Less than two hours ago Google has rolled out their new +1 button for the whole web.

Google’s +1 button is essentially Google’s response to Facebook’s “like” function, with one important difference: the +1 button will also be integrated into Google’s search results.

Here’s what “the big G” wrote about it two days ago:

Our goal … is to get you the most relevant results as quickly as possible. But relevance is about relationships as well as words on webpages. That’s why we recently started to include more information from people you know—stuff they’ve shared on Twitter, Flickr and other sites — in Google search results.

Today we’re taking that a step further, enabling you to share recommendations with the world right in Google’s search results. It’s called +1 — the digital shorthand for “this is pretty cool.” …The beauty of +1′s is their relevance — you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results).

…and who said social isn’t eventually gonna mean real tangible business?!

Website owners may now get the +1 button code to implement on their sites on Google’s +1 webmaster site. Off to play with it…

Two interesting things have happened over the past few days — not in any way interconnected, but both related to the topic of monetizing consumer interest in certain types of services.

Google Bought an Affiliate Website

Acquisitions of affiliate websites by larger corporations don’t occur every month (the last large one that I remember of happened over a year ago when Time Warner bought StyleFeeder).

Now Google has recently paid £37.7 million (over $61 million) for BeatThatQuote.com, “the UK’s fastest growing price comparison site” which also acts as an affiliate. The paradox here is that by acquiring them Google is “engaging in major channel conflict” here. Even if we don’t pay attention to the affiliate side of things (or should we?), there are some serious spam-related concerns involved. Read more in SEO Book’s recent post on the subject (thanks, Rehan Zaidi, for tweeting about it).

Skype Opened up for Advertising

Have you heard about this one yet? Two days ago in their blog Skype announced “the launch of advertising in Skype, which will appear in the Home tab in Skype starting this week”. The initial focus of the company’s advertising sales is on 3 geographical markets: United States, UK and Germany; and these are the countries where the ads will appear. Among the first advertisers there are such companies as Groupon, Nokia, Comcast’s Universal Pictures, and Visa. Skype seems to be doing it gently (no pop-ups, flashying blinky banners, or any other intrusions), and users may also opt out of having their demographic data shared with advertisers. More in their Advertising in Skype post here.

As someone has worked closely with Skype (I managed their affiliate marketing program a few years ago), I am actually glad they’re starting to monetize through ads. They offer a lot of great stuff for free (not compromising the quality) or very inexpensively. I have no problem with being served those ads. Do you?

When running an affiliate program on a tight budget you inevitably face a challenging reality: good tools normally cost good money. You, on the other hand, may not necessarily have enough to invest into all of the paid tools you may need. Do not despair! There is a number of great tools out there that are available for your use at no cost. Of course, you do not want to depend only on the free ones (and have a number of robust ones that you do pay for), but it is useful to know which good ones are free.

Here’s my alphabetical list of 10 such tools (all of which I myself use on a daily basis):

1. Facebook — if you haven’t done so already, create a fan page for your affiliate program (and use it as a part of your affiliate communication channel)

2. Forums — use affiliate marketing forums (like ABestWeb and Affiliate Summit’s forum in the US, or affiliates4u in the UK) to participate in the community and gently get the word about your affiliate program out

3. Google — yes, the search engine! you can use it to find potential affiliates (when there’s no contact info on the prospect’s site, use Who.is to pull it up)

4. Google Alerts — use it to monitor what competing affiliate programs are doing, as well as for recruitment of new affiliates

5. Google Website Optimizer — use it for testing and optimization of your affiliate landing pages

6. iTrademarkBidding — monitor affiliate violations of your paid search rules and restrictions

7. Omgili — use it to monitor what’s being said about you affiliate program, your brand(s) and your competitors in forums and other online communities

8. Quantcast — analyze the volume and type traffic your prospective affiliates get (for a better picture always use it together with Compete.com‘s data)

9. Twitter — monitor it to spot prospective affiliates (use both Twitter Search, and tools like TweetDeck for streamlining the monitoring process)

10. WordPress — if you don’t already have it, start an affiliate program support blog on it (I personally prefer the self-hosted solution; hence, the link to the .org site)

Have fun exploring these free tools, and if I haven’t mentioned a great tool that can help affiliate program managers in their day-to-day tasks of affiliate recruitment and monitoring, competitive intelligence and program optimization, please do chime in with your suggestions using the “Comments” field below. ↓

It’s been a few months since — after an overwhelming success of a 60 second Super Bowl ad “made simply with a few Google searches and a little music” — Google has launched its Search Stories Video Creator (for YouTube).

