“Last month we introduced Google+ Pages to provide a new way for you to build a public identity on Google+. We’ve been listening closely to your feedback and today we’re introducing several new tools and controls to help you better manage your pages”.

One of the key features for business users includes the ability for 50 managers to have access to a Google+ Page with admin rights, enabling them to login and make changes and updates to a primary page.  Each manager can have their own credentials with the ability to: “publish posts, respond to comments, add photos, change profile information”.

For any marketer using Pay Per Click and social media as a platform to engage web users with their brands, or products online, who want to know what social interactions are taking place; without having to stare at their page every second of the day to keep track of communications, the addition of notification settings is a welcome inclusion for existing Google+ users:

“Another feature we’ve added is a way for you as a page owner to get notifications about actions on your page. With this change, you’ll be able to customize the notifications for your business page separately from your personal profile, allowing you to choose the level of detail that’s most appropriate for you.”

With customisable options you can select which specific interactions are important to you, and decide what communications you would like to receive notifications about, as well as having the freedom to adjust how you are notified through the “delivery preferences” setting.

The team at Google+ has also augmented the way that connections and +1’s are displayed on Google+ Pages, making the number of ways people have connected with your brand or business more explicit to users accessing your social outlet:

“We’re also making a change to the +1 count shown on your Google+ Page. Starting today, the bold count on your page will include both your +1’s on Google+ and across the web, as well as the number of people who have added you to a circle. This change will not affect the way +1’s are counted or displayed on ads or search results.”

The changes represent Google’s continued commitment, when it comes to developing their social platform for business users, engaging with Pay Per Click and social media to extend their online reach, and maximise the exposure and profile of their brand or business.

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“On November 7 Google announced Google+ Pages, offering brands the ability to manage their social media presence in the Google+ network. This move mimicked long-standing functionality offered by Facebook [...] In this early phase of a Google+ presence, brands are moving fast to create Google+ Pages. At the time of this report 61% of the top 100 brands have already established Google+ Pages.”

Businesses and brands will continue using Google+ in order to increase the number of “+1s” referencing their site, and recommending it to other registered Google users, effectively circulating their content online across a global network.  This is where Google will be hoping to underpin their social media platform and encourage it’s usage across global markets; increasing it’s popularity with consumers and brands alike.  By utilising their dominance in search markets, Google are taking advantage of devices such as indexing their Google+ Pages in their search results; no doubt they will be hoping that this will generate increased interest from online consumers as well as establishing their social platform’s popularity with the online community.

In addition, Google have provided an added incentive for businesses to set up their own Google+ Page, as Dennis Troper, Product Management Director for Google+ Pages explained in their latest AdWords blog post:

“We will also make it possible to link your Page to your AdWords campaigns for your site, so that all your +1s — from your Page, your website, ads and search results — will get tallied together and appear as a single total”.

Should companies start offering incentives for Google users to +1 them, as a number of brands do currently on Facebook, encouraging people to ‘like’ them by providing rewards for user endorsements, no doubt the exposure of Google’s social networking platform will proliferate, but it must establish itself within the consciousness of online communities, and attract enough active users to encourage wider audiences on the scale of existing social media platforms.

Although the SEO Agency report also identifies that just 12% of the top 100 US brands with Google+ pages have linked their homepage to their Google+ Page, compared to 53% of the same top 100 brands, that have linked their website homepage to their Facebook Page, indicating that Google+ still has a long way to go before establishing the sort of presence that both Facebook and Twitter have achieved in social media markets.

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And so they did.  It now transpires that Google+ Pages will mean big things for Google +1’s on their AdWords PPC Management sponsored links.  Google’s social networking site will enable businesses to link their various portfolios online, from their website, to their AdWords account to their mobile sites, as Dennis Troper, Product Management Director for Google+ Pages explained in their latest AdWords blog post: “we will also make it possible to link your Page to your AdWords campaigns for your site, so that all your +1s — from your Page, your website, ads and search results — will get tallied together and appear as a single total”.

