Search for “sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5″

on Google and you will see the following -

Google Valentines Day Gift

Facebook is keen to look at new ways to bring revenue to the website and photos are one of the the most viewed areas on the site. Facebook images generate billions of impressions each month, so advertising next to images was a sure fire step!

An example from my own profile of the new ads showing against Facebook images:

new Facebook advertising on pictures

So I have recently conducted a keyword difficulty Analysis on some of the most competitive keywords in the Australian market (Google.com.au) to determine what is the most competitive keyword?

I took analysis on over 28 terms which I worked on in the past, I personally know how competitive some of these keywords are. I am also willing to take on analysis of more keywords if you feel something is missing.

A key for the study:

A score of 70% = Very High Competition.
A score of 50% = Competitive.
A score of 30% = Medium to lower.

The keyword list is as follows (The Top 30)

1. Poker 85%
2. holidays 81%
3. money 78%
4. hotels 75%
5. Real Estate 75%
6. flights 74%
7. sydney hotels 72%
8. SEO 72%
9. hosting 72%
10. Life Insurance 71%
11. Car Insurance 71%
12. Insurance 71%
13. cheap flights 69%
14. cheap holidays 69%
15. web design 69%
16. loans 69%
17. web development 69%
18. Accommodation 68%
19. car rentals 68%
20. Home Loan 67%
21. Melbourne cup 67%
22. Superannuation 66%
23. Credit Cards 65%
24. Tax 65%
25. Travel Insurance 64%
26. Online Education 62%
27. payday loans 62%
28. Sports betting 62%
29. dedicated hosting 62%
30. MBA 61%

Yesterday Vodafone was looking to engage with its customers on Facebook, yet the problem is with 1,000′s of angry customers and services not working the best on Australia day it is probably not wise to give users the power to run wild on your Facebook page. An example below of what the customers had to say in relation to the recent status update by Vodafone Australia:

Vodafone Australia Day Fail

I understand doing social media work for Vodafone is not an easy gig, but who ever is in charge of strategy for the company needs to sit down and plan strategically about the type of status updates they are putting out the market and think about the potential problems in which can happen.

So recently Air Asia has been pushing out some really cheap fares to destinations in Asia. For as low as $99 you can travel to destinations in Asia. Now they have released bill boards that say “Fly to Indonesia for less than a round at The Ivy.”

Air Asia ivy billboard

air asia Facebook IVY

Ok so Wikipedia has blocked all pages for the next 24 hours, I support the fight, but to me if you need information on Wikipedia it is kind of annoying, the trick to view these pages can be done via 3 easy steps.

Step 1 – Search for the term.
Step 2 – Click on the arrow next to the term.
Step 3 – Click to the “cached” in blue.

Image below will show the steps:

how to view blocked wikipedia pages

So been a online marketer, I own a few domain names, well more then a few it is well over 100 these days.

Now the thing I have noticed recently is that every time I have a domain about to expire I get a letter in the mail from a company called Domain Renewal Group! I only get letters in the mail if it is a bill from an old school company or some one is sending me a check or a Christmas Card.

The funny thing with Domain Renewal Group is that they do not just charge me the same price my current registrar is charging for me to even consider switching my domains they charge say 7 TIMES the price, crazy isn’t it a domain which costs me $7 a year they charge $70, I do not know who would be silly enough to fall for this, it is a big scam.

Now I did a bit of a search online and found people around the world are not happy about this company Domain Renewal Group, some example:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1040704
http://www.netregistry.com.au/support/articles/warning-domain-renewal-mail-scam-from-domain-renewal-group-in-the-us

I guess the people these guys target about businesses who have an IT company buy a domain then they part ways, they get the letter and think wow we better re new this domain, not knowing any better! Well that is the story in the Whirlpool thread.

But the thing is if you want to stop these letters coming the way around it is that you need to pay for private who is data ! If you own many domains it may not be worth it, such as myself, but it is the sure fire way to stop these letters in the mail.

To me this is a waste of paper, the letter usually ends up like this:

Domain Renewal Group SCAM

So please Domain Renewal Group stop annoying me!

Google has continued the strong roll out of Google+, now the search engine is showing related Google+ pages for specific search terms.

As an example I did a search for “Fashion” it shows brands related to this term, this was when I was logged in:

Google-Plus-Search-Integration

Very interesting that is for sure, it shows that SMO tactics should be used to target related terms.

Google Search, plus Your World is a new search offering Google is rolling out in the US market currently.

Interesting points from this new product:

- This will show for logged in users.
- Deep integration with Google+ product.
- Image search will now show personalization.
- YouTube and Google search will have more integration.
- Users can switched between – Personalized and non Personalized.

So a hot topic in the search market today and probably the biggest story of 2012 so far is Google buying sponsored posts via a large number of bloggers to promote Google chrome. The funny thing is that Google has pointed in guide lines over the years that sponsored posts are not advisable.

Search engine land has found over 400 instances of sponsored posts by Google example:

sponsored-posts-google

It shows that if Google wants to police specific search rules they need to across the board.