I have finally gotten to creating one of my own, entitling it a Search Story of One Affiliate Marketer. Today I’m happy to bring it to you through my blog:

Have you created one for yourself or your product/service yet? This one can be turned into a pretty cool marketing tool…

The launch of Google Instant (a new way of searching the Internet via Google, which is meant to save the end user between 2 and 5 seconds on each search) has produced a wide resonance which has touched nearly every area of digital marketing, but especially everything that is immediately influenced by search (paid or organic).

Much has been written on the topic over the past 7 days, but not everything may be worth your precious time.

To narrow things down, I’ve decided to compile my personal list of favorite posts, articles and a podcast on the topic of Google Instant and how it affects (or may affect) those of us dependent on SEM (read: everyone).

Here is my list:

Affiliate Marketing

• Google Instant and what it means for Affiliate Marketing by Paul Wright
• Google Instant and the Affiliate by Mark John Hiemstra
• Google Instant and its impact on Affiliate Marketing by yours truly

Paid Search Marketing

• Will Google Instant Kill The Long Tail? by John Ellis
• Google Instant: Impact on Paid Search (PPC) Programs by Rise Interactive
• Google Instant Will Not Cause Death by Starvation by Nate Griffin
• How Adwords will be Affected by Google Instant podcast by David Szetela & Brad Geddes (corresponding blog post here)
• Google Instant AdWords Trouble by David Iwanow

SEO & Organic Search

• Google Spam Fighter Matt Cutts Weighs In On The “Death” Of SEO (Or Lack Thereof) by Jason Kincaid
• Dear Mainstream Media — Please Remove Foot From Mouth by Rae Hoffman
• The impact of Google Instant Search on SEO: Introducing Pass Through Impressions by Franz Enzenhofer
• SEO Is Here To Stay, It Will Never Die by Danny Sullivan

Other Must Reads

• Google Instant Search Myths Debunked by Emma Davis
• Google Instant Is Not The Terminator by Nate Griffin

If I have missed any articles which, in your opinion, must be on the above list, please do post about it in the “Comments” area below.

Only a couple of hours have passed since Google’s introduction and  announcement of Google Instant, but the digital marketing world is already quite stirred up over it; and the palette range goes all the way from concern to amazement… Affiliate marketers are obviously directly affected as well. But how exactly?

Matthew Wood, the founder of affiliates4u and a4uexpo conference, has already published his “initial reaction on Google Instant and Affiliates” where he covers 5 threats and 4 opportunities. Read his thoughts here.

I, in my turn, have talked to a number of active affiliate marketers to get their first thoughts on Google Instant, and here are the replies that I have received so far:

I like the idea of Google Instant as it provides predictive real time results and refinement tools for search. From an affiliate marketing perspective, it provides a way to display multiple organic, social media and paid results based on the keyword as it builds. For example, I may market the term coffee, coffee maker, coffee maker cleaner and profit from 3 different presentations vs one keyword phrase.  In a case for trend watching, the refinement of results by latest, 24 hours, etc. allows a marketer to present various streams of information including social media on a tiered scale. Real time results makes search more useful so as marketers we must embrace and adopt new strategies.

–Michael Vorel, CEO of Vastplanet.com

The new instant results could have a massive impact on the industry. When you couple this with recent comments that Google has made about the value of “middlemen” — us — it shows that clearly, many affiliates are going to have to adapt in new and creative ways. Google may not be our friend anymore — if they ever were.

–Daniel M. Clark, Co-host of Geek Dads Weekly

Ever since Google started beta testing instant search, I have predicted that this will tend to push the searches that are engaged with into the mid-tail. Thus what often were long-tail searches will be encouraged to go a little longer with the suggestions, and long-tail searches will get shorter. It is a bigger improvement for people who can’t type. I am not sure whether they spend more or less online than more sophisticated users. Mid-tail will become even more competitive in Google, especially on suggested terms — this will affect both PPC and Organic.

Google has already stated that their calculations will be the same for the primary organic search results and Adwords, and they won’t be counting a display unless there is interaction with a page, such as a click, 3 second pause or maybe a scroll.

