Probably.

I hadn't used Google Maps in a while, so it surprised me recently when I found out that they've got pictures of pretty much any location at street level. In 3-D! You can scroll around, look up, look down, look left, look right…

What I did was plug in one address, and then another to get directions. Each step of the directions had a camera icon. Double click one of those, or one of the green dots in the map, and up pops a picture of that location. Pretty neat, and handy too.

After a few months of blogging without AdSense, I've finally decided to add it to my blog.

Let's just see how much I've made in the last hour…

Ok, logged in… $1,873.49!!!! Not really…

To be honest, I'm not logged in at Google at all! I'm not there, I'm here. I'm writing this post! Ha ha ha ha ha ha…

So the question is, does a blog look more or less professional with ads on it? I think it all depends on design and placement. But there's definitely something to be said for conformity (that is, conforming with other blogs).

And I see that a few of them have The AdSense…

"South Park" recently aired an episode showcasing a bunch of YouTube celebrities and how they were all theoretical multi-millionaires. I think the guy who sang "Chocolate Rain" is supposed to be $100,000,000 richer, at least according to the show. So how does that work?

In the old days, you'd be in the real, physical world, and set up a stage. Then you'd get on that stage and perform. And people would pay to see you do it. So if everybody pays $1, and you have an audience of 100, you just made $100.

Now, with the internet, we can all show our performance to many, many more people with incredible ease. So, if 100 million people see your $1 show, then you are theoretically $100 million richer!

But this is where the problem is. (From here on might be excruciating because I guess I'm spelling out what many consider to be common sense.)

You perform for a camera. Save your video. Upload it to YouTube. It becomes Google's property. Google shows advertisements. Every time a viewer of your video clicks an ad, Google makes money.

Google is stealing our Theoretical Dollars!

It gets interesting though. The $1 show is now free for the audience. Whoever clicks an ad generates revenue, but one click is usually worth less than a dollar. Say 20 cents.

So 100 million people watch your video. One million (one in a hundred) click. Twenty cents per click times 1 million clicks = 20 million cents, = $200,000.

100 million viewers = $200,000, for Google not you.

If you set up your own site, then you could collect. For every hundred viewers (audience members), you get 20 cents. (Or $2 if you're on the ball.)

BUT!

You don't have to pay to see all the other shows…

So it's like you're a Rock God, and in your contract it stipulates that you'll receive only 1/500 of your normal salary, because the rest covers lavish "complimentary" trips to all the other rock concerts in the world, ever. Sweet…

I had signed up to test one of the stages of Google Labs recently. The option I chose was where you type something in, and Google shows a list of popular searches that contain what you've typed so far. I thought it was neat, but lost interest and opted out.

Well now that feature is permanent! Check it out.

**Update: Now that I've tried it in FireFox, it looks like it only works in IE.

So, I was thinking of changing my name to something cool, like Stratovarius Megatrend. I'd check into a hotel, and a member of the staff would say, "Sure thing, Mr. Megatrend, I'll take your luggage up right away." Awesome. But could there be a cooler name…? I had to find out.

So I ran a quick search on Google for the exact phrase, "list of cool names."

Almost immediately, I noticed something odd. See if you can spot it:

The 6th result on Google's front page for this specific search term is actually a link to a Dogpile search of a similar term!

Let's see what Dogpile has to offer…

Hmm… I'm curious about something… Let's check back on that Google page:

Ok, ok, and… on Dogpile…?

Wow. Google has 1,720 results. Number 6 is a link to Dogpile, which has 84 results. Granted, the search terms were a little different, but the one used on Dogpile was far less specific! It didn't even use quotes, and it only came up with 84. Plus, it's searching multiple search engines! Weird. Maybe Dogpile says, "I know what is relevant to a far greater extent than the peons of Google or Yahoo. I will selectively remove results that do not suit me." You'd think a search engine would strive for more results, in order to give visitors a greater chance of clicking an ad! And especially since Dogpile's pulling its sources from elsewhere…

I found it most interesting how Dogpile's "Now Searching" area listed Google first! So we search Google, which searches Dogpile, which searches Google, which goes back in time and kills Dogpile's grandfather, who just so happens to be Google's Great-great uncle, and then the universe explodes and implodes simultaneously!

