This is what appears when you click on request call…

… and finally request email.

EDIT: Our Google rep has just confirmed this to be new They’re called communication ad extensions, are a free way to get leads, therefore won’t appear in the Adwords UI and only appear for 10% of queries. Currently in alpha.

Market Samurai, a SEO tool has a feature entitled ‘SEO competition’. It essentially collects data for a variety of on page and off page factors allowing one to quickly assess how easy it is to target a niche. One of the factors it collects data for is domain age. Market Samurai uses the earliest record in archive.org to suggest how old a domain is.

There is a fundamental problem with this method of analysing domain age since a site may have been active on the domain years and years ago, but then dropped. It may have been available for 2/3 years before someone bought it up. This method of determining domain age doesn’t work since the above person would in theory have a vintage domain.

Therefore it can almost definitely be assumed that domain age is determined through Google’s access to ICANN records. This makes me sad

What amazes me is that in debating different search engine marketing techniques, so much effort is spent on debating which is better rather than using it as a forum for discussing how the synergies of both methods can be used to deliver value. I believe that SEO can deliver sustainable competitive advantage through excellent organic listings. Looking at the site portfolio I work on at work, I think SEO is the source of our competitive advantage. PPC has some great uses. It requires no investment, and you can deliver traffic in an instant. A particular interest for me is usability and converting traffic, so for that, PCC is great.

Anyway, if you haven’t already, check out the debate that was held. There are some really funny lines in it, especially by David Naylor. I Loved the Bing remark.

You could be forgiven for thinking it’s late December with the amount of Christmas promotion on television and in the supermarkets, but indeed it’s mid November. In fact, it’s my birthday celebrations on Friday and that’s what I’m looking forward to. However at work things are about to get interesting as we are launching our largest promotion ever.

Starting on Wednesday, we are giving away  a prize worth at least £500 a day. This amazing free giveaway is going to last 30 days, and so we have an incredible amount of stuff to give away. It’s going to be really interesting, but presents lots of opportunities and challenges along the way.

It’s going to be heavily social media based and I’m intrigued to see what the reaction is to it. Moonfruit have had great coverage with their social media campaigns, but reading some of the reactions among those who work in social media suggests that such campaigns aren’t as popular as some may think. ‘Generation X’ is a segment of the market which television advertisers have great difficulty in targeting. Teenagers who spend more time on the Internet and tend to be more cynical of advertising. Are such social media campaigns giving rise to an equivalent on the Internet?

Postmodern consumers are always resistant to advertising, and it’s a common known fact that the majority of clicks derived from advertising are from the minority. It is also reasonable to assume that the majority of social media users are more savvy than other users, and in turn may be more likely to feature postmodern traits. Therefore how much social media campaigns can these consumers take before they become saturated?

No one is to know, and it’s possibly that the firm that finds out will encounter a backlash. Advertisers had great difficulty in targeting ‘generation X’ and should a new one emerge from the Internet, then it presents a new challenge for digital marketeers. What will be the impact on display advertising, PPC or SEO? It’s this last advertising vehicle that is the least obtrusive and would seem to fare the best.

I however take the view that at least for the time being, these campaigns are worthy and will deliver results. With our campaign at work I’m very much looking to reading the response to our campaign and analysing the data to assess how successful it was. Hopefully we’ll appear on the Twitter emerging topics!

Peter Singer

If advertising as a vehicle promotes consumerism and contributes to the traits of capitalism that has adverse affects on society then it’s a sure bet that digital marketing, a career I’m starting conflicts with my aspirations to live a lifestyle consistent with preference utilitarianism.

In this article I make no defense  of the industry, but provide arguments that my own particular career path at present is one that minimises these adverse effects.

Firstly I would make the case that working in search marketing, a field of marketing that is a little more distant from traditional advertising. It is the case that with search marketing, the consumer knows what they want and my job is merely to help them find it. Whether or not that product or service that they are looking to buy is a necessary purchase or represents value is a different matter, but at least I am not creating false wants – only fulfilling them.

The second facet to my argument is that the nature of the main website I work on daily functions to save the consumer money. While I’m not satisfied that this saved money is necessarily used for a good purpose, it’s probably better in the pocket of the consumer than being distributed to shareholders.

Ultimately one can earn a salary in many ways, and providing that person donates a proportion of their disposable income to worthy causes. At this stage in my career my salary is that of a junior level and have little left over at the end of each month. I am however planning to launch a website this side of Christmas that will be non-profit and feature Oxfam advertising.

I’ve got a long way to go until I am satisfied with my lifestyle ethically, and factors such as pension plans provide further dilemmas, but for the time being there is plenty for me to think about. Welcoming comments.