On SEO Google stated this won’t really have any effect.

Any guesses are for gradual changes in browsing habits. Incremental changes in query habits as people learn queries which get them the kind of results they are looking for… everyone tends to look on relevant differently.

– Andy Beard of AndyBeard.eu

I think Google Instant will be less of a change for affiliates than the “auto-complete” function that’s already in place. It doesn’t appear to impact searches in toolbars or mobile, yet, so the impact will be greater once it is fully integrated in all of Google’s search options.

–Sharon Mostyn of SharonMostyn.com

Are you ready to save an extra 2-5 seconds per search using Google? Google Instant is now live on Google and it’s quite amazing. You can instantly browse through results as you type in your search phrase. What I find even more amazing is how it also displays advertisement results. If you type in “affiliate” you will get results, then as you type “affiliate marketing” you will have a whole new set of results. Plenty of questions come to mind, such as: will this effect over all CTRs, impressions and tracking for ad campaigns? This also opens a whole new method for quickly flashing through a ton of keywords and seeing which ad campaign pop up in the the sponsor section. No matter if you are usuing Google Instant just for search, or from an advertiser perspective… it’s pretty amazing!

–Zac Johnson of ZacJohnson.com

My first take on Google Instant was that it was another engineering-led attempt to do something difficult and cool.  But the technology behind running an AJAX update on every keystroke isn’t that hard.  It’s just incredibly demanding of server capacity.  And, after using it for a day, I honestly don’t see much of a search consumer benefit beyond the auto-complete function that already exists.  But I have a lot of respect for Google’s willingness to publicly throw things against the wall to see what sticks.  So, before relegating it to the pile of novel but not always useful Google product launches, I tried to ask the simple question of why Google would launch this.  Is it simply to force Microsoft to hire a few thousand more engineers?  Possibly.  But they can’t be too worried yet about Bing’s search share.  Then I got to thinking … let’s suppose for just a minute that Google is in business to make money.  Crazy, I know.  Then how could this new function drive more revenue for Google?  It’s certainly not going to substantially increase the number of searches being run, so it’s more likely designed to influence the nature of the results in an effort to influence search behavior and, ultimately, click pricing.  As I was sitting here discussing the implications of Google Instant with our CTO, I came across this post on AdAge.  I think this may shed some light on the intent behind Google Instant.  In short, if you type in just one letter of the alphabet into Google Instant, you get served up a marketing result — and in nearly all cases a specific corporate brand.  For example,  type “A” into Google Instant, and the top result is for AOL.  Type “B” and the top result is Bank of America.  Type “I” and the top result is IKEA.  You get the picture.  I’d like to think that this is a derivative of the most common searches and not an overt commercial effort by Google, but I seriously doubt that IKEA is the most frequently searched I-word.  Then again, let’s suppose for just a moment that Google is in business to make money…

–Jason Spievak, CEO of RingRevenue

I think this is too complex a change to fully get our heads around without seeing some results. However, based on my first looks, it seems this may distract searchers from typing the longer-tail terms. If people succumb to the shorter search term results that are flashing in their faces as they type the first few words, the rich will get richer.

–Scott Jangro of AffBook.com

I do think it will alter the way some people search but only marginally. I also think it will distract or annoy others which I assume is why Google allows users to turn it off.  While interesting and cool, I don’t think Instant will be a big impact for affiliate marketing in general and affiliate marketers specifically. In fact, I think Search Suggestions have probably added more to the bottom line for affiliates than Instant will because suggestions make it obvious that one can search for other query strings that include coupons, reviews, alternate products, and many other affiliate-valuable terms that would not have been considered otherwise.

One actually annoying thing about Instant is how it works with search suggestions. It instantly completes words based on suggestions and shows results for them; however, if I see some interesting results, quit typing that query (before finishing the word), and hit enter so I can click the results, Google then shows a new set of results based on the incomplete word in my query and I lose the result I wanted to click. Take a search for tooth as an example. Google Instant skips over tooth and starts to show results for toothache. That’s fine if I’m searching for toothache; however, if I don’t finish typing toothache I get results for tooth even though I saw something under toothache that I wanted to click.