One final thing that jumped out at me was the 6th result on Dogpile. Pretty sneaky, Buzz…

To make money from their blogs, many bloggers have turned to sites like PayPerPost and accepted opportunities that paid them to post information and links about other websites. Google doesn't like this, as the links could be considered paid links. Google feels that paid links are less relevant and worthy for passing PageRank value than organic links, or links that are created due to non-financial reasons. Although Google didn't like it, many people were making a lot of money selling links through programs like PayPerPost and TextLinkAds. The higher your PageRank, the more valuable a link from your site became, so the more money you could make. Google suggested that you shouldn't sell links, but most people weren't persuaded. A couple of months ago, Google took action in an effort to reduce the paid link industry. It erased the PageRank of many blogs and sites known to get paid for links or posts.

So, imagine if you're a blogger with a PageRank of 5, and you are a member of PayPerPost. You get a lot of good-paying opportunities, because your PR of 5 is a lot better than the average blog. Then Google figures out you are selling paid posts, and erases you PR. Now you have a PR of 0, and the advertisers no longer value a paid post from you nearly as much as they did before. So you make less money.

PayPerPost had a system in the works to provide a similar metric as PageRank before Google got busy erasing PR, and it recently went active. It's called Izea RealRank.

Unlike PageRank, RealRank focuses on more than just links. It is like Alexa, in that it's really more a measure of traffic. Also unlike PageRank, RealRank is primarily for bloggers, and requires some javascript code to be placed on your blog.

Izea then calculates your RealRank based on things like unique visitors, page views per day, and visitors coming through links to your site (vs. type-in traffic). RR is to be used as an alternative to PR in the paid post marketplace. An advertiser can now say, "Oh, you've got a PR of 0, eh? Well, let's see what your RealRank is."

Some advertisers couldn't care less about RealRank, as it doesn't represent the link power that is evidenced by PageRank. However, others are more willing to consider a new system, as Google's actions with PageRank have made some people less eager to just accept PR at face value. It seems things are changing on the PageRank front, and although RealRank is considered flawed by some, it's a start in a new direction.

To get your own RealRank, you need some tracking code on your site, which you can get by creating an account at izearanks.com.

It seems that some sites have already noticed shifting PageRank values, as early as January 10th.

The last update happened in late October of last year. So maybe we'll be seeing updates continue until the end of the month.

With the changes put into effect to account for paid links, I don't think the update will hold entirely to historical trends. Paid links seem to be pretty widespread, and if every page with at least 1 paid link goes from PR whatever to PR 0, the collective PR of the entire net is likely to be affected.

Of course, going from a PR 0 to a PR 5 is like creating something from nothing. They say the more pages of content your site has, the more PR you've got. So as more pages are added to the net, the net's total PR will increase. But when Google arbitrarily changes the PR prerequisites (no paid links), it's bound to have an effect.

I see two possible outcomes. As some would say, "Paid links are here to stay," and so Google will eventually allow PR on paid link pages. On the other hand, Google is king, so perhaps the paid link, paid post, paid whatever industry will sink its claws into the ground and slowly get dragged toward an inevitable death that few want to believe is already underway.

Google provides everyone a great service with their website. You just go there, type in what you're looking for, and Google presents you with the results it thinks are most relevant. It is good for Google to strive for relevancy. If Google were to cheat, and put its own pages on top, when most searchers didn't want to see them, Google would make those people unhappy with its results. They'd leave, Google's traffic would go down, and Google would make less money from advertisers. Advertisers pay to be seen, and if Google isn't getting as many viewers as usual, advertisers will look elsewhere. So it is in Google's best interest to do a good job of cataloging every meaningful web page in existence.