The changes will mean that when a business, or brand, creates a Google+ Page online, that page can then be linked across a variety of platforms, including an existing website, and more specifically to an AdWords PPC Management account.  This then will mean that when someone +1’s any URL’s, or a landing page from a particular AdWords campaign, that are linked back to their Google+ business page, that +1 will not only be registered against that particular URL or landing page, but also on the Google+ Page; augmenting the numbers on a fairly big scale, as Troper goes on to explain:

“Consumers will be able to see all the recommendations your business has received, whether they are looking at an ad, [or] a search result or your page, meaning your +1’s will reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day.”

Google’s +1 button now works across a variety of platforms, including their search facility, AdWords PPC management portfolio, on websites and mobile devices; +1 allows Google users to circulate content about a business or brand, and with Google+ Pages the effect of linking URL’s and landing pages with AdWords advertisements, further enhances the impact of social media on search and online advertisements, as well as the way customers engage with brands or businesses online.  These changes, inextricably linking a business’s Google AdWords PPC account with its Google+ Page, should not be underestimated, according to the online news site Search Engine Land:

“Previously, +1s were specific to individual URLs and only accumulated when people +1ed the URL in organic results or an AdWords ad that used that URL as a landing page. Google is now displaying +1s with ads both on Google.com and on the display network and has said ads with +1s perform better than ads without, presumably because they’ve been socially recommended.”

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“Today, we’re introducing a new process that helps streamline the way updates are made to potentially outdated or incorrect business listings [...] we’ll take measures to keep their listing up-to-date if our system determines that the edit is accurate.”

Google Places is a free advertising tool that enables users to create a listing and place page for their business, where information such as photos, special offers and videos as well as real time updates can be shared.  The tool is particularly useful in generating interest from local prospective clients, and is a tool that Top Click Media implements for their Surrey based SEO clients, looking to reach out to potential customers conducting local searches.

The changes were announced via the Google Lat-Long blog spot, and according to Lior Ron the Product Development Manager for Google Places, the tool broadens their existing portfolio of Google mapping services, giving a worldwide view on the businesses operating in a users local area:

“Our goal to create a digital representation of the real world doesn’t just mean a birds’ eye view through Google Earth, or a street-level view through Google Maps. It means providing a local view as well, and tools like Google Places help people across the globe learn about and connect with the places and businesses in their immediate areas.”

The changes will mean that business listings will be updated in conjunction with data published via the web, ensuring that information posted is correct and kept up to date; enhancing SEO services such as those for Surrey based clients operating on local level:

“Previously, verified business listings would always reflect the information provided by its owner – even if we received data about an updated name, address, or hours of operation. But now, if a user provides new information about a business they know — or if our system identifies information from another source on the web that may be more recent than the data the business owner provided via Google Places — the organic listing will automatically be updated and the business owner will be sent an email notification about the change.”

By utilising a network of authoritative sources to give other users relevant and up to date local information, about places and businesses that might be of interest to those conducting a search in their local area, such as a Surrey based operation using SEO practices to drive revenue, the revisions to the Google Places platform will now incorporate data from partners, users, and directly from business owners updating organic listings using Google Places for Business.

Any online ad campaigns implemented by business owners, such as Google’s AdWords or AdWords Express programs won’t be impacted by the changes: “ads will continue to display the business information the owner has provided in Google Places”.

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Both Google and Facebook provide advertisers with what are primarily PPC services, as well as other advertising options.  Google’s AdWords and Facebook Ads are the big hitters in PPC Management, mainly due to the size of their audiences.  Google still far outnumbers other contenders in the search engine market, with almost two-thirds of the market share, while Facebook is edging ever closer to securing 1 billion user accounts worldwide.

According to the research firm eMarketer, it is estimated that Facebook’s net earnings will be over $4.2 billion worldwide in 2011, equating to £2.66 billion.  90% of the money made by Facebook is through advertising revenues, with SMB’s accounting for the larger proportion of businesses using Facebook to advertise their brand or product.