Bottom line, I see Google Instant as a creative way to create some buzz and (probably temporary) excitement but not really a big deal. The technology behind it is amazing and I’m sure it is no small feat to accomplish this in real time. I find that part truly amazing … but in reality not very useful to me at this time. The cynical side of me wonders if Google simply needed to capture some headlines again since a lot has been written about the Bing/Yahoo! deal of late?

–Mike Allen, President of Shopping-Bargains.com

Finally, Wil Reynolds tweeted an advice — which echos some of Scott Jangro’s above-quoted words — I fully concur with: “Stop speculating about Google Instant. Arm yourself with data to determine impact” (to base your conclusions on real metrics).

What are your thoughts about Google Instant and its impact on affiliate marketing? I’d love to hear them in the “Comments” are below.

According to comScore’s data, quoted at SearchEngineLand.com a few hours ago, an affiliate website (TheFind) has beaten Yahoo! Shopping “in terms of average daily users”, and 2 out of the top 4 comparison shopping engines (TheFind and Shopzilla) are active affiliates.

Here’s that data (highlighting mine):

More in the above-quoted Google Is Top Shopping Site, TheFind Passes Yahoo As The New Number Two post.

Who said that couponing and cashback are the only ways to succeed in the battle with the big guys?

It looks like something is definitely cooking… I’ve logged into my Facebook account earlier this morning to find this notification:

Facebook is certainly broadening the scope of their interests, and no wonder why the area of questions and answers got their attention.

First of all there is a huge demand for this service. Remember Aardvark that grew from an idea of a social question-and-answer search engine to a product in Summer of 2009 to an acquisition by Google in February of 2010 for $50 million [more here and here]? Who else in the word is best equipped for creating competition to Vark in the social space? Of course, Facebook!

Secondly, there are obvious monetization opportunities in this niche (which allow to serve extremely targeted ads to the end user). Facebook is already U.S. #1 online display ad publisher who, according to comScore’s recent report on the results of Q1 2010, is responsible for over 16% of all display ads, beating Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Fox Interactive in this competition.

With their 400+ million active members [source], and the programming talent they have, creating a powerful questions-and-answer social search engine (and doing it fast!) won’t represent a problem for Facebook.

Of course, Aardvark is not the only one on whose toes Facebook is stepping. There are also Answers.com with their 93 million global monthly visitors [source], and Ask.com with some 53 million US visitors [source]. It is going to be interesting to see what this develops into.

Having analyzed the growth of the global search market in the month of December 2009 compared to the search landscape in December 2008, comScore has registered a 46% increase in online search demand globally. The U.S. “represented the largest individual search market in the world” accounting for some 17% (or 22.7 billion searches total) of all global searches. China came second, followed by Japan, while the U.K. came forth. Encouragingly for me (needless to elaborate why I’m following this particular geographic market with great interest), Russia has registered “the highest gains in 2009″ in the world growing almost two-fold. France and Brazil followed Russia in the “highest gains” race.

Here are the details from comScore:

    ------------------------------------------------------
    Top 10 Countries by Number of Searches Conducted Dec 2009 vs. Dec 2008
    ------------------------------------------------------
    Total Worldwide, Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations
    -------------------------------------------
    Source: comScore qSearch
    ----------------------
                                   Searches (MM)
                                   ------------

                                      12/08    12/09     Percent Change
                                      -----    -----     -------
    Worldwide                        89,708  131,354        46%
    -------------------------       -------  -------        ---
    United States                    18,688   22,741        22%
    --------------------------         ----     ----        ---
    China                            11,778   13,278        13%
    ----------------------             ----     ----        ---
    Japan                             6,213    9,170        48%
    ----------------------             ----     ----        ---
    United Kingdom                    4,623    6,245        35%
    ----------------------             ----     ----        ---
    Germany                           4,079    5,609        38%
    ----------------                   ----     ----        ---
    France                            3,362    5,425        61%
    --------------------------         ----     ----        ---
    South Korea                       2,796    4,039        44%
    ----------------------             ----     ----        ---
    Brazil                            2,454    3,763        53%
    ----------------------             ----     ----        ---
    Canada                            2,900    3,710        28%
    ----------------------             ----     ----        ---
    Russian Federation                1,735    3,333        92%
    ----------------                   ----     ----        ---

While Japan has also seen a substantial increase in search inquiries, it is a significantly more saturated market for affiliates to get into. This cannot be said about Russia, Brazil and France (the sequence of affiliate marketing development in these three countries would probably be backwards: France – more savvy, Russia – most underdeveloped). The above data definitely opens interesting horizons to specific geo-markets for affiliates.

