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Digital Grog is Australia’s go‑to tech blog for sharp reviews, digital trends, AI tools, gadgets, cybersecurity updates, and practical how‑tos covering the latest in Aussie technology

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This Guy bought Million dollar Google.com for just $12 dollars

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domains for cheap what - and not even godaddy but Google domain registration service

Domain Names Sell for as low as 0.99 cents to $35.6 million just for internet domain name. Google.com which is probably worth millions of dollars got accidentally sold to a buyer last week for a very small fee this week, possibly leaving many google employees redfaced. In fact insurance .com did sell for $35.6million (yep just for the name www.insurance.com) in 2010.

How did google lose google.com domain name for just $12

In one of the weirdest stories I’ve ever read online a guy called Sanmay Ved has detailed how he was able to use Google’s own domain service to buy Google.com for just $12.

the google.com accidental sale for $12 and purchase

Apparently Sanmay was playing around in Google Domains just to see if there was any interesting domains he could buy. He searched google.com and was surprised that it was available. He could not believe his luck and instantly just purchased the domain without thinking about it. He then decided to add it to his cart and check out and realised all he needed to pay was just the small amount of $12 to own one of the most popular names on the internet.

While this story is as unbelievable as it is, like hitting a gold mine, the joy didn’t last for long. The domain was for a short time was actually registered to Sanmay Ved, as it showed in his Google Webmaster Tools with his existing domain and he also received a set of emails from Google accounts, the details of which he hasn’t disclosed.

Surprisingly he did say that that he had not received similar emails for previous domain purchases.THE domain at THE price! $.99 .COM Domains from GoDaddy!

What happened next was expected, Google managed to reverse the transaction and sanmay was refunded the $12 he spent for the domain and the domain name went back to google.

It is said that this obviously could be done easily because google domains owns the registration service, however had another big registrar like godaddy.com ( which sells domains names for currently as low as 0.99 cents ) or Bing.com or yahoo.com had laid their hands on such a nice prize it would have been another story altogether.

 

You can read the whole post that sanmay ved posted on his linked in account over here.

Here are some pics from his Linked in account

His linked in profile

sanmay ved in linked in domain hunter

His google.com purchase

the sanmay ved cheap google.com domain name purchase

This news story has rocked the internet going viral  and has been reported by many tops technology news giants like Cnet, Forbes and many more (including us)

New Domains now available from GoDaddy! Get your .GURU, .UNO, .LUXURY and more! Click here

[Read more…] about This Guy bought Million dollar Google.com for just $12 dollars

Get your Author Photo in Google search results to increase site Authority

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How to Show Your Author Photo in Google Search Results

I decided to do a detailed post on how to get your google + profile photo show up on google search results and had  made up half a post 1 week ago   but now decided not ot post about it  as the internet is full of “how to” posts within that  7 days. Serves me right for being so lazy and procrastinating.. so now i have changed my post a bit and made it short for you.

google profile pic showing in google search results

Get your picture in google search results

What you will need to check if you have done the right thing  to get your google Plus picture in google search results is the Google rich snippets checker  which is also available outside Google webmaster tools, so get a google webmaster tools account if you dont have acess to it  and add your website domain  while you are there. It will also help to get your google analytics account linked to your webmaster tools while you are doing this b, but its not necessary.

When i put one of my blog posts in this to check if my photo appeared in search results ,its gave me a warning ( VERIFY two author profiles showing up ) that two author profiles  were showing up , after a lot o checking i found out that  in my word press user profile  i had put in my google+ login username  in the google username column and then  in the theme where it asked for google username after the url https://plus.google.com  – i put in my google plus  id 103166021597134967036 , so this were actually showing up as two different  Google ids creating a problem. so i went back to my word press user  profile and changed the username over there to to the user id digits( 103166021597134967036)  i got from my google + profile and now both google plus usernames matched and it got verified.

Essentially   if you get your pic from google profile in google search results you are stealing clicks from your  google top rankers as google searchers always like a image instead of normal boring text. Getting your  author profile photos in the search results is a feature Google began rolling out in  2010.

This tutorial  is mainly for WordPress blogging platform, but can be applied to tother blogs and websites with minor edits.

Verifiying your Author Profile with Google

There are many benefits to verifying your author name and profile with Google like below

  • Build Author Rank with Google search.
  • Facial images in google search results are very eye-catching.
  • Google will promote your content over duplicate content on the internet.

How to – Google Author Verification in WordPress

Step 1: Create a Google+ Profile

Step 2 : Make sure you list your google + user id  ( which is numbers immediately after your google + profile url) in your google username column in wordpress user profile and in your theme settings ( where it asks for google username)as well

Step 3:  Check with rich snippets tool   to verify if your author photo will show up.( link above)

If you want to read articles with more detailed post on how to do this  you can read  Micheal Grays post  or then Mohammad posts   or Virante posts on this.