Without doubt, they both have their merits, and provide distinct services relevant to particular businesses, brands or products.  Both platforms provide free marketing tools for subscribers, such as Facebook’s Pages and Google’s Places, neither of which require an ad buy from advertisers, and both provide the ability to target specific market segments when running online campaigns; but here is where the two platforms diverge.

Larry Kim, Chief Technical Officer of the online marketing firm WordStream explains that in order to understand the benefits of Google’s PPC management operations in comparison to Facebook, and to identify which provides the best fit for your business, product or brand, you first need to pinpoint exactly what it is that you are trying to achieve from your online campaign: “SMBs really have to figure out what they are trying to sell and to who, is it branding, or are you trying to sell something very specific?”.

Facebook users tend to be online during a single session for a much longer period of time compared to someone conducting a Google search; making Facebook a more suitable platform for raising brand awareness or communicating a single, clear message about a product or a particular area of your business, Facebook also makes it easier for advertisers to target a specific group or demographic.  ‘People-oriented’ messages are harder to orchestrate using the Google AdWords platform than they are through Facebook, which makes it easier to single out your target audience that you want your advertisements to reach.  But as explained by Kevin Casey from InformationWeek the online news site for SMB’s, conversely, Google has access to a wider range of users when it comes to web searches, potentially acting as a more suitable solution when it comes to increasing web traffic and click throughs:

“Facebook isn’t strong in pure Web searches; Google has the clear advantage there, and as a result could be the better fit for driving actual clicks and conversions around specific products. It comes down to intent: whereas Facebook users might just be checking up on their friends or posting vacation photos, Google searchers typically have a much more specific goal.”

In order for advertisers to effectively manage PPC campaigns, the key is identifying your audience, who you want to reach, and what message you are trying to communicate.  Knowing which platform best suits your audience and the message you are attempting to convey is the answer to ensuring PPC management is implemented effectively as part of your marketing strategies.

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“Incorporating personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising. A display ad becomes much more powerful when people can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it.”

The benefit for AdWords and PPC users is that the +1 button will circulate content amongst a much broader audience, and as Google are investing heavily in display ad marketing strategies, adding ten channels to their You Tube platform that will broadcast solely for specific industries such as sport and fashion, it was only a matter of time before they included the +1 functionality for existing display ad users.

Google see display ads as the future for PPC campaigns; encouraging increased traffic by engaging with potential customers in a way that traditional advertising strategies cannot, and by incorporating the +1 button as part of this feature, content is proliferated, endorsed and recommended, with the potential to engage with new audiences maximised, as Oliveira goes on to explain:

“What’s even better is that the +1 button on display ads will work together with +1 buttons on search results, search ads, and websites. A single +1 applies to the same content across the web, no matter where it appears”.

Google is relying on the +1 button, combined with their new social project Google+ to further establish Google as a purveyor of quality content, encouraging social connections and endorsements from other web users, in order to maximise the effect of ad campaigns for AdWords and PPC clients.  By supporting display ads in their portfolio of products, Google are seeking to future-proof their services, and as they are fending off competition from new operations such as Twitter’s web Analytics tool, Google will no doubt be looking to the next generation of advertising platforms as a means of maintaining their dominance within this arena.  As identified by Oliveira, +1 is making an impact globally with multi-billion daily impressions:

“Since its introduction on search results and search ads, the +1 button has been installed on over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily […] we’re expanding that to include display ads across the web on both desktop and mobile. For the first time, you’ll be able to run social-enabled ad campaigns that work across millions of sites in over 40 countries around the world.”

Google have long been advocates of display advertising as a concentrated approach centered around user engagement, and have indicated that it will underpin the future for search advertising, augmenting existing approaches to SEO management as a means of engaging with users and establishing brands using web-based platforms.

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Three of Ability’s key clients that operate online participated in the study, which found that although smartphones are the source of the vast majority of mobile traffic, the largest proportion of sales were generated from tablet users.  Although Ability did not disclose the names of the retailers that took part in their study, which involved reviewing data from Google Analytics to identify how people accessed their clients websites, as well as purchasing trends, all the companies that participated were identified as e-commerce sites conducting significant volumes of business online, across a wide range of products.  The results demonstrate the importance of the effective management of Search Engine Optimisation for mobile devices, to not only increase  traffic, but achieve higher conversion rates.

