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Between May 4 and May 18, mobile advertising network AdMob is giving publishers a 35% bonus on any money transferred over to ads. For example, if you transfer $100 of money made through published ads to actually running an ad yourself, AdMob will add an additional $35 worth of advertising.

With the economy the way it is, I suspect we will continue to see these incentive-based campaigns. It was just yesterday that news came of social search site Scour offering $1,000 in search-based prizes. And Microsoft claims it has had success with its incentive-based programs such as Cashback and Search Perks.

Seems Amazon has had some problems with books on gays and lesbians intheir sales rankings, according to the Huffington Post. People noticed sales rankings had dropped and search results were giving odd responses recently.

A search for homosexuality was returning “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality” over the weekend. The delisting was apparently fixed today, though some books have fallen under the adult categorization which removes them from main stream searches.

No doubt there will be more discussion on the topic in coming days.

Amazon issued a public statement:

“This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon’s main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.”

Meanwhile an opportunistic hacker made a claim to having caused the problem, according to PCWorld.

Kate Harding of Salon.com makes an interesting comment on the event:

“Also, it’s still not a real apology to all the authors and publishers affected, or the customers who had pretty good reason to wonder if Amazon had indeed instated a homophobic and misogynistic corporate policy, but “ham-fisted and embarrassing” is a surprisingly honest and accurate start.”

Although I conducted this interview with Jill Whalen, the CEO of HighRankings, in February at SES London 2009, I’ve been saving it for April Fool’s Day. Why? Because we talk about the IT Department, which is often called the Department of SEO Prevention in many organizations.

One of my tips to get the IT folks on board with that an SEO consultant recommends and your organization needs to make is to buy pizza for everyone who claims to be too busy to implement them. Check out some of the other practical advice that Whalen shares in what has become an ongoing mission of hers.

Jill Whalen, HighRankings, on building better relationships between marketing and IT

By the way, High Rankings is offering new intermediate-advanced 1/2 day SEO workshops on April 2 and 3, 2009, in Framingham, MA. One is on keyword research, another on SEO copywriting, a third on social media marketing, and the fourth is about web analytics.

If you tell Jill that you’re from the IT Department, you could get a slice of pizza. Then again, this could be an April Fool’s joke that I just made up and all you’ll get is an in-depth website marketing workshop.

“What if everyone whose account was canceled sued Google?”

That’s what a Google litigation paralegal asked the judge in a Palo Alto small claims court judge this week. The judge ruled in favor of an AdSense publisher who brought a suit against Google for canceling his account without giving reason – and not paying up.

It’s a tale that has been repeated on blogs and forums across the internet, and it’s a problem that Google is notorious for being secretive about.

Aaron Greenspan signed up for AdSense in March 2008 in order to make a little money off of his site, Think Computer Corporation. Nine months later, Google canceled his account with no warning, no reason and no payment of the $721 Think Computer’s site had earned.

Greenspan emailed and phoned a slew of people at Google only to learn there was no customer service for AdSense and no one that could give him an answer to why his account was canceled.

Many times, this kind of cancellation results when site owners use AdWords to send traffic to an AdSense-laced page. Greenspan had tried AdWords, but stopped the campaign months before he tried AdSense.

After getting nowhere with Google, Greenspan tried the justice system. Since lawyers aren’t allowed in small claims court, litigation paralegal Stephanie Milani was sent by Google. When asked, she could give no reason why the account was terminated. Milani said that the $721 was refunded to the advertisers and reiterated Google’s policy – that any publisher can be terminated at any time for any reason.

The judge asked if an account could be terminated because of their eye color. He then ruled in favor of Greenspan.

Enter Milani’s question, “What if everyone whose account was canceled sued Google?” That sounds like a question for Google, not a small claims court judge.

Related Reading:
Concerns Over Google’s Monopolistic Actions Make Their Way to DOJ