Even if Google hired thousands of people to do research manually, individually going through the web finding and cataloging new sites, it still wouldn't be able to keep up. Many new web pages are being created every day. Plus, it is less costly to put machines to work doing the cataloging. And machines are faster. So what does this mean for us?

Since Google uses machines to index our sites, we can get ahead. We do this by learning the rules the machines follow. The Google Bot operates like any other program, using the formula that was programmed into it. Since Google hasn't yet revealed itself to be self-aware, we can assume that there is only a key set of guidelines we must follow (rather than the selective judgment of a person). It started out that Google's rules weren't immediately apparent. Some even considered them secret. Today, many of the basic guidelines are public knowledge.

Of course, there are most definitely other hidden guidelines that are not widely known. And since Google is constantly evolving, there will likely be new guidelines to follow in the future. However, the basic rules for getting your page indexed by Google are pretty simple.

The benefit of following these rules is that your page and site will rank higher (for search terms that you choose) than other pages and sites that don't follow the rules. You can use this to your advantage. If you do some keyword research, you can come up with search terms that are very popular. Then you follow Google's rules and optimize your site for them. Google will index your page, and it will appear somewhere in the search results for those terms. The best possible outcome would be for your page to come up as #1 on the front page of Google. Then when a surfer visits Google and uses the search terms that you optimized your site for, he or she will be immediately presented with a link to your site, up front and on top. That is a good place to be, because your site will then get a good amount of traffic. Getting traffic is half the battle when it comes to making money online.

So once you figure out what search terms you want to optimize a page for, how do you go about it? Let's say your top chosen term is "keywords and search terms". This is how to use those words in your page to get a boost through Google:

Use your keywords in header tags:

<h1>Keywords And Search Terms</h1>
<h2>Keywords And Search Terms</h2>
<h3>Keywords And Search Terms</h3>

Use the keywords in the URL of your page:

http://www.your-site.com/keywords-and-search-terms.html

*Many people believe that keywords-and-search-terms.html is better than keywords_and_search_terms.html as well as keywordsandsearchterms.html

Use the keywords in the file name of an image on your site:

<img src="http://www.your-site.com/images/keywords-and-search-terms.jpg">

Use the keywords in the alt tag of an image on your site:

<img src="http://www.your-site.com/images/keywords-and-search-terms.jpg" alt="Keywords And Search Terms">

Use the keywords in your content, and let Search Engines know they are special with bold, italic, and underline tags:

Blah blah blah blah blah blah <b>keywords and search terms</b> blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah <i>keywords and search terms</i> blah blah. Blah blah blah blah <u>keywords and search terms</u> blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Link to your page using the keywords in your anchor text:

<a href="http://www.your-site.com/keywords-and-search-terms.html">keywords and search terms</a>

*This can be done from within the page itself, from other pages on your site, and in links coming from other sites.

Link to your page using the keywords in the link's title tag:

<a href="http://www.your-site.com/keywords-and-search-terms.html" title="Keywords And Search Terms">keywords and search terms</a>

*This can be done from within the page itself, from other pages on your site, and in links coming from other sites.

The main thing to remember is that Google sees all the special things you do with words and phrases, so the more times you treat certain phrases (your keywords) specially (using them with bold, italic, underline, title, alt, and header tags, and in URLs and file names), the better you will rank for those terms.

A warning: If you use these techniques too intensely, Google could penalize your page or site as containing spam. It is best to use each of these tricks where they fit, and where they add to the user experience. Making a page look attractive while using a handful of these SEO tricks will usually prevent you from going overboard and into spam-like territory.

To track how your site ranks for certain keywords and search terms, you might try some free software called Free Monitor For Google.

The search terms aren't amazing, but one of them brings up 8,520,000 results, and I'm on the front page, so I'm happy!

I found out when I checked Google Analytics today to see how Misinterpreted dot Org was doing. I thought, "I wonder what kinds of searches are bringing most people here?"