The information gathered by Ability indicates that while the largest proportion of web traffic was generated by smartphone users, conversion rates were far higher on tablets, and more specifically, the Apple iPad was identified as the key appliance driving more revenues for retailers than any other mobile device.

According to Jennifer Tonisson, Commerce Marketing and Training Manager for Ability, online retailers need to be more switched on to the possibilities opened up by the tablet mobile market, and SEO for mobile, with many businesses failing to develop websites that are smartphone or tablet friendly, some e-retailers are missing the opportunity to generate new revenue streams by targeting mobile devices:

“What retailers should do is see what devices consumers are using to shop on their sites and see what their sites look like on those devices, it’s important to bring in the traffic, but it’s more important to convert the traffic into sales.”

According to the results of Ability’s study, conducted over a thirty day period, iPad users made up more than 55% of mobile commerce revenues for one retailer, but accounted for only 13% of visits made by mobile consumers, the second demonstrated similar values, with 21% of web traffic generated by iPads, 51% of their sales came from the same device.  Perhaps the most compelling evidence was provided by the third anonymous retailer, with 50% of their traffic, and 97% of their m-commerce revenue originating from an Apple iPad.

Ability’s report comes after Google’s announcement following the changes made to their SEO tool AdWords, that allows users to target tablet devices with their campaigns, including the option of distinguishing between PC’s or laptops and mobile devices such as Smartphones, within the settings tab of an AdWords account.  The options provided also give advertisers the chance to target specific operating systems (Android, iOS and webOS) or “all mobile and tablet operating systems”, complementing the Google AdMob for mobile ads platform that encourages ads that appeal directly to mobile users:

“Tablet users are highly receptive to mobile ads, especially more graphical, image-based ads. iPad image ads have 2x higher CTRs than the average CTR on AdMob’s network.  Advertisers can target tablet devices with their ad campaigns”.

According to Google’s blog, the popularity of tablet PC’s, and the projected growth of the tablet PC market in the coming years has played a major role in the inclusion of tablet PCs, alongside Smartphones, as key devices for their portfolio of SEO services such as AdWords and AdMob, where subscribers can target specific audiences with their advertisements:

“With more than 165 million tablets expected to ship over the next two years, tablets are becoming a popular device with engaged, tech-savvy consumers. So we’re pleased to announce that we’re developing new targeting options to help you better connect with this audience.”

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The new functionality will allow AdWords users to optimise the positioning of their ads, in order for them to appear consistently in the listings above relevant search results, for new or existing campaigns.  The recently implemented metric complements the changes made by Google in the introduction of their “Top vs. Side” reporting mechanism, that indicates how ads that appear on top of the search results perform in comparison to those published at the side of SERPs.  As Google’s Hal Varian explains: “this distinction is important, since, on average, ads that appear above the search results tend to get substantially more clicks than ads that appear on the right-hand side”.

These two changes to the AdWords portfolio will provide key indicators for marketers managing their online advertising and search engine optimization campaigns.  By providing access to data that will allow users to conduct a more detailed analysis, and make distinctions between the location of an advertisement on Google’s SERPs, compared with the click through rate, and ultimately the number of conversions.  The changes will also give brand advertisers a better understanding of how critical ‘brand terms’ are impacting on the position of their ad campaigns above search result listings.

The most recent metric will give AdWords users the opportunity to maximise budgets and achieve more click throughs by positioning advertisements in the best possible location, according to Andrew Truing’s Inside AdWords blog post, where the announcement was made:

“This information helps you better optimise your search campaigns by more deeply examining the relationship between your ads’ locations and their clicks and conversions. On average, ads that appear above the search results tend to get substantially more clicks than ads that appear on the side.  Using this information in conjunction with the new top of page bid estimates can give you greater insight with which to plan your bidding strategy.”

