Adwords Expert Blog

Eating Google Places Mints helps you rank better.  You should consume the entire bowl when it arrives.

It looks like the Google Adwords team may be testing a new ad extension.  Today while I was checking position placement for a client, I noticed the following ad:

To prevent the advertiser from receiving a bunch of unnecessary “test calls,” I blurred out all the identifying information.  As you can see there is a line under the ad copy stating that the user can “Request a phone call” from the business.  It is a simple form where the searcher can input their phone number.  I did not test it out.  I am sure that it would be counted the same as a click, and “car accident attorney” clicks don’t come cheap even if you’re quality score is 10/10.

I could only find it referenced once in the Adwords help forum. A Google employee gave a link to the Phone Extensions topic, but it does not make any reference to this specific feature.  I decided to call Adwords support and find out what the deal was.  If this was something I could turn on immediately, I wanted to know how.  The Googler i spoke with could not see it when she peformed the same query, so I had to send her the screenshot above.  She informed me that she had not seen this feature, and that she would escalate it to a specialist.  She stated that most likely it was a beta test.  I will update this post when I get an answer back.

Danger, Will Robinson! Ijango is bad for Google advertisers.

This post is a public service announcement aimed at advertisers who use the Google Content Network.

A new MLM scheme called iJango has recently reared it’s ugly head, and it directly threatens your ROI.  Unfortunately, iJango was able to get a Google Adsense account, even though it clearly violates Adsense program policies. If you read the policies page, please notice the 2nd topic labeled “Encouraging Clicks.”  It states the following:

Encouraging Clicks
Publishers may not ask others to click their ads or use deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks. This includes, but is not limited to, offering compensation to users for viewing ads or performing searches, promising to raise money for third parties for such behavior or placing images next to individual ads.

The part I put in boldface describes what iJango is all about.

Ijango is a hacked up version of Omar Al Zabir’s Dropthings, a free, open source, AJAX web portal. An easy way to prove this is by simply doing a site:president.ijango.com query in Google.  The person programming iJango forgot to change the built-in meta descriptions, and Google indexed it the last time it crawled the site.  In case you are catching this article after they fixed it, here is a screenshot of the query at the time this article was written:

Proof that iJango is using the Free, Open Source, portal script called Dropthings

A month before it actually launched, there was a lot of hype and propaganda generated by the people behind it.  It has been pitched as a way for people to make money by using the internet, viewing ads, and performing searches.    Here is a link to their latest video, and it is a great example of what I’m talking about: http://www.ijango.biz

The type of people who are falling for this scheme all have the same type of mental deficiency.  They are all ignorant as to how internet advertising works, and they have a disturbing sense of entitlement to YOUR online advertising dollars.  They all believe that this is some revolutionary idea that has never been done, and that they are all going to become millionaires by simply surfing the internet.   Ijango is nothing more than the old “paid to surf” scheme, wrapped up in a new and shiny package, and being sold as something else. It’s one of those “accepted scams” in the sense that it’s a little bit of truth mixed in with a lot of lies, and pulls the wool over the eyes of the ignorant.   The good news is that it has not worked since it launched on Saturday.  The bad news is you’ve got an army of brainwashed, “get rich quick” people chomping at the bit ready to run up your CPM ads and click your CPC ads, so that they can GET PAID!  Here is a screenshot of some tweets about iJango from it’s “directors.”  This is an excellent example of the mentality of the people using and promoting iJango.

Example of the mentality of iJango directors.

What can I do about the iJango threat?

Glad you asked, because that’s the whole purpose of this post.  The most important thing you can do is to add ijango.com to your site exclusion list.  In case you are not sure how to do this, I am providing this simple “step by step” guide on how to block your ads from being served to the rabid dogs on iJango.

Step 1: Log in to your Adwords account and select the 4th tab over labeled “Tools.”  You will see a drop down appear, and you will want to click on “More Tools >>”  as seen in the screenshot.

Select More Tools in the Google Adwords interface

Step 2: You will now be at the “Tools” page for your Adwords account.  On the left column, look for the header labeled “Optimize Your Ads.”  The 5th clickable item is called “Site and Category Exclusion”, and you will want to click that.

Click on "Site and Category Exclusion" from the Adwords Tools page

Step 3: You should now be on the “Site and Category Exclusion” page as pictured below.  If you are running multiple campaigns, you will need to select one from the drop down menu.  Once your campaign is selected, simply enter ijango.com into the text box, and click “Save All Changes.”  It’s important that you put in ijango.com WITHOUT the www.   iJango has subdomains for all it’s users, so doing it this way will block your ads from being serviced on iJango sitewide!  If you have multiple campaigns, you will need to repeat this process for each one!  Now your advertising dollars are protected from the people that feel they are entitled to it for doing nothing!

Enter ijango.com into the text box, and click Save all Changes

Everyone has seen the root domain example such as this site for the City of Charlotte:

SERP for City of Charlotte

You may have also seen sites with subdomains receive them as well, such as the Charlotte NC page on CitySearch.com:

Charlotte NC CitySearch.com SERP

But I have never seen a site with a subdirectory ranking #1 receive any sitelinks… until today!  Searching for Charlotte Nightlife showed me that CarolinaNightlife.com’s Charlotte NC subdirectory is #1 with 3 sitelinks!

Charlotte Nightlife SERP

So it seems safe to say that Google recently changed the sitelinks algorithm to now include subdirectories that rank #1. On another note, I’ve noticed that you no longer have to be #1 to get site links. Here is the #2 position of the CarolinaNightlife.com root:

CarolinaNightlife.com root SERP

It’s good to know Google keeps improving it’s search results.