07/02 2003 – Have you got enough knowledge of who your competitors are? Do you actually know what other sites compete for the same keywords as you? I just stumbled over a very nifty way to find out, at least about the ones that advertise on Google.
Yesterday I implemented the Google AdSense program here at N!kkes Index, and it looks as if it works fine.
However, being a mixed language site that in very many aspects circle around the web itself, search enging optimization, web developement and computer related issues (appart from the mindless though entertaining gossip and rubbish I publish), I keep seing Swedish ads for my competitors. Now this is rather amuzing I think. But still fully understandable.
Google ads are presented according to what Google thinks is relevant for the page, and in this case I seem to use lots of popular keywords (in Swedish). If you’re in the mixed language version of the site, you see lots of them out in the right hand menu and on the bottom of the page. That is, in the headlines and menu names for previous entries.
Check before implementing
Now, provided you are at all indexed by Google, and if you want to check out your competitors for a certain site or page there is a way to do this. I came across it on Aaron Swartz’ Google weblog. And it is just as educating as it can be entertaining. Click here for the starting point!
All you have to do is to submit the URL to a certain page (or to the root of a site) and the tool will show you which competitors have purchased ads for keywords used on that page. Try it! It’s free of charge.
However, the tool might also be used to have some fun. I still can’t figure out why my site Cocktailguiden.com would show ads for a bakery (making hot dog and hamburger bread), web designers (should I take that as a pun?) and DVD’s [check it out]. Likewise, I can’t understand why there isn’t a full set of ads shown when submitting www.apple.com. My good friend Johan Carlén’s site has the word ‘transformer’ in the domain name, and guess what kind of ads he would get… Aarons’s blog, of course returns lots of SEO related sites, just as I guess this article will after a period of time.
I guess the bottom line is. If you are considering adding AdSense to your site, don’t be suprised if your competitors show up! But if you don’t scare easily or don’t run a web store, I thing Google AdSense is one of the best things that has happened to online advertising.
