Search Engine Marketing Blog: piloSEO

So I was doing some research today and in the process I was looking at some tools to check the redirect being used by some web sites. In the process I did a quick search for “Redirect Test” in Google and found a strange AdWords listing. I am not sure what the purpose is or even if it means anything. I just found it odd. What I found was an ad placed by under the domain googletest.com. When you go to the googletest.com site I found that it is for sale so it is obviously not a Google owned domain. It appears that either Google has pulled the ad or the owner of the domain has stopped running it so it is no longer showing up right now.

What the heck is this?

Both ads have the same copy and both appeared to be using a Doubleclick tracking URL. It resolves to a page with a 1×1 pixel Gif Image that obviously can’t be seen. Here are the screen shots showing the listings I found. Both search phrases, redirect test and redirection test, both had the same result with the same ad copy, which was “This is a test ad. Please Ignore it.” Of course to me that is the most compelling ad copy ever.

Has anyone seen this?

Or something similar. I am trying to figure out the rationale behind this and am not really sure what it could be. Does anyone have any ideas as to why someone would do this. The landing page was blank so there was no way to monetize the ad. Let me know if you can think of any reason why this was done or what purpose it serves?

Popularity: 25% [?]

I just noticed a new message in my AdWords MCC Account offering a the ability to create and share templates between linked accounts. According the help page this will allow those with MCC accounts to create templates that their clients can grab and use themselves. This seems like an interesting new feature that will allow clients who have the resources to do some things themselves to have a bit more control while still utilizing the expertise and services of the AdWords professionals they have hired to run their campaigns.

Here are some links with a little more info on the new Template Center. I have not started playing with this but when I do I will try to provide some feedback.

• What is the Template Center
• What is a Campaign Template
• How do I get Access to the Template Center
• How can the Template Center Benefit Me

Popularity: 18% [?]

Apparently there is a bug in Website Optimizer for experiments that were developed prior to November 9th. If you are using Google Website Optimizer you may want to check out your code to make sure you are not using the code that makes your pages vulnerable. I just logged into my AdWords Client Center and found a notice that there is a bug in Website Optimizer. Here is the notice I received. You can learn more about the bug here and how to fix it here.

Website Optimizer Bug Requiring Immediate Attention

On November 7 (PST), we became aware of a bug in Website Optimizer that makes your experiment pages vulnerable to tampering. We have now identified the problem and created a fix (information below). However, to correct this problem you must manually modify the control scripts on all of your experiment pages. You should implement this fix as soon as possible on all past and present experiment pages. Note that this bug only affects experiments created before November 9 (PST)

Popularity: 17% [?]