convince them to reference you back, improving your blog over time.
>> Create your own weblog videos to share with other bloggers and readers when you post video blog content online. It does not require a professional quality studio or a complicating piece of editing software in order for you to make a good video to post in your weblog. Typical webcam setups and digital cameras with video capabilities are usually enough to do the trick, meaning that if you already have a camera, you may be good to go. Just make a video, post it in your weblog and see what people have to say. Many people prefer blogs where they can see who they are conversing with, so posting a video weblog occasionally can do a world of good for you and the success of your blog presence online.
Including media on your blog such as video weblog postings can be great for creating exposure for you online, so if you have camera that has video capabilities, start making a video today and post it in your weblog!
Photo Credits: sustainablerotterdam
Originally posted 2009-07-01 05:13:53. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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