Rob’s Recommended Reading of the… um Last 2 weeks or so

I’ve been a busy boy the last couple weeks with new clients coming online and the end of my semester at school rapidly approaching. I’ve been keeping a list of good stuff for you guys, it just hasn’t exactly made its way to the interweb until just now.

Does This Campaign Make My Ad Group Look Fat? An exploration of how Adwords is kind of like a Psycho girlfriend and what you can do to cope. I wrote this for my Adwords Monster Blog, it's been floating around the office for a month while we tried to figure out if it would be funny to people that aren't us. I think it's awesome personally :)

12 Reputations Every Company Should Monitor Online Some good tips from Andy Beal who will probably visit my website now that I mentioned him. Hi Andy! He gets into some things you might not have thought to monitor like key executives and PR people.

10 Reasons Why Everyone Should Love PPC I thought this was a great take on the upside to PPC. I really like the control you have over the medium, the ability to split test easily, and the ability to start and stop at will.

The True Cost of SEO I have to try to explain to somebody at least once a week that SEO is not free. The traffic is free, but what is your time worth? How much do you have to pay an SEO to get you started? How much did your web guy charge you to implement changes? That stuff costs money even if the clicks don’t!

Study Shows Targeted Ads Make Users Uneasy There they go again proving things that don’t need to be proved. Of course people feel a little weird when they stop and think about it. But if an ad is properly targeted a user shouldn’t notice it.

Best Practices When Moving Your Site (by Google) Google’s Webmaster Central Blog gives out some pointers on moving a site to a new domain without nuking your rankings.

Where are all the Google Data Centers? I’m such a cool guy I found you a map!

21 Reasons Why Twitter is Bullshit I’ve come to like Twitter, but I’ll admit at least 2/3 of this is basically true. I’m personally having problems with number 17: “Just ‘cos you work on the internet, and Twitter happens to be on the internet, does not mean Twitter is work.”

While I’m talking about Twitter, Check out this Video with the Twitter Founders. Notice towards the end when asked about monetization there is a 4 minute diversion about being a global resource first and the money will follow or some crap. They did however launch Twitter Japan with an ad block in it. Sign of things to come that actually turn a profit?

6 Ways That Bloggers are Like Rappers Pure genius :) Can’t wait to see Shoemoney on Cribs, he better have a Lambo or at least a Rolls.

The Web 2.0 Site Screw You Coefficient You didn’t know we did math here did you? A fun explanation of how unpopular features that might make money get implemented into websites.

Do You Have My Stapler? I didn’t realize Milton was on LinkedIn  And by the looks of things, his LinkedIn question drummed up at least 24 leads in regards to the whereabouts of his stapler.

Danish PM Finds Running Partners on Facebook How cool is that? Honestly. It’s stuff like that that makes me want to move back to Scandinavia.

You Walk Wrong! As somebody that logs 20-30 miles a week on foot this was really interesting to me. Plus it explains a lot of the weird aches and pains I get in my knees and hips. If I could walk around barefoot and not be looked at like a crazy person I’d be all about it. I would still buy shoes out of force of habit though. The Vivo Barefoot shoes they shout out in the article are kind of interesting to me, but I don’t think I would part with $150 for shoes that are barely shoes.

Rob's Recommended Reading of the Week

Here's this weeks best posts and stories from around the web according to my favorite source, me.

Ten things you didn't know about Facebook. A guest post by Jesse Stay on Guy Kawasaki's blog.

Expanded Broad Match Speaks German Now Too? Scheiße! An article I wrote for my Adword Monster blog earlier this week.

Guide to optimizing PDF's for search engines

Microsoft on determining Search Engine Spam from Email Spam. It's kind of a no brainer when you think about it.

How to mail a brick to junk mailers with their own envelopes. If it isn't mail fraud somehow, it's genius.

You Want SEO Standards? Well, Here Ya Go! Recently everyone has been all bent out of shape over how one sets standards to an industry that basically has no rules. I think this sets the matter straight :)

The Ten Worst Job Interview Questions Ever. My favorite interview question ever: "Where does your boss think you are right now?" asked at 2:30 on a Tuesday. (It was my "Saturday" btw)

Married Soldiers Now Allowed To Live Together In Iraq. This just makes me happy on the inside. Soldiers, especially soldiers with families, get messed with so much that it's nice to see the Army doing something good for all the separated overextended folks out there.

Google Algorithm Exposed! Holy crap!

Since somebody obviously didn't get the message last week, Don't mess with the internets!

Aaron Wall's new Rank Checker, cool tool for quickly checking your position in the SERP's.

It's Cool the CIA uses Google too, hopefully they don't start using YouTube and Twitter.

Rob's Recommended Reading of the Week

In the course of the week I probably read somewhere around eleventy billion articles on Internet Marketing, business, and all kinds of other stuff. Here's some of this week's better articles...

Being Facebook friends does not make you friends in real life. Or so says a British Judge. See also Mashable's Reaction to the judgement, and why Exes should never see your Facebook Account.

The newspaper industry has experienced the worst drop in advertising revenue in more than 50 years. "According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 -- the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950."

How to Use PPC to Capitalize on Unexpected Offline PR I think this is a very smart article, it really shows how fast action and creativity can help beat raw fiscal ability and slow moving corporations.

Facebook Pages & Local Search Engine Optimization Andrew Shotland of Local SEO Guide shows off a pretty slick way of using an RSS application to place followed links back to your website on your Facebook profile.

I Hate the Advertising Bait-and-Switch. This is a good one from SEOmoz about just giving the people what they want. Personally I think that is one of the most important factors of success in building an ad, delivering what you promised.

Can Google Stop the Brain Drain? There has been a highly publicized movement of Googlers back into the wild. They are popping up in start ups all over the place and some are moving into other web giants like Facebook.

Watch South Park for free online! Every episode is now available *legally* for you to watch on demand.

Can a Swimsuit be too good?

California utility to turn roofs into solar power plants. I really don't see why this type of thing isn't more prevalent.

Reminder, don't mess with the Internets