Speaking of individual search platforms, Google was naturally leading the way, followed by Yahoo! sites. “Microsoft Sites saw the greatest gains among the top five properties, growing 70%”, but it was the Russian Yandex.ru that has registered the highest gains here too, having grown by 91% in 2009.

Here are the top 5 players worldwide:

    ------------------------------------------------------
    Top 10 Search Properties by Searches Conducted Dec 2009 vs. Dec 2008
    ------------------------------------------------------
    Total Worldwide, Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations
    -------------------------------------------
    Source: comScore qSearch
    ----------------------
                                   Searches (MM)
                                   ------------

                                      12/08    12/09     Percent Change
                                      -----    -----     -------
    Worldwide                        89,708  131,354        46%
    -------------------------       -------  -------        ---
    Google                           55,638   87,809        58%
    --------------------------         ----     ----        ---
    Yahoo                             8,389    9,444        13%
    ----------------------             ----     ----        ---
    Baidu (China)                     7,963    8,534         7%
    ----------------------             ----     ----        ---
    Microsoft                         2,403    4,094        70%
    ----------------------             ----     ----        ---
    eBay                              1,327    2,102        58%
    ----------------------             ----     ----        ---

Bringing Bing to life has certainly helped Microsoft conquer more of the search market’s grounds, but they still have a long way to go to even come close to Google’s share of the pie. Microsoft and Yahoo! sites’ searches combined made up only a bit over 15% of Google’s total searches. Nevertheless, it would be irrational for search-oriented affiliates to ignore this part of the market altogether, and diversification should definitely be present in their strategies.

Once again, the findings from the comScore’s report may be found here. I wish we had more data than just the December 2008 to December 2009 comparison, but taking the holiday traffic increase into account, these are certainly important (and interesting) numbers to review.

Being a linguist, I have always been fascinated by this phenomenon in the development of language(s) — when a proper name becomes a common noun (or even a verb). By definition nouns name people, places, and things. There are two classes of nouns: common and proper. Common nouns name general items, while proper nouns name specific items (such as individuals, places, or brands) and almost always begin with a capital letter (it may be different specifically with brands).

However, every once in a while we observe instances when proper nouns become common nouns (or even verbs), replacing already existing words in the language with the more frequently used proper nouns, including brand names. That, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of branding.

Not too long ago Guy Kawasaki tweeted:

His post links to an article in the Washington Post which talks about the words of the decade and the words of 2009, and ends with:

…After much discussion, the final vote. A year and a decade, both recently laid to rest, receive the briefest kind of epitaph. The two words meant to evoke the feeling of this moment years from now: “tweet” for 2009 and “Google” for the Aughts [underlining mine].

Yes, the American Dialect Society has chosen “Tweet” as the word of the year 2009, and “Google” as the word of the decade. More and more frequently “Google” is being used as a verb, replacing the phrase “search online”, and this is the ultimate victory — one that they’ve won in people’s minds.

Here are some other examples when proper names had come to replace already existing common nouns:

• “Band-Aid” – for “adhesive bandage”
• “Bikini” – for any “two piece bathing suit”
• “Chapstick” – for “lip balm”
• “Escalator” – originally patented by OTIS, and developped on basis of two words: “escalade” and “elevator”
• “Granola” – for “oat and fruit mixture” patented back in 19th c.
• “Gummie Bears”
• “Jacuzzi” – for “hot tub”
• “Jeep” – for “SUV” (note: frequently used in Russia)
• “Kleenex”
• “Kool-aid”
• “Laundromat” – for “coing operated laundry”
• “Oreos” – for “cream-filled cookies”
• “Pampers” – for “diapers” (especially frequently term used in Russia)
• “Post-it”
• “Scotch Tape”
• “Sharpie”
• “Teflon”
• “Tic Tac”
• “Wellingtons” (or “wellies”) – for “rubber boots” (in Britain)
• “White-Out”
• “Windex” – for “glass cleaner”
• “Xerox” – for “photocopy” (note: in Russian, it’s the only word for verb “photocopy”)
• “Zipper”

I certainly commend Google and Twitter on their victories. Very encouraging to witness this nowadays, and I am certain we will see other similar language transformations/adaptations in the future too. Wondering who’s gonna be next…