Although the metric will enable users to spend their budgets more sagaciously on ad campaigns, Truing does point out that merely relying on one reporting mechanism to provide adequate data for maximising the success and optimisation of your ad is not advisable:

“While the top of page bid estimates can help guide your bid planning, bidding higher than the top of page bid estimate will not guarantee a top ad position.  Ad position will still depend on Quality Score, your CPC bid, your budget and account settings, and user and competing advertiser behavior.”

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Previously part of the Motorola group, before the company split earlier this year to form two divisions; Motorola Mobility is responsible for developing and manufacturing mobile phones, while Motorola Solutions looks after a broader commercial customer base and central government contracts.  The acquisition has been identified by many as a move by Google to establish themselves as a dominant competitor in the mobile and tablet market; with Motorola currently holding over 17,000 patents, with 7,500 pending; more than those held by Microsoft and Apple combined.

The details of the acquisition were announced by Google’s chief executive Larry Page via the Google blog, giving details of Google and Motorola’s relationship in what Page called “Motorola Mobility’s total commitment to Android” and the search engine giant’s motivation when it came to making the $12.5 billion investment:

“Today, more than 150 million Android devices have been activated worldwide—with over 550,000 devices now lit up every day—through a network of about 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers in 123 countries. Given Android’s phenomenal success, we are always looking for new ways to supercharge the Android ecosystem”.

In partnering with Motorola, Google has opened up the potential to predominate in not only online advertising, ISP and OS sectors, but also in the manufacture of mobile devices; enabling Google to cover the spectrum of key, lucrative markets that have demonstrated massive growth globally in recent years, as Page goes on to explain in his blog post: “We believe that their [Motorola’s] mobile business is on an upward trajectory and poised for explosive growth”.

In this all encompassing approach, Google will be even better placed to target content advertising and services for their users, integrating their web-based products and mobile operating systems with a hardware solution to complement their existing portfolio; further augmenting the strength of their core product Google AdWords, with the establishment of an already globally recognised brand within the hardware market space.  This combined with the recent launch of the Google+ social networking site, indicates that Google has all bases covered across the spectrum of technology and online advertising services.

Google has, however, made it clear at this early stage, that the move to partner with Motorola will have no bearing on their commitment when it comes to making the world’s information “universally accessible and useful”, with plans to support other hardware vendors that make Android an available platform across their range of mobile devices:

“This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform.  Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open.”

The world will be eagerly anticipating the result of the Google and Motorola partnership, with no real contenders stepping up to overthrow the dominant force of the Apple iPad, there is the potential for the development of a product that opens up the current, closed mobile tablet market, in Europe and across the Globe.

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In his April blog post, Varian stressed the importance of understanding the two variants that can be applied to the general term ‘ad position’, and how incorrectly interpreting this expression can lead to a general misrepresentation of the data being analysed: “on average, ads that appear above the search results tend to get substantially more clicks than ads that appear on the right-hand side”.  Varian goes on to explain that the distinction between the two positions where an ad can feature on Google’s listings, must be identified correctly, in order to maximise the efficiency of Google AdWords campaigns:

“The ‘page position’ refers to the location on the page, such as ‘top ad 2’ or ‘right-hand side ad 1’. The ‘auction position’ is the rank of the ad in the auction that determines the order of the ads on the page.  The critical point is that the reported average position metric is based on auction position, not page position.  This means that an ad in auction position 1 will always be the first ad shown on the page, but it can occur in two possible page positions: as the first ad above the search results or as the first ad on the right-hand side when there are no ads above the search results.”

In response to the discrepancies highlighted by Varian earlier this year, the team at Google AdWords has implemented a ‘Top vs Side’ segment that monitors the performance of ads by differentiating between the resulting auction positions; recognising this as a distinct metric from the more general term ‘page position’.  As the team at AdWords explain in their recent post detailing the changes that have been implemented, and providing an overview on the impact when using the Google AdWords dashboard to monitor the success of an ad featured in sponsored links, with the updated average position metrics: “you can better optimize your search campaigns by more deeply examining the relationship between your ads’ locations and their clicks and conversions”.