Google + picture from profile not showing up

If after doing all this  and getting verified in google rich snippets , your picture in still not showing up in google search results , it can be because of this note from google (Note that there is no guarantee that a Rich Snippet will be shown for this page on actual search results. For more details, see the FAQ.)

what’s double click ( DFP) for publishers !

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Just today i received  a invitation from Google AdSense  for DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Small Business.

This is what Google adsense  told me “DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP)” “Small Business, Google’s free ad serving solution, provides a complete toolkit to help you to streamline your ad operations and maximise revenue across all of your pages”

DFP Small Business and AdSense google affiliate

case study of a successful DFP publisher

What does Google Double click  do?

They say, DFP Small Business offers real-time competition between Google AdSense, third-party ad networks and other non guaranteed advertisers

google adsense DFP Small Business and AdSense

Apparently , DFP Small  Business includes a wide variety of tools that can simplify, ad trafficking, delivery ,forecasting,reporting. Here is a a success story from Paperblog.fr who have used this.

Help resources for DFP  are available here .Explore the help resources to get help now.

Drop in google adsense earnings Nov Dec 2010

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Have you noticed a recent drop in Google adsense earnings. I have too.. i decided to  use google’s own tool to investigate this issue ( Google UK Search). I information derived from the internet is pointing out  towards the  issue with blogs / websites not publishing the privacy policy that Google needs on all ad sense publishers blogs.

Drop in earnings ( google adsense) without warnings

As Google have changed the Terms and Conditions of their Adsense program, one of the requirements now is that all Adsense publishers should have a "Privacy Policy" on their websites. Below is the exact wording that has been added to the Terms and Conditions for Adsense publishers.

Drop in adsense earnings google-adsense

"You must have and abide by an appropriate privacy policy that clearly discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your user’s browser, or using web beacons to collect information, in the course of ads being served on your website. Your privacy policy should also include information about user options for cookie management."

There was another Google adsense Privacy policy Update on  23 March 2009

We have now updated the Google Adsense Privacy Policy Generator to include a mention about the DoubleClick DART cookie, which is now required by Google to be included in your privacy policy. You can read more about the DoubleClick DART Cookie on the following link …https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557&sourceid=aso

 

Here are two links that might help you make your own Privacy policy for your blog / website

Google privacy script

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdSense/thread?tid=41e1719956cc5de1&hl=en

Privacy tool

http://www.serprank.com/privacy-policy-generator/

which is not a web browser ?

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Pick which is not a web browser from the ones below ?

1. Firefox

2. Internet Explorer

2. Facebook

4.Google Chrome

Obliviously  you would not have picked “Google Chrome”  if you are a bit tech savvy ( because the answer is  facebook), but this contestant  from “who wants to be a millionaire “ in INDIA had to take an audience vote  to pick “Facebook”.

Chrome the “Google Web browser” stars in “who wants to be a millionaire”

Who wants to be a millionaire   in India  is hosted by “India’s Most popular Bollywood star Amitabh Bachan” and Amitabh Bachan  in this show  was endorsing  the “Google Chrome Browser” on national television saying it is a very nice and fast browser that he likes.

Here is the You tube Video of this show where  the question was asked , Google India must be pleased to get this free (maybe) endorsement   on national television  on one of the more popular rated television shows in India.

 

 

Google has recently also published big  print advertisements in India promoting  the Google chrome Browser. Her is one of the ads that appear in the Indian newspapers

Google chrome ads in newspapers

 

Browser google_chrome_ads in india

Google’s “New Gmail Phone Free calls to UK and US in 2010”

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Google has launched  a new Make a call from your Gmail service  to make calls to the US and UK even simpler  and best of all free.

Make  calls to the US and UK for free with Gmail Phone In 2010

Google is launching a  new  call phone service from gmail , what it  essentially does is , you canCall anywhere in the US and Canada for free and get low rates for other countries with this small plugin  from google — right from within Gmail.

This will definitely change the game for many  telephone and  VOIP  phone call providers who are charging premiums for this sort of  free service that google is now giving.

 

Google phone service Gmail

New Gmail Phone launch with Free Calls

So is SKYPE  and  YAHOO VOICE  which are my current favorites  gonna step up to the competition now ??

Call people who aren’t on Skype
View all prices  from skype . You can use Skype to call landlines and mobiles worldwide, at amazing rates. Simply dial a phone number, then start saving

Google phone comparison  rates for VOIP and Internet phone

google phone rates chart comparison for voip and internet phone calls