Excluding campaigns from Google and Yahoo's search networks may seem like a way to avoid click fraud or otherwise worthless clicks, but as Michael McVeigh notes, as much as half of all paid search traffic stems from visits to these partner sites. Keeping them out of a campaign mix may mean missing out on some high quality traffic too, but the trick is to manage your inclusions for optimum performance. Since neither engine offers completely clear reporting on the influx of search network traffic, comb through the site visit and conversion data from your own analytics program to …

Looking at campaign performance numbers in a spreadsheet is one thing--actually seeing the peaks and valleys over the course of a week or month is another. James Zolman advocates running a visual report in AdWords as a way to condense a week's worth of campaign analysis into a few hours. "The visualization of trends over time makes it easier to find correlations," Zolman says. For example, "At what average position did you receive the most conversions? What was the average cpc for that day? Do you see any peaks or valleys that you can isolate or replicate?" …

Shawn Purtell offers long and short explanations for why the time-on-page and time-on-site metrics you get from Google Analytics (GA) need to be held under a magnifying glass. "Due to the way Time on Page/Site are measured, there is a certain amount of error that goes along with them," Purtell says. "Fortunately, there's a way to measure this error." In short, the error stems from the fact that GA uses timestamps to record page visits, bounces and exits. If a user lands on Page A at 3:15, then Page B at 3:25, Google determines time spent on Page …

Before Lee Odden waxes poetic about DAO (Digital Asset Optimization) he ponders whether the search industry needs another acronym. After all, we've already got PPC, CPA, ROI, and so on. But DAO seems like a necessary addition, as it helps marketers understand that their images, video and audio clips, blogs and press releases are all assets that need to be paired with keywords and made searchable from a plethora of properties. Since users aren't just searching for info on the core search engines, companies need to meet them wherever they are--and DAO facilitates that. "If an asset can …

Google's Custom Search Business Edition has been rebranded Site Search. The giant has also pumped Site Search full of upgrades, giving site owners the ability to influence search results based on the dates of archived articles, synonyms and common searcher misspellings, as well as the actual look and feel of the results. But for Andy Beal, the most interesting upgrade is Site Search's improved ability to crawl and index content. Now, a company's documents don't have to exist within Google's core index for Site Search to find and return them in results. It also raises the question of …

While the blogosphere focused on Microsoft's cashback deal, the software giant was plugging away at another, behind-the-scenes deal that would secure it even more search market share. It's a deal with HP for Live Search to be packaged as the default engine with all new computers--and Microsoft wrestled the agreement away from Yahoo. Starting January 2009, new HP computers sold in North America will include an edition of Internet Explorer that includes a special Live Search toolbar. Of course, Live Search will be set as the default engine in the search box, and the toolbar will include Microsoft's …

Contextual ads for feeds are now available with Feedburner. The ad units complement the CPM-based buys that are already available to publishers in the RSS server's ad network. Google-owned Feedburner is rolling out the new ads to a small group of publishers, with plans to make them available to all in the coming months. The Feedburner contextual ads will be sold via AdWords, and will show up as "Ads by Google" within a feed. Advertisers will likely get a notice that their campaigns can show up on feeds (complete with the option to opt-out), and publishers that want to …

Blogs represent a well of constantly replenished, keyword-, and link-rich content that can be used to rank highly for a variety of terms. But when a blog links back to a main Web site, those SEO benefits can translate to help the core site rank better as well. "The more traffic a blog receives, the more traffic that can potentially flow through to a web site," says Nick Stamoulis. "If the blog is well setup then much of that traffic can be funneled through to the website with hopefully an increase in conversions."

The latest study from Jupiter Research found that just over 40% of searchers limit themselves to the first page of results. Meanwhile, the number of searchers that are willing to venture beyond that page, to either the second or third SERP, has declined. Just about 17% of searchers will head to the second page--and only 7% will venture to the third page. There are two main reasons for this shift in searcher behavior, according to Nilufer Dick--shorter attention spans, and the engines' efforts to improve search quality. "In all likelihood, the contributing factors are a mix of both," …

You may have just become accustomed to the idea of Search 3.0, but get prepped for search's latest evolution -- and it's more socially powered and human influenced than ever before. Danny Sullivan recaps the growth of algorithmic search from strictly on-page factors (Search 1.0), to off-page factors like links (Search 2.0), to blended or Universal Search (Search 3.0) and arrives at this new age of Mahalos, Eureksters, Twitters and personalized search. Search 4.0 is a human/computer-powered hybrid, where the algorithms deliver results quickly, but the people make sure that they're relevant (either for themselves or …