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Google Co-OpNow this is good news for those of you who run websites - Google has just launched Google Co-Op. The goal of Google Co-Op is to allow a user to create and integrate a customized version of the Google search engine into their website. You are able to specify which sites you want your Co-Op site to search, which means results will be displayed only for those sites you choose.

Aside from choosing which site(s) you want to include, you also have the choice of customizing the look and feel of the results page, how content in the results should be prioritized, and even if others can contribute as well.

It appears, however, that the home run here is that Google Co-Op gives the options of displaying your AdSense ads in the sidebar, providing the possibility of increased revenue. If you make a large portion of your income from Google AdSense, this becomes a no-brainer. Not only can you incorporate your AdSense into search results, but you can also ditch your current site search tool, as Google will likely do a better job.

Read More | Google Co-Op

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Yup, you read that right. In what can only be described as a puzzling move, Google has purchased YouTube in an all-stock $1.65 billion acquisition. No word yet on what this means for Google Video and YouTube. Will the two services merge? Continue to be their own thing? What does Google have to gain from buying a service that is essentially a farm for stealing intellectual property? Look for these questions to be answered in the coming weeks and months. For now, you can ponder what it is about YouTube that drove Google to spend more on this service than it has on any other purchase to date. Either way, congratulations are in order for the YouTube founders and investors.

Read More | Gear Live

Blog Business Summit 2006Okay Mind Campers, we have a bit of a treat for you. The Blog Business Summit conference is happening here in Seattle at the Bell Harbor Conference Center from October 25-27th. We were able to get special discounted rate for anyone who wants to attend. Simply put, if you would like to mingle with the major movers and shakers in the blogging world, this is the place to be. By using our link and coupon code, you will get a $100 discount off of the entrance fee. Here are the details:

Head on over to The Blog Business Summit and click on “Register Now” at the top of the page. During the checkout process, enter coupon code AESM06 to receive the $100 discount.

If you know anyone else who may be interested in attending, feel free to forward this information to them!


Just came across a pretty interesting and entertaining look at three advertising channels that one can use to monetize their websites, including a look at demographics and such. For example, this look at Federated Media and MSN AdCenter:

MSN Advertising says MSN Tech & Gadgets (MSN and partner content) is “the place to reach technology users”:

Demographics
Gender: 70% male, 30% female
Age: 69% are 25-54
Income: 61% have household income $50K+, 41% have household income $75K+
Education: 50% college graduates or higher
Occupation: 42% are professional/managerial

Federated Media says its sites “cater to cultural influencers, technology decision makers, early adopters…”:

Demographics
Gender: 79% male
Average Age: 32.7
Income: Average household income range $50,000-$74,999
Occupation: 50% management, 20% Director or above

It should be noted that Federated Media is a closed advertising network, but the benefit there is that if you fit into their network, you stand to see a nice increase in revenue.

Read More | ZD Net

PayPal is an easy way to deploy e-commerce for your website. As easy as it is for a non-technical person to deploy, there are many situations where a little extra know how is needed. Instead of reading the manuals or cruising the developer boards filled with over 10,000 posts, you can read “Happy About Website Payments with PayPal”. It’s easy-to-read and full of tips and techniques that can be applied immediately. If you want to make more money with PayPal, this is the place to start. If you want to know what’s in this book and judge how relevant it will be for you, download this eBook. Best part, it’s free.

Read More | Payments With Paypal

Video is starting to take off in a big way on the Internet, what with services like , , , and others. If you have access to a camera and a Mac, the video lesson from the French Maid Podcast (above) should serve you well to beginning your way to creating video for the Internet. Wanna make money? Upload your videos to for a revenue share.

Anyone out there doing video for the Internet? Feel free to share the tools you use, or other general tips.


A great metric tool for a webmaster or site owner is knowing how popular and important their pages are to search engines. A great tool for figuring this out is the Site Explorer utility available from Yahoo!. What Site Explorer does is give you a listing of all indexed pages within a site, in order of importance. You can use this to see what subjects you should cover on a more regular basis, and also can use it to spark some creativity. For example, if you know that two really old pages are highly popular, you may want to highlight them in a new post, or in a dedicated “Hot Stories” section on your site. This helps new readers find your popular content without having to go through a search engine.

The video above gives you a look at the Site Explorer tool, and gives a bit more information on link popularity.

Read More | Yahoo! Site Explorer

For those looking to build up their own website from scratch, I think it might be worth your while to check out the video above for a couple of pointers if you are a novice. HTML titles are an important step to make sure you cover, because this is how search engines will identify you to potential visitors who find your site through a search query. This video shows what to look for and how to make sure your page titles are up to snuff.


For all you Internet entrepreneurs out there, it appears that Google is in the process of updating PageRank as we speak. PageRank is factored on a bunch of things - not all public - but the number of quality links to your site that are out on the Internet play a large factor. To find out more, check out this discussion thread, and keep in mind, PageRank updates take about 72 hours before settling down.

If you want to see what your PageRank might end up being, try this tool.

Read More | ProBlogger

A common question today is: “Why aren’t I making any money from my web site?” The main reason for this lack of success is that there are too many hobby sites rather than real business sites on the internet.

Your web site is a hobby business when:

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