This update gives Google AdWords users more control over monitoring the best position to place their ad, as well as providing the opportunity to identify the response to their campaigns or products online: “brand advertisers can now get better visibility into when and where their critical brand terms are triggering ads above search results”.  The update is one of a range of new functionalities incorporated in the Google AdWords dashboard; a tool that is under constant development, with feedback from users providing a pivotal dialogue; giving the team at AdWords the information they need to evolve and develop their portfolio of products in response to the changes that users want.

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The new consumer platform is currently undergoing limited trials before being made available to Google users, with plans to roll out a business version of the social networking site later in the year, the update from Oestlien said that: “the business experience we are creating should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses”.

Google+ for business is expected to complement Google’s existing portfolio of products in the search engine optimisation UK marketplace, although it is currently in development stages with “brands, businesses and other entities” who have been invited to take part in a small scale trial of the corporate social network.  As Oestlien explains in his succinct You Tube broadcast, the Google+ site for professionals will allow businesses to connect to other Google services such as AdWords, and will track how users interact with brands and corporations through Google+ ‘circles’, the ‘stream’ and ‘hangouts’:

“How users communicate with each other is different from how they communicate with brands, and we want to create an optimal experience for both. We have a great team of engineers actively building an amazing Google+ experience for businesses, and we will have something to show the world later this year.”

While the focus is still firmly on making Google+ for consumers a success, the search engine giant is looking at the next phase of progression for their new social networking site.  The launch of Google+ (currently by invitation only) coincides with the revamp to Google’s homepage with changes to the navigation menu, and the introduction of the +1 button as a means of circulating and recommending sites to fellow Google users.

Ultimately Google+ for business will incorporate the key elements of Google’s portfolio of SEO products, including Analytics and AdWords; providing a platform that will cohesively tie in the major systems available to Google users, giving subscribers to Google+ increased flexibility when it comes to what information people share, and who they share it with:

“Right now we’re very much focused on optimising for the consumer experience, but we have a great team of engineers building a similarly optimised business experience for Google+ [...] it will include things like rich analytics and the ability to connect that identity to other parts of Google that businesses might use on a daily basis like AdWords.”

Over the coming months all eyes will be on the success of the consumer edition of the social networking site, and how it performs in comparison to long established competitors in the social networking arena.

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The +1 button serves as yet another device in the ever expanding Pay Per Click Management functions provided by Google, giving +1 subscribers the ability to measure the popularity of their site, with Google account users taking the content of an advertisement or an organic search result, and using the +1 button to recommend it to their fellow Google users.

By commending a site for its relevance, or the quality of its content to people across the world, the Google +1 feature will generate increased interest in a sponsored link or web page.  According to the announcement made on Google’s official AdWords blog, the global deployment of Google’s new tool will effectively enhance the accessibility of a sites content to online users, helping people to ‘find’ the sites that others rate highly:

“A few months ago we released the +1 button on English search ads and organic search results on google.com. More recently, we’ve made the +1 button available to sites across the web, making it easier for people who love your site to help their friends and other users find your content in Google search.”

The +1 button provides businesses with the opportunity to increase web traffic, and maximise the profile of their webpages.  Google’s +1 encourages people to utilise the feature in much the same way as the Facebook ‘like’ option; enforcing the popularity of a brand, product, or news site; providing a tool that will enable PPC customers to measure the global impact of their content or campaigns amongst the online population.

The new functionality enhances the expanding portfolio of PPC Management tools, with a site featuring higher up the rankings likely to attract more views, and more +1 clicks, in turn drawing more users to view the content displayed on a company webpage, as it is circulated globally among the online community of Google users.

According to Google the tool will prove invaluable in the performance of PPC monitoring, and forms an integral part of their approach to the future of customer-centric advertising campaigns, putting the user right at the centre of their search interactions, and giving them the opportunity to provide invaluable feedback about their search experiences:

“We expect that personal annotations will help users know when your ads and organic search results are relevant to them, increasing the chances that they’ll end up on your site.  Think of +1 buttons as an enhancement that can help already successful search campaigns perform even better, now, at a global level.”

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Via the Google AdWords blog, a YouTube video providing the keynote speech in full, demonstrates how the future, as Google sees it, of display advertising is to progress:

New technologies in display advertising are resulting in better user experiences, better advertiser results and incredible growth for the industry. We’re investing significantly to help improve display advertising for advertisers, publishers and users [...] where people connect and respond to display ads in ways we’ve never seen before.”

In his keynote speech Mohan identified online advertising as the second largest advertising platform, conceding first place to television.  This provides an insight into the exponential growth of the online advertising market, overtaking other mediums such as radio and print; display advertising makes up an incredible 40% of this space, and according to Google, is growing by 25% year on year.

As well as highlighting the impact that online advertising is having on the way people engage with their customers, Mohan also identified Google’s key strategies in the continued development of this area, by providing users and businesses with targeting, optimization and monitoring tools, to measure the success of campaigns; with specific focus on the Google AdWords platform, helping businesses boost website traffic and sales.  The adoption of these resources, for many organisations, has lead to revenue increases of up to three times what they were before using Google AdWords.

In his keynote speech Mohan claims that until now, businesses have been guilty of forgetting who they are trying to reach with their campaigns, and often users are “an afterthought” in their design and implementation.  According to research conducted by Google relating to the emotional responses of people to online campaigns, contrary to other similar studies, Google found that users actually preferred other mediums for advertising, with display ads coming behind more traditional approaches such as printed formats.  Mohan drew on these findings to convey his, and Google’s focus; to make online advertising unanimously the most popular platform for users to engage with businesses and their products, through sight, sound and interactivity:

“I think it’s imperative that we improve the advocacy of these ads in terms of making an emotional connection with users, making them user focused, making them a lot more relevant, interactive and truly engaging for users”.

The impact that these new approaches will have upon the advertising industry, as it evolves to meet the demands of the consumer, and the ever increasing volume of advertisements competing for the attention of their target audience, remains to be seen; but investment by Google into researching this field, and the results they have already found and published, provides compelling evidence about the power that user control will have over the way a message is conveyed to them by advertisers in the future.

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With many people questioning the impact that the upgrade will have on the browsing public, and more specifically on pay per click management services and their functionalities, Google were keen to state from the outset that disruptions for AdWords users would be minimal, if non-existent:

“We do not anticipate any significant impact on AdWords, AdSense and DoubleClick users or their campaigns. Google supports IPv6 because it’s critical to the future of the open web. With limited address space, the Internet is bursting at the seams, and IPv6 is the best solution.”

Although Google dismissed the impact that the trial would have on their pay per click services, speculation has continued about the long term effect on this particular approach to internet advertising; with the focus on pay per click management solutions as an adaptive response to the proposed changes to the existing protocol.

The expansion from IPv4 to IPv6 will allow more devices, and users, to access the internet, while also providing more flexibility when it comes to the allocation of addresses and routing traffic at maximum efficiency levels.

As well as global search engine providers such as Google and Yahoo! testing the new protocol, the trial was carried out in conjunction with over 1000 participating websites, and on the whole has been marked as a success, according to Google’s blog, the day ‘passed without incident’.

The move to IPv6 is being identified as a critical step in the continued proliferation of the internet, it’s efficiency and availability to users.   The Internet Society has long been championing the move, and published a statement on their website, outlining their concerns  about the continued, exponential growth of the internet under the current IPv4 protocol:

“With IPv4 addresses running out this year, the industry must act quickly to accelerate full IPv6 adoption or risk increased costs and limited functionality online for Internet users everywhere.”

The move has been welcomed by many as the next viable step in the evolving and rapidly expanding internet market, however some fear that the new protocol will bring with it a new range of problems, specifically when it comes to tracking IP addresses in order to prevent service attacks, as well as impeding the success of existing solutions when it comes to click fraud and search engine manipulation.

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