Among the top terms were:

aquafrequencies
watch me move with my juke
watch me juke
watch me move
watch me move like my juke
watch my juke
peter petrelli scrubs
has vista failed

All the juke stuff relates to a post I made a while back called, A Commercial I Hate: "Watch Me Move, Got My Juke!" Now that I think about it, my quote of the lyrics was wrong! More on that later…

So I thought I'd see what a search term like "watch me move" would bring up in the results. I thought maybe I'm somewhere on some random page.

Lo and behold, I'm on page one:

Watch Me Move

- #5 out of 8,520,000

Lets check all the variants.

Watch Me Juke

- #2 out of 656,000

Watch My Juke

- #3 out of 700,000

Watch Me Move With My Juke

- #1 out of 34,100

Watch Me Move Like My Juke

- #9 out of 20,000

Watch Me Like With My Juke

- #2 out of 57,300 (I had typed in the wrong query, but being #2 is awesome [unless you're Bono])

Watch Me Move Got My Juke

- #1 out of 193,000

I read this comment on YouTube under the Verizon Juke video commercial: "That is called "Juking" my friend…very hard, but fun to do…it's been big for over 30 years and in the Midwest, but its finaly made its way around…."

I guess to Juke is to dance? And listening to the song again, it sounds like, "Watch me move, like my Juke?" Like, "Watch me dance, like my moves?" So in that case, the title to my post is completely wrong! But I'm not changing it. Being on the front page of Google for those search terms is too much motivation to leave it as is.

Among the other search terms that were bringing me traffic were aquafrequencies, peter petrelli scrubs, and has vista failed. The Vista one didn't bring me up anywhere near #1, so I'll just cover the other two.

Aquafrequencies relates to another post I wrote called "The Power Of Water And Positive Thought" about the Aquafrequencies cure-all software system. How do I rank for that search term?

Aquafrequencies

- #6 and #7 out of 188

It's interesting that I'm listed on the front page, just a few results below the actual site for the program. But I guess since there are only 188 results for the term, that doesn't really mean as much as it might otherwise.

What about Peter Petrelli? I had written a post about his name being mentioned on Scrubs, When Worlds Collide: Peter Petrelli and Scrubs. And now:

Peter Petrelli Scrubs

- #1 out of 51,500

I had heard someone say on Scrubs that her fear of death forced her to ask Peter Petrelli to the sock hop in the 8th grade. Astounded, I searched and searched before finding that others on the net had noticed the same thing. At one point I mistakenly thought that there was only 1 other person who knew. Later I found out that others were also aware of the triviality (well, I thought it was cool). But now being #1 for the search term I had originally used — all I can say is wow.

So now I bet you're wondering, how did I pull off getting on the front page of Google for 9 different searches? Here's my 3 Point Solution to this conundrum:

Point 1: I wrote 3 separate posts, each of which used the key words in their titles.
Point 2: WordPress automatically added header tags and created SEO-friendly URLs.
Point 3: The ideas for each search are either rare or relatively new.

As I said, Peter Petrelli mentioned on Scrubs seemed at first to be rarely noticed, and therefore not too often mentioned online. Aquafrequencies only has 188 results because the program isn't that well-known. And the Verizon Juke commercial is fairly new.

I believe I was able to rank highly for all these terms because there isn't a major amount of competition (just yet). Plus, the terms don't send me a huge amount of traffic. If they did, you can bet there'd be other sites more proactive about ranking for them.

But still… I'm made the front page of Google, and not just for some Googlewhack!

Have you ever wondered why a search of certain sites will bring up one result up top with links throughout the domain, and then another result for a random page? Why bother showing that second result?

Today I found out. At BlogStorm, it was shared that although many people perceive this search behavior to be bug-related, it is in fact intentional. In fact, many people actually do not see the first (Sitelinks) result at all, which is why a second, different (some might say "normal") one is also available.

It would seem to make sense why some people are blind to Sitelinks results, as not all sites have them, and ads are sometimes placed in that area.

The second listing is believed to be the most recently popular (or perhaps most linked to) page in the site.

Do you sometimes unintentionally overlook that first Sitelinks result? I honestly can say that I have. I'm so ashamed. :)