After planning on going, then not being able to go, then playing by ear, I am not going to the Affiliate West conference this year. I am just buried too deep in some major development projects and can’t break away next week for the summit. It’s amazing, now that I don’t have a full time job anymore (this is my job now) I am busier than when I was working full time and doing this stuff. I’ll have to catch the next one. I definitely plan on going to the SES show in San Jose and of course Pubcon again in Vegas and maybe the Adtech conference this year. Hope everyone has a great time

Well, we are back from Pubcon 2006 and digging in to the pile of work that accumulated in our absence. It was a lot to take in and my head is still swimming about everything that happened.  I’m not really a big schwag hound at conventions, but if it’s offered to me I’ll take it.  That being said, it was quite a haul of freebies including about 6 or 7 shirts, Google orbs, various toys, a cool screwdriver/flashlight tool,  tons of pens, bags, 2 hats, Adwords coupons, MSN Adcenter coupons, and lots of other junk.  I plan to give a lot of this stuff away on this blog once people start actually finding it.

Of course, by far the most important item I got was information.  I just need to wade through my pretty extensive notes now and start putting some of the knowledge gained to good use.  Webmaster world put on a very well run event, my compliments to Brett and his crew.  I was wondering before hand if the $1K plus that it cost with travel and hotel would be worth it, but I can definitely say yes it was.  I will be back next year. 

I was going to post a bunch of pictures from the show, but unfortunately after leaving my camera on my kitchen table in my rush to make my flight, that won’t happen.  I did manage to snap this one shot from my phone (sorry for the quality-it’s a phone) of something I found really interesting and falls into that “only in Vegas” category.  Who knew that in Vegas you could buy Ipods out of a vending machine!!

Greetings from Vegas!  I can tell I am going to need a vacation by the time this week is over!  One of the more interesting sessions I attended today was on PPC tracking and reconciliation.  One of Goggle’s senior Adwords dudes talked about the 5 biggest myths about the Adwords quality score.  Since everyone was asking tons of questions about quality score, it was good to put some of the misconceptions to rest.

Myth 1:  There is only one quality score in your account.

Truth:  There are many different quality scores for different aspects of your account.

Myth 2:  Using all 3 match types increases your quality score.

Truth:  False.  Match types are not a factor.

Myth 3:  Increasing your spend can increase your score.

Truth:  Nope, you can’t buy your way to better listings.

Myth 4:  High CTR = High quality score

Truth:  This is not always the case.  It depends on where your ad is being shown. 

Myth 5:  Optimizing your account deletes your quality score history.

Truth:  Restructuring you account and changing adgroups around do not affect quality score as your history used for score calculations are saved.

Chad and I off our to catch our flight to Vegas for Pubcon 2006.  It is my first conference, so I am looking forward to learning a lot in all the sessions.  Hopefully we can post some good information nightly.  Seems like a good time to launch this blog, as we might find some interesting content to post there!