So the company wants to launch a new, Flash-heavy, content-light Web site, and you're having nightmares about what it's going to do to the search rankings. According to Avinash Kaushik, you can use your analytics knowledge and some, uh, subversive tactics to get upper management to see things your way. Start by swallowing your pride and telling the CMO that her idea is great--but you'd like to run a test just to make sure it's optimal. Keep the old site functional while the new site goes live, and get traffic and conversion stats, as well as customer feedback …

John Battelle's quick write-up about Click Forensics' latest click fraud report poses a huge question for the paid search industry--just who is right when it comes to click fraud stats, Click Forensics or the engines? Click Forensics' latest data shows that almost 30% of all clicks on the content networks are fraudulent, and the overall rate of click fraud is about 17%. Battelle acknowledges that the third-party click auditor "certainly benefits from press about high click fraud," and that the engines continuously respond to the stats by saying "all of this is overblown and misunderstood"--but he still can't …

Move over, Google! AOL will begin serving its own text ads across some of the most popular sites in its network via Quigo, the PPC engine it bought for $340 million in November. While AOL will continue to serve Google text ads to visitors, the Web giant will also run Quigo ads on sections including News, Money & Finance, Sports, Email and Entertainment. According to a company spokesperson, AOL wants to leverage its own "internal capabilities" wherever possible--but not at the expense of relevance or user experience. "In some cases we may use both Quigo's contextual advertising and …

There's a growing disconnect between small and medium business (SMB) owners and Google when it comes to the perception of what kinds of services they get in exchange for buying PPC ads, according to Miriam Ellis. The biggest misconception is that their PPC spend somehow influences their positioning when it comes to Google Maps. "There is no amount of money any business owner can give to Google to get a guaranteed ranking in Maps," Ellis says. While there are written policies and FAQs about what SMBs get when they submit a listing to Google Maps, Ellis argues …

YSM has bumped up the total number of keywords you can exclude from a campaign (at both the ad group and account levels) to 250, allowing for greater control over the kinds of searches your ads show up for. For example, "If you are a travel company selling cruises exclusively to Acapulco, if you use the Advanced match type for the keyword "cruise," you may want to exclude keywords like 'Caribbean' and 'Alaska,'" says Roger Park, manager of marketing communications for YSM. Such an exclusion can increase the percentage of better, targeted leads. It's a welcome …

Steve Rubel seems to think so. In his post, Rubel argues that search experts who launch social media marketing campaigns for their clients "solely for the purpose of influencing search engines, rather than with the intent of fostering collaboration and genuine communication" are a threat to the social media ecosystem. While it seems that Rubel is talking about dirty tricks and black hat tactics, he actually doesn't discriminate--insisting that any SEOs who work to manipulate communities like Digg and StumbleUpon, or advise clients to comment on blogs and discussion boards with driving traffic or boosting conversions as their …

Efficient Frontier has posted data comparing average client CPCs across verticals for both search and content network ads in January. Overall, the search firm's clients spent more on search CPCs (65 cents) than content network CPCs (32 cents). But further analysis of the data shows that costs vary across verticals. For example, Efficient Frontier's finance clients spent an average of $2.70 per click on search ads--more than double the amount they spent on content ads. Meanwhile, automotive advertisers paid a penny more per click on content ads, while dating and travel sites' average CPCs for content came much …

The multitasking of Web site content never ends. In addition to drawing in users via SEO, reiterating the value proposition of a paid search ad and moving potential buyers further along the purchase pathway, Ian Lurie says that on-page content should also serve to make visitors feel like insiders--as it will lead to increased conversions. "If you can make visitors to your website feel like they're insiders, they'll buy, vote, read or otherwise convert into a great audience," Lurie says. And it starts with giving them info that they can't get anywhere else, like a recipe, breaking …