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New development: Google SearchWiki

Today Google has introduced an interactive ‘social’ element to their standard search engine results, a feature they’ve dubbed SearchWiki. (Note: the features of Google's SearchWiki are only available to logged-in Google users)

SearchWiki is a Google search results page update which has been on the horizon for a while now – limited testing made some of the features visible to users over the past few months.

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Google release search-based keyword tool

This week has seen the release of a new keyword tool from Google – the Search-based Keyword Tool.

This tool is extremely useful for scouting out competitor’s keyword traffic and assessing the competitiveness within a specific business sector.

Google are now linking many tools and data together. You'll see from clicking the magnifying glass symbol that the data is linked to Google Insights, so you can see trends behind the keyword target.

Google are also cleverly linking related keywords to categories too. You'll notice there's a range of 10 categories your searches may be applicable to – ranging from Apparel to Real Estate.

The Search-based Keyword Tool is only available to the UK and USA at the moment but is another sign of Google opening up more of the data they have stored up!

It's also interesting to see how open Google are about estimated CPC’s in AdWords; these figures feature prominently throughout all of the reports.

The Online Marketing team here at Coast Digital is always interested to hear what tools our readers are using for their campaigns – do you rely too much on Google’s free reporting tools?

Brand Obama & the potency of digital marketing

The recent American presidential election has proved a rich source of debate and not just in the realm of politics. The most expensive presidential campaign in history has confirmed digital marketing as a potent strategic tool.

Obama, in my opinion should be hailed as the brand of the 2008, as that is what he sold himself as – not a politician but a brand. While the old-fashioned connotations of a politician are personified 100% through John McCain i.e. a suit, old(ish), boring and speaks in jargon to confuse the masses. Obama on the other hand, was promoted as a product, similar to the Beckhams, J-Lo and Lewis Hamilton perhaps.

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How to prevent online plagiarism

It never ceases to amaze me – the sheer audacity of businesses thinking they can get away with it. Is it because there are so many websites out there that they think they won’t get caught?!

What I’m referring to is plagiarism. Whether it’s an entire website or specific areas of copy, it happens to Coast Digital’s site all the time! In my nine months with the business I’ve been stunned at how many times the Coast Digital website has been copied outright.

While it’s clear that other agencies want a share of the market, it’s extremely worrying when some try to sell digital marketing services but can’t even come up with their own website copy. We’ve also found that some of our clients have had their sites copied too.

However, in every instance to date, as soon as the company concerned have been informed that they’ve infringed our copyright by plagiarising our site, they remove the offending material.

So how do we monitor this? One way is using a tool called Copyscape (www.copyscape.com). This free online service claims it will defend your rights online, and will protect content against online plagiarism and theft.

The opinions expressed herein are the personal opinion of the author and are not intended as statements of fact and do not represent the view of Coastdigital Limited in any way

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