So a hacker or competitor has penetrated your site's source code and installed malicious scripts or programs. The first step is to get your site offline (temporarily) as fast as possible so that you don't infect visitors unnecessarily. Speed may be a problem if you're using a shared hosting service, so try using a 503 status code in the meantime, to keep the engine's spiders from crawling. The Google Webmaster Tools URL Removal tool can also help with preventing incoming traffic. The next step is to figure out what the hacker was after. Was it consumer or employee …

Efficient Frontier serves up data on average search CPCs by category for March and their stats show an upward trend in click prices across the board. Interestingly, CPCs in the overall financial category were up by an average of 9%--perhaps as a result of more consumers seeking out financial info in the midst of the economic slowdown. For example, CPCs for credit-related search terms were up from $2.65 in February to $3.30 in March, a 25% increase. The average CPC for a mortgage-related search term hit $2.32 in March, up 13%; and auto finance CPCs rose by 7% …

It may seem like an odd question, but as Titus Hoskins says, there's a difference between the general monetization of a Web site and a highly targeted monetization of a site's traffic. You can choose to slap a tag from platforms like AdSense, Azoogle (now Epic Advertising) or Chitika on your page and let it be, or you can get more involved and monetize every page view or landing page visit via affiliate and lead generation products like ClickBank or Commission Junction. "On any given site I may use Google Adsense for general traffic, affiliate products …

Starbucks recently launched the MyStarbucksIdea feedback board/online community for caffeine junkies, but Debra Mastaler notes that the coffee giant has thus far failed to promote the property offline. And that's a link-building no-no. "It's smart to advertise to your demographic offline because people assign credibility to what they read and transfer that trust to an online brand when they see it," Mastaler says. "And we know trust helps to build links." Mastaler acknowledges that her local Starbucks may have been an anomaly (she inquired about the MyStarbucksIdea site and the baristas had no clue), but even …

A paid search campaign is only as good as the actionable metrics it can provide--and Olivier Silvestre, director of optimization consulting at Omniture's Visual Sciences, discusses the three areas that marketers should focus on for optimal campaign metrics. For landing pages, Silvestre says it's about the "single access visit" ratio, or the percentage of visitors that land on the page and then leave the site without browsing any other pages. "If the ad copy is relevant to what a company offers, and the landing page is consistent with the ad copy message, then the SAV should stay low, …

Starting May 6, AdWords advertisers in the U.K. and Ireland will be able to bid on their competitor's branded keywords, as Google is set to expand its formerly U.S.-only trademark bidding policy. While European search firms that manage international client's accounts may be used to participatie in branded term turf wars, other firms and advertisers may be in for a drastic change to their bid prices and brand management strategies. According to the Netimperative team, the new policy is "tipped to send prices skyrocketing, and could leave the search giant open to legal challenges from the major U.K. …

Microsoft has drawn a line in the sand with Yahoo regarding its acquisition offer--the price isn't going past $31 per share, and Yahoo has three weeks to make a decision. So the deal is still on--and as Andrew Goodman notes, the buy is as much about search as it is display or content. "Yahoo is #2 in search. Microsoft is no longer a close third place in most markets. They're a distant, unimpressive third," Goodman says. Despite the millions of hours of man-power and billions(?) of dollars the software giant has invested, it can't seem to catch up …