Google continues to strike its users with more and more new services. Yesterday Google announced that later this week Google will begin distributing online video ads.

The ads will not show on the Google’s own huge-trafficked site. Instead up to 2 minutes length ads will appear on the Google partners network.

The ads will be displayed related to the surrounding information on the page. The advertiser will be charged when the play button is clicked.

With introduction of this service Google gives richer capability to target users to those companies that seek the possibility of larger and more sophisticated exposure.

Besides, this advertising format may appeal to those advertisers that are eager to experiment with different versions of their video ad in less expensive media before deciding on the clip to air on television.

Google is making life of many music lovers much easier. Earlier when you searched for some song or album in the internet via Google you not always got the most relevant results because there are many album names and songs which are also plain English words.

Understanding the problem and attempting to give its users most relevant results possible Google is implementing it’s new module Google Music Search. From now one can search for singr or song being delivered such information about that artist, like cover art, reviews, links to srtores where you can purchase the CD of this artist.

Right now the Music Search give more accurate results for the searches of the artists popular in US. But Google claims that it’s planning to expand the search capacity to performers popular worldwide, less-popular US performers and classic music. The list of music stores provided is also supposed to grow.

Many of us use pay- per-click advertising systems (like AdWords, Yahoo Sesarch Marketing, Kanoodle etc) for promoting their business. And though pay-per-click advertising model still remains one of the best ways of capturing online traffic it is considered to become more and more expensive for advertisers to acquire customers through it.

A significant advantage of such advertising method can hardly be underestimated – the ads are served to those particular customers that search exactly for the product or services you propose.

No other advertising model can brag of this. That is what made world’s most brilliant minds to search for a new advertising mechanism that will keep the same advantage but supply lower cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and higher return of investments (ROI).

The first one to propose that kind of system was Bill Gross (the same person that proposed pay-per-click advertising model for Google). In this pay-per-action advertising model (called Snap) advertiser pays only when customer completes a certain action. An advertiser creates a keyword campaign and submits his bids ( the amount he is willing to pay for a customer’s action) and pays when the action is completed y the user. Otherwise, the only cost is a $50 non-refundable sign-up deposit.

The whole thing sounds to me like a dream come true the only question with no answer currently is which search engine will the system be implemented on? The one that was worked out by Gross’ company is quite good and uses innovation techniques that are not used by any other search engine but still it’s rather hard to compete with such giants as Google and Yahoo. Engine that seems to be interested in this advertising system is Google. It doesn’t point on the interest directly but the spokesman of Google Mike Mayzel said that the company is `always considering new ways to provide value, including various pricing models.”

So we are just to wait if the pay-per-action advertising system will find a search engine with LOTS of traffic (whichever engine it will be) or not!

Choosing a domain name for your site is not that easy as it seems from the first sight. At least choosing a Good Domain Name is not. At the same time the importance of this choice cannot be over-emphasized because it contributes both to improving your site’s search engine ranking and your company’s overall popularity among your clients.

So I hope this article if not making the process of domain name search easier will at least give some valuable derivatives on what name to search for:

1) Register a domain name that contains you keyword (popular keyword relevant to your industry). That will both give you higher ranking by search engines and help your customers remember your domain name better.

2) Avoid very long domain names. Your visitor will nor really be excited to have to enter a 60 characters domain name.

3) Use .com and .net endings rather then .nu or .us. Your business will look more solid and credible.

4) Avoid using digits or letters to replace words in your domain name. Try not to use “2” for “to”, “4” for “for, “u” for “you” in order not to mix up your user (for example he could enter servicesforyou.com in stead of services4you.com)

5) Consider starting your domain with digit 1 (or 1st). That will not only give you the possibility to imply that your services are #1 in your industry but also buy a domain with your keyword an case this domain without digit 1 is already bought. Besides many directories classify domain names in the alphabetic order so your site will be among the first ones.

Today the free download of Microsoft new software will be announced! The new search engine called Windows Live Search will help workers find information in the Internet, corporate network and on their computer desktop simultaneously.

This software will be included to the Microsoft’s new version of Windows (Vista). And the possibility to search corporate network will be given to those users who have Microsoft’s SharePoint software on their server.

Announced for free download on Wednesday the software will be released in test form later this summer. We’ll see whether it will beat the similar Google’s add-on (offered about a year ago) or not.

Good news! Yahoo just launched a new version of it’s home page design. You can preview it now following the appropriate link on Yahoo and evaluate design changes yourself. Or to save your time I will put here the screenshot of the page and comments on it.

Would like to focus on 3 elements:

1) Search box. Yahoo answers are integrated to the search box probably to confirm that Yahoo tend to bet on social search. You have an option to ask or to answer a question here.

2) Links. Links to the major Yahoo services are listed down the left side of the page to let you find what you are searching for the fastest way. Yahoo also claims that soon users will be give a possibility to customize those links on their own Yahoo homepage.

3) Personal features. Yahoo puts such services that Yahoo users deal with as Mail, Messenger, Radio, Weather, local and Music on their homepage. When you put your cursor over the mail button, the button shows your Yahoo Inbox and awaiting mails in a bubble.

And one more pleasant feature – you can change the color of a background of the page so if blue is not your favorite color try Yahoo homepage in orange, violet, grey or green!

Pay-per Click Advertising is one of the most important elements of online marketing strategies. If you have an account in Google AdWords or Yahoo Search Marketing, etc. that are diligently managed but still don’t convert, you might want to pay more attention to your landing pages. Here are some rules that must improve your ads performance when implemented:

· Choose proper landing page. Don’t send your visitors obligatory to the home page- find the page with the most relevant content to the words that user entered in the search box

· Distinct navigation. Use clear navigation system and place it in prominent screen space

· Descriptive link form. Use the link in the form that doesn’t make visitor to be lost in thoughts is it a link or not and where he will be brought to by clicking this link. Use text links and buttons rather then image links

· Third-party credibility indicators and testimonials. People no longer tent to trust web- masters and copywriters. However they will listen to what a third party or other people think about your business

· Impressive headings. Use headings on your landing page that appeal to the visitor and at the same time move him to the primary objective of this page

· Free offers. If you have this possibility implement some calls-to-action and free offers (like “free shipping” offer on your landing page)

To sum it up should say that all those rules are good but still you should figure out your own approach because no guarantees that what worked for others will necessarily work for you. So good luck!