Following an open letter and petition from the IAB, Mozilla has essentially put its third-party cookie blocking technology on indefinite hold. It seems as though pressure from members of Congress and the plea from the IAB that, "if you act on your plan to block third-party cookies in your Firefox browser, thousands of ad-supported small businesses like us may be forced to … [Read more...]
The Number One Cause of Checkout Abandonment
What is the single most common question asked by online shoppers before they actually make a purchase? The answer is, 'What are my shipping costs?' So why do some retailers find necessary to bury delivery costs until the last cart screen? Unacceptable shipping cost is the #1 factor in shopping cart abandonment, to the extent that it has become known as shipping cost … [Read more...]
Facebook Buys Israeli Start-Up, Onavo, to Boost Global Internet Access
In Facebook's quest to connect the universe or at least the world, the social media titan has acquired Onavo, an Israeli start-up specializing in mobile utility application development. This the first time Facebook will run a research and development center in Israel. Purchase price is estimated to be between $150 - $200 million dollars, giving Facebook the ability to produce … [Read more...]
Google Profits Down 20% As CPC Plummets 15%
The day's big news of Google's precipitous drop in share price concealed the fact that Google's average CPC is down 15% from a year ago. This decline in one of Google's key performance metrics has potentially far more long-term consequences than a silly printer's mistake. Yesterday’s premature release of Google’s disappointing quarterly earnings caused a major melt … [Read more...]
The New Google Webmaster Guidelines Are Killing Affiliates
Affiliates have been complaining for a long time that Google keeps changing the rules of SEO. Most of the time it claims that it is doing it for the benefit of its users, but often it seems Google is just taking care of its own web properties. Recent Google algorithm updates have punished "thin" content sites, yet somehow the scraped content that appears on so many of Google's